AUGUST 15, 2021 SUNDAY MESSAGE
JOIN US LIVE AT 10 AM TODAY!
Heat Part 2: Fuel
Transcription
Last week we talked about how our HEAT or LOVE for God should be the primary motivation for evangelism and that, when the temperature is HOT enough, it will overwhelm the obstacles that cause us not to share,
like being ashamed of the Gospel framed in our current cultural setting
or legitimate embarrassment for historic Christian missteps.
Our GOAL is to find that our ultimate source for love comes from the fact that God loved us to an unimaginable degree - so much that He gave Himself as a sacrifice on our behalf to bring us into the fold of God and how the heat inside of should transfer out to love others enough to want to share that same love with them.
Look at this cycle:
Love FOR God =>
<= Love FOR others
The more you love one the more you love other
When people enter the Kingdom of Heaven, it’s exciting and it invigorates your love for God.
One reason is that, if you’ve ever had conversations with someone who is spiritually seeking or new to the faith, they have lots of questions. Your participation in that causes you to do a couple things:
Reminds you of TRUTH’s you have forgotten and the goodness of God along your journey but it ALSO...
Reveals gaps in your theology and makes you study the scripture more!
Today, I want to remove a few more barriers and we are going to introduce you to ANOTHER cycle
Radical Obedience =>
<= Radical Fruit
Before we get there I have a little story…
<Story>
I built 4 Molotov cocktail bombs
Moving into a more sane part of this story and much to my disappointment, later that night, at the wisdom of my dad, we built a much safer, more traditional fire with
Newspaper
Kindling
Wood (the wood I collected)
We kept adding wood...
The thing about a fire is that a spark isn’t enough to SUSTAIN the fire, it needs FUEL to keep burning.
So if the heat in our WILDFIRE analogy is our intense love for Jesus that translates into a love for others then the fuel in this equation is our Christian lives!
I want to remind you of a verse we looked at a few weeks ago, Romans 12:1-2
Rom. 12:1-2 told us…
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
When we commit to following Jesus, there is a radical exchange of values and we commit to giving up our lives, our pursuits, and our agendas in exchange for HIS!
You have SURRENDERED your life to an authority in your life
1 Corinthians 6 says, “You are not your own, you were bought with a price...”
When you don’t like what you read, or hear from God:
your obedience is a part of your discipleship
Your denial of that thing is
an acknowledgement of a part of your life that you are unwilling to surrender or
a lack of faith in trusting God with your life.
Here’s the kicker, the more you do it, the more you realize, God knew better than you, God knew what was healthier for you, God knew you better than you thought you knew yourself. GOD’S PLAN WAS BETTER!!
When we commit to following Jesus:
We sacrificially give our time and resources for the proclamation of the Gospel
We arrange our lives to prioritize HIS agenda in all that we do and
WE might even set aside aspects of our lives that are incongruent to this and intentionally seek out opportunities to share the gospel!!
AND, it is my belief that when we give our lives over as a sacrifice to God in Radical Obedience, it will lead to radical fruitfulness in your life...and though we don’t always get to taste of the fruit, when you do, you get a taste for more, you might even crave more of it in your life.
<The story of Conan the Barbarian - obedience - talking to Nicky>
<Transition out:
It was participation in a supernatural and divine moment
It was fruitful,
It was exhilarating and WAAY more exciting than the night I had planned for myself!
AND IT IS TO THIS END that Jesus nudged me that night....& one by- product was that I was compelled to take more risk and engage more Radical Obedience on the other side!
There is guarantee though, that we can absolutely stand on (it’s gonna sound like an exaggeration at first but I assure you it is not):
You can be 100% successful 100% of the time in your endeavor to share God’s love with others.
Does that sound like it’s too hard to believe?
1 Corinthians 3:5-9 (actually starting at verse 5)
5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor.9 For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.
This verse is directly about believers getting caught up in the idolization of following Humans but it reveals a few things about the way we grow in our walk with God and I want us to apply it to evangelism. Here they are:
Kingdom operations (including starting a relationship with Jesus) are a process.
Not everyone engages in all parts of that process.
Jesus is responsible for making things grow.
So, here is my question: what are YOU and I responsible for? OBEDIENCE to PARTICIPATE in the PROCESS.
EVERY BELIEVER is empowered to labor in the soil of souls.
EVERY BELIEVER can plant and water and petition God to cause the increase.
God USES humans in the PROCESS to PROCLAIM the gospel, but
whichever PART of the process they engage, and
wherever they fall in the timeline of someone placing their trust in Christ isn’t up to them...
you are not even responsible for their response
You are responsible to be OBEDIENT to participate when and how God tells us!
Think about the dynamics here:
If you have NEVER led someone to Christ directly but you were obedient to labor in the process over and over...it wasn’t in vain, you just weren’t the harvester!
You have had to trust that God was doing the growing along the way.
If you can claim I’ve led THOUSANDS to Jesus personally, great and I praise God!!
You were the harvester but you owe a debt of gratitude for those who sowed into the process and cultivated the moment that led to it and
God saw every single person that participated in the process along the way because
...someone planted and someone watered (and maybe someone REplanted and watered and watered and watered) - AMEN? Some of us needed a little extra watering along the way!!
I KNOW I DID...
...and some guy that I don’t even know from Texas came to a little baptist church in Arizona to do an old-fashioned revival, gave and altar call and I was part of the harvest that day!! But he doesn’t know that:
SHANE stood his ground when I made fun of him for going to church and I quietly wondered “what about it compels him to stick to His convictions?”
And CASSIE invited me to go to youth group when I said “don’t even try it, I will NEVER go to church!”
SOME GUY I didn’t even know had a conversation on a school bus that - he didn’t even know I was listening - but it pushed me over the edge to say, “I’ll check it out.”
AND DEBBIE watered that seed by putting up with my constant antagonism as she led the youth group and answered all my questions…even when they were dumb!
I even had an encounter with an ANGEL in a dream!
Listen, ALL THE WHILE, I pretended NOT to care and though they could not see the work being done here and the labor being done over there GOD was doing something in my life that led, eventually to...
...to the cowboy from Texas who harvested that day by being obedient to give an altar call and I gave my life to God!!
“With every eye closed and every head bowed…” <accent?>
My point is this: you are responsible to be a part of the opportunity and participate in the process. Though you may not know what God is doing behind the scenes, you have been called to radical obedience wherever and to whomever, God whispers:
“Can you tell them that you’re praying for them?”
“I need you to invite this person to your house church?”
“Could you just anonymously be extra generous to this server at….”
God why would I randomly give that much for a....
“Oh no, you don’t get to know all the story in this one, somebody else is going to water and harvest...just be obedient right here, right now”
In a still small voice, Jesus says:
Right, now, can you tell this person how I redeemed your relationship
Can you tell them how I healed you
Can you introduce them to me? It’s time to be bold today. Tell them about how I changed your life? Tell them my name is Jesus and my story is GOOD NEWS…”
Become a person who is RADICALLY OBEDIENT TO BE involved in the process.
The rest is up to God because he causes the growth
We see it in the scriptures:
Most Christians know Paul and the MASSIVE impact he had in the early church but not many people know Ananias is.
During Paul’s conversion on the road, God blinds him and his friends take him to Demascus.
In Damascus, there is a man named Ananias in Acts six who showed Radical Obedience to the call of God, Acts 9:10 says:
10 In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!”
“Yes, Lord,” he answered.
11 The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. 12 In a vision HE has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”
13 “Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem.14 And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”
15 But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”
17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.
Ananias had every reasonable right from our perspective to say “NO” but out of courage and faith, he said, “YES” and took part in changing history forever.
In your radical obedience to say “YES,” you just might be playing a major role in a Kingdom Movement that creates a legacy of generations and generations of people turning to and living out the Kingdom of God!!
This is what I mean when I say:
Radical Obedience =>
<= Radical Fruit
THIS IS THE WAY GOD WORKS!! If you do this...you are 100% successful 100% of the time.
What stops us from being obedient??
This might surprise you but, one of the greatest hindrances to congregation members proclaiming the Gospel is Pastors and church leaders!
Let’s look at 2 myths of evangelism:
Myth 1: You are not equipped or qualified to tell others about Jesus and ALONG WITH IT is the MYTH that Only Evangelists - or an elite set of people gifted to do so - can do it.
The way we have built our churches today has upheld this laity/clergy separation that says, there are professionals and there are those who watch.
There may be some who are naturally gifted but their gift, according to Ephesians 4:11-12 is to equip others to do the same. The only thing necessary for you to proclaim the gospel is a...
Willingness to be used
Willingness to be inconvenienced
Willingness to engage
Willingness to be bold
Willingness to believe that God is working when you don’t see it
WILLINGNESS TO ALLOW YOUR LIFE TO BE USED UP LIKE FUEL...BY LAYING YOUR AGENDA DOWN TO BE OBEDIENT TO THE GREAT COMMANDMENT
Myth 2: There is one RIGHT way to evangelize.
There are LOTS of tools for evangelism:
Tracts were all the rage in the 80’s-90’s
The 4 Spiritual laws
The cold call: “if you died tonight, do you know where you would spend eternity in heaven?”
Apologetics training
Using the ten commandments
Dare 2 Share
Evangelism Explosion
...and the list goes on!
None of these ideas are inherently bad (well maybe some are) but for me, they are NOT essential to participating in the process. They are tools for the toolbelt that MIGHT make sense in a given situation but I want to encourage you to take heart, jump in, and listen to the Holy Spirit.
Waken writes:
“Always be on the lookout for those spontaneous moments where God’s nudges meet people’s needs through you. The power of spontaneity, like lightning, can start a wildfire as we become willing to move as He leads.
Every follower of Christ is called to share the good news.
Every follower of Christ is chosen to share the life of Christ in them.
Every follower of Christ is sent to be a light to the world.
The more convinced we become that GOD creates the opportunities for us, the more we will understand that He really can use ordinary people to do extra–ordinary things.”
And listen, if
SOME are meant to water and
OTHERS are meant to plant and
JESUS is meant to cause the growth…
It takes the pressure off “closing the deal” which is a weird thing that many evangelism strategies in the last few years were meant to accomplish in one fell swoop.
You may be asked to be bold and say difficult things, and challenge assumptions - Jesus said some confrontational things.
IN FACT that’s probably where we will be challenged the most in our culture!!
BUT your success is built on the simple idea that you are called to be OBEDIENT to that moment when you were nudged by the Holy Spirit to share in your part of the process.
Not every moment is as exciting but, I promise you, the ONLY way to fail, is by ignoring the moment of obedience by passively allowing the opportunities to proclaim the Gospel to others.
As we close, I want to share one more story: <Proclaiming the Gospel to my Dad 2 weeks before He died>
I almost missed the opportunity and ultimately, I am grieved (and even pray that God in His sovereignty sent someone to my dad before He passed away) but, what I am not...is regretful that I walked away from that moment of obedience when God said, “DO IT!”
Here is your challenge:
Who is God putting on your heart to share the gospel with? Perhaps better: who have you been avoiding sharing the gospel with because of fear or avoiding discomfort...talk to that person this week!
If you don’t have people come to mind...then you need to pray, ask God to awaken your heart/mind to see the opportunities that you’ve been missing in your life.
If you have failed to share, don’t continue to walk in that passive disobedience because there is fruitfulness that you don’t want to miss out on and people who NEED your obedience to know the love of God!!
We have the SPARK for sharing the Gospel in the Hot Love of God and the FUEL of our Radical obedience to begin a Gospel Fire.
WE KNOW we are 100% successful 100% of the time, there is nothing to lose...
Step out in courageous faith because we have the entire world to gain!
COMMUNION:
(1 COR. 11:23B-26)
“The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
PRAYER REQUESTS:
We are hosting prayer team meetings for both the congregation at large and individuals to sign up for individual prayer.
SUGGESTIONS FOR WORSHIP:
“Praise & Worship” Spotify playlist and “Praise & Worship” YouTube playlist (slightly different from each other), both of diverse music that are being constantly updated!
Bethel Music :
Bethel Music’s hours of live music YouTube Playlist, also being constantly updated
Bethel provides chords to most (if not all) of their songs here (just have to register email, but free!)
Live worship moments from the Upper Room YouTube Playlist
Journal writing! (I’m a writer too, so sometimes creative writing and writing my thoughts to God is my form of worship.)
Declare and worship with truth by singing and praying scriptures.
WORSHIP NIGHT! Dedicate a night to worship with friends and family, your house church or neighbors, those who need prayer, love worship, or just enjoy music through a video chat platform like Zoom. You can have one person leading at a time (switching off to whoever else wants to lead) while others sing along, pray, or prophesy, etc.
Serving your community, both online, in person, or both, is a great way to worship God, from spreading encouragement and God’s Word online to physically serving food to others. If you are able to go out and serve, click here for opportunities.
COMMISSIONING:
As Jesus said in John 20:21,
"Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."
Go, be the Church!
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.