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Bored, Boring, or Passionate
Matthew 5:1-6 \\ Series: Christ’s Plan to Change Your World
I’ve heard it said that there are two kinds of people in the world: the bored and the boring.
(Present company is excluded, of course.)
I don’t think that’s quite accurate.
There’s a third category: the passionate.
Unfortunately, the passionate are such a minority that most of us never encounter them.
Passion is important.
Husbands, imagine how you would have felt back in your courting days if you’d popped the question and offered a ring to your little honey and she shrugged her shoulders and said, “Well, it’s fine with me, I guess.”
Think about people in any field – business, athletics, music, research, writing -- who accomplish great feats.
They are all driven to success by an overwhelming passion.
Then there are the revolutionaries, and their followers who must be consumed by a passion for change or their movement will fizzle at the first sign of opposition.
Passion is important.
This is especially true for God’s people.
As followers of Jesus Christ our lives should be defined by a passion for our Lord.
Sadly, I find that it’s just not the case with the majority of those who call themselves Christians.
When people find out I’m the pastor of a contemporary church, often their eyes light up and they barrage me with enthusiastic questions.
Some brave souls venture to ask me if there’s anything I’m disappointed with about the church.
Typically I’ll just tell them about the things we’ve tried that have totally bombed.
But if I’m honest I do have one major disappoint: the lack of passion of Jesus Christ that characterizes most of our people.
The first year of our existence we saw large numbers of people raise their hands in response to asking Christ into their lives.
I was initially excited, until it dawned on me that those same people, some of you, weren’t really changing.
They said they believed, but their lives remained unchanged.
My dream has always been to lead a church (as another preacher says,) of fired-up, devil hating, “bungee-jumping, meat-eating” followers of Jesus Christ.
So far, it just hasn’t happened.
I think I’m beginning to understand our problem.
We haven’t followed Jesus plan for developing passionate disciples.
We haven’t developed followers of Christ in the way Jesus himself prescribed.
Failure to follow procedure produces a lack of passion.
Spiritually speaking, we’re a church full of folks with gigantic heads, full of knowledge, but little bitty bodies that are weak and frail.
We’re not excited about our own faith.
We’re not reaching unchurched people with the life-changing good news of Jesus Christ.
We’re not making so much as a ripple on the state of a lost and dying world.
Why? We’re passionless.
Let’s look, then, at what it takes to become people who are passionately in love with God.
Jesus had shown the way, if we care to follow.
Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down.
His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them saying: Matthew 5:1-2 (NIV)
Here we find Jesus at the height of his popularity.
Multitudes followed him.
He completely ignored the crowd with all their praises as well as their needs, and took his followers aside to speak with them.
He wanted his disciples to be passionate because they were a vital part of his revolution.
Up on that mountainside, much like Moses delivering the 10 Commandments to the 12 tribes of Israel, Jesus opened his mouth and revealed how to have the fan an internal fire for God.
Jesus actually cited 8 characteristics.
The first our deal with our relationship to God.
The second set of four concern interpersonal relationships.
We going to look exclusively at the first four today because they show us …
\\ 1. THE PATH OF THE PASSIONATE
Jesus began: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:3 (NIV) What does this mean?
Some folks have wrongly concluded that it’s about material possessions but, it has very little to do with money.
It’s about the attitude of the heart.
Notice what God says about the kind of person he dwells with: “The high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, the Holy One, says this: “I live in that high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.
I refresh the humble and give new courage to those with repentant hearts.
Isaiah 57:15 (NLT)
The New Testament puts it like this: "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
James 4:6 This means first step on the path of the passionate reveals that to be a part of God’s kingdom, on earth and in eternity.
You must see and admit your own sin.
You must be able honestly to say before God and other people: “I was wrong!”
Without a doubt, the most popular hymn in America is “Amazing Grace.”
You know the first stanza: Amazing grace!
How sweet the sound!
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.
John Newton knew what he’d been when he used that word [wretch].
At sea by the age of eleven, he fell into a life that was so wretched, even his crewmates regarded him as little more than an animal.
He was a deserter, suffered public floggings, trafficked in human slaves (raping the women and beating the men), and felt no sin was too vile to avoid.
\\ Though and illnesses would sometimes cause him to consider his spiritual condition, Newton’s “awakenings” were short-lived and gave way to more wicked exertions.
Of this time, Newton said, “I was fast bound in chains.
I had little desire and no power at all to recover myself.”
\\ Finally, suffering from fever and depression, Newton crept away to a secluded spot and began to pray, “I made no more resolves, but cast myself before the Lord to do with me as he should please.”
\\ Two years later, John Newton married his teenage sweetheart and began studying for the ministry.
In 1779, he published a hymnal in which 281 of his own works appeared.
“Amazing Grace” was one of them.
When he chose the word “wretch” to describe himself (and all who sing this song), he did so deliberately.
By his own experience (and his theology), Newton knew that only spiritual beggars make good disciples.
Only because of wretchedness can grace be so amazing.
It does for us what no other power can do.
\\ Tim Woodroof, Walk This Way: An Interactive Guide to Following Jesus, (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1999), 44-45 \\ \\ Have you recognized and admitted your wretchedness before a holy God?
If you’ve ever really encountered God you can tell because you’re immediately conscious of personal sin.
In the Old Testament a prophet named Isaiah experienced the tangible presence of God.
He saw God Almighty, the perfectly sinless Creator of the universe.
Isaiah didn’t say, “Wow!
Cool!”
He didn’t experience holy laughter or bark like a dog or roar like a lion or any of the other nonsense that passes for an experience of God these days.
Isaiah was scared out of his mind.
He was acutely aware of his own sinfulness.
Here’s how he responded: \\ \\ “Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips …” Isaiah 6:5 \\ \\ The ancient Hebrew here literally means, “Oh crap!
I’m a dead man.”
Isaiah, a righteous mean, recognized some sin with regard to his speech.
\\ \\ That’s what happens when we truly encounter God.
We don’t just suddenly believe and march merrily on our way.
We fully comprehend our filthiness before God.
\\ \\ I’m not talking about sin in the abstract, but wretchedness in the specific.
The poor in spirit doesn’t merely say, “Lord, I’ve struggled with lust.”
They name the sin: “O God, I’ve daydreamed about sex with another woman’s husband” or “I’ve acted out with a Hustler magazine again.”
The poor in spirit won’t be content to confess, “I’ve got a problem with materialism.”
They’ll confess, “I’ve loved my big house, my new boat, and my shiny foreign car more than you God, or my kids.
I’ve sacrificed all on the altar of stuff.”
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