Difference Makers have the RIGHT….
Acts 16:1-15
Do you know anyone who cannot sit still? They always have to be doing something. Even when sitting, their motor is running [leg shaking]!
The Apostle Paul was like that…he always had to be preaching or witnessing or discipling or visiting. He could have settled down comfortably in the large church at Antioch, but he didn’t…not as long as there were more people who needed to be reached, he had “itchy feet.”
He didn’t view the church as a parking lot, but as a launching pad!
This is the beginning of Paul’s 2nd Missionary journey. Here we will see that Difference Makers have the RIGHT……
1. Passion.
a. Everyone has a passion for something
i. Sports
ii. Politics
iii. Justice
b. Paul had the right passion for Evangelism
i. Entheos= In GOD
ii. 1 Cor 9:16: Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!
iii. Paul had a passion for the lost because of Jesus Christ
iv. We cannot have what we have not received.
c. Some Sleep
i. When we do not have a passion for the lost we are spiritually asleep
ii. Jonah, Samson, Peter, James, and John (in the Garden)
iii. We sleep like this when we are unconcerned or become too comfortable.
1. We say we are going to pray, but we do not
2. When we think we know enough Bible
3. When we think we do not need to be here
The crew of the Titanic received several messages warning them about the icebergs. They became complacent, caught up in the festivities. They ignored the warnings, they were criminally complacent. Yet something greater is coming, something more devastating than the sinking of a ship, are we heeding the warning and warning others, or will be found criminally complacent in the eyes of God?
2. Priority
a. Keeping the main thing the main thing.
b. Why are we here?
c. WE are here to BUILD HIS KINGDOM
Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, “If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap into hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish w/ our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, let not one go there unwarned and unsprayed for.”
Ezekiel 3:18ff
18 When I say to a wicked man, `You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. 19 But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.
There is a lot of emphasis on packaging today. Marketing experts say that if they can package it right they can sell anything. We package the message in the best wrapping possible, we are to package it in LOVE.
What can Jesus’ critics say? He was mad, He was demon possessed, and so on. What they could not deny was HIS LOVE.
We can have the right priority, the right passion and the right message, but if we have not love, we have nothing.
1 Cor 13:1ff
1CO 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Have the right passion, the right message and the right priority, and empower them with LOVE.
