The Lord’s Passion
Opening illustration:
Introduction:
There is much confusion among God’s people about the Lord’s
main interest.
A Believer today needs to be really discerning and focused,
lest he miss the Lord’s passion.
We can potentially be drawn from the Lord’s passion to a
lesser passion of the Lord.
We can literally become involved with that which bores the
Lord. That is a sobering thought…and it
raises some questions…
Does God even have greater passions?????
Does God even have priorities????
Does God even have things that He values greater than other
things?????
While the Lord is Omniscient and Omni-present and is
constantly 100% into whatever He does, He cannot be distracted, He is not
human. That He can be preoccupied, that
cannot happen. He is God …. But the
Lord has declared and maintains a divine order of things…there are things that
He has a greater fondness and intimacy for than others…..
In relation to Himself… Truth is valued even above His own
name… Ps 138:2 I will worship toward thy holy temple,
and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast
magnified thy word above all thy name.
Pr 22:1 ¶ A good name is rather to
be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold. {loving...:
or, favour is better than, etc
Ecc 7:1 ¶ A good name is better than
precious ointment;
In relation to people
…we know God is not a respecter of persons …in that all men are His
creation and everyone valued by God as His creation, but God does have intimacy
with some people that He might not have with others….He might have established
covenants with some people that He does not have with others….
Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob
have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
For example in relation to creation ….God has an intimacy with people that He
does not have with the rest of His creation….People He made a living soul
(Genesis) compared to the earth that He assures us He will one day destroy.
2Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord
will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away
with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth
also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
2Peter 3:12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of
God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat? {hasting...: or, hasting the coming}
As His people we have been given instruction to live a life
of priority…. Mt 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of
God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
In relation to His Churches…He made it very clear that there
were some Churches that He ignored…some He loves and others make Him want to
vomit.
It is pretty clear that while the Lord does everything
purposeful and is never half hearted in anything that He does, have varying
reactions to various situations….
There are some things the Lord has a greater passion for
than other things…
Acts 1:3 The Lord’s passion is revealed
The Lord’s passion is to reveal, to express, to affirm, to confirm, to
prove His life to His people…
The Lord has an eagerness to prove His life to His people.
The Lord experiences an emotional fulfillment when He is able to prove His
life to us.
While the Lord knows and cares even when one sparrow falls,
what really excites Him is the opportunity to show Himself to His people.
The Lord delights in His people experiencing His life.
to us and through us ..that is the Lord’s passion.
We need to be very careful to recognize the reality of and
fullness of what is being taught here …
Well, Pastor,...the
Lord’s passion was to go to the Cross….I might be tempted to say AMEN….but
the Bible does not say that …Phil 2:8 And being found in fashion as a man, he
humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
In the Garden, Jesus literally sweat, looking to the Cross…Now listen carefully as I am not saying that the Lord
resisted the cross in any fashion, but here is what the Bible says, he endured the Cross despising the shame…visible.
Heb 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our
faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the
shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Again, I do not say that He resisted it in any fashion, as
willingly He lay down His life for His sheep…..but the one time the Bible speaks of the Lord’s “passion,” it is when He is revealing His life to His people…
I.
Christ reveals His life through His Work
A.
His work of Creation reveals His deity
B.
His work of Calvary reveals His compassion
C.
His work of caring for His children reveals His eternal
commitment to being our God
Christ delights and is elated when we recognize and
acknowledge in repentance and faith, and experience the work of creation,
Calvary and caring for us …..maybe like a parent who watches as their grown
children begin to behave and be responsible like grown children, the Lord
delighted in revealing Himself to His disciples because they would now get
it….it would all come together for them.
After He revealed Himself with proof, they understood His
deity, compassion and care, and they began to act like Disciples. They did not
fear as before, they were not selfish as before, they were not quarrelsome as
before, they were not self seeking as before…..
Do you know why we make immature decisions and live careless
lives, lives that lack commitment and dedication and a willingness to
sacrifice???
We potentially, in this world, can disallow the work Christ
did to have the impact He intended……..
Creation, Changed
the glory of God Romans 1
Cross
Care….Leads to
repentance
All of these are purposeful
II.
Christ reveals His life through His Speaking Vs 3
A.
Through the Scripture
B.
Through the Spirit
I wonder if we understand that the Spirit is the supporter
and confirmation and teacher of Scripture….not
the other way around……
III.
Christ reveals His life through His people Vs 4
A.
He indwells us
B.
He exposes us
Conclusion: Is
the Lord’s passion, our passion ?
Shows himself
Speaks
Assembles with
All in an effort to reveal His life.
Are we passionate
about the things the Lord is passionate about.
I wonder if the Lord
is bored with our life……and our living because it does not represent His
passion.
Cowboy book “The
Cowboy Way”
The promise of power
was assured to those who shared the Lord’s passion……the form of godliness but
deny the power thereof…
Now I am not a deep-sea fisherman. I've never been deep-sea fishing. Don't invite me. I ain't
going. I
had a buddy in Mobile who thought he was going to mess me up
real good. He got me up at 4:00 one
morning,
took me out on Dauphin Island. He was going to get me sick.
That was his whole goal. I
prayed, "Lord, you
know I can't go out deep-sea fishing. Please take care of me, Lord." This is the truth. The moment his
car got on Dauphin Island, the power went off. He spent half the morning trying to get the
power back
on. It never did
come on until we drove off the island.
The moment the car was off the island the
power came on. You
tell me God's not real.
I don't go deep-sea fishing because I get seasick. That's why I take a shower instead of using
the tub.
I get seasick in tubs.
So, don't ask me anything about deep-sea fishing. I can't testify. I can't be
a witness. But when
it comes to being a witness to what Jesus can do in a life and how He can
change your
life and give you a purpose and a meaning for life, I can
testify! You can testify if you've met
Christ as
your Savior. You
have seen something and you can tell somebody about it. That's what a witness for Jesus
is.
Now, Jesus, in a living, resurrected glorified body is
getting ready to go back to heaven.
It's a scene
loaded with emotion.
It is a scene laden down with drama.
There's been many dramatic departures.
I
think of when Nixon departed Washington in disgrace. I remember seeing him as he went out to the
helicopter
and go in and it went away.
When I was a little boy living down here during the war in
St. Petersburg, Florida, right across the
street from our apartment was the old Al Lang Field where
the Yankees used to have spring training.
I was
there as a nine-year-old boy and a bunch of cars drove
up. There was all kinds of commotion
and the doors
opened up and out stepped Babe Ruth. I saw Babe Ruth with my own eyes. I've seen the film clips of the day
he left Yankee Stadium, the stadium that Ruth built. I saw that farewell. What a dramatic time was. But
all dramatic departures pale into insignificance when we
think about the day that Jesus Christ departed from
earth and went back to heaven. The Bible says, "while they beheld he was taken up and a
cloud received him
out of their sight".
The ascension of Jesus Christ was visible event. If CNN had their television
cameras there could have filmed it that day and thrown it
all over the world.
It was a supernatural event. It defied the laws of gravity.
A cloud received Him. He whose life began in
a cradle, now His concludes in a cloud. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ who was born of
a virgin. Here is
the Lord Jesus Christ who lived a sinless life. Here is Jesus Christ who was nail-pierced on
that cross.
Now in that resurrected, nail-scarred, glorified body, Jesus
Christ is caught up by that glory cloud and He
is received out of their sight. He was going back to heaven.
His mission had been accomplished.
His work
had been done. He
had healed the sick. He had raised the dead. He had given sight to the blind. He had
died on the cross, paid the price for our sins. Now he was going back to heaven. He is going back into
the glory world. He
came down here as the Son of God. He's going back as not only Son of God, but
also Son
of Man. He is going back in a glorified resurrected
humanity. He is going to heaven to be
our high
priest. We have no
earthly priest down here because we have a priest up there who ever lives Old
Testament
make intercession for you and for me. He is our Lord, exalted to the right hand of
the Father. Jesus said,
"it is expedient for you that I go away, if I go not
away, the spirit will not come unto you". He says,
"greater works than I have done, you will do because I
go to my father". He is saying
that you are going to
win souls to Him like He has never been able to do in the
restricted area I brought myself. You
can win
souls to the end of the earth.
He went into the clouds.
Can you imagine how it was when Jesus got back to heaven? "Lift up your heads, o
ye gates, and be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors. And the Lord of glory shall come". I can almost see
the angels as they line old glory road. Shouting and rejoicing as Jesus comes
through the gates back into
the glory world. I
can almost see the saints of God as they line the streets. I can almost hear them as
they say, "Jesus, welcome back. Jesus, things haven't been the same up here
without you. Thank you, Jesus,
for going down there and dying on a cross for our sins. Welcome home, Jesus."
Those disciples were looking their eyeballs out. Verse 10 says, "and while they looked
steadfastly
toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them
in white apparel". No doubt about
it, they were
angels. They said to
these disciples, "Why do you stand gazing up into heaven?" They are say, "Don't
get caught up just on this, there's more to it." We are not to be stargazers, we are to be soulwinners.
We have a job to do.
When Jesus was transfigured on the mountain of Transfiguration, He was
walking in the
glory world. But
when it was over there was a little boy down in the valley who needed a touch
of the Lord
Jesus. We walked the
mountains of glory with our Lord. Our
hearts are lifted up in praise and
adoration unto Him.
But there's a world out there that needs Christ. Don't get caught up in the
stargazing. Get
involved in the soulwinning.
I didn't see Him go up either. But I'm going to see Him coming down. They said in verse 11, "this same
Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come
in like manner as ye have seen him go into
heaven". They
took off down the hill into Jerusalem.
Their hearts were filled with the truth that Jesus
Christ was alive and was in heaven and that there would be a
day when Jesus Christ would come again.
We
ought to live our lives everyday as if this were the day
that Jesus Christ would come again.
A man was keeping a
garden for his master. Some visitors
came by and saw the garden was immaculate.
Not a weed
anywhere. All the flowers pruned and
growing. Someone said to the gardener,
"You're
keeping this garden
as if you were expecting your master to come tomorrow." He said, "As if he were to
come today, sir, as
if he were to come today."
You and I ought to be living and witnessing and waiting and
working as if Jesus Christ died yesterday,
rose again this morning and is coming back this
afternoon. Our church can be a power
church if we
will claim the Holy Spirit's power to tell a lost and dying
city that Jesus is a live and that He'll save
and it will change your life.
God has wonderfully blessed us as a congregation, but I
believe the great days are yet to come.
I believe
God has great blessings for us in the future.
On the government
Archives Building in Washington, there is Latin inscription which translated
means,
"The past is
prologue." One day some visitors
came and said to the janitor, "What does that mean?" The
janitor said,
"It means you ain't seen nothing, yet."
God has given us all power.
It is the power to be witnesses in this city and to the ends of the
earth
for Jesus Christ. In
His name let's claim the power and say to a lost and dying world, "You
ain't seen
nothing yet."
