This morning we are completing our week of prayer and fasting. For me this week has been tremendous. While it is been a time of challenge, no doubt, and it has also been a time of refreshing. Not only for me, but for many of you that have participated with me this past week. It is such a blessing to dedicate a special time of prayer and fasting to the Lord. Really it is setting the table for seeing God move in a greater way in our lives.
One thing that this past week has done is to reignite my passion for God. This passion has energized my life. When you have little to no passion it seems like everything can become boring or monotonous. Passion is what takes an ordinary Christian and turns him or her into a powerful witness for the Lord! A believer, that blazes trails, a believer that moves mountains!
You may have never heard of the runner, Roger Bannister. He was from Great Brittan. Roger was able to accomplish something that no runner was able to do prior to him. It was popular opinion back in the 1940’s that it was humanly impossible to run a marathon and break the 4 minute mile average barrier. They said the body could not do it. Roger set out to break this barrier. Roger worked to intensify his training by doing hard intervals. After several years of training, on May 6th, 1954, Roger Bannister broke the sub 4 mile average for a marathon. Part of Roger’s training was to visualize this achievement.
While it is amazing what Roger Bannister was able to achieve because of his passion for running and breaking a sub 4 mile average for a marathon, it is one that faded. Six weeks later a runner by the name of John Landy beat Roger’s record by two tenths of a second.
As I look at the status of our culture, it is evident to me that the passion for God has become almost obsolete. People seem to be passionate about everything but God. They are passionate about sports, clothing, food, and politics more than they are about God. So how did we get here? And how can we change? We are going to answer these two important questions this morning.
I. How did I get here?
A. Priorities
a. To answer our first question, of how or why we lose our passion for God.
b. We do not have to look any further than our daily schedule.
c. Where are we spending our time?
i. We all have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 52 weeks a year. Where we spend our time, is a good indicator on what is important to us.
d. Well intentioned believers, lose their passion for God because the busyness of life takes over, and they begin whether intentionally or not to place other things ahead of their relationship with God.
e. The bible says in Matthew 6:33(NKJV) 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
f. If we have fallen into the enemies trap, we need to recalibrate our lives. Let’s move forward and make God our priority in 2020 and beyond.
B. Unresolved conflict with people
a. Another way we lose our passion for God, is to have unresolved conflict with others.
b. Everyone encounters conflict. Whether that conflict is with a spouse, a co-worker, a family member or a friend.
c. How do we handle this conflict? Do we take the high road? Do we work to quickly resolve this conflict?
i. It may be that in order to resolve this conflict that you may need to go and apologize to someone.
d. Let me say this, unresolved conflict has the ability to drain our passion and excitement for God.
e. Really there are three emotions that can kill our passion for God. They are: resentment, jealousy and unresolved conflict.
f. Unresolved conflict just seems to linger and linger. If left unchecked, this unresolved conflict will lead to bitterness towards the other person and also toward God.
g. One sure fire way to resolve this conflict is to humble yourself. The bible says in James 4:10 (NKJV)10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
C. Not using the gifts that God has given you
a. While unresolved conflict is a passion stealer, so is not using the gifts that God has given to you for the kingdom.
b. We all have talents and gifts that vary in degree and size. While those talents may seem small in our eyes they are not in God’s eyes. Even if we use just the little that we have, God can multiply it.
i. Just look at the little boy that gave his lunch. In his eyes, it was not much, it was just a lunch. Yet, Jesus turned around and was able to take and multiple that gift and feed five thousand people.
c. The bible says in 1 Peter 4:10(NKJV) 10 As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
d. Use the gifts that God has given to you. Do not bury them, do not hide them, do not be lazy, step out in faith and watch God work!
D. No vision
a. Another major stealer of passion for God, is to not have a vision for your life.
b. Remember the story, that I shared earlier about Roger Bannister?, he envisioned himself breaking that record.
c. Really when you look at vision, it goes hand and hand with passion. To have a life with purpose is vital!
d. A life without a purpose, is like an activity without any direction. It is pointless!
e. When we have a clear purpose a clear vision, this vision will be a source of inspiration.
f. Further, to be clear, our vision as a believer is not something that we have come up with, rather, it come directly from God.
E. Other passion stealers
a. There are many other things that can steal our passion for God that we will not get into this morning but I would like to mention:
i. Comparing yourself to others
ii. Complaining
iii. Gossip
iv. Living your life in the past
v. Seeking approval and acceptance of others
vi. And growing complacent to name a few
II. Reignite your passion
A. Get back to the basics
a. Now that we recognize that our passion for God has waned in our lives, we can then do something about it.
b. The first step may not seem all that profound, yet it is. It is return to our first love
c. The church in Ephesus had labored for God, they had been patient and were standing up to evil in their time. Yet when God gave John a vision on the island of Patmos in the book of Revelation. God had something to share with this church.
d. We pick up Jesus words to the church in Revelation 2: 4 which says 4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.
e. Our first step to getting back to being passionate for God, starts at the cross. Getting back to our roots and our love for Jesus.
f. Letting go of all our past failures, letting go of disappointment in ourselves. Repenting of these sins and getting back to our first love. Jesus!
B. Reading the Word
a. Secondly, we reignite our passion for God by getting back to regular Bible reading.
b. This goes without saying, but let me say this: God’s word is powerful! (repeat)
c. God’s Word is alive and active. It penetrates our hearts and lives. It reveals to us our true intentions.
d. It accomplishes what it was sent forth to do, it encourages us, challenges us, disciples us.
e. Truly, God’s Word is His love letter to mankind.
i. It helps us to understand who God is and who we are in Him!
f. We need to be intentional of spending time in the Word every single day. We need to Read It! Memorize It! Study It! Pray It! And Share It!
C. Cultivating an active prayer life
a. Thirdly, which goes hand and hand with reading the Word is to spending time in prayer every day.
b. This past week we have spent in prayer and fasting which has been a tremendous blessing.
c. As a church, part of our vision is to be a house of prayer. Not only is this applicable for our church, but also, as individuals we need to be a people of prayer.
d. It interesting to note that there are three elements that are needed for a fire: fuel, oxygen and a spark.
e. If the bible is our fuel, then following Christ is our spark, and the oxygen is our prayer life.
f. If we are not praying, then we are losing much needed “spiritual” oxygen.
g. I love what Ephesians 6:18(NKJV) 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints
D. Getting rid of pet sins in our lives
a. Another way we get more passionate about God is to get rid of pet sins in our lives.
b. The bible says in Hebrews 12:1 (NKJV) Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us
c. Christians will remain forever immature because they do not let go of lustful habits and addictions in their lives.
d. We all need to do some spring cleaning in our hearts and dig out any roots of bitterness or ungodliness in our lives.
e. Once we are freed from these pet sins, we will have a pure thought life, our motives will be purely holy, our attitudes will be godly, and our consciences will be clear.
f. The bible teaches us in 1 Thessalonians not to quench the Spirit. In other words, Do not extinguishes the Spirits flame in your life.
g. Keep your eye on the prize. This life will eventually fade away and only what we do for Christ will last the test of time.
E. Evangelism
a. Lastly, leading others to Christ is a sure fire way we can reignite our passion for God.
b. Almost nothing reignites our passion for God more quickly than leading an unbeliever to the Savior.
c. When we step out of timidity and fear of what others may think and talk about Jesus at our jobs, to servers at restaurants, strangers in the community, our spiritual temperature rises.
d. Jesus commanded us to go into all the world and to share the good news with others.
e. Really the entire purpose of Jesus ministry, His life is revealed to us in the book of Luke 19:10(NKJV) where Jesus shares with us these words -10 for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
f. If it was Jesus mission, then truly it should be our life mission. Amen!!!!
g. So get your fishing poles ready church! Cause we are going fishing for some lost people! Amen!
*Invite Worship team
Closing:
As we conclude our sermon this morning, and our week of prayer and fasting. I trust that this week has reinvigorated you, that it has reignited your passion for God, and His mission for you! Remember when you first got saved and the excitement that you had for the Lord. Let us get back to that! Let us move forward this year with a renewed passion for reaching the lost in our community. Let us move forward with a renewed passion to see God working and moving in our church, and in our community. I leave you with a bible verse found in the book of James. I am sharing from: “The Passion Translation” of James 5:16 (TPT) 16 Confess and acknowledge how you have offended one another and then pray for one another to be instantly healed, for tremendous power is released through the passionate, heartfelt prayer of a godly believer!
