Renewing Your Passion For Life I

We're here together in a new series beginning today on renewing your passion for life. The driving force behind all great art and literature and drama and architecture, anything of lasting achievement, really, is passion. Passion is what makes things great. Passion is what causes armies to go against insurmountable odds, to sacrifice themselves for a cause they may not even understand. Passion is what enables scientists to work tirelessly for years to find a cure for a dreaded disease or illness. Passion is what equips athletes to break records and accomplish goals. And passion is what sustains you, dear one, in your pursuit of the will of God in your life. Nothing of any real significance is done without passion. No reform, no change, no new development or breakthrough without passion. It turns the impossible into possible. It makes life really come alive. That's what passion is about. Without it, life can begin to become dull and routine and predictable and even boring. God wants you to live a passion life. Look at the scripture on top of your outline. When Jesus was confronted by a couple of people asking him the question, hey, could you summarize the whole Bible for me? What a great question. What's the greatest? I mean, put the Bible into a couple of phrases. Here's what he said. Let's read it together. Love the Lord your God, and catch the passion of this, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your... Now you're reading it exactly how I think the church in America feels about it. Now let's read it over again the way you think Jesus might have said it. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these. You catch the passion of this? Jesus wasn't just sort of playing around. He makes it really clear that passion is necessary if you're to be one of his followers. The same passage in the message version says this. The Lord your God is one, so love the Lord your God with all your passion, and prayer, and intelligence, and energy. I love that. You see, following Christ isn't about just putting your brain on the shelf and your emotions. Following Christ is about engaging all of you into all of who God is. That's what it means to be a true believer in Christ. And if you've wondered, I mean, people say to me, you know, I tried that Christianity thing. I've heard people, I've tried that Christianity thing, and it didn't work for me. Now what that invariably means to me is that here's somebody who put Jesus in their religious compartment. He didn't take over the lordship of their life. They never yielded fully to his Holy Spirit. They never knew what it meant to be passionately in love with the Lord, and therefore they didn't experience the fullness of God's presence in their life. Jesus says, if you want to follow me, you've got to live life with passion. And when the Bible talks about passion, it uses the phrase, with all of your heart. Look at these next several blanks, and let's fill them in. How do we love the Lord with passion? Well, we seek him passionately, Deuteronomy 429. We love him passionately. We serve him passionately. We obey him passionately. Now you mean when the Lord says that I'm supposed to forgive my neighbor who just ran over my new bushes with his lawn tractor? Yes, you're supposed to obey the Lord and forgive him with all your heart. Trust him passionately. And sort of as a catch-all, Paul later writes in the book of Colossians, look at this, whatever you do, in other words, in everything you do, do it passionately unto God. In everything that you do. Never be lacking in zeal. But keep your spiritual fervor, Romans 12, 11 says. And so, friends, there's no question in my mind that God wants us to be passionate about him. Now, in America, we're permitted to be passionate about everything but God. Isn't that true? I mean, overall, people say, hey, sure, you want to get into this, get into that, you know, go for it. But when it comes to God, well, let's be reserved. We did a little man-in-the-street interview we want to show you, a little video clip. Here's what some people over here in Westford Plaza, and you'll see some people also from Northern, here's what they talked about in terms of being passionate, because it's okay to be passionate about something. Let's see what the video clip has to say. Golf? Yeah. Fork. I like the fork, too. Okay, sport people, what they're passionate about, something that they're passionate about. I used to say that in my work. Your work? Yeah. What are you passionate about? I'm not going to lie. You're going to find out. Come on! Um, I'm really passionate about cheerleading. Okay. And singing. Singing? Yeah. My wife. Your wife? I don't have to turn it on yet. What about you? Anything? The love of my life. Cigarettes. Making my friends happy. Romantic Eve. Evenings. Giant Eagle. He's very passionate about one thing, it's like kind of a driving force. Girls! So what's one thing that you're passionate about? I'd say just girls in general. I'm passionate about girls. Grandma's cooking. Bengay. What are you passionate about? Let's interview him. What's one thing you're passionate about? My car. Your car? Definitely. It's number one over girls. Is this your car? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I can't right now. Family. Martha Stewart. We're asking people if there's one thing in their life that they're real passionate about. I guess my diss, I don't know. One of the things in my life that I'm really passionate about is my work. Synchronized swimming. Besides that, I'm very passionate about my children. How many kids do you have? Three. What's one thing that you're passionate about? This might seem strange, but I really get a kick out of helping other people. I'm old and I've found out in life that that's what you get. The pleasure is really in helping others and serving others. Jay Sermons. One thing in your life that you're passionate about? Well, I have to say my wife. Why? Why? Because if you're putting this on the screen, she's going to hear it. I'm passionate about fishing. Fishing? What kind? Freshwater. But another thing I'm passionate about is my music. Using my music to lead people to Christ. Well, there you saw the whole gamut, didn't you? Golf. Fishing. Sports. Girls. Cars. Kids. I mean, you name it. Passion is okay about just about everything in our culture, except God. That's a fascinating thing for me. It's almost a contradiction of sorts. I particularly think of like the penguin game, okay? You name your sport. I mean, if you go to a big sports, if you yell, shout, if you clap and cheer, if you cry when they lose, if you dance around with joy when they win, you're considered a fan. And I said this a few weeks ago, if you do any of those things in church, you're considered a fanatic. That's right. And there's something wrong with it. There's a disconnect in that. God says, I want you to be passionate about me. I want you to love me with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. God created each of us and gave us the capacity to feel strongly, to be fully engaged. How do I know that? Well, I know it by looking at kids. Ever see a kid that's not just really fired up about life? You know, they wake up in the morning and they say, mommy, what are we having for breakfast? Cheerios. Cheerios! Oh, wow! You know, they're fired up. Oh, and then they go through the day and they get excited. And then it's time to go to bed. I don't want to go to bed yet. You know, I mean, they're just, everything is like full in the face, all out. It's the way kids are. But then life comes along and it starts to wear us down. A lot of seniors here today in this service will be graduating from high school. That happens to be a very passionate moment. Seniors, you'll see your classmates. You'll see guys hugging guys. You've never seen that before. You'll see girls crying. And you'll see all this expression of, wow, life's coming on. Man, I'm going to take life on. I'm going to, you know, pick that apple for me. I'm going to have my piece of cake and eat it too. And I'm going to make a difference. And then they hit what we call real life. And their passion slowly begins to drain. And their zippity leaves their doo-dah. And pretty soon, life gets predictable. And even your faith can begin to be routine. Your dreams don't materialize. And something that you've counted on doesn't happen. And you begin to wonder. I've seen this progression many times. You get a case of the flaws about life. And those flaws sort of turn into a sense of, well, maybe I was expecting too much. And then it turns into a sense of, I'm not really sure God's in this at all. And that turns into a sense of, I just feel bad about everything. Even physically at times. And if you don't check at that point, it can go into full-blown depression. And people check out of life. That's what happens. What happens to us? Why do these things take place? Well, I've listed here what I've called five passion killers in life. And there's many more. But these are five that came to my mind. And I think you might relate to at least a couple of them. Here they are. No particular order. Although the first one is one you might not think about. The first one, fill in your blank, is an unclear purpose. Friends, this is one of the most important things I'm going to say today. Because if you don't know your purpose for living, no matter how optimistic a person you are, no matter how good your attitude is, you'll lose your passion for life if you don't know your purpose for living. Living without purpose is like sailing without a wind. Why bother? Why get out of bed? You know, sort of been there, done that every day. Life seems futile. Why put forth the effort? And the longer you go without knowing God's purpose in a specific way... Now, listen. Here's the thing. I'm not just talking about being a Christian. I'm talking about knowing why God has placed you here. Do you know that? Well, I think I'm supposed to be a good father and provider and I'm supposed to be a good mom. No, there is more to your life than just fulfilling roles. Do you know your purpose? Because it will sustain your passion. It'll get you up and out of bed in the morning. It'll put you out into the place that God's fashioned for you with excitement and enthusiasm. We were having dinner on, I think it was Thursday night, with Tom and Sue Walker from Westridge, our daughter church. They sent us a nice bouquet last week and we were having dinner and somewhere in the conversation Tom said, Well, how's it going? And I said, You know what, Tom? I've been at this 18 plus years now at North Way and I get up every morning just as excited as I did 18 years ago. Just as expected. Just as happy to be doing what I'm doing because I believe God's in it and I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. And that's the way all of us should be living our lives. Without true purpose, passion fades over the long haul. Now you can fill in your life with different things, different achievements, different accomplishments and so on. You know, money and position. But if you don't know God's purpose for your life, you're destined to begin to sense some futility. Look at Isaiah 49.4 in your outline. Isaiah writes this. Ever felt this way? I've labored to no purpose. I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing. What a sad commentary that is. Clear purpose creates passion. And the more significant the purpose, the more passionate you are. A little dinky purpose like, well, I'm living for me, will get you very little passion. Medium sized purpose will give you sort of a moderate amount of passion. And if you have God's purpose, friends, it's huge. It empowers you. It gives you a sense of excitement about life itself because you realize you're involved in the most significant, eternal, life-changing, dynamic pursuit in all the world. And that's the kingdom of God. And I'll tell you what. It gets you cranked up. It gets you moving. Nothing is more significant than knowing what God wants you to be and thinking how He wants you to think and doing what He wants you to do. It changes you. It changes you if you're a high school student. It changes you if you're a college student. It changes you in the early years, in the middle years, or in your senior years. And you know what I'm excited about is, right now, there's the beginning of a stirring in the youth. Here in our church, we're seeing some of it. I want to put up here on the screen real quickly. Just a couple of weeks ago, the weekend of April 29th, 30th, and May 1st, just some students gathered from this part of the country to just say, Hey, we want to follow Christ with all our hearts. And here's what it looked like. There were 70,000 high schoolers up in the Pontiac Silverdome up in Detroit. Imagine it, 70,000 senior highers saying, We're going to follow Christ all out. There's one picture. Here's another one. Look at that. Just full of students saying, We're going to live for Christ. We're not ashamed of the gospel. We have a purpose, and that's to share Christ with our friends. What an incredible thing. You know that three of the songs of the six songs that we're going to sing this morning, three of them have been birthed in the last few years of a renewal of the youth movement in England. The King of Love, the one we just sang, and I Have a Light, and the one we're going to sing a little bit later. Why? Because God's giving fresh things, and young people listen. All the best stuff didn't come to the people our age. The best stuff is coming to you. Get ready for it. Get open to it. Get excited about it because it's coming to you. You're the next generation coming along, and you've got to push us out of the way. Hello? You say, Well, gee, I don't know. That looks pretty radical to me. You know what? Those kids look pretty normal to me. Don't they look like your friends? Except that they're worshiping God and not some rock group, and that's what it's about. Second thing. Second thing that will kill your passion is an unemployed talent. Remember, your father loves you so much that he's given you a certain ability, talent, or gift, or multiple gifts, and your job is to discover that and then employ it in the kingdom of God. Studies show that only about 70% of Americans, rather, 70% of Americans, studies show, are not happy, not happy with their jobs. Don't feel that they're really in the right place. Now, to me, there's a lot at stake here. And really, life isn't about your job. Every job has its pros and cons. Even being a pastor has its ups and downs and pros and cons. I don't expect 100% fulfillment from my job. In fact, I think God allows us to have a portion of our lives that doesn't get fulfilled until we're really pursuing His kingdom and His purposes for us. But I want you to know, if you don't know your gifts, if you don't know what God's put in you, if you don't know the specific talents He's equipped you with, how can you begin to sense fulfillment? Look what the Scripture says. Each one... Why don't you circle? That means you. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others. Faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. You've been given a gift. Do you know what it is? I want to share two things right here. If you can just jot these down in that blank space. Number one, Pastor Scott and a team of leaders in our church right now are working on a process where every one of you is going to be able to identify your gift and where it plugs into the various ministries that we have throughout the church and even create new ones to accommodate them. That process has been... We've tried it different ways, but we are really dedicated and committed to seeing that come to pass so you can know what you're supposed to do. And number two, if you are in a job that's draining the life out of you... Listen, this is going to be hard. If you're in a job that's draining the life out of you that you can barely get out of bed in the morning and you don't really want to go to, listen to me, get out of it. You say, well, that's easy for you to say. I've got to provide. Well, I didn't say get out of it tomorrow. I just said get out of it. Get a plan in place over the next 12 months, 2 years, whatever it is to get yourself in a place where you're energized. Don't waste your one and only life in a job that you hate doing. You say, well, I got trained in the wrong thing. Well, get trained in something else. God's bigger than just one little narrow definition of your life and you were meant to be using your talents and abilities in a way that fulfills God's call and your heart. The Apostle Paul writes in the book of Philippians, Whatever was to my prophet I now consider a loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss. Compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. Paul was passionate about using his gifts for the kingdom of God. We hope in the next months to establish a life transition ministry center where people going through transition in life can employ a mentor or a friend to help them know where to go next and where to use their gifts and also to raise up what I want to call life coaches for people to help know how to take the next steps in the process of growing in their life's calling. Third thing that will kill your passion is an unbalanced schedule. Now, this is the one that I expect most of you would have put down because you know as well as I do, if you're going 50 different ways, you're so tired at the end of the day, you don't have any energy left for anything other than just getting yourself ready for bed and crashing. And friends, whether you be on the extreme of being overextended or some of you are on the other extreme and you're bored to tears with life, either of those extremes will kill your passion. I mean, it's just like popping a balloon, you can't make it. If you're always giving, giving, giving, giving, some of you are near what I call compassion fatigue. You're out Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, you take a break, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday you come in here and you go to four different things and your heart's just, your heart's starting to shrivel up. Others of you on the other side of things, you're always taking in, you're at every Bible study, every small group you can go to, every seminar, every conference, you just keep piling it in and you're just getting bigger and bigger and bigger and pretty soon you're going to pop the other way because you're not giving out. You know, the only body of water, the most heavily acidic body of water in the world is the Dead Sea. I've been in the Dead Sea. You can literally lay yourself prostrate and not sink. You can read a newspaper. It has so many minerals and deposits in it, the water is that thick. Why? Because it has, it's being fed in by a stream and there's no outlet to it. But interestingly, the water level is going down because the minerals are evaporating, causing the water to evaporate and pretty soon, you know, those levels are going down and they won't be able to use it anymore. That's what happens to a lot of people who just keep getting stuff in every week, all the time, but have no service, no outlet, no place of care. What it takes, friends, is balance. Let me just give you five spiritual exercises. Just like in the physical, if you want to get in shape, you have to watch your diet and you have to exercise. Let me give you five exercises you need to do spiritually speaking. Here they are, very quickly, write them down. Worship. I make a priority of worship, being with God's people. It astonishes me how many people this is sort of an option. Should we go today? What do you think? Well, you know, I want to watch golf. I might get started before we get back. Well, that's important. Worship should be your priority. It should be a passion of your life. Fellowship. Spending time in a small group. How many times have we said, a small group is essential if you're to grow. Bible study. Be in a place, maybe it's in your small group, but be in a place where you can talk about what God's word means to you. Not just hear it from the pulpit. The next one is ministry, a place where you're serving, where you're benefiting someone else. And sometimes no one even sees you doing it. Friends, I am aware that some of you are in ministries that are very, you know, relatively unknown and thankless. Do you know, there's a little group of people, you saw a couple of them in the video clip, who come together for a few hours every Friday to stuff those bulletins. I call them the bleeding fingers club. Because they cut their fingers on the paper. Look in the bulletins, there's always a couple of inserts in there. Someone sticks those things in there. They don't just pop in there automatically. We don't have some machine that does that. People do that to serve you, and to serve God. What do you do as a ministry? And finally, outreach. I want to spend a whole series on that theme later on this summer. But friends, if you're not looking for someone in your life that God's put you in a crossing path with, you're missing one of the great purposes of your life. God wants us all to have some measure of outreach where we're risking just a little bit instead of retreating back, we're opening up. Now, you can give yourself a B and say, well, I'm doing decently well in all those, but you know what? Take a moment right now and mark which of those five do you most need to grow in. Would you do that? Just put a little X, of those five, you know, I guess for me it might be, and then just put the X there. And let that be your focal point of prayer over the next week. Fourth thing, it's a passion killer, is unresolved conflict. Unresolved conflict, this will go quickly, with God. How many of us are guilty over something that's in our life? And friends, if you wake up in the morning and you feel guilty, if you have a habit that keeps coming up, if you're caught in some sin that you and God know about, your passion will be drained off because you cannot serve God passionately with an unclear conscience. Look what the Scripture says. This is David writing, My guilt is overwhelming like a burden too heavy to bear. I am bowed down and brought low. That is not a passionate stance. That's the stance of a person burdened by guilt and sin. What do you need to do? You need to confess your sins to God, ask for grace and strength, as we'll take communion in a moment. You can say, Lord, help me through this. Give me the grace to change. And God will forgive your sin and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. Sometimes your unresolved conflict is with others. Scripture talks about the need to be right with others, to forgive others as you've been forgiven. And how many of you know, if you're in conflict with someone in your home, someone at work, someone in your neighborhood, someone in your extended family, if you're in conflict, your passion gets drained away because you're always thinking about, Oh, I don't know what they're going to say and I don't want to offend them and all this. I've had people say to me recently, Jay, I just can't live like this anymore. What they mean by that is, they're in the midst of some kind of relationship that's draining the life out of them. It's pulling the very life blood out of their heart. And they need to resolve that conflict one way or the other. The premise behind things like theotherapy and other ministries is in order to be the person God wants you to be, you've got to deal with the unresolved conflicts in your spirit. So avail yourselves of tools like that and it will help you to get free and to go on with God. Number five, the fifth passion killer is an undernourished spirit. You see, at its root, passion is a spiritual issue. It's a matter of your heart. And you can't restore passion by taking a pill. I wish I could give everybody a pill and get you back on track. You can't do that. Passion is restored as you nourish your spirit. And here's the great news. Jesus Christ is here today by His Spirit to restore your passion, to renew your hope, to renew the love of your heart. In a moment, when you take that bread in your hand and hold the cup, you can say, Lord, I've been drifting from you. One person came up to me after the first service and they said, you know, for the last 15 years since I graduated from college, I've been drifting. And today I realize I've got to get back on track with God. I lost my passion. We get into these passionless seasons because we don't nourish our spirit. Every single day, we need to put something in our soul that's going to renew us. How many of you know there's lots of things in the world that will take the life out of you? How many of you hear criticism every day? You hear rude things said about you. You hear judgment about things that you're involved in. Painful things are said. Hurtful statements are made. Disappointments. Fatigue. Worry. All these things drain the life out of you and you shrivel up in your soul. You shrivel up. You have nothing left to give. And friends, when that begins to happen, it breaks the heart of God. Don't let that happen to you. Now there is an antidote. Look at the Scripture. Just as you trusted Christ to save you, in other words, just as you came to Him by faith, trust Him too for, circle each day, circle that, each day's problems. Live in vital union with Him. Let your roots grow down into Him and draw up nourishment from Him. That's what the Lord wants you to do. Draw up nourishment from Him. I wish God had created us with some kind of a little warning light on our arm or something. How many of you drive cars where when you start running low on gasoline, a light comes on? What are those lights called? Well, it's a fuel warning light. That's the technical term. I also call it idiot lights because by the time that light comes on, you don't have much gas left. Now in my car, the light comes on and flickers a little bit. That tells me, I've probably got about two gallons left. When it's on brightly, steadily, that means, I better look real quickly for a gas station because if I go much longer, guess where I end up? Calling AAA. Explaining, well, I didn't realize I was out of gas. Well, what kind of, I mean, how big does the gauge have to be? I wish God made us that way. We could see when our spirit life was draining off and a warning light would come on. Time to fuel up here. But the way to best prevent yourself from that is every day. Refuel. Get your tank filled every day in the presence of the Lord and you won't have to worry about being drained off because your passion for God will be renewed like His passion for you. Look at the next verse. You must worship only the Lord for He is a God who is passionate about His relationship with you. Think of it. The God of all the universe is passionate about His relationship with, say it, you. Turn to someone and say, with you. Tell them, with you. They need to know God's passionate about them. Not just, you know, not just the leaders, not just a chosen few, but you in specific. God is passionate about you. And friends, He's not just, you know, a little bit excited. Why do we call Easter week Passion Week? Why do we call the scenes where Jesus is crucified and lays His life? What do we call that? We call that a passion play. Why? Because it's showing the extent of God's love for you. That's how He feels about you. And that's how He wants you to feel about Him. And may I just say, if you're listening to all this and it's like, well, yeah, I know that. That's cool. I mean, a wink and a nod. Can I tell you, there's something in your soul that needs to get adjusted. If this doesn't stir you up, if Jesus is just sort of your religious security, then maybe you've never really met the one who passionately loves you. And if what we're talking about here isn't true, then we might as well go out and just play golf or walk in North Park and, you know, enjoy a beautiful day. Casual Christianity is a contradiction. Either we reciprocate His passion of Mark 12, 31, or we don't. Why does this happen? I don't know. I accept these passion killers. Some of us have used to be risk takers for God and now we're just sort of in the background, letting life go by, just sort of going through the motions. Lord, help us not to retreat into oblivion in our Christian walk. The most passionate Christians I know about Christ are usually new Christians. They're the ones that seem to be really on fire. They're the ones, you know, you say to them, you come to Christ and all your sins are forgiven. They go, wow. You mean everything that I've done that was like rebellious and prideful and selfish, God forgave me? Yes, all of it. All of it in the now and all of it in the future. And they go, wow. And then you say to them, God has a purpose for you and a calling. And they go, wow, let me see it. I want to get into it. And then you say, God has heaven in store for you. And they go, oh my gosh. It's just so exciting. Sometimes you need to lock up a new Christian. They get almost overzealous. But what happens over time is, you know, seasoned Christians, all of your sins are forgiven. Oh yeah, I know. God has a purpose for your life. Oh yeah, I know. There's heaven coming for you. And glory, I know. And we just start, it all just sort of goes into this, we take the great truths of our salvation and marginalize it. And may the Lord deliver us from that. Think about what's been given to us. Think about the blessing that we have as followers of Christ. Because you see, friends, I don't know how long we'll be able to enjoy these things of the great liberty that we have. One of the students that was, that lost their life in the Columbine shooting a few weeks ago, wrote this little poem two days before she was shot. This was Cassie Bernal, who, by the way, had dabbled in a lot of other spiritual kind of things in the previous years of her high school journey. She said this, living in the Boston Globe. Now I have given up on everything else. I have found it to be the only way to really know Christ and to experience the mighty power that brought Him back to life again and to find out what it means to suffer and to die with Him. So whatever it takes, I will be one who lives in the fresh newness of life of those who are alive from the dead. There's a young lady at age 17 who discovered the passion of life and lived it even though it was cut short. What's the greatest sin? As a Christian today, what's the greatest sin? Well, there's one opinion, okay? Not sharing the gospel? Thank you. Apathy could be one. Some would say, well, it's adultery. You know, you're going to violate your marriage vows. Some would say it's gossip. It's like, well, you know, gossip destroys the church and fractures relationships and those are all very troubling, hurtful things. But Jesus Christ said two things, two things that I believe point to His passion about sin. One of them was to the Pharisees, the people who held a legalistic sort of judgment over other people and said, you do this while they did something else. He had harsh words for them. And the second great sin that Jesus pointed to was that that's revealed in Revelation 3. After He came back from the dead, here's what it says, Revelation 3. Let's look at it together. Revelation 3, verses 15 and 16. Jesus said, I would that you were hot or cold. I wish you were one or the other. But because you are, say it with me, lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth. Friends, I don't know what that does to you, but what it does to me, it makes me think, I don't want to be lukewarm. I don't want to be in the middle. I don't want to be sort of up and down and in the middle. I want to be all out for God every day of my life. That's the only option that I see. That's the only way I believe God would have us to live this life. If Jesus Christ gave everything for us, then what else can we give for Him? It was C.S. Lewis who said this, the great English theologian and writer. He said, the only thing that Christianity can't be is moderately important. And that's exactly what it's becomin