Passion

Passion

Well the footy season is upon us again, and after last night I have the passion.

In fact this is the Dockers theme for this year, or question they ask of their supporters, do you have the passion.

Let me say after 6 or 7 years of supporting the Dockers you need passion, because there is not a lot of success to get excited about.

I want to talk this morning about passion, it is one of the three values our church holds dearly, purposeful, authentic and passionate.

You see without passion in your life, there is not much life. Without a passion to live, to succeed, to have significance to achieve something you might end up living your life without meaning.

So the important question to ask ourselves this morning is, what gets us passionate, what gets us out of our seats yelling and screaming, shouting, what gets us down on our knees crying our eyes out, what gets us so mad we could start a bushfire with our eyes, what gets us so happy we could light up the room.

I go to the footy, you all know that, and to see 35,000 aussies screaming and yelling is great, you feel part of something.

But you know once you walk out of the stadium, back to your car, and maybe have sung the song, its over. It does not mean much in the real world, in real life, its just a lovely escape actually from life.

It is not a life giving passion.

Listen to this from Psalm 42

As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and stand before him? Day and night, I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, "Where is this God of yours?" My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be: I walked among the crowds of worshipers, leading a great procession to the house of God, singing for joy and giving thanks-- it was the sound of a great celebration!

Can we picture something of the psalmist from that story, people are laughing at him, taunting him, where’s God you loser, he’s crying, he cant eat, he is so distressed, he cant put food into his mouth, all he does is cry all day.

I remember what it used to be like, there were stacks of people and we were all going to the temple, to the house of God. Singing, a great celebration,

Listen a group of people walked to church and a riot broke out, a group of people went up to the temple to sing and praise God and a riot broke out, that is what it used to be like.

Can you hear the passion echoing down through the book, through the words?

Lets have a look at the story in Acts, chapter 2.

The book of Acts was written after Jesus had returned to heaven, in fact it tells that story at the start, how He rises up and says don’t sweat it that I have gone, because the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you, and you are going to be filled with power, and you will preach the gospel to the ends of the earth.

The Holy Spirit comes and they are filled with passion to tell people about Jesus. Remember this group of people before this had been scared, hiding in the upper room, running away from Jesus, denying they even knew Him.

Now as we get to chapter two we read about Peter preaching to the crowd.

29"Dear brothers, think about this! David wasn’t referring to himself when he spoke these words I have quoted, for he died and was buried, and his tomb is still here among us. 30But he was a prophet, and he knew God had promised with an oath that one of David’s own descendants would sit on David’s throne as the Messiah. 31David was looking into the future and predicting the Messiah’s resurrection. He was saying that the Messiah would not be left among the dead and that his body would not rot in the grave.

32"This prophecy was speaking of Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, and we all are witnesses of this. 33Now he sits on the throne of highest honor in heaven, at God’s right hand. And the Father, as he had promised, gave him the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us, just as you see and hear today. 34For David himself never ascended into heaven, yet he said, `The LORD said to my Lord,

Sit in honor at my right hand 35 until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet.’[f] 36So let it be clearly known by everyone in Israel that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified to be both Lord and Messiah!"