BECOMING LOVERS OF GOD…Part 7
“The Burning Ones”
- Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
- Definition for THIRST:A want and eager desire after anything; a craving or longing;…HUNGER: A strong desire or craving
- Does THIS describe your desire for God?
- Psalm 42:1-2 “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirst for God, for the living God…”
- The Apostle Paul would be someone that I would consider a mature Christian….I mean, my goodness, He totally knew Jesus very personally….but the more Paul knew of Jesus…the more THRISTY for God he became…
- Paul wrote about that passion for God in Philippians 3:10 “that I may knw Him.”
- The sad thing is that most of us have never experienced REAL hunger or REAL thirst….we have more than enough “things”…so much that we often become complacent…apathetic…there is nothing that we actually “want” for
- Do you realize that the amazing blessing of turning on a knob in our kitchen …and WATER comes out!....Water that won’t make us sick…water that we can actually collect in a glass and DRINK….
- The children and adults we were around this last week didn’t have that luxury….they KNEW what it was to hunger and thirst in the PHYSICAL….
- We are used to walking in the door to our church…maybe “we” personally haven’t even thought about church the entire week…but we walk in the door and EXPECT God to meet our every need…we EXPECT Him to be there…just like turning on our water faucet in the kitchen….
- We are used to having a Bible…or two or three…in our house…but never taking the time to actually pick it up and read it…
- The children and adults we were around last week KNEW what it was like to hunger and thirst in the PHYSICAL and some of them also understood what it was like to hunger and thirst in the SPIRITUAL….
- We met kids that could quote Scripture after Scripture…one even said that her favorite book was the book of John…that she loved reading it WHEN “her family was able to borrow the Bible from their neighbors” ………………..WOW…..such hunger for the Word of God from young children in Africa….
- How many of us are TRULY hungry or thirsty for more of Him?.....
- We sing songs to Him like “All Consuming Fire…You’re our hearts desire, Living Flame of Love, come baptize us, come baptize us…let us fall more in love with You…”…
- Hebrews 12:29 says “For our God is a consuming fire.”
- God is LOVE….but He also is a consuming FIRE…check out these Scriptures…
- Hebrews 12:29 "For our God is a consuming fire".
- Deuteronomy 4:24 "For the Lord Your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God".
- Exodus 3:2 "The Lord appeared in flames to Moses in the bush".
- Exodus 14:21 "Pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire".
- Revelation 1:14 "His eyes were like blazing fire" (John's revelation of Jesus).
- Ezekiel 1:27 "I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up He looked like gloving metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire, and brilliant light surrounded him." (Ezekiel’s vision of God.)
- His love for us BURNS….
- Song of Solomon 8:6 “Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It BURNS like BLAZING FIRE, like a mighty FLAME.”
- What is this verse all about? It’s the INTENSITY OF LOVE that we need to have for our God so that we can do what He has commanded us to do…..we HAVE TO HAVE THAT KIND OF LOVE FOR HIM in order to fulfill the Great Commission…..!!!!!
- Mark 12:30 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”
- How can we possibly “love our neighbors” unless WE, ourselves, are burning with love for Christ?
- WE CAN’T!!!!!!
- In fact….at the end of the prayer that Jesus prayed to His Father for US…He prayed that the same FIERY love that He has for us would also be IN US for HIM!!!!...
- John 17:26 “I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I Myself may be in them.”
- Now….let’s go back to the verse in the Song of Solomon and read the verse right after it…
- Song of Solomon 8:7 “MANY WATERS CANNOT QUENCH THIS LOVE; rivers cannot wash it away. Of one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned.”
- What do you know about water and fire????.....water puts fire out….but the fire mentioned in this verse is SUPERNATURAL FIRE…”many waters” can’t quench it….waters of persecution, pain, difficulty….nothing can quench this fiery love when this love has been burned into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.!!!!
- Ephesians 1:13 tells us that the seal is the HOLY SPIRIT….”Having believed, you were marked in Him with a SEAL, the promised HOLY SPIRIT.”
- But what does this fire look like?....How do we know if we are BURNING with love for Him??? ….It’s pretty simple…
- LOVE ONE ANOTHER…
- THINK ABOUT THIS: How do you feel when we mention the monthly SHOUT Outreach?.... do you think, “yuck…it’s gonna be so hot”…or do you think “YES! Another opportunity to share the Gospel”?
- OR…like Pastor Donny talked about yesterday…how do you feel when you know you need to organize a few things so you can come to church on Sunday or Wednesday?.....are you excited to come to the house of God…or is it an inconvenience to you?....Do you realize that when you go to the house of God that it is not necessarily for YOU that you go…but God COMMANDS that we “do not forsake the gathering together of ourselves”…why?...because it encourages others…..it’s a way you show love to others….do you get that!!!?
- 1 John 4:7-19 gives us the pattern
- 1 John 4:7-8 “Beloved, LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER, for love is from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God IS LOVE.”
- It only stands to reason that since “God IS LOVE” and we say that we have God living in us…that we should also BE LOVE….meaning, we should also love each other…
- Jump back in 1 John to chapter 3….
- 1 John 3:16-24 “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for OUR BROTHERS. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words of tongue, but with ACTIONS and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence….and this is His command: to BELIEVE in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to LOVE ONE ANOTHER as He commanded us. Those who obey His commands live in Him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.”
- It’s really not so much for God to ask of us…to “love one another”….when we consider what He did for us…
- 1 John 4:9-10 “This is how God showed His love among us: HE SENT HIS ONE AND ONLY SON into the world that we might live through Him. THIS IS LOVE: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
- So ….it only makes sense….that with all that God did for us, by giving His One and Only begotten Son….that we should do what He has commanded us to do in the next verses…
- 1 John 4:11-12 “Beloved, since God so loved us, we also ought to LOVE ONE ANOTHER. No one has ever seen God; but if we LOVE ONE ANOTHER, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.”
- THINK ABOUT IT: Our God, who is NOT SEEN….is CLEARLY SEEN when WE express love for one another in Jesus!
- EX: painting fingernails and massaging little girls hands in Africa who NEVER have someone who even wants to TOUCH them….that is making an UNSEEN God be SEEN to them…
- EX: building a church building in Kenya for a Pastor that other pastors had ridiculed and told him he was a parasite…a pastor that wouldn’t give up because he knew he was doing what God wanted him to do…so he prayed…and Americans showed up with $10,000 to buy land and build his congregation a building for the glory of God…THAT is making an UNSEEN God become SEEN to his enemies…
- EX: It’s going to SHOUT Apartment Outreach every month to meet physical needs and to feed people and to love on kids…
- EX: it’s teaching the kids in Sunday School, HERE’S A BIG ONE: giving someone your seat at church, hugging someone who is new at church, talking to the check-out ladies at Wal Mart and encouraging them….
- 1 John 4:13-17 “We know that we live in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. GOD IS LOVE. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence in this world we are like Him.”
- THINK ABOUT IT: How did Jesus live in this world? How was he treated, and how did He treat others? How did He respond to hatred and cruelty of those that despised him? What was His attitude toward the sinner?
- I am sooooooooooooooooooooooo not there yet!!!! ….Just last week I was fed up with “people”…we, of course, had to come back home to hear that “this person did this and that person did that” while we were gone…..and I was like “really?... how retarded, what the heck”….LOVE was not what was exuding from my every pore….(if you get what I mean!)…..so I had to repent and ask God to forgive me for my attitude…..
- God commands us to forgive those that hate us, and to pray for our enemies. He wants us to SACRIFICE our time, feelings, and material possessions as an increasing expression of LOVE to each other and to the world.
- We can ONLY do this with God’s help!!!!! On our own it is IMPOSSIBLE…that’s why His love has to BURN within us!!!...We have to ASK Him for the ability to love as Jesus loved and then we have to ACT on it!
- 1 John 4:18-19 “There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out all fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because He first loved us.”
- If we are CONITNUALLY expressing the love of God though our lives…there is no place for fear. Fear comes in only when we have stopped loving…when we have stopped living a life of love toward others.
- FEAR: a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; concern or anxiety!
- Isn’t that exactly what happens when you STOP LOVING CONTINUALLY…you begin to be become distressed, concerned and anxious!?
- But look what Jesus tells us….
- John 15:10 “If you OBEY MY COMMANDS, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love.”
- To love God is to Love His Son…to love Jesus is to love one another, even for the “least of them”…this is something that we do from the heart…with HIS help……this is FAITH working through LOVE…..it is FAITH with WORKS……it is a continual walk of obedience…..it is a BURNING PASSION for God
- 1 Corinthians 13:1 “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, BUT DIDN’T LOVE OTHERS, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”
- The “loving others” part is pretty important….and we can’t “do that” unless we are really BURNING with love for God!
- Matthew 25:31-40 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, “Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me: I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.” Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, “Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You? And the King will answer and say to them, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”
- The Holy Spirit causes this BURNING LOVE for God to be in us…..we also can receive this FIRE OF LOVE by meditating on God’s Word….
- Just like it happened to the disciples on the road to Emmaus….as Jesus was revealing the WORD OF GOD to them…their hearts started BURNING WITHIN THEM…
- Luke 24:32 “Were not our hearts BURNING WITHIN us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
- Scripture can set our hearts on fire because it IS FIRE ITSELF!!
- Jeremiah 20:9 But if I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name, “His WORD is in my heart LIKE A FIRE, a FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”
- Jeremiah said these words after being severely ridiculed for his preaching. He was trying to keep God’s word to himself…but he couldn’t help but to speak and proclaim God’s Word because it was burning inside of him!
- Then, almost 700 years later…Peter and John were preaching the WORD of God and the priests and Sadducees got super mad at what they were teaching…so they threw them into prison and told them not to preach anymore…check out how Peter and John answered them…
- Acts 4:19-20 “But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, judge ye: for we CANNOT BUT SPEAK the things which we saw and heard.”
- DO YOU SEE THIS???...It seems that Jeremiah, Peter, and John had something that we need more of…FIRE WITHIN!!!
- That FIRE was the Word of God….
- John 1:1 “In the beginning was the WORD and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”………………………………..remember the Scripture we read earlier that said “Our God is a consuming Fire”???.....soooooooooooooo….the Word was God and God is Fire…so the Word is FIRE
- Why did men like Jeremiah, Peter, and John HAVE to speak the Word of God out LOUD….why did they HAVE to preach the Good News?????......
- Jeremiah had a fire burning within because he cared for the lost souls of men – he cared about their eternal destiny.
- How concerned are we about our unsaved friends and family?... Do we hurt knowing that millions are dying without the Gospel…here in our own backyard and around the world in Africa?... Are we just going to sit by while our friends and relatives die in sin…or will we have the FIRE BURNING within?
- With everything that God asks us to do…there is ALWAYS a benefit for US….check out what James wrote in James 5:20…“ he who converts a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.”…………..what an amazing promise for us…FORGIVENESS!
- Again in 1 Peter 4:8 “ Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.”
- When we go to meet Jesus…it’s not gonna matter to us how much “stuff” we had while we were here on earth…but how many people we were able to lead to Jesus…how many souls we saved from death!
- Now, back to what we were talking about……
- Read on down to John 1:4 “In Him was life, and that life was the LIGHT OF MEN.”
- When we think about God being a “consuming fire” we mainly think of His judgment…and that is one side of it….but the other side of FIRE is that it gives us light and life!!!!!
- THINK ABOUT IT: It is the same in the natural…What is our source of light here on earth?...it is the SUN…and what is the sun???...it is a great BALL OF FIRE…it is not only our source of LIGHT here on earth, but of LIFE…we couldn’t live here if the sun was even a tiny bit further away or closer to us…so the sun, a great ball of FIRE, can either be a source of life…or it could be destruction…
- Just like in the SPIRITUAL….God is FIRE….this fire is either our life and light OR it is our destruction…..
- The WORD is FIRE…it should burn with in us…the Word of God was never meant to stay as words written on a page…they are words of FIRE…to be written on our hearts….
- As we PRAY and MEDITATE on the Word of God and as we ask the HOLY SPIRIT …the WORD will become FIRE in our hearts
- THINK ABOUT IT THIS WAY: remember when you were a kid…or in Science class…did you ever take a magnifying glass and go out in the sun and use the heat from the sun to concentrate it on the grass, or on a poor ant, to fry it??...... this is what happens when we concentrate or meditate on the Word of God…as we meditate on the Word and direct it towards our hearts…it will IGNITE and BURN in our hearts
- We are supposed to be THE BURNING ONES!!!!
- We always seem to talk about the fact that we are supposed to be like Jesus says in Matthew 5:14 “You are the lights of the world”
- Jesus talked about John the Baptist and said in John 5:35 “John was a LAMP that BURNED and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.”……………John BURNED!!!!
- Check this out…..Acts 5:15 “They brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the SHADOW of Peter passing by might fall on some of them.”
- If you look up the word “shadow” in the original Greek it says it was an “OUTSHINING” that came from Peter…somehow that “outshining” was translated as “shadow”…but a more correct way to phrase it is “light shining our from him”…..Peter BURNED TOO!
- We’ve talked about this next verse before….but apparently there is really something to us being BURNING ONES….
- Matthew 25 talks about the Parable of the 10 Virgins…”At the time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their LAMPS and went out to meet their bridegroom.”
- The wise virgins had OIL in their lamps…OIL symbolizes the Holy Spirit…..why did they need oil?...... so the FLAME OF LOVE could burn in their lamps!!!!!.....THINK ABOUT IT: if you had OIL (Holy Spirit), then you BURNED!!!!
- Look what Daniel 12:3 says…”Those who are wise will SHINE like the brightness of the heavens….”
- Isaiah 60:1-3 tells us about the end of the age when darkness is covering the earth…”Arise, SHINE, for your LIGHT has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.