Wasted Passion
Sunday, January 06, 2008 - AM
Pastor Jim May
What are you passionate about this morning? Every one of us is passionate about something. Passion can be defined in a number of ways but what it all comes down to is this:
What is it that compels you to get up and get moving?
What do you desire most of all in your life?
What is it that consumes your time, demands your love and grabs your attention?
What is the driving force in your heart and life that gives your life meaning?
What do you want that is so important to you that you are willing to spend each breath and trade your life to obtain it?
If you can tell me the answers to these questions, then you will know what your real passions are.
I am speaking to people right now who are passionate. But the thing that strikes me is that sometimes people are passionate about something that won’t be worth the price they are paying in the end.
Right now we are in the playoff season for football in America. Tomorrow night there is going to be a final game for the national championship title down in New Orleans at the Superdome. People have spent millions upon millions of dollars just to satisfy their passion for football. There may not be food on the table for the next month; the car note or house note may fall behind – but they are going to be in the stands come game time.
Why are they willing to put everything on hold to be at that ball game? It’s because football or sports in general, is their passion. It’s the love of their life and it’s what seems to give their lives meaning. We don’t call them passionate though. We call them “fans”, short for “fanatics”. You have to be passionate to pay the prices that are being asked for tickets, and yet the game will be a sell out. Tickets are going anywhere from $686 each for the nose-bleed seats, where you need a pair of binoculars to see the players on the field, to $4243 for seats on the sideline. Personally, I could think of a lot of things I’d rather do with that much money, but then sports has never been one of my passions.
There are a lot of things that you can be passionate about. Perhaps you are passionate about cars, fascinated by their inner workings, and you can’t seem to get enough of Hot Rods, fast cars and drag strips. You may not be willing to spend your money going to a football game, but you’d give anything to be in Indianapolis, Daytona or Talladega to hear them say, “Gentlemen, start your engines” and hear the roar as the cars scream past the stands on the fastest racetracks in the world.
Maybe your passion is reading books. You can’t wait for the next trip to Barnes and Noble, and whatever the newest and hottest book is, you’re going to be first in line to get it. Stephen King, Tommy Tenny, John Grisham and Agatha Christie are among your greatest heroes.
Maybe your passion is the latest and greatest video computer game such as Xbox 360, Playstation 3 or the Nintendo Wii. Your central focus in life is to have the fastest and the best, with the most popular games on the market. Your life is consumed in front of a screen, living in an imaginary world, living out fantasies created in the minds of software engineers and computer programmers. Wii fanatics have been known to stand in line for over 36 hours to get their dream fulfilled.
Maybe your passion is Television or the Movies. I know one man whose entire life is consumed with movies. You can’t name a movie he doesn’t have, from the silent films to the latest one out. He has more money tied up in movies than any of us here have tied up in our home. Movies are his passion. Is it yours too? Can you tell me when “Spiderwick Chronicles” or “Jumper” are going to be released into the theaters? If not, then movies aren’t your passion.
What about the TV; is that your passion?
What happening to Michael on Prison Break? He’s going to get a taste of solitary confinement in a Panamanian jail.
What about Alex on Grey’s Anatomy? What’s he up to. Well get ready for him to heal a faith healer.
And what about one of the dumbest shows on the TV called “The Office”. Michael is going to be deposed as a witness when his former girlfriend Jan sues the company. Now there’s an episode you don’t want to miss!
And finally, don’t miss CSI-NY this week or you’ll never know why a woman was crushed while wearing red shoes, and why the CSI team from New York will actually be in Kansas. Now, if you didn’t know all this was coming up, then you aren’t really passionate about TV!
Maybe your passion is boats, or music, or taking road trips or something else. Your passion could be just about anything or anyone.
The point of all this is that whatever your passion is, you need to make sure that you are getting what you paid for, and that the reward you are getting is worth price you are paying.
I have seen people spend their life, their time, their money and their energy on things that just don’t matter in the end. Really now, what difference will it make in your life one day after the national championships are over? What difference will it make in your life if Jeff Gordon wins the race? Will that put anything in your pocket? Sure, you will gain a moment of euphoria, a few minutes of entertainment, but then it’s back to the realities of life. What real difference does it make in the end?
Isaiah 55:2, "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness."
I know that people have a need for entertainment. I don’t think that there is a sin in liking any of the things that I have talked about. But what does concern me greatly is when I see people whose entire lives are focused on things that won’t benefit them eternally.
This life is short, but eternity is forever. We focus on what gives pleasure and satisfies the flesh and we forget the things of God that determine our eternal destiny.
The Word of God teaches us that we should be passionate about the same things that Jesus is passionate about. What is Jesus passionate about?
He was passionate about disciplining himself and being faithful to his purpose. He knew the Word. He is the Word. He used that word against the devil when Satan tried to draw him off center and get his focus on the things of the world during those days of temptation in the wilderness.
He was passionate about teaching and training his disciples. He taught them and lived an example before them whether it was one or two at a time, or the whole group. Wherever he went Jesus was teaching.
Jesus was passionate about seeking and saving the lost, and then showing them how to live godly in this sinful world.
The Bible says in Luke 19:10, "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." There we can see the singular most important passion of Jesus. He loved the world so much that he came to give himself for us that we could be saved.
Jesus was the most passionate man that ever lived. He began his life with but one goal in mind and never took his eyes off the prize. His goal was to go to the cross to the perfect sacrifice for the sins of man and his prize would be the souls of those who choose to believe in Him.
Jesus death on the cross is often referred to as his “Passion”. As he hung there, between two thieve, with his life’s blood flowing from the wounds in his body, growing weaker with each passing moment, giving his life freely, he had but one thought on his mind – “YOUR eternal soul”! Jesus was passionate about you!
His passion was not wasted on anything that this world had to offer. Jesus lived in eternity and knew that the time spent on this earth was just a passing vapor. His sights were set on something vastly more important than an earthly kingdom and worldly pleasures. He knew that those things were fleeting and changing. His sights were set on things eternal, and upon the perfection of Heaven that never changes.
Where are your passions this morning? Are they set upon the things of this world or upon the things of God, and of eternity?
What do you care about the most? Is it football, or it is Jesus? Is it being entertained or is it worshipping the Lord? Is it being satisfied in the things of this world, or it is the life of a servant of the Lord?
All of us have regrets. We look back on our lives and we see so many wasted years. So many of the things that we have done in life simply do not seem to count for anything. So much of what we thought was important really didn’t matter at all.
How can you make your life count for something? What can you make your passion that will pay greatly in the end? There’s only one answer, and that answer is Jesus Christ.
Do you feel the call of God in your life – then answer the call and let that calling be your passion! If you are called to teach, then learn to be the best teacher that you can be. If you’re called to preach, then preach.
There is no greater passion in life than to be passionate about the things of God and reaching out for the souls of men.
But when it comes to being passionate about the things of God, so many people just sit back and do nothing! Do you know what it takes to end up in the flames of hell? It takes nothing – nothing at all. You will go there by default if you do nothing to change your eternal destiny.
Sports, fast cars, entertainment, movies, TV nor books can get you to Heaven. You can only go there by being passionate about Jesus Christ. You have to love Him more than anything else. You can love family, friends, husband or wife, your children and all that is wonderful. But unless you love Jesus more than any of them, you won’t make Heaven your home, because no one else can save you but Jesus.
How do you prove your passion for Christ? How can you know that you truly love him? It’s all through your commitment to service and being passionate about the same things that Jesus is passionate about.
Those that make their home in hell will do so because they didn’t do anything to prove their love for Jesus. You say you love him, then prove it by your works. How else can you prove it. Just saying it doesn’t make it true. Just claiming it doesn’t make it real. Just confessing that He is Lord, doesn’t make you saved. It takes action. It takes repentance from sin, that old self-centered, egotistical, flesh satisfying lifestyle – and then turning your focus onto serving the Lord and reaching out to those whom God loves.
Matthew 25:41-46, "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."
I get the distinct impression that these were good, church-going, law-abiding, honest people who missed Heaven simply because they didn’t do anything.
They never gave a meal to a hungry person.
They never gave a thirsty man a drink of water, either natural or spiritual.
They never fed the Word of God to a hungry soul.
They never introduced a dry, dying spirit to the Water of Life found only in Jesus.
They never led a sin-sick soul to Christ, or nursed a sick person back to health.
They never gave anyone a chance to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ, or witness to a soul that was locked away in a prison of sin and shame.
It’s not that they didn’t care; they just were too busy with life. Their passions were misplaced and their lives were spent on caring only for their own wants and needs. They never had time for a stranger. They never had time for the lost, the sick and the dying.
They just didn’t do anything to prove that they loved the Lord and his kingdom. And that failure to do anything cost them their eternal soul.
Are you passionate about Jesus? If so then prove it by your works and do those things that Jesus is calling you to do; calling us all to do.
If your life has been focused on the wrong passions, you won’t make Heaven your home. You will go where all of the other “Do Nothings” go! The price of doing nothing for Jesus is too high to pay, and yet most will be caught in that trap.
Romans 11:29, "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance."
That means that one day, we will each one have to stand face to face with God and answer for the calling upon our lives and for every time that the Word tried to reach us, the Spirit tried to lead us and the Jesus gave us the opportunity to come to him. God will not forget those times and there will be a heavy price to pay for simply doing nothing.
Will you step out into the water with Jesus? Will you wade out a little bit deeper? Will you wet your feet in the water of this love? The more you walk with the Lord, doing something to serve him, the more your life will take on a real meaning.
The reward for service is great indeed! Your faithfulness will be counted unto you as righteousness, just as it was for Abraham, and you will enter into the joys of the Lord, life eternal and Heaven’s everlasting wonder. Make sure that your passions aren’t wasted!
