Passion
Well the footy season is upon us again, and after last night I have the passion.
In fact this is the Dockers theme for this year, or question they ask of their supporters, do you have the passion.
Let me say after 6 or 7 years of supporting the Dockers you need passion, because there is not a lot of success to get excited about.
I want to talk this morning about passion, it is one of the three values our church holds dearly, purposeful, authentic and passionate.
You see without passion in your life, there is not much life. Without a passion to live, to succeed, to have significance to achieve something you might end up living your life without meaning.
So the important question to ask ourselves this morning is, what gets us passionate, what gets us out of our seats yelling and screaming, shouting, what gets us down on our knees crying our eyes out, what gets us so mad we could start a bushfire with our eyes, what gets us so happy we could light up the room.
I go to the footy, you all know that, and to see 35,000 aussies screaming and yelling is great, you feel part of something.
But you know once you walk out of the stadium, back to your car, and maybe have sung the song, its over. It does not mean much in the real world, in real life, its just a lovely escape actually from life.
It is not a life giving passion.
Listen to this from Psalm 42
As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and stand before him? Day and night, I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, "Where is this God of yours?" My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be: I walked among the crowds of worshipers, leading a great procession to the house of God, singing for joy and giving thanks-- it was the sound of a great celebration!
Can we picture something of the psalmist from that story, people are laughing at him, taunting him, where’s God you loser, he’s crying, he cant eat, he is so distressed, he cant put food into his mouth, all he does is cry all day.
I remember what it used to be like, there were stacks of people and we were all going to the temple, to the house of God. Singing, a great celebration,
Listen a group of people walked to church and a riot broke out, a group of people went up to the temple to sing and praise God and a riot broke out, that is what it used to be like.
Can you hear the passion echoing down through the book, through the words?
Lets have a look at the story in Acts, chapter 2.
The book of Acts was written after Jesus had returned to heaven, in fact it tells that story at the start, how He rises up and says don’t sweat it that I have gone, because the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you, and you are going to be filled with power, and you will preach the gospel to the ends of the earth.
The Holy Spirit comes and they are filled with passion to tell people about Jesus. Remember this group of people before this had been scared, hiding in the upper room, running away from Jesus, denying they even knew Him.
Now as we get to chapter two we read about Peter preaching to the crowd.
29"Dear brothers, think about this! David wasn’t referring to himself when he spoke these words I have quoted, for he died and was buried, and his tomb is still here among us. 30But he was a prophet, and he knew God had promised with an oath that one of David’s own descendants would sit on David’s throne as the Messiah. 31David was looking into the future and predicting the Messiah’s resurrection. He was saying that the Messiah would not be left among the dead and that his body would not rot in the grave.
32"This prophecy was speaking of Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, and we all are witnesses of this. 33Now he sits on the throne of highest honor in heaven, at God’s right hand. And the Father, as he had promised, gave him the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us, just as you see and hear today. 34For David himself never ascended into heaven, yet he said, `The LORD said to my Lord,
Sit in honor at my right hand 35 until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet.’[f] 36So let it be clearly known by everyone in Israel that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified to be both Lord and Messiah!"
37Peter’s words convicted them deeply, and they said to him and to the other apostles, "Brothers, what should we do?" 38Peter replied, "Each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39This promise is to you and to your children, and even to the Gentiles[g]--all who have been called by the Lord our God." 40Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, "Save yourselves from this generation that has gone astray!"
We need to understand it was a big crowd, all in town from all over the place, pilgrims came from countries far and wide, Jews returning for Passover, other people coming there for the markets. Huge markets as people traded from all over.
And in front of this huge and mixed crowd, in front of the religious people too, who had only a few days before nailed Jesus to the cross, in front of all the people Peter gets up and he just gives it to them. He states in verse 22 with the help of the lawless gentiles you nailed Jesus of Nazareth to the cross, and he was from God and he performed all these divine miracles and you lot killed him, it was your fault, you messed up big time.
Passion is welling up from Peters heart. This passion he had overcame any fear of man that he had.
How often is it true of us that it takes us getting really steamed up about something before we can act. I was talking to a lady the other day and she was telling me how a customer of her had said in her presence, look girly I am negotiating a huge financial deal, I cant spare you any time. And this lady was actually there to help him, yet he treated her with disdain because in his bloated opinion, she was not worth his time.
How do you feel when someone puts you in that position and just treats you with such disdain. Well Peter had had that happen to him, yet his passion for what he believed in drove him to confront these people. But what is really interesting to me is their reaction. The bible says here they were cut to the bone, Peters words convicted them deeply, what he said went right down into their very beings, they became passionate. They found themselves saying things they would never had said a week ago, they said Peter what should we do?
These religious leaders, these businessmen, these scholars, these people on the street. These residents turn to the fisherman, the lowly fisherman who had ran from them a week before, who had denied he even knew Jesus and ran in fear, they turn to him and say, Peter what do we need to do, they looked to him for guidance, and they were desperate, they were passionate for the truth, for help, for guidance because they realize their state.
Certain things, circumstances, words, will drive us to be passionate.
The power of the Holy Spirit, seeing Jesus alive again, had driven Peter from fear, to passion.
Hearing Peters power filled words drove these people from religious self righteousness, from a crowd mentality, from thinking they had it together and knew what life was about, it drove the crowd to a passionate desire for the real truth and for real guidance.
The next aspect we see of this fledging group of people is that they start to meet together, lets have a look at verses 43 on in chapter two,
43A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. 44And all the believers met together constantly and shared everything they had. 45They sold their possessions and shared the proceeds with those in need. 46They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity-- 47all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved.
What we see here is that this group of people have a passion for each other, a passion for caring for each other and a passion to grow as believers together.
In fact the bible says a deep sense of awe come over them all. I reckon that is really important, a deep passion for God had come over them all. Together they had experienced an incredible act of the Holy Spirit. They had seen Peter overcome his fears, in fact they had all overcome fear, they see the Spirit of God enable them to speak in other languages, and communicate the gospel in a way people could understand, in fact each day God adds to their number.
This deep inward knowledge and belief in God and His power meant they were passionate about their faith community, the people that were Christians just like them. And it meant they did really passionate things like if they saw a friend in need they would sell their own house to help them out. They sold their possessions so no one would go without. Its no wonder people wanted to join that group, if you were involved with a group of people so passionate about caring for each other, sharing the load, wouldn’t you love it?
Imagine a house. Your standing outside, and the sky is getting blacker and blacker. You look at the house and the lights are inviting. There’s no doubt that there’s a storm coming. You’ll get drenched. The wind is also beginning to get stronger, and the temperature is dropping. In fact, you’ve been outside for a long time and you’re hungry and tired. Now you’re cold and beginning to feel a little bit afraid as the darkness falls. But you’ve got nowhere to go. Someone comes out of the house and invites you in.
“Get in before it rains”, they say. “It’s warm inside. There’s food on the table, a fresh cup of coffee is waiting by the kettle. The bath is being filed for you with hot, soapy water, and a clean set of new clothes. There’s a bed you can sleep in with clean sheets. TV you can watch, or music you can listen to.”
You’d be mad to refuse the invitation, when there’s so much to enjoy ‘in the house’.
Sometimes we need to reflect on how we treat each other and get passionate about our church family, our church community, our church house. There is no place for griping, for sniping, for undue critiquing, for being mean and short tempered with each other, this is our house, lets be passionate about our community.
Truth is sometimes we complain to each other about things that we shouldn’t sometimes we are short with each other and cause each other to be uncomfortable around each other. Lets stop that, lets instead think about others first.
You know I have talked a lot about passion this morning, I want to add another word to your vocabulary. The word is riotous
And it is an adjective
1. Participating in, likely to start, or like, a riot.
Thesaurus: loud, rambunctious, unruly, restive, insubordinate, mutinous, wild, anarchic.
2. Very active, noisy, cheerful and wild.
Example: a riotous party
Thesaurus: loud, boisterous, rowdy, rambunctious, wild, wanton, rollicking, festive; the Antonym, the opposite of rioutness is orderly, restrained.
Our faith in God should cause us to have an uncommon attitude towards life, towards each other and towards the message the story that Jesus is on about.
Where is your passion, stir it up.
Seek after it, ask God for it, allow it to burn within you, Spirit of God cause us to become passionate people!
