We have an exciting move of God in our life…we climb the mountain and meet with the Lord…then we climb down and things just don’t seem to feel the same…something is missing…our heart is not as hot for the things of God…We can feel a cold breeze blowing in…and we begin to question my experience. Do you know what I am talking about? Do you realize we can be in the midst of revival, something that is happening here at Ballard right now, and yet not experience the full impact, or even an impact at all of what God is doing.
In Matthew 22 the Sadducees and Pharisees had come to Jesus and the Sadducees who taught there was no resurrection after one died brought this question to him while he was with the crowds. Jesus gave a masterful answer which astonished the crowd and silenced the Sadducees. At this, the Pharisees gathered together, no doubt talking over what kind of question they could ask to trip Jesus up. Finally they sent forward one of their experts in the law and we pick up the dialogue at verse 36: Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
Lets digress for a moment. In the Old Testament Moses was given the 10 commandments from God. Jesus, understanding our modern society, gave us the Readers Digest version, the Two Commandments. In Readers Digest they condense the book down so you know the whole book without having to read the whole book. Well the two commandments Jesus gave here in Matthew, the condensed version, if you follow them, will also lead you to following the other 8 without having to carry them around. Remember, the Bible says Jesus came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. I think WE NEED TO GET BACK TO GOOD OLD FASHION LIVING HOLY TO GOD, don’t you? It has become so laid back living here on earth I think at times we have forgotten we have been seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. We need to get back to where Jesus means everything to us. I do not live in the muck of the world, I have been seated in heavenly places which are located up the trash…can someone say Amen!
We have become so concerned about our horizontal relationships we have forgotten what it means to live in the vertical. We are practicing Jesus second command, to love our neighbors, our horizontal relationships we have neglected the first commandment, to Love the Lord our God, our vertical relationship. We spend more time on the horizontal but can I tell you, if you have your vertical relationship with God working, the horizontal relationships will stabilize themselves. If my plane is not going up, it doesn’t matter how horizontal how level the plane is, it is still going to go down. Your friends might be able to give you a lift from time to time, but they are not going to be there 24 hours a day to keep you up. Have you had friends come over and you have a great time, and then when they are gone, you have a let down? Jesus is on duty day and night, never closes His doors, seven days a week, always lifting, always carrying your burdens, always available when you call on Him.
Can I tell you, when you get vertical, when you become radical for Jesus, watch out because there is an impact which happens all around you. People look and take notice. Years ago before I became vertical, I use to tell vertical people, “You can get so heavenly minded you will be of no earthly good.” Have you ever said that? Well, I have a revelation for you tonight. Before I knew Jesus I wasn’t of any earthly good anyway. People we need to keep serving Jesus, we need to be radical for Him and when we get in the flow, we will not have to worry about our love growing cold. I was not born, you were not born, to be of any earthly good. When I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I was born into the Kingdom of God to live in heavenly places not dwelling which have been built my man. Remember the sisters Mary and Martha? Martha came to Jesus complaining because Mary was not running around the house dusting things off and Jesus said that was okay because Mary was doing the greatest work in the world, sitting at the feet of Jesus. Loving the Lord thy God with everything that is within us. Mary was establishing the vertical relationship first, then the housework would get done. If the greatest thing is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind, then the greatest sin in the world must be to not do it. If you want to keep the fires burning, keep your vertical relationship with the Lord strong and then we will do some radical things for God.
David said he desired for his inward parts to dwell in truth, yet I think it would be fair to say we spend more time dwelling in the outer parts. We are concerned what people see and what they perceive how we are observed and because of this it is probably fair to say many times we put on a show even in the church. We have learned the right words to say to make someone think by our outer actions we are involved in a deep vertical relationship with God. I hope you understand what I am saying.
When I was a youth pastor I watched young people one year throw thousands of dollars worth of stuff away…students who had gone to a Christian school, leaders in their youth groups, yet God got a hold of them concerning the vertical and they decided it was time to stop playing church and start being the church, it was time to love God with all their heart, soul and mind.
I think it would be fair to say we want to fulfill every commandment but these two except when it is convenient.
Romans 8:6, The mind of sinful man is death; but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.
Philippians 3:19: Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is in earthly things. Another way to put it is that they desire what they see rather than desiring who God is. Verse 20 says to Christians, But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Peter and John came across a lame man begging for money and Peter told him to look at him. The lame man, to receive his healing did not look at the horizontal relationships around him, they were people in need just like him. No he had to look up to Peter who was looking up to Jesus and there he received his healing, walking and leaping and praising God. Don’t let your love grow cold by the conditions around you…church look up, your deliverance is at hand!
At the end of Acts 4, Barnabas sold a field and bought the money to the apostles. Barnabas was living in a vertical relationship with God. In chapter 5 another man, Ananias had seen what Barnabas had done and he decided to do the same except he was making an outward motion to have the people believe he was living in the vertical when he was not. He arrived before the apostles, had checked things out to make sure he did it like Barnabas, but didn’t expect someone with the spirit of wisdom and revelation to be in the room. Peter told him he was hold back on God, now none of us would hold anything back from God would we? Peter exposed his heart. How do I know. He strutted in all cool as a cucumber having everyone think he was in a vertical relationship, but left in the horizontal. He died and they carried him out.
Simon saw the power of God demonstrated through the laying on of hands. The Bible says he believed, was baptized yet in his heart he wanted the power of God for his personal gain. Peter told him to get his priorities right because he was still living in the horizontal.
Listen, you can’t buy the anointing of God. You cannot pay God off with tithes and offerings. The anointing is not bought, it is not taught, it is caught, and you catch it when you are in a vertical love relationship with Jesus.
Matthew 24 talks about the end times and what will cause the love of God to grow cold. Verse 10: At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. In the Wycliff translation it says in verse 12, Iniquity shall be plenteous. Martin Luther said Iniquity shall take an upper hand. This is one of the greatest prophecies now being fulfilled in our lifetime. The majority of the people’s love shall grow cold. It isn’t that the love is lost, people still talk about their relationship with Jesus, they say they know him, it is just that the love has grown cold. Cold for souls, cold for evangelism, cold for ministry, cold for reading the Bible, cold for Christianity, cold for the church, cold for attending church functions.
And when your love grows cold, it produces an awareness of the horizontal. The word iniquity means to be bent or crooked. It is the tendency to do wrong, and we have so many choices today because iniquity has been multiplied and there are so many distractions to keep us from Jesus. Waxing cold means to breathe cool by blowing, or by a poisonous wind. And so the love of many is waxing cold toward God.
In Acts 2m when the Day of Pentecost had come, a sound like the blowing of a violent mighty wind came from heaven and filled the entire house, tongues of fire were seen, people were ignited with passion, they were not their own, they were bought with a price and they were willing to die to serve God in ministry and many did die. But the Bible warns of another win that is blowing today, a wind of false prophets who will deceive many.
The candles which were once dripping with hot wax for Jesus have been blown cold. We have winds of false doctrine blowing from the north, south, east and west it is enough to make one dizzy. What has happened to the day when we said we would not move until God came down and touched us? Because of our iniquity Satan has broadened our options and we have become so preoccupied with the horizontal relationships of life we don’t even have time for a testimony, to pray and fast, to seek God.
David said in Psalm 51, wash away all my iniquities and cleanse me from my sin. David, who had sinned with Bathsheba said I do not want to be identified with the option of iniquity anymore, I want to return to my first love and do right. Lets look at Psalm 40:11-13 (READ). David said here that because of his iniquities he could not lift his head up, he could not be in a vertical relationship with God.
Church, I have good news for us tonight. Jesus came to destroy our options, He came to take the iniquity out of our lives so we could burn hot for Him all the time. It is time to destroy those options to get back on track to keep our love from growing cold. Turn to 2 Kings 22:1,2 (READ). Josiah did not turn to the right or the left, he had the options removed and he wanted to be like David. Vs. 3 (READ) He has been king for 18 years. What had been happening for those 18 years…well, he had been going to church, attending Royal Rangers, bringing his Buddy Barrel for missions each month, going through the motions but something in that 18 year ignited him.
He was out on the tennis court, Nike Airs on, cute little sweat bands on his wrists and forehead to match his clothes. There was no prayer meeting that night so he was out enjoying himself when his cell phone rang. It was one of the board members at the church and they needed him to get there as fast as he could. He flew from the court, jumped in his BMW convertible and sped down to find out what the emergency was all about. The people there were excited. They had found something that would change them from complacency and take them from their horizontal relationship into the vertical. They had found something that would give them courage…they had found the Book.
2 Kings 22:15-17. (READ) They had forsaken the vertical but look at the promise given to Josiah in vs. 19-20 (READ). Josiah is pre-tribulation. The book of Revelation speaks of the tribulation to come, some has already, some is still coming, but it is not enough just to read about it…what will it take to motivate us to take the gospel from the church into the streets to help those who are caught up in it? How many of you know that you know that you know one day wrath is coming? Look at 2 Kings 23:3, you might want to underline this (READ). To live in the vertical, Josiah said he would not sit idly by, he was going to get involved in destroying the works of the devil. How about you?
Mark 16:17 says this, I have found the name of Bob and I have a job to do if I love the Lord with all my heart, and if I am doing the job in a vertical relationship with him, this is what is going to happen (READ).
Vertical relationship involves more than reading, it requires doing. Josiah’s problem was that he had not lifted his head up for 18 years…what about you? We need a baptism of fire to thaw us. When Josiah received a baptism of fire, he went in and started acting like a mad man for God, taking care of those things which had been obstacles to a vertical relationship with God…there was a revival taking place.
Church, your life will change when you seek God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Lord send the fire. Fire for prayer…fire for the Word…fire to melt the wax that is growing cold…light the fire of my heart again. It is time…the altars are open…
