Heavenly Passions For Earthly People I, A Passion For His Presence

Turn to Philippians chapter three, please Philippians 3 I'll be reading most of the Chapter, but just for the sake of beginning right now. I'm going to start in verse 13 3 13 of Philippians Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. That is the perfection in Christ But one thing I do Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I Press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward to Christ Jesus Past Monday night I Did something I have not done in seven and a half years of ministry here in this church the pastors and the wives our wives were away for just a time of mutual support and encouragement and At the end of the day we gathered together in this little cottage and We're coerced to turn on Monday night football Not by the wives But by one of the pastors who I won't name who is a Chicago Bears fan One of the young pastors One of the new pastors If he's not here, he's with the singles retreat today And we we were sort of a casually watching and so on and then Through some camera work that I'd never seen quite as effectively done an end zone camera caught a hold of Mike Singletary who is the Middle linebacker for the Chicago Bears all pro who happens to be by the way a very committed believer in Jesus Christ They caught a full face shot of Mike I mean it took the whole screen was a close-up shot from an end zone camera with his his blue helmet on and his eyes were just wide open like this with an incredible sense of intensity and He was crouched down in this position, you know ready for the snap of the ball Every muscle flexed intense and the night air was cold enough that his breath began to crystallize and he looked like a monster And I mean even the ladies were saying boy he's really into this and we all agreed that night that his Physical expression captured the idea of passion the man passionately wanted to play football And I come to you today beginning a series of messages on heavenly passions for earthly people with that image in my mind a man of passion pursuing that which he loved to do Now when we think of passion in the church actually passion in our lives, I should say what do you usually associate passion with? Some of you have different ideas about this Some said love some said romance and some said sex and all three of those are right Tell someone that's all right and say that okay. It's okay to say sex in our church. We've decided that some of you are embarrassed about Sure, we think of those things, you know, we think of perhaps others like Athletics that we just talked about Some of us even others even think of passion in terms of food or chocolate or something like that. All right Yeah, I am beginning to reveal some of my own at this point You see passion is one of those things that when it's working in you You not only feel it it grips you it carries you along in its strength It's a it's a strange blend of a desire and risk at the same time You'll do things when you're passionately involved that you'd never do otherwise It causes life to be full of excitement and fulfillment You don't ever need to motivate a person who's passionately involved in something there In fact, what you've got to do is demotivate you got to contain it a little bit The man was here in the first service who I know has a passion for playing golf He would play golf every day of his life If he wanted to stay married, he decided he better not do that But he loves golf. I mean he'll be out there in the dead of January if a course is open. He loves it He's passionately involved Passion is that which stimulates our performance to a place where we ordinarily could never achieve It even makes us willing to sacrifice to see it happen how many men here sacrifice Just to be with the woman you love Sacrifice study time sacrifice money Sacrifice Advantage that you could have had some other way. We all know what it means when passion is at work It causes us to dull fatigue. I mean we we're not as tired When we feel strongly about even pain erases somewhat To the athlete. It's that being number one. I'll do anything. It takes to be number one to the scholar. It's that unquenchable thirst for the truth To the artist it's that desire for the perfect expression Of what's inside and for the mother it's the radical devotion To the children that God's uniquely given to you to the business man. It's the desire to be at the top But what is it to the believer in Jesus Christ, what does it mean to be passionately involved in Following the Son of God and what does it mean for a church? To have a passion for God Well, that is the very question. I propose to answer in these next four weeks and over these Consecutive Sunday mornings if you'll be here faithfully, I believe God is in the midst of restoring spiritual passion in his people I Believe if you'll give God the opportunity you'll catch a heartbeat that I hear increasing It's as though our hearts leaning a little closer To the breast of God and we're hearing the heartbeat of God a little more clear And what I'm gonna spell out for you is where this church will be going into the 1990s if you feel that you need a place Where passion is an issue But I want you to come in here what our passions are going to be about And you can identify and decide on your own. Do I want to be part of something like that and where it's going You know I don't need to stand here and convince any of you that of all the peoples in the world we in America should have a Passion for freedom, isn't that right? We enjoy it. I Mean we we enjoy liberty like no other nation in the face of the earth and yet we are told by political scientists and those who study our election process that about 50% of Americans will not Exercise their right to vote in 10 days 50% of eligible voters of the free democracies of the world. We are among the lowest on the list in terms of participating Found it interesting that West Germany is the highest. Why do you think that is? Because they understand what freedom costs and how close they are to losing You see we're losing our passion even for freedom interestingly Richard Lamb former governor of Colorado now a university president or a Professor in Denver said this when interviewed recently on Good Morning America. He said The reason why 50% of Americans won't vote isn't because it's Bush and Dukakis or in the reason Why is because we have become a nation of takers and not givers Even to the point where we will not give the energy necessary to exercise Our right to vote in order to perpetuate our democracy Why I thought that was insightful You see we're so passionless even for freedom that we won't even give what it takes to vote Dear ones, I suppose the status statistic I could think of is when a church becomes big with people and dead How many of you know churches all around Pittsburgh whose roles have enormous numbers of people on them But whose sanctuaries are virtually empty Why Because people allowed their spiritual passion their love for God and his people in this place to win And they go through the motions of being a Christian with about as much passion as a directory systems operator on night time And I want us to begin today by looking at these passions and particularly this morning our passion for the presence of God I Suppose there's no more powerful or poignant a statement in all the New Testament than Paul's words And I get your Bibles and put them on your lapsets. Look at this together Just sense the heartbeat of the passion of Paul when he says in Philippians 310. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings becoming like him in his death and So somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead Now can I share with you that Paul wrote these words of passion for the knowledge of God Not at a time when he was being served in some big castle somewhere or some Opulent setting where someone was waiting on him hand and foot He hadn't ascended to some place of apostleship where he was the hero of the Christian community and everyone was serving him hand and foot As tends to be the case in the Christian world Paul Wrote these words of passionate love for God when he was chained in a Roman dungeon And I want to just spell out something for you. You may not know In the Roman culture when you were thrown into prison, it wasn't to just give you a hard time and you know Just kind of beat on you a little bit. It was to make you suffer and many times people were thrown into prison and forgotten about and The Romans had so constructed their prison system that in virtually every city including Philippi the prison itself rested right over the center point of the sewage system that was in the city and I could take you over to Philippi and show you that the grapes That were the floorboards in Paul's prison cell were the very grates through which the sewage and stench flowed in the Roman city of Philippi Paul was miserable in the flesh But he had a passionate zeal even though he was chained between between two guards We read at another point that his imprisonment was leading to the conversion of all the Roman cohort. Remember that he said It's been good for me to be in jail because I'm winning people to Christ Wow That's a man of passion And he writes these words to us to encourage us to believe God Now, how do we do this and what can happen to us? That our passion can be restored. Well, first thing we need to do and there's three points here number one We need to recognize the pitfalls What can come along to rob our passion? many of you here Would be honest today if you were confronted and say I felt more strongly about God two years ago than I do right now Why do those things happen well, let's look at it what happened with Paul Back all the way up now to verse 2. He says in chapter 3 verse 2 watch out for those dogs Those men who do evil those mutilators of the flesh Paul begins by a warning. He says watch out There's people who want to come along and rob you of your spiritual passion be careful about it recognize the pitfalls And then he goes on and says this if anyone thinks halfway through verse 4 he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh I have more Circumcised on the eighth day the people of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin a Hebrew of Hebrews in regard to the law a Pharisee As for zeal persecuting the church as for legalistic righteousness faultless Now I read that and that doesn't mean much to me or to you. You're not a Hebrew of Hebrews But let me read this in 1988 English for American Christians, all right, see if this rings any of your bells If anyone thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh I have more I'll read it for me born American Good solid Lutheran parentage Good family life Grew up in the church Did the right things morally Resisted the evil things faithful And I always went to services Can I say to you that's a description of many people in America today who have no passion They've fallen into the pitfall of equating their Christian heritage with passion and it does not work And I have to pour my heart out to you and say right now and I want every parent here to listen to me This description that I just read is extremely Vulnerable to passion Becoming the description of our children here in this church with all that we've been given I Can tell you firsthand because I'm a parent that the inclination is for our kids to accept our faith And let it just sort of become what we do and what we believe and not have their own Faith their own Experience of the passion of God I Want to encourage and challenge every parent here Let's believe God. Can we church? Let's believe God to pass on to our kids that which they can own themselves as a zeal for God Not just watch their parents go through its senior hires that are here today It isn't good enough. You know, it's not for your mom and dad to believe It's not good enough for them to be the ones that know Christ and the power of his resurrection you've got to know it And it's true for every young person And it's a pitfall And unfortunately many of our parent many of us many parents that are here and others We get going and then we fall down something happens to us and then we lose our passion Let me give you an under this point number one three ways. We lose our passion Maybe this has happened to some of you here this morning The first thing that can happen is we get drained off We begin to lose our passion because we're always pouring out, you know Jesus felt a difference when he ministered listen to Luke 8 46, would you? When someone pressed in to touch him for healing Jesus asked who was it to touch me? They all denied and Peter said master the whole multitudes are around you pressing you and he said But someone touched me for I perceive that power has gone forth from me isn't that a fascinating scripture Jesus said I feel differently. I've given out and here today Many of you are giving out Your home group leaders your children's ministry workers. You're leading other parts of our ministry mobilization Framework and you're pouring out. Maybe maybe you have a ministry away from North where I don't know But many of us are giving out spiritually and dear ones if you are always giving out and not receiving in you will be drained off even Jesus experienced and When that happens your spiritual passion begins to wane and you lose the flame the love of God Now another way this happens is by distortion We get so bombarded with things that we don't know what the truth is and we begin to believe something It's not really the truth and it distorts things in our minds and we find ourselves getting off on a tangent Some people here today you've gotten off in some tangents in your faith and it's distorted things in your life and you've gotten spiritually Drained you've gotten spiritually your passions been winged. Let me read to you how this can happen even in physical way This is something that was written 40 years ago. See if it sounds familiar to some of you According to a recent nationwide survey more doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette Three leading independent research organizations asked this question of 113 thousand doctors. What cigarette do you smoke doctor? the brand name most was Camel now you probably enjoy rich full flavor and cool mildness in a cigarette just as much as doctors do And that's why if you're not a camel smoker now, I'll try a camel on your t-zone What's a t-zone, well, that's the T for taste and the T for your throat You're a true proving ground for any cigarette See if camels rich flavor of superbly blended choice tobaccos isn't extra delightful to your taste and see if Camels cool mildness isn't in harmony with your throat and see if you don't say camel suits my t-zone to a T I Smoke camels just like the doctors do Now that's Distortion you see because people who believe that back then Truth was all warped and distorted and I'm sure most doctors today would say don't smoke Camels and don't smoke anything else if you can possibly help But see believing these things Distorted things in their lives. Well that happens to us too. We get drained off because we believe things that aren't true and the third way That we can lose our spiritual passion is disillusionment, I Know I'm looking out on people who were trusting that someone would do something for them and it didn't happen and you're disillusioning you think ah, I Had a phone call from a man In fact, we had several phone calls from a man who was sort of visiting here in the area Said churches have promised me everything and delivered nothing. You're just like them Well, that was an interesting conversation So I went to visit this man down at North Way Mall We had an exchange and interesting conversation He's just like many people Who somehow had this great hope that someone will share their vision and no one does Someone will share their burden and no one comes along Someone will receive them in love and no one seems to the way they need and dear ones that Disillusionment can pour cold water on your spiritual passion. I wonder if today there are people here who've been hurt You see our nature is we're so prone to being hurt that when you get disillusioned you shrink back and These pitfalls and many others are waiting there to ruin our spiritual passion to leave us cold toward God. I Pray that God would help us in this ministry And you know this ministry is prone to those things happening because we are a highly active ministry We do a lot of things Things like tomorrow night that many of you will come and enjoy and your kids will think are great But many people are pouring out many people have expectation and that can all lead to disillusionment Disappointment and the draining off of your spiritual passion if we let it may God help us to not let that happen But rather to be as Paul and this look down here now Willing to put all that to the side and Consider everything verse 8 is lost compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord For whose sake I have lost all things And consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him Not having a righteousness of my own But that which is through faith in Christ The second way that we can begin to see our passion restored is to release the past Recognize the pitfalls Release the past Have you discovered? That When something sets off on a negative tone, it's very difficult to change it. Let me tell you about racquetball in my life How many racquetball players are here? I'm sure you're wondering why I've never played racquetball with you First of all, you've never asked and secondly if you would I would have said no Because when I was in college, I never played racquetball when I was in high school because it wasn't like it is today there weren't clubs anywhere in fact It was very difficult you had to Be part of a university setting generally to play racquetball back then and so it's school I remember being invited by one of my fraternity brothers to play racquetball one day and boy I looked in that little white box and said well, this looks like fun you know, it's a quick game and I can get around pretty well and I was tall enough to cover some ground and I'm gonna like this game. I'm really gonna get into it. So I got this racket and twist it around my hand and Got ready to play and he showed me the basics And we played three games. He beat me the first game 15-1 the second game 15 love and the third game 15 to 1 or 2 I mean he killed me wiped me out destroyed me I Hate racquetball. I have never recovered from that. Now. There's a lesson there. There's a lesson there. I Had something so ingrained to despise racquetball after that beat it was such a negative experience. I hate golf, too I'm still trying at that though. That's not the same reason. I just but you see with spiritual things. It's just the same Can you remember the first time you walked in the meeting was different and maybe somebody? Stood up and said something kind of unusual. Maybe they had a Prophecy or somebody spoke in a tongue and it was weird and strange to you said oh my this place is I'm never coming back All those people are weird like, you know, and we get these experiences that forever Separate us Because they're so negative and you see dear ones this can happen To anybody I know some folks here today whose family background was very fundamentalist in their home It was to follow. God was the list of don'ts. You don't watch TV. You don't go out with boys until you're 18 You don't enjoy life That's how you please God and in the end you see they've equated knowing God with don't And it's all negative and their spiritual passion is zero. But likewise, there's people here today whose History the thing they need to forget was something good because they are hanging on to something some people are here were part of the early move of the Holy Spirit the charismatic move of 1969 or 71 little group started in my home back in 1971. Oh, it was great. God poured out his spirit But we don't live in the history. We live in the now We live today and Paul says here. I forget look at verse 13. I forget The good and the bad I forget all my Jewish persecution Paul was the persecutor acts tells us that he persecuted Christians to the death He said I forget that stuff and I even forget my other victories in Christ I'm not living in my past apostleship. I forget it all I put it behind me Because dear ones if we hold on to the past Our spiritual passion will never be restored And I need to say for those who've been hurt. I Know that I'm dealing today with some people. It hasn't just been an experience. It's been a hurt something happened in your heart Somebody disappointed you just this week. I heard a prominent Pittsburgh radio personality Sharing on his program Well for the last 20 months He's been without passion in his life It was fascinating that he was speaking on this subject as I was preparing this message and he said 20 months ago. I was hurt Deeply hurt and I've carried around the bruise of that and I've not been able to get back off of my spiritual devastation and It's just been he was sharing in the last week So he was beginning to be raised up because you see dear ones our fallen nature who we are is prone to being hurt It's prone to letting words come in and and tear our heart up and we need to today say Lord I'm gonna forget what's passed. I'm gonna forget the unkindness that was done to me. I'm gonna forget the person that ignored me I'm gonna forget the thing that didn't happen and I'm gonna put it behind me And here's the third thing that all of us need to do to restore passion what our brother on the radio was saying he did he reached out for the prize Look at the next part of that verse Paul said I reach Forward I reach ahead I strain Toward what lies ahead? Well this final step Is something it's let's just leave that up for a few moments This is so desperately needed in our culture today. We are a nation of takers dear ones as much as I Want to believe otherwise for the most part the Church of Jesus Christ is a church of takers What I see around us is and our culture out there in America. The tendency is to secure protect hold on to Take let me give you a good illustration of how that's measurable How many people in their 40s and 50s remember when having a lawsuit was a rare occurrence? Remember that I mean it was a rare occasion when someone had a lawsuit against someone else No, if you walk down the street and look at someone crooked, I'm gonna file suit against you. I mean, it's everywhere the courts are choked and Litigation because everyone's filing suit filing suit. That's the way to do it. Get yours, you know, hold on take And strangely enough that same kind of a spirit can penetrate into the church and we begin to be protective of ours watching out for a little corner watching out for my family and just in case what's not for my thing and to the point where you see we cut ourselves off and instead of Straining forward we simply retreat into our own little shell of protectionism. I Wonder what God thinks in those moments. You see Paul uses a word here that I love look at it The word that's translated new international version straining actino means It's learning the word that was used When a runner was about to cross the finish line and he reached forward and you could see every muscle tensed in his neck Every ounce of energy being focused or getting across the goal. That's the word that was used right here If you watch the Olympics there were lots of times in those short sprints where you'd see that runner Reaching out there literally straining the tendons and the muscles all through their body to get over that line That's the word that was translated here straining But listen to this The word actino is also the word that is used in Mark chapter 3 in verse 5 when Jesus encounters in the synagogue the man with the withered hand And the man with a withered hand is there listening to Jesus teach and Jesus looks around at the Pharisees and the scribes And he said is it lawful to heal in the Sabbath. They saw the man with his hand withered up They saw his paralysis barely able to use it at all And Jesus the Bible says in Mark 3 Marvel at their hardness of heart and he turned to the man and he said reach forth your hand the same exact word Stretch out strain forth your hand And he did and Jesus healed when I saw that in the Greek New Testament last night The Lord put in my heart that there are people here today whose spirit whose passion for God has been swiveled out And if you're Blunt and honest with God today, you know that in your spirit the flame that was once there is not there Well, maybe there never was one You've been confused by religion and church and you hear God saying these things and you wonder is it true that I could stretch out? find God and Have my spirit touch and the word of the Lord to you today is stretch out Strain forward and touch Jesus Have your hand in the spirit be touched by the master's power. We don't get to this place very often dear ones Where we know that we need a touch from God, but when we do their holy moments, there was a holy moment in that Temple when Jesus touched his hand Today can be a holy moment for some of us When we desperately say God, I don't want to live Without passion in my life. I think it's a saddest thing possible for a Christian Because we've got every reason to live a passionate wholehearted joy filled life in Christ And if we don't dear ones, no one will If we don't leave the kind of footsteps that say to our kids, that's the way I want to live They won't live that way God sometimes lets us get to the bottom when we find all kinds of struggle going on so that we'll say God I Want my passion back? I want to know what you're saying. I Want to conclude with just one little illustration of that my own life You know over the last Several months. I'm sure many of you have been praying as I have about What is this? What's going on in our nation? You know, the elections are coming. The moral climate is uncertain and seems to be increasingly antagonistic towards godly values And I'm saying Lord, what can we do I'm tired of being ignored in the marketplace I'm tired of our values being described as Small minded and and and judgmental of people when we're not that at all And I began to wrestle with for example the whole issue of Operation Rescue, which some of you are familiar with that attempt to actively intervene to prevent abortions And I began to wrestle with what is God saying to me about that not even the North way, but to me And so I listened to the people who came and represented that point of view and I struggled through it. I I even Had a luncheon that I helped put together to hear more and then Friday night right here We had a rally to talk about it and all along the way. I was saying God I Need to know what you're saying Speak to me about it. I know we've ever said that to the Lord and you didn't hear a thing Whoo. Well, I don't like those times I just you know, I think you do and then you know, I feel different on I woke up the next day Well, I feel different than yesterday. It's usually back and forth and back and forth. That's a clear sign You haven't heard anything back and forth back and forth well, so I Said Lord, I've just got enough. I've just got to know what you're saying to me and so Saturday morning yesterday morning at four o'clock. I awake four o'clock in the morning. I don't get up at four o'clock In fact the night before that I'd only gotten a short amount of sleep also And I was up and I didn't want to be up. My body was sending very strong messages get back in here This bed is free, but I get up to be with the Lord because there was something I needed to settle with God. I Needed to hear the Lord. I Got down on the floor in our study before the Lord and I said God I just I'll do what you want But you've got to speak. I've got to know what you're saying dear ones If you've not been in that place in the last few months, let me tell you something your passion Because God wants us to be on our face Regular If you're not asking God for answers to crucial questions, then there's something wrong with your passion You're not trusting You're not depending enough if you can live this life going through motions not crying out to God Then I just need to exhort you today You're not really living a passion I'm laying on that floor. I knew I had to hear And I want you to know 445 God showed up. He was faithful. He spoke to my heart. He told me what I was supposed to do through his word And that moment was a very holy moment for me it's when I stretched forth my heart My withered spirit reached out and touched God And I obeyed the Lord and did what I was to do God wants to touch our withered hearts These next several weeks are going to be very important As we set a course For the next year in the next decade Because I want this to be a church. I believe God wants it to be a church where there's a passion for God alone When we would say that we forget what's behind and stretch toward the future And Pressing on toward the mark of the high call of the prize that we have in Christ And if you want that in your life, then you're in the right place You say well, I'm not sure I do I'm still asking all these questions about all this and I'm not sure that you sound like a real radical Talking about God speaking to you and all that kind of stuff Let me just say if that's where you are today, maybe you're new to God, maybe you've not even made a decision about Christ One of the reasons why it's probably been so cloudy years that so few Christians are really living a passionate Christian life And once you find a genuine article Once you really come to knowing you can't help you can't help but share it You can't help but let it come up because it's real to you. I just want to encourage you keep on the process It may not happen for you today or tonight. It may just be over the next weeks or months, but God is going to stir us I believe he has already begun that work here in our staff and our elders and if you want to know more of God Then come and present yourself to him He'll touch you Forgive our sin and heal our land Lord. We want to live in your presence Let's stand together Let's pray.