On Fire for God (B)

On Fire For Christ  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  1:10:37
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Christ said, “I came to this world to set a fire, and oh how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49)
I don’t know about you, but I want to see that fire kindled too!!!
I want to see that fire ignited… That fire that drives us to stand in the gap for our world!
We will see that fire kindled when we put five things in place in our lives.
— When we DO five things…
We talked about the first one last week.
Clean the “Junk” out of our Lives.
— Nothing will happen in our lives… in our homes… in our community… or in this church… until we let go of our sin and…
2. Center our Lives on Scripture.
2 Chronicles 29:25–30 NRSV
25 He stationed the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, harps, and lyres, according to the commandment of David and of Gad the king’s seer and of the prophet Nathan, for the commandment was from the Lord through his prophets. 26 The Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets. 27 Then Hezekiah commanded that the burnt offering be offered on the altar. When the burnt offering began, the song to the Lord began also, and the trumpets, accompanied by the instruments of King David of Israel. 28 The whole assembly worshiped, the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded; all this continued until the burnt offering was finished. 29 When the offering was finished, the king and all who were present with him bowed down and worshiped. 30 King Hezekiah and the officials commanded the Levites to sing praises to the Lord with the words of David and of the seer Asaph. They sang praises with gladness, and they bowed down and worshiped.
If you look at that whole passage… Everything they did was in accordance with the Word of God… given through Moses… in how the ministry of the Tabernacle was to take place…
Hezekiah recentered… refocused the Israelites on scripture...
Scripture… the Law of Moses… was the center of the Israelites worship… It was the center of the Temple worship… It’s meant to be the center of the Church’s life… the Christian life… your and my life… because… without it we die!
John 1:1–4 NRSV
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
The Word of God is life!
It is the life of the Church…
It is the life of this world…
And It is the life of God’s Children…
Think about it…
Christ is the “life of the church”… right? (None of us deny that… But… )
There is an issue in the church today…
(There is a movement against it....)
The largest time-slot we give to anything in the worship service is to the one who stands here… and opens the Bible…
Why is that?!?
Believe it or not… there are a lot of people… even pastors… who have told me …
— to much scripture…
— sermons are to long…
— If you preach more than 20 minutes you are not considering your audience… and you are not a good editor of your sermons....
It seems that people today want short devotions… not scripture-filled preaching… (expound)
— They say we need to preach less in order to reach people… That when we preach to long, we lose people… Yet, those same people who talk about preaches being to “long winded” will spend hours watching football… listening to “how to” videos on topics of interest… or even listening to those “rockstar” preachers…
I disagree with them every time!!!
Do you want to know why?
— When pastors do that… they end up talking about the same 7-8 things continually…
— You don’t need to hear my 7-8 shticks… You need to hear from God!
God knows what you need to know… He knows what you need to hear… and it’s in here…
— I better serve you by walking you through it… by encouraging you to consider it… by challenging you to dig deeper into it… and by preaching it in a way that HOPEFULLY you will hear…
We need to hear from God… Pastor Tony… not grandma… not uncle Sam…
(prayer)
Why?
Because… the most important thing we need in worship is to be reminded of the promises of God!
— We find those promises in scripture…
Have you ever heard a worship leader get up and say: “How you guys feeling today? You feel good? Great! Let’s praise the Lord!”
I really hate when they do that…
Because… We don’t always feel good…
Sometimes we feel spiritually cold… We feel sinful… We come to church, but we are still thinking about the fight we had with our spouse… that guy who cut us off in traffic on the way here… the issues with our kids… our bosses… our co-workers…
Sometimes… we just don’t “feel” good…
But worship isn’t about that…
It’s not about “feeling good”…
Worship is a rhythm of revelation and response.
We don’t start with our feelings… We start with the promises… and beauty… of God… and our worship flows out of that…
Worship is a response to the God of the Universe… to who He is… and His Love for us!
When our worship is based on who God is… what He has done… and how much He loves us… then our response is natural…
When you’ve seen the God of the universe… revealed in Scripture… you cannot help but respond.
2 Chronicles 29:30 NRSV
30 King Hezekiah and the officials commanded the Levites to sing praises to the Lord with the words of David and of the seer Asaph. They sang praises with gladness, and they bowed down and worshiped.
When the Israelites looked again at the God revealed in scripture… When they saw… once again… who He IS… they worshipped with Joy and Gladness!
Joy and Gladness… because of what God has done for us… and how much He loves us… should characterize our worship!
Let me tell you…
No angel in heaven… around the throne… seeing God… has their hands in their pockets, wondering what time we’re getting out!
Revelation 4:8–11 NRSV
8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing, “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” 9 And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to the one who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall before the one who is seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing, 11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
Our attitude toward scripture… toward God’s Word… toward His Love and Grace… effects our worship… And our prayer!
Because… Scripture reveals the Characteristics of the God we serve!
A lack of FOCUS on Scripture… results in a lack of POWER in our prayers!
Because…
Scripture teaches us how to pray!
When the disciples asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
Jesus gave them this model:
Matthew 6:9–13 NRSV
9 “Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.
You do realize that this is a model of prayer, not a prayer to recite?
It teaches us how to pray…
Effective prayer is … figuring out what God wants and asking Him for it.
James 5:16 (NRSV)
16 Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.
Why?
Because… It seeks God’s heart and aligns itself to it!
That’s what the Lord’s prayer does… It teaches us to seek God’s will… and then ask for it!
Think about it:
“Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.” — You are God… you are name is holy… Be my God.
“Your kingdom come, Your will be done...” — Teach us what you want… Let it be so in our lives.
“Give us this day our daily bread” — provide for us… tell us your desire for us… Your provision is what we need… Reveal Your Word to us… (“Man does not live on bread alone...” — Mt 4:4)
“Forgive us our debts… “ — Forgive us and help us to forgive as you forgave! Let Your Will be done through us!
“And do not bring us to a time of trial, but… “ — Save us… be our savior… provide for us… take care of us… protect us…
Every single piece of the Lord’s Prayer teaches us to find out what God wants and to pray for that in our lives…
In 2 Sam 7, David offers to build God a house… God, through the Prophet Nathan, tells him, “Who are you to build me a Temple?”
Nathan goes on to tell David that God will bless and build his house… Look at what David says in verse 27:
2 Samuel 7:27 NRSV
27 For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servant, saying, ‘I will build you a house’; therefore your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you.
The Hebrew literally says that David “found the heart to pray.”
“Prayers that start in heaven are heard by heaven.” — J.D. Grear
Scripture is the life of the Church…
Remove it from the center of the Church and we die!
Remove scripture from the center of your life… your marriage… your family… your job… and it will die!
God’s Word is our life blood… We need to cling to it… to savor it… to plumb its depths… to saturate ourselves so completely that everything… that everything that comes out of our hearts and minds is scripture!
This is why Joshua told the Israelites:
Joshua 1:8 NRSV
8 This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful.
3. Re-center Our Lives on the Gospel.
God’s Word… God’s Purpose in this world… Christ’s work are meant to be the central foundation upon which our lives are built!!!
2 Chronicles 30 gives a lengthy description of Hezekiah re-instituting the Passover Feast.
The Passover feast commemorated the night that God told the Israelites to take the blood of a lamb and put it on their doorposts, saying: “When I see the blood on the door, I will “passover” you and you will not suffer the plague of the firstborn.”
This is what the Sedar meal is…
In the NT, the Sedar becomes the symbol for what Christ did for us on the Cross.
— We are under the curse of death… Jesus’s blood on the doorposts of our hearts keeps us from it.
We don’t have to sacrifice a lamb every year…
Hebrews 7:27 NRSV
27 Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself.
Hear this — Salvation is not ALL there is… Christ’s work on the cross is not God’s “end game”… it is the FOUNDATION… It is the cornerstone… It is the thing upon which everything else in our lives is built!
It informs the entire rest of our lives… We have been saved so we can live our lives in the Kingdom!
The Sedar meal is a reminder of that…
When Hezekiah came into power the people had neglected it…
— They had neglected worship… They had neglected scripture… They had neglected their relationship with God… and they were spiritually dead!!!
How much have we neglected?
How much have we ignored?
How much have we lost?! Because of our apathy toward the Word of God…
Go back and take a look at Israel’s history… Every time they experienced spiritual decline, they were characterized by “spiritual forgetting”.
— They forgot what God had done… They forgot His power… His works… His promises… His provision… Why?!
… Because they were apathetic toward scripture…
God brings them back by reminding them of His great salvation! Of His Word!!!
The same is true for us.
2 Peter 1:9 NRSV
9 For anyone who lacks these things is nearsighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins.
When we are spiritually cold… it is because we have forgotten our salvation.
— Forgotten… doesn’t mean that we don’t know that it happened… It doesn’t mean that we deny it… It means that it’s just not real and fresh to us anymore.
— We have forgotten what it means!
Let me tell you:
— For you to experience personal revival… for that spark to start to burn… you don’t need to learn some new precept… you need to become more intimate with how great a salvation God has given you!
Jesus delivered you from your sins… He called you out of that broken, divided, messed up life and into the glory of the Kingdom of God… He has given you a NEW NAME… and a NEW LIFE… you are a Child of God!
Have you “forgotten” that?
Are you spiritually cold?
— Ask God to open your eyes to the enormity of what you have in Christ!
(my solitude experience)
John had this same experience… and it caused him to cry out in amazingment:
1 John 3:1 NRSV
1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
The gospel is like a well… You don’t find better water by widening the well… but by plunging deeper into its depths!
Too many people are busy trying to widen the well… attempting to feel more comfortable… more in tune with God… more holy… while not being challenged to change....
But… we can only find the comfort… strength… and peace that comes with a relationship with God by plumbing its depths… by digging deeper… by letting it inform every aspect of our lives…
When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well… He offered her “living water”… This is where those waters are found…
We don’t find them in… the writings of famous people… in rockstar preachers… in stars turned Christian… in music stars turned evangelists… praise songs… etc… we find them by digging deep into the Gospel!
This is why we don’t need motivational speeches… we need deep… heart-felt… gospel centered sermons… that challenge us to dig into the Gospel…
That challenge us with the truth… That help us see… That we were so bad… so broken… so far from the Holiness of God… that Jesus had to die to save us…
His love for you was so intense… so great… that He was glad to die to save you…
And… because He did it… you can live a life free from sin… free from fear… free from worry… free from guilt and shame… free to live the abundant life He promises…
Matthew 6:25 NRSV
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
4 times between verses 25-34, Jesus tells us to “not worry”… Why?
Because God has already provided for us!
I want you to see one more thing before we go:
2 Chronicles 30:17 NRSV
17 For there were many in the assembly who had not sanctified themselves; therefore the Levites had to slaughter the passover lamb for everyone who was not clean, to make it holy to the Lord.
The sacrifice has to be applied individually… the priests could do it for everyone because it was just a ceremonial thing… but we can’t....
I cannot do it for you… Only you can apply Christ’s sacrifice to your life… you have to choose it for yourself … DAILY!
The Gospel has to be applied individually… There is no “salvation by association”… you are not saved just because you go to church… You are not saved just because your family goes to church… or because you claim to be Christian…
You must choose to receive it personally … and you must apply it daily!
Have you done that?
Have you personally trusted Christ? Have you given Him everything — every fear… every doubt… every concern — have you trusted Him with everything in your life — your family… your job… your money… ?
Have you applied the Gospel to your life today?
Yesterday?
What about tomorrow?
One of my fears is that — to many people are caught up in the movement… without ever making the decision.
If that is you… if God is saying to you right now, “That is you”… Then now is the time… It’s ok… It’s never too late to apply the Gospel to your life!
In “Pilgrim’s Progress,” a man travels to the Celestial City with the main character… but he has no papers… They get to the gates and the angels ask for his parchment… since he has none, he is caste “into the outer darkness”....
Make sure you aren’t in that group… make sure that you aren’t traveling with us, but never made the decision personally…
But also… make sure you don’t miss out on the blessings of God IN THIS LIFE because you failed to dig deep and apply the gospel to your life now!
The Gospel is meant to be the cornerstone of your life…
The Fire of God is kindled when you dig deep and allow it to be the “piece of resistance” that informs everything else in your life
Let us be a people who dig deep… who don’t just “ride along”… but choose to dig deeper and deeper into the Gospel until it consumes our lives!
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