Sunday Night: MY PASSION
Place: BLCC
Date: 4/23/17
Text: John 4.16-26
CT: We are to worship God always with everything.
FAS: Passion-any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.
That is what the dictionary said about passion.
What are you passionate about?
Your spouse?
Your job?
Your car?
Your hobby?
Your music?
Pick out what you are passionate about. Maybe it is a cause. Abortion? Poverty?
Any thing that begins to control the way we act and what we do becomes a passion.
Is this good or bad? Depends on what you claim to be passionate about. There are definitely passions that are not good for us.
When I was younger I have to say farming and keeping our family farms together was my greatest passion. Was I passionate about my beautiful wife? Yes, but I often put the farm ahead of her and my kids. Not too smart on my part. The farm was my life. My passion for it was overwhelming and ran my life. Nothing else mattered as long as the farm was doing OK.
I lived this way for far too long I must admit.
My passion was so misplaced that something had to happen for my life to get on the right track. Thank God it did.
Luckily my brother invited me to take part in an Easter cantata. Since I enjoyed music I agreed. I had no idea how much that one act would change my life. My passion began to change. Oh it took years before my new passion would win out but it started with that one cantata where I met Jesus for real and he became king of my heart. I began leading worship at church mainly because I could sing well. But doing it made me change.
I truly began to follow Jesus and his commands became clearer and clearer to me. Love God, love people and realize it is not about you. I actually remember where I was standing when this realization came to me. I became so passionate about leading the church in worship. I read or watched anything that would help me better understand what worship leading was all about in the eyes of God. I lead the worship team for about twelve years until one day I realized God had more in store for my passion.
At 50 years old I came up with the bright idea to be a preacher. Yea laugh if you want. You would have if you knew where I came from. I was a farmer who knew nothing about writing sermons and pastoring people in the ways of God. I hated English class in college and now I was deciding to write and speak in front of people every week.
But passion can make you do strange things. I went back to school. Got my masters in three years. They gave you seven to do it, but my passion had kicked in. I knew God wanted me to preach the Good News of His Son.
Then Blue Licks came along and it wasn’t easy. I was pretty comfortable at the church I had been a member of for 54 years. But I decided after much prayer and talking with my wife to go to Blue Licks, a little church just down the road.
There were those who didn’t like me or my approach and my enthusiasm for God. But my passion was stronger than all those who pushed back. Many joined me in my passion and we grew. My passion and my love for my Lord will not allow me to ever give up on sharing His Word with others. Even when they may not want to hear or even be around me anymore. I am privileged to be in my fourth year at BLCC.
My passion is to be God’s servant and serve among a great group of servants like here at this church.
Well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. But there was another story in the Bible about passion and what it can cause people to do. Read John 4.4-26:
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
Jesus had just gone against what all the Jewish religious people would have done. He talked to a Samaritan woman. Definitely a no do, for a good Jewish man. But Jesus didn’t care about their concerns about this woman. He saw her as a child lost and needing God. Same way we should view all people.
Jesus talked to her and started a relationship with this Samaritan woman.
He offered the living water that would quench her thirst forever.
Something stirred in this woman and she desired to know about this living water.
But her passion had always been for worldly things. She had been through five husbands and was living with one who was not her husband now.
Jesus called her on it and she tried to change the subject.
Jesus described to her what real worship was. It was not a place. It was the spirit in which we worship. We worship with our whole lives.
The woman than said I know the Christ is coming.
Jesus looked at her and told her that “he” was the one she was looking for.
How would this change this woman?
Would her passion change?
Would she abandon her earthly ways and seek to follow this man who was offering the living water.
John 4: we read on.
27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
What a change of passion. It happened so fast she left her jar. She ran to tell everyone of the Messiah she had just met. A whole town came out to see this Jesus. This woman had just evangelized to her whole town and many Samaritans were brought to Jesus.
Her passion was no longer for the world, but her passion was now with the one who gave her the living water. She was beginning to understand what Jesus meant by our worship being in spirit and our whole life was to be worship.
When the Spirit indwells in your heart and you know Jesus’ overflowing love, worship is not something you do weekly or only during special holy seasons. Worship is a lifestyle. It is not something you do. It is who you are.
You can worship Jesus no matter what you do. Washing dishes. Mowing the yard. Driving to work. Whatever you do becomes worship if it is done for His glory.
Worship is showing daily that Jesus is number one in your life.
There are two things a true worshipper must possess.
1) Must be filled with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit lives in the heart of the worshipper who confesses Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Jesus is always reflected by what they say and do.
2) Must be committed to the truth. There must be a commitment to and love of the Word of God. (1)
Does the Spirit dwell in you?
Is there anything in your life you value more than Him?
Do you rely on His Word to know the truth of right and wrong in your day to day life?
Let Jesus have first place in your life today.
Abide in Him and he will abide in you.
Draw near to Him and he will draw near to you.
Honor Him and he will honor you.
You will be worshipping and praising the One who showed you His unfailing love at the cross.
God is worthy to receive our worship and praise.
He created all things and they still exist because he loves his creation.
When you realize all these things your passion will be for Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
May only He be glorified in all I say and do.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: (1) Chadwick, David. Hearing the Voice of God: he knows you, he loves you, he's always with you. Place of publication not identified: Harvest House Pub, 2016. Print.
