Burn Like a Fire

Romans 12:9-13

⁹ Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. ¹⁰ Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. ¹¹ Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. ¹² Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. ¹³ When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.

Introduction

            The key verse for this blog is verse 11 - "Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically."

            Have you ever tried to describe people as an object or image?  It can tell you a lot about what you think about their personality.  For instance, if I were to describe Sherry Dickson, I would say she is like a refreshing spring.  She’s caring, calm, quiet, peaceful--just like a refreshing spring.  Sallie Thomas is like a playful puppy.  She’s playful, fun, and gregarious.  

            I describe myself like a lump of coal.  I am pretty boring on the surface and can even seem cold.  But if you can ever get me to catch fire, I burn hot and for a long time.  I'm like that Rolling Stones song:  “If you start me up!  If you start me, up I’ll never stop!”

            And what gets me started?  What lights my fire?  What gets me burning is my passion for the Lord’s Church.  There’s a fire in my bones!  It burns hot within me.  If I try to sit idle, if I try to stay silent, I can’t.  My passion for the Lord bubbles up within me and burst forth like billowing steam from a locomotive.  It propels me to be active and serve the Lord. 

            No matter the obstacle—whether it be climbing a mountain of difficulty or a tunneling through the fear of uncertainty or crossing a bridge over raging adversity—this holy train is gonna keep on chuggin’!  The hardest part for me is looking out the windows and seeing all the people standing idle by as I pass them.  And I want to cry out, “Get on board!  Little children, get on board!  Little children, there’s room for many a more!”

            And so my prayer has been since before I became a minister—in truth, I believe it’s the largest part of my purpose in life and why God called me to be a minister—is my burning desire to see everyone get on board the heavenly train that’s bound for Glory!

            I wrote this in my payer journal.  It’s an entry from July 12, 1999: 

“Father, I want Your people across the whole world to be revitalized.  I want to see lost souls saved and I want to see saved souls filled with holy passion.  Lord come, make us more like Jesus.  I want You to be so close to us that our bodies tremble ans shake.  I want You to be so near that we can see, hear, smell, and taste You.  I want the world to be dumbfounded by Your awesome presence.  No more skepticism.  Nor more dismissal.  No more doubt.  I want everone to see You are real and You are Lord and You are awesome.  Lord, pour out Your Spirit on Your people.  Amen.”

            You see, this was my prayer 17 years ago and it’s been my heart’s desire and prayer ever since then.  I want whole hearts broken and I want broken hearts made whole again.

Whole Hearts Broken

            In America, we are complacent.  We are satisfied, content, and unconcerned.  But we are satisfied and content with the wrong things—worldly things—and we are unconcerned that our complacency and love of the world is sending us barreling down the tracks to destruction.  Our society is eroding.  Our families are weakening.  People are abandoning the church in favor of worldly pursuits.  Our culture has even gone so far as to abandon common sense and redefined the natural order of gender—something that is so basic, so common sense, even animals understand it.  And yet, now it is widely accepted that a man can marry a man or a woman can marry a woman.  Who knows what absurd combinations the depraved human mind in America will be coming up with in the years ahead!

            And we—most of us—are just fine with that.  Let us make our money.  Let us have peace.  Let us continue to feel good about ourselves and our lavish lifestyles and our leisure pursuits.  Don't make us feel uncomfortable about sin.  Don’t trouble us with stories about misfortune and injustice in other countries.  Don’t worry us with concerns about suffering in our own neighborhoods.  Let us go on without any guilt about how our complacency actually makes us responsible for the destruction of our nation.

            And I say, “No!  I will not let you off the hook!  I will not let you go on wearing your blinders so you can’t see your disinterest is leading you to destruction while you drag others with you."  My prayer is that God would turn your world upside down until you see the way you are living and thinking and acting are all wrong—that you’ve put your hope in the wrong things and your passion in life has been misplaced.  My prayer is that God will break your heart.  I pray God will torment you until you surrender it all to Him and let Him fill you with His holy passion—so that your heart becomes like Jesus’, so you will hurt for the hurting and be broken-hearted for the lost, and you will feel a fire in your bones that compels you to give your all for the Kingdom of God!”  I want to see whole hearts broken!  Do you understand what I mean?

Broken Hearts Made Whole

            I don’t mean that I want our world to be full of broken-hearted people.  The truth is, our world is already full of broken hearted people—half of them don’t even realize they are broken.  I want God to make us all whole again.  If God is going to make you whole, you first have to realize you are broken.

            There are many people in our world who already know they are broken—or at least they have a good suspicion.  You don’t have to tell most addicts that they are broken.  They know.  They are bitterly aware that they’re out of control—that their addiction is killing them and hurting others.  Most addicts—whether they are addicted to drugs or alcohol—are racked with guilt over their actions and beyond frustrated that they can’t change their behavior.  And there are all kinds of addiction—addiction to things (buying, materialism), addiction to pornography, food addictions ( what I thin is the leading cause of heart disease), workaholics…  We are all addicts in one common way.  We are addicted to sin.  That’s the whole point of Christianity—to rehabilitate sinners and help us break the chain of our sinful lives.

            Others know they are broken too.  They feel the shame of their sin.  They recognize they are lost.  They know they need something, Someone to save them.  They know there must be something more to this world.  “For God has planted eternity in our hearts so that we are restless until we find rest in Him.”  And for those who are unable to drug themselves and numb the God-ache in their heart, they realize something is missing.  They are broken-hearted.

            Jesus commanded his followers, “Go, therefore, into all the world and make disciples…”  Are you a follower of Jesus?  Are you a Christian?  Then Jesus’ words are for you.  He told you to go and make disciples.  He didn’t say:  go and enjoy your family, go to the ball game, go indulge your worldly desires.  He said, “Go and make disciples…”  So why don’t you obey the Lord?  Pray that the Lord would make your heart more like his—that you would be filled with his holy passion for the least, the last, and the lost.

            Are you broken-hearted today?  Then I want you to find new hope in Christ.  Jesus is here to bind up your broken heart and make it whole again.

Conclusion

            Some of you here today have been complacent.  You’ve been drifting through life pretty content with the way things are.  But today, I’ve lit a fire in your bones.  I’ve unleashed the fire of the Holy Spirit upon you.  Maybe it’s only started as faint flicker, but that fire is gonna grow in you like it grew in me.  I’m here to tell you, it won’t go away.  It won’t leave you alone.  You may try to ignore it, but the holy fire of God is going to burn up in your bones until you can’t stand it anymore and you have to do something about it.  Whether it takes a few days or a few years, it’s gonna torment you until you give in and answer the Lord’s call on your life.  I recommend you answer it know.  Why put off the inevitable and put yourself through more and more discomfort?  Surrender.  Get your heart right with God today.

            Some here today are broken-hearted.  You’ve failed.  You’ve fallen.  You’ve sinned.  Perhaps today you realize you’ve not been following Jesus like you should.  Today, the Lord compels me to pray for you, to offer you the Lord's pardon and peace.  Jesus says, “Come to me all you who are weary and carry heaven burdens and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you.  For my burden is light and I will give you rest.”

            Would you turn to the Lord today?  Would you receive His grace and peace?  But you say, “I don’t know how!  I don’t know how!”  It’s simple.  Close your eyes.  Bow your head.  Ask Jesus to forgive you.  Ask him to take control of your life.  Give him control.  Let him lead you.  Trust Jesus.  He can make a way when there seems to be know way.  It's time to get on board with where Jesus wants to take you.

On A Mission From God

Acts 1:6-8
⁶ So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?”

⁷ He replied, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Introduction

            I am on a mission from God!  Now you say it:  “I am on a mission from God!”

            Do you believe that?

Jesus empowers his followers to successfully complete the mission of the Church and he gives us a plan for how to accomplish it.  The mission of the Church is to go and make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  Acts 1:8 gives us a plan to accomplish the mission.  Jesus said, “You will receive power… And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere…”

            I want you to notice something about this passage.  Jesus is trying to re-focus his followers on their mission.  They were so caught up in worrying about all their problems.  Notice in verse 6 it says, the apostles “…kept asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?”

            Israel was only about the size of New Jersey and they had almost always been subject to domination by foreign empires like Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome.  As God’s chosen people, they yearned for God to intervene with supernatural power on behalf of Israel.

            Jesus tried to help his people see that the Kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom where love of God and love for your neighbor is what really matters.  In the Lord’s Prayer, he taught them to pray, “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”  So the Kingdom Jesus seeks to usher in is a kingdom where the will of God is done on earth the same way it is done in heaven. 

The religious leaders of Israel rejected Jesus’ Kingdom and crucified him.  Now Jesus was asking his disciples to carry on his mission—even if it meant a similar fate.  They were afraid and overwhelmed with the mission at hand.  How could they carry on Jesus’ mission?  The disciples yearned for Jesus to personally fix all the problems in their world.

            People today are also yearning for something.  In our community and even in our nation, people are yearning for something.  Some yearn for our nation to turn their hearts back to God.  Some yearn for our community to be more prosperous.  Some yearn for a government that is more responsive to the wants of the people.  Some yearn for a church that is energized and growing.  Sometimes, we look around at the mess around us and we think, “The only way for things to turn around is for Jesus to come back and intervene with supernatural power.”  We are a lot like the disciples in verse 6 who kept asking, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” 
            We might ask the question like this:  "Lord, has the time come for you to free the United States and restore our kingdom?" Or we may ask  Lord, has the time come for you to free Whitefield County and restore our kingdom?"  Or we may ask  Lord, has the time come for you to free Pleasant Grove and restore our kingdom?"

Tell People About Jesus

            Jesus understands our anxiety, but he wants his followers to shift their focus.  He answered his disciples question by saying, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times [i.e. when Jesus will return and set up his Kingdom]...” 

One Day, Jesus is going to come back, but Jesus doesn’t want us to wait around and do nothing in the meantime.  Jesus wants his followers to stop focusing on the obstacles between us and the Kingdom of God and focus on the mission.  And so he states a plan of action to start working on, “Be my witnesses…  Tell people about me everywhere…”  And he even goes on to give them steps to follow—start in Jerusalem, then spread out to Judea, then go on to Samaria, and then expand to the ends of the earth.

            In the midst of the struggles of daily life with the problems of the world looming around us, it’s easy to feel like we can’t make a difference.  Jesus gives us a clear mission to focus on and a plan of action so we don’t get bogged down in worrying about all the tertiary problems around us.  It’s not complicated.  The mission is:  Make disciples of Jesus Christ.  How do we do it?  “Be my witnesses…  Tell people about me everywhere…”

            I am on a mission from God to tell people about Jesus!  Now you say it:  “I am on a mission from God to tell people about Jesus.” 

Empowered by the Spirit

            I used to think, “How can I make a difference, Lord?  I’m just one person.”  Perhaps you ask that question sometimes too.  “How can I make a difference?”  Do you realize, you are a powerful tool for Jesus Christ!  Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.”  The Bible tells us that every person who believes in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior has the power of God living in them.  That power is the Holy Spirit.  It is the actual Spirit of God living inside you.  It enables you to understand what Jesus wants you to do.  It enables you to be a faithful witness who wins people to Jesus because of the things you say and do.  It enables you to do amazing things!

            I am on a mission from God to tell people about Jesus and the Holy Spirit gives me the power to do it!  Now you say it:  “I am on a mission from God to tell people about Jesus and the Holy Spirit gives me the power to do it!”

            Jesus’ wisdom just amazes me sometimes.  He doesn’t let his Disciples off the hook and he doesn’t let us off the hook either.  When we say, “Lord, when are you gonna come down here and fix this mess for us?”  His response is, “Don’t you worry about that.  You just get out there and be a witness!”  For some reason, he doesn’t want to fix everything by himself (though he definitely could).  Jesus wants us to work at it.  There must be a lesson for us to learn in our participation.  Maybe our participation is part of the healing process—for us and for the world—kind of like spiritual therapy.  We have to do our part. 

Conclusion

            Be a witness.  You don’t have to beat people over the head with a Bible.  A witness is someone who tells people what they've seen.  Have you seen Jesus do something in your life or at your church?  Then tell someone.  You don’t have to go to Africa.  Start right where you are.  Tell your spouse.  Tell your children or grandchildren.  Tell your neighbor.  Tell your co-worker.  Simply tell them what you know.  Have you experienced Jesus’ love?  Tell someone. 
            Now say it again:  “I am on a mission from God to tell people about Jesus and the Holy Spirit gives me the power to do it!” 

Now get out there and do it!!!

Afterward

If you haven’t experienced Jesus in your life, then maybe you need help opening your eyes to see him.  I’d like to talk with you about that.  Seriously.  Send me an email or call my church office.  I want to talk with you—in private and confidentially.  I bet together we can discover some amazing things Jesus has done, is doing, or is going to do in your life.