AUGUST 8, 2021 SUNDAY MESSAGE
JOIN US LIVE AT 10 AM TODAY!
Heat: Why Proclaim the Gospel
Transcription
Let me take you back to elementary level science class. I loved science class and the best day when you walked in and realized the teacher had everything on their desk to to do one of 2 things: Blow something up or light something on...FIRE
Whenever you study fire, you learn that it needs 3 basic things to exist:
Heat
Fuel
Oxygen
Over the next few weeks, we are going to attempt to IGNITE a WILDFIRE of Jesus’ love in and throughout each and every neighborhood, apt, etc represented in this room.
A wildfire is a “spontaneous, uncontrollable fire in an area where combustible vegetation is present.” SO, What does it take to create a “spontaneous, uncontrollable spread of God’s love where YOU live?”
Science tells us...
We are going to need heat
We are going to need fuel
We are going to need Oxygen
Today we are starting with HEAT!
Magnesium Bar
Lights in lots of conditions
It’s only a spark but, make no mistake, it can get the fire started!!
SO, where do WE get this kind of heat in our lives to become a spark?
I mentioned this last week - the idea that, as a pastor, it’s hard to hide my religious affiliation…one of the first questions people will ask after finding out your name is: “what do you do?”
Sometimes people hear this and it is good news & sometimes it’s not!
I will usually see people interact with me differently (change their language or apologize if they cuss in front of me).
One time someone said, “good to know...next time someone dies, I’ll know who to call...”
My vocation, in the presence of the public, is usually not neutral but it is good news or bad news (likely because of their history with the church).
Lots of people have bad memories attached to the church, I will often make jokes about the christian subculture, and others have legitimate trauma...
I told you last week that one person I talked to recently, Ang, when she found out what I did, said it was good news to her. She hadn’t been to church in decades but went back to her childhood church for her own moms funeral, it sparked a lot of good memories:
Memories sitting next to her mom in the pew
Fun VBS and Sunday School moments
This church was comforting to her to be in.
It took me off guard honestly. I even told her that it was refreshing to hear a personal, historic account of something good involving the church.
But, what I want you to see is that she had LOVE in her for the church - even after years of being away,
the gospel was planted deep in her
there was an element of heat left in her that was stoked when we began to talk.
What kind of HEAT do we have for the Gospel today? For proclaiming the news that the power of salvation is found Jesus and Jesus alone?
ANYTIME we think something is GOOD, we naturally, and SHAMELESSLY
share it with others,
try to persuade them to check it out.
Something is stoked within us that causes us to tell others about it.
We evangelise things all the time
(restaurant, ICE CREAM SHOP, movie, music, new things you like, gear for a hobby).
There is drive, motivation, a kind of HEAT building inside of you for all kinds if things!
When it gets hot enough, you become a conductor for that warmth, and pass it on.
every time you are compelled to bring it up to a friend or mention it in a conversation evangelism takes place
AND MY QUESTION IS, once again, “What kind of HEAT do you have for the gospel...so that you transfer it?”
I want to show you something Jesus says about when He talks to a young leader - an expert in the law - who is questioning Him...open your bibles to Matthew 22:36
Matthew 22:36-40
The expert in the law tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with ALL YOUR HEART and WITH ALL YOUR SOUL and WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
The first thing I want you to know is that the heat I am referring to is LOVE! So, when I ask what kind of HEAT do you have...
I am really asking what kind of love are you holding?
What kind of relationship do you have with Jesus?
Does your relationship with Him cultivate passion with all your heart, soul, and mind...with EVERYTHING IN YOU?
OR, does your relationship with God….
revolve around a set of rules?
Is it static? OR
Is it dynamic and interactive?
Does your relationship with the Divine mean performing rituals and obeying rules in order to please Him? Because a relationship with God is radically different...He made the first move!!
God isn’t after mechanical obedience and if your love for God operates this way, it will be cold because...
Your SOURCE for heat - comes from a burning passion for the Creator God who chased after you with abandon and gave His life because HE LOVED YOU!!
Our faithful devotion is far from a religious obligation but fire stoked deep within us that drives us further and with more commitment than or any kind of religious duty!
It’s possible your love for God has grown cold and, just like every relationship, it requires cultivation.
Are you connecting with God through scripture?
Is your prayer life vibrant?
Is your community challenging you to go deeper?
Are you engaging the gifts that God has given you to participate in Kingdom work?
When was the last time you took an adventure with Jesus, stepped out in faith, or took a risk in your walk with God, or did something out of your comfort zone?
My friend Ed Waken says, “Fires of love are prone to die out or be extinguished by distractions. Fanning the flames of our faith requires a mindset that understands that constant personal effort is essential if we want to stay close to Jesus...when we find our faith parched and dusty, it is time for adventure and risk! We can choose to leave the comfort of a mundane and sterile faith, and follow the lead of the Holy Spirit into the wilderness of souls that do not yet belong to Jesus. When our faith becomes adventurous, our dependence on and connection to God naturally increases.” ...and so does the Heat of our love for God!
This is a part of what keeps your faith exciting. God is NOT boring so if you are bored with your faith, then you aren’t doing what Jesus is telling you to do (John 3:8).
God’s LOVE is the SOURCE of our love and, as we draw close to the Father, more of His heart becomes ours. Our agendas decrease and Jesus’ life in us increases.
So, you’re going to see that, as we keep reading, we realize the first commandment OVERFLOWS into the next. Verse 39 says:
39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Loving God and loving others is connected! You see the transfer of the LOVE that is cultivated in us for God naturally FLOWs into a love for others!
Waken again states:
“Love for Christ and His message is the driving force behind the passionate, purposeful interaction with others. This type of love alerts us to the opportunities that are all around us on a daily basis. Falling in love with Jesus and sharing the love of Jesus informs and feeds each other, and this is the foundation for evangelism. An undying love is what enables us to look into the eyes of those who are lost and suffering and tell them that Jesus is the answer.”
AND, when our love of Christ drives our love for others, it causes us to overcome our comfortability in the status quo, our fears, and our doubts so that we speak out but the temperature of our love must set high enough to overcome the cold that causes us to keep it to ourselves!
2 Corinthians 5:11; 13-14 says:
11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience...13 If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.
It says that Christ’s love COMPELS US to push through and endure all kinds of obstacles. Christ’s love becomes a type of thrust - or forward motion - that will not and cannot settle for stagnation. We should become spiritually AGITATED when you haven’t seen someone come to know God or get baptized!
Listen, if you’ve become content with the fact that:
you’ve not led anyone to Jesus or even SPOKEN to someone about Him??
If you haven’t brought a person who doesn’t know Jesus into your House Churches
and you’ve been the same group for years…
...Then that is evidence that the HEAT has gone cold!
That’s evidence that you’ve done the Community part of our 3 Pillars but your devotion is deficient because it hasn’t compelled you to be on mission!!
Paul LOVED the people he walked alongside (it’s apparent in the letters) but he couldn’t just stay within the comfort of that Christian community because the love of Christ COMPELLED and called him to PROCLAIM over and over again:
I love _____ there are people in ____ that NEED to know the love of Christ!
Just follow Acts: Antioch, Lystra, Macedonia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Barea, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, to the Jewish people to the Greek.
PAUL HAD HEAT!!
COMMON GROUND NORTHEAST, WHERE IS OUR HEAT??
And there are people in your neighborhoods that need the love of Jesus
There are people in your schools, work places, and grocery stores that NEED TO KNOW JESUS!!
That need has not gone away and we need a generation and a church who has felt the LOVE of GOD and they are now burning HOT with LOVE and cannot keep it in!!
So the more you love Jesus, the more you love others, that LOVE should transfer out from our lives! But let’s be real about this...we aren’t alway hot and there are cultural conditions to consider and what do we do when the matches get wet?
SO, what causes you to hold it in?
What causes you to NOT share the Gospel?
For many of us, maybe not all, but many, there is actually an emotional trigger that takes place when a pastor says, “we should evangelize or share the gospel.” John Mark Comer mentions in one of his sermons:
“Preaching the Gospel unlike..practices such as sabbath, or silence and solitude, or simplicity is an emotionally loaded idea...on the one hand, Postmodern moral relativism has penetrated deep into the nervous system in the west with ideas like “speak your truth…or you do you, or who am I to judge” have become cliche. These (are the) assumptionss that our western culture is now built on. It feels, that’s not rational, but it feels immoral to preach the gospel to a pluralistic culture where one of the highest moral values is tolerance.”
Comer goes on to describe another side of the coin, which is embarrassing. We have seen evangelicalism walk through a “reckoning over it’s participation with racial injustice,” a tarnished history of spreading the gospel through colonialism, imperialism, or fear-mongering” or even trickery!
Can anyone remember those tracks that looked like a $100 bill and when you pick it up it said, “real treasures are found in heaven!”
The result of both of these ideas is that, we are ashamed or embarrassed so we keep our mouths shut because we have either:
embraced cultural definitions of morality and we are ashamed to violate it OR,
We are ashamed at the thought of being associated with christian caricatures and the true, broken history of our cultural missteps as a church.
So, when we teach about evangelism, you may catch yourself rolling your eyes and think, “here we go again” ...but, listen, these are distortions of the gospel because, at its heart, the Gospel is the GOOD NEWS...do not let a misrepresentation of that truth STEAL your desire to proclaim or cool down the heat you were meant to convey.
Others aren’t ashamed of what they consider GOOD NEWS!! There are all kinds of Gospels being preached at us in our day...can you name a few??
Consumerism and consumption
Health trends
Political Affiliations
Progress or Conservativism
National Affiliations
Individualism depicted as freedom
Self help books of any kind
These are the Gospels proclaimed in our culture and this is just a taste!
This isn’t unique to our culture today, There were other Gospels being proclaimed during Jesus’ time. In fact the word in Greek that translates as Gospel or Good News (euangelion) was not invented by our New Testament writers, it was used long before by the greeks.
During the grab for power, emperors and leaders would CHANGE, Alexander the Great being one of the most famous, attempt to win the hearts of the towns and cities they conquered because:
you can only spread your army so thin to keep them under your reign
AND you can only get so much loyalty by force!
In the first century, when new emperors would take control and come into power they would send a representative with a parade of folks, to enter into your town and proclaim THEIR Good News - their own Euangelion!!
WHICH, for Alex the Great, was this: “The Empire of Greece is here!”
Why is that good news to anyone? They came with good things. The 4 pillars of Greek Hellenism were:
Education
Health Care
Entertainment
Athletics
Others: art, aesthetics, plumbing, air conditioning!
You can see how they might say, “okay, I can get on board with this!”
Then, when ROME comes in and takes over, guess what!, they have their own Good news: “The Kingdom of Rome is here!!” What did they bring to the table??
All the things greece provided
plus the Pax Romana
Every time a new Caesar gets power they send a royal word out about THEIR own Euangelion.
They would fortify it by printing symbols and imagery on their currency, part of the olympic games, advents (or arrivials where he would visit), parousia would be a second coming after sending a kind of bail-out check.
All of these things would be done as they were proclaiming that Good News of their empire had arrived.
These Gospels we shamelessly proclaimed over and against competing ways of thought and rulership!
So, check this out, each writer of the first Four books of the New Testament:
The Gospel of Matthew,
The Gospel of Mark,
The Gospel of Luke, and
The Gospel of John
Each has an intentional audience and angle by which they were attempting to
SUBVERT the ways of the world around them, the ways of the existing ruling party, and
PERSUADE their audience that there is a NEW Good News and it’s BETTER than the others: “The Kingdom of Heaven is here!”
AND in Romans 1:14-16 says...
14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. 16 For I am not (WHAT?) NOT ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
The Gospel is:
the power of God that brings salvation to everyone!
Luke says:
It is good news to the poor.
It is freedom for the prisoners
recovery of sight for the blind,
sets the oppressed free,
It renews, heals, delivers, it loves first and that love is HOTT!!
Paul is so convinced that HIS NEWs is the BEST NEWS and, out of LOVE, he will proclaim it even if it imprisons him or costs him his life!!
Listen to me...because somewhere, at some TIME, your awareness of the POWER of the gospel has been STOLEN from you. BUT, at its heart, the Gospel is, above all other things that contend for its place, THE BEST GOOD NEWS...and if you believe that, you are going to share it!
Beloved, SHAME of the Gospel is a fire extinguisher sent by the enemy that attempts to destroy the spread of the Good News - do not let it cool the heat of LOVE that you have for God and others…
The HEAT of the Gospel inside of us is LOVE which first starts with a love for Jesus that overflows into a love for others.
Are you cultivating a HOT love for God?
Are you cultivating a HOT love for Others?
I want you to be motivated by love (compelled by the love of God) not obligation or duty.
If you are motivated by obligation, your proclamation of the Gospel will go cold and you will burn out!
If you are motivated by the source of love that is found in Christ, there is unending heat!
Here this truth:
If you have experienced the DIVINE love of God and you have been changed by the greatest love the universe has ever known, AND you love those around you (neighbors, friends, family, co-workers, etc) YOU should want to introduce them all to the greatest love you know: God.
If nobody is coming to know Jesus through our church either in our Sunday gatherings or through our house churches...we don’t have an evangelism problem, we have a LOVE PROBLEM!
We are choosing comfortability, shame, fear, the safe parameters of community INSTEAD of LOVING OUR GOD FULLY and LOVING OUR NEIGHBORS and something needs to change.
My prayer, and I hope YOUR prayer is that God would start a fire in your life so
Hot, so blazing, so consuming that it not only dries up any shame, embarrassment or but you would be a living sacrifice to God consumed by Him and completely given over to him with every part of your life. Christian, BURN HOT!!
Throughout HISTORY we have seen Revival Wildfire’s sparked and the LOVE of Jesus embraced! As we draw close to the Father, more of His heart becomes ours.
COMMON GROUND, we aren’t a large church but God loves to take a tiny speck that’s burning HOT and SPARK a wildfire movement!!
WE are a small church but every blazing fire begins with spark! let’s be a spark.
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.