Time To Get Stoked

Matthew 24:11-12,Revelation 2:2-5

Have you ever had a really, really bad cold? To the point you really don’t feel like doing anything but sit and suffer through it. It has been said that you feed a cold and starve a fever. I doubt that would show up in a PDR. There is a spiritual application of this.

INTRODUCTION

Matthew 24:11–12 NIV

11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,

When most of us were first saved, we were on fire because the fire of God was fresh within us.

We testified everywhere we went.

We carried tracts and pocket bibles with us with same diligence as we now do our cell phones.

We were at church every time the doors opened.

We volunteered for anything.

We would have charged Hell with a squirt gun.

We made many vows like Peter of undying love and service.

Then stuff happened.

Maybe we did too much in our zeal and got a tad burned out.

Jobs and family started demanding more time.

We saw people go by the wayside.

We got burned by a couple of false prophets.

We saw other people's hypocrisy or flaws and not our own.

Someone died unexpectedly or we prayed fervently to no avail.

The world is off the chain and we feel like we cannot make a difference.

Here a little. There a little.

The pastor's sermons got too long when we would have stayed for hours to hear the Word.

The worship team is too loud or they are off key when they used to make us shout or weep.

We read the Word now and then when we used to stay up late to read and had a copy at work so we could read as we ate lunch.

Sister Sue's hugs were something to look forward to and now we avoid her and Bro. Bob's smiling handshake.

Church attendance is hit and miss when we wanted to live in the church in the beginning.

We started to feed the things that made us cold and we starved the Holy fever that had us hot for ministry.

While the the old proverb may work for the common cold, it is the reverse for spiritual coldness.

We need to feed the fever and it will starve the cold.

Revelation 2:2–5 NIV

2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. 4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

It has been said if you are no different today than you were a year ago, you are backslidden.

There is no staying in stagnation.

You are either getting out of the swamp or sinking deeper in the quicksand.

It will be hard.

If you have not ridden a bike in twenty years, you are not going to get on and do a hundred mile benefit ride.

We will have to push ourselves and ask God to push us when do not have the zeal to push on.

When going to work in the mornings, there were days I just jumped out of bed and other days I needed a crane or a cattle prod to move me.

Yet, I got up on those days because I have a responsibility to my family to make sure the bills were paid and they were not hungry, naked and on the street.

I remember grunting through eight hours at the airport with somewhere between a 90 and 100 degree temperature because I could not afford to be without a paycheck.

God got me because I came home and collapsed into bed.

Even in the ministry, sometimes I remember sitting on the front waiting to be called to the pulpit to preach feeling like I would surely die before I got there.

Once in the pulpit, it was like I was healed and when I was walking up that pulpit that "feel like I'm afixin' to die" feeling came back.

God allowed me to fulfill my responsibility because I did not shirk it.

We need to develop that same kind of resolution about our relationship to God and the Body because we cannot afford to have a weak relationship in these perilous times.

If we start acting responsibly about our relationship with God He will bless us.

We need to repent and do the first works.

Think of what you were doing the first six months after salvation.

Make a list, if you need to do so.

Then pick two of those things and start doing them again.

Tell God, though He already knows, that you are tired of being cold and you want His power to do the first works .

Anything else He might add to the list or subtract.

If you were saved at 20 and you are now 80,

He may not want you back on the church baseball team.

He may replace that with two other things.

We are going to start doing some door-to-door visitation.

I know they say that is passé and no longer works.

Well, George Barna's surveys say that most people do not come to church because no one asked them.

I am going to take that excuse away and get some exercise so it will be a win-win.

Conclusion

Even though I do study to prepare sermons, I need to increase my own personal reading.

I pray throughout the day, but need to schedule a sit down meeting more than just in the morning.

As I go, I am sure I will find quite a few things where I have slipped from that early fire.

As we add a few logs,

We will need to trust the Holy Spirit to pour out on us and light us up and keep it going.

I don’t know about you but I want real fire, not a PC generated fireplace. I will need to feel the heat before God allows me to bring the heat to this spiritual Ice Age.

You will, as well.

Let's turn this place into a ten alarm fire that will draw people to watch us burn and by His grace get a spark to start a fire in them.

Maranatha!