He asked the pastors that he’s preaching to, would you rather have a hundred fireball radicals in your church than a hundred wooden Indians, people that sit there… I know what my answer to that question would be. I mean, if I thought right now about what would I want a church to look like that I was pastoring? I have a picture in my mind of what that is. And I’ll definitely tell you, it’s on the fireball radical end rather than the wooden Indian end. And I think to myself, Ok, you’ve got Brother Kyle, he’s pastoring this church. Gary, he’s an elder here. What their picture of the ideal church is I’m certain going to be different than what mine is and what Gary’s is is different than Kyle’s. There won’t be vast differences, but maybe a little bit based on our preferences, our gifts, our desire, and vision. And how do we get to where we have that? Our lives are up and down.
Brother Kyle’s talking right now about we’re at a certain chapter in our life. We’re not only at a certain chapter in our life, we’re at a chapter in our church’s lives. And the churches are changing. You know, I came here in ’93. Fifteen years ago. Old building out there. Who was still here then? Lots of people, that aren’t here now. It was different. And lots of people are here now that weren’t here then. It was a different climate. Things were changing. We’ve seen that in our own church. It’s been 7 1/2 years now. And things are constantly changing. Different people come and with those people come gifts and different degrees of intensity and there’s no doubt about it, you lose some people. And you lose some of that. And we can have desires about what we might want things to look like, and yet if the Lord doesn’t put it together that way, we could have all the desires in the world. We can ask God. We can lay these prayers out there, but ultimately, whatever the chemistry is, whatever the makeup is, we’re so dependent on the Lord. But I realize this, if you come into the New Testament, what you find so often is that the New Testament writers, especially I’m thinking right now of Paul. It’s not so much when he wants something. He wants to see God’s people in a certain shape, a certain character. Or he wants to see the churches a certain way. It’s very interesting in the New Testament. It’s not so much that we’re thrown the Ten Commandments in our face. Very often, you know what Paul would do is I want to teach the Corinthians about giving. Very interesting. He lays before them Christ. Or you think about the Philippians. I want to teach them about humility. Where better can he go? And he throws out Christ, equal with God, laid aside His glory, came here to this earth, took upon the form of a man. And I really believe, Brother Kyle says he wanted me to come here, and try, whatever he thought he would get from me. Obviously, he has something in mind when I’m preaching. But I’ve realized this, I want the hundred firebrand radicals in our church. And I would suspect that Kyle probably would have a preference on that end as well. And I thought about, how do you get that? Ok, well, if Paul’s going to take us to Christ in these other things, this is probably it. If the Spirit of God – because that’s where we’re dependent, if the power of God does not produce what we’re looking for here, we’re just dead in the water, folks. And I realize this, God is very interested in glorifying His Son. In fact, that Spirit was put into the church and into this world to do just that thing: to exalt Christ. So if we can’t go there and produce something, folks, then I don’t know that I have any hope of going anywhere else. And so, let’s read together in Luke 19. Luke 19:41-46 I am simply taking a snapshot of the life of Christ. Now realize, I could have gone to many places, but there’s just something about these verses that I find very interesting. Luke 19:41 Got that brother? I’ll give you time to get there. Luke 19:41 “And when He was come near, He beheld the city.” Of course, this is speaking of our Lord. “…and wept over it. Saying ‘if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes, for the day shall come upon thee, that thine enemy shall cast a trench about thee, encompass thee round and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.’ And He went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein and them that bought, saying unto them, ‘it is written, ‘my house is the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.'”
Now, I have entitled my sermon “From Weeping to Whipping” subtitled, “The Necessity of Passion in Missions.” It’s apparent to me, as it probably is to you, that the people who come along in life and turn the world upside down are not the ones who are indifferent. That’s just true. It’s not the disinterest. It’s not the neutral, cool-spirited individual who usually makes a difference in this world. Rather, it tends to be the passionate people. When I talk about passion, I mean that unusually powerful emotion, compulsion that drives some to be and do, what so many others, they just sit on the sidelines and they watch. That’s the idea. It just seems to me, that if you look at this world, look at our history – the history of mankind. You look around. Everything great; everything worthwhile; if things are significant, if you see something out there that’s impactful, fulfilling, it’s typically the result of somebody’s undeniable and unstoppable passion. The endeavors that stand out in human history are the result of people with deep, consuming desire to see something come to pass. Brethren, you just look around. You look at history. You look at every major military endeavor. You look at the major scientific breakthroughs, pioneering expanses into the unknown, greatest ages, greatest turns in history, they’re marked typically by certain valiant efforts of somebody somewhere some time that had passion. I mean really. You know that’s true. The world is typically turned by the fanatics. It’s always been turned by the passionate people. And you know what? It’s no less true for the missionary endeavor. Every major missionary advance, every penetration in the world’s darkest holes. Heard a little bit about William Carey. What do you think was pulsing through that man’s heart and veins those days in his little shop there, when he’d work on those shoes. What was he doing all the time? Maps. His mind is off in other places. He’s contemplating the heathen. It’s the passionate people. You’ve got Hudson Taylor. What’s the guy doing? I mean before he goes to China. The guy’s sleeping on boards! He’s eating rice. He’s in some dismal shanty shack part of town, and he’s ministering to people. While his friends are doing what? They’re sleeping on the cushy beds. They’re eating roast beef and pudding, right? And you don’t even know about his friends. But you can sure read about him. Folks, it’s typically the passionate people who seem to exchange the safety of inaction, and there is safety in it, folks. But they exchange that safety of inaction for the hazards of God-inspired progress out somewhere. Whether it’s into your neighborhoods or out among the heathens somewhere. That’s just the way it is. It’s said that Robert Murray McCheyne, wherever he stepped, Scotland shook. Now I realize he wasn’t a missionary, but he definitely had an evangelist’s heart. He made a nation shake. What is it that makes nations shake? You think it might be the fact that when that man stepped into the pulpit he couldn’t help but weep and show sorrow and anguish for souls just about every time? Stick his head in the Bible and just weep for the people. There was passion, there was emotion. You think that had anything… Folks, these are the things that are going to move this world. Jim Elliot – he said, “the shouts in our churches have been replaced by yawns.” Now you know what? I know where we’re at as a church – the church I pastor – I have some idea about where it’s at. I’m not exactly certain where Community is. I haven’t been here for over seven years. But is that the case? Are there yawns now where there used to be shouts? I remember those days 15 years ago. I heard plenty of shouting here. Folks, it’s always been that way. Passion drives the evangelistic endeavor. It’s always been the burning heart that presses forth with the new endeavor. It’s the burning heart that starts them. It’s the burning heart that sustains them. And where that passion is quenched, mark my words, you cannot produce a single example to me where passion is quenched, where the missionary endeavor will continue to live. Oh, you can coldly carry on some mechanical little deal that you’ve got going. You can coldly sign the check and send it to somebody on the other side of the world. I’m not saying you can’t do that and there be no passion, but you can’t maintain this thing in the way that God would have you to do it, unless there is passion. To have the kind of impact on this world to turn it upside down for Christ, it requires the hot heart. Not the cool mind. So, brethren, the case I want to make this morning, tomorrow, this is really just going to be one long message from right now all the way through when I say amen tomorrow is this: God-breathed passion sustains the missionary endeavor. There’s no substitute for this where passion for God for souls is weak, zeal for missions will be weak. And where that passion dies, you can have all the learning, and you can have all your books, you can have all your Calvinism, you can have all your money, and programs, your theatrics, all sorts of people, all the talk, all the intentions, all the analyzing, all of it, will do little good. God give us passionate people. I would rather have 10 wild-eyed passionate savages that you’ve got to corral and guide and direct and they scare you half the time than a bunch of people, a hundred people, two hundred, five hundred that they all sit there, and you get all stirred up… I can remember being in a reformed Baptist church up in Grand Rapids. Now, that just gave that away who that is, but I remember something exciting coming from the pulpit, and one guy said, “Mmmm.” I thought (scream), I want to go back to Community. Folks, let our people be simple, let them be poor let them be insignificant in this world’s estimation, lowly, despised, foolish, weak, but just let them burn with a God-given fire. One of the greatest hopes of the missionary endeavor, it’s this, it’s fire in the pulpit. It’s a blaze out there in the pews, in the seats. That’s what’s necessary. I’ll use the words of old Duncan Campbell. He said this, “We shall, at our best, appear to a mad world as a crowd of common people in a common market babbling about common wares.” And that’s if we have no passion. I believe the best place, the first place, we need to look to find this necessary union of mission and passion is in none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. That’s where we need to go. That’s where I want us to go. We think of Him in so many ways. King. Lord. Judge. We thought about last night. All right and proper. We’re talking missions this morning. And even here, we can’t get away from the fact that even when it comes to missions, He is the First and the Last. He’s the model. Jesus is the classic missionary. He is the prototype missionary. In Him, we have the standard. Maybe you don’t typically think that way about Him, but think with me here. The word: missionary. It comes from a Latin word, derived from a word that has the meaning the act of sending. That’s exactly what a missionary is, right? It’s one we send. Someone sent forth to proclaim the Gospel of Christ. That’s exactly what they did in Acts 13 is it not? The Spirit of God designated Barnabus and Saul, and it says there that the church sent them forth. They were sent out. Now in the Greek language, the equivalent word somewhat close to this is apostolos from which we get the word apostle. Both missionary and apostle have the same basic meaning. They contain the idea of one that is sent forth with a mission, or a messenger that is sent forth with a message. Listen, Scripture tells us, it actually gives Christ this title of apostle. In Hebrews 3:1 “Wherefore holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.” Christ Jesus is the Apostle. Not just an apostle, He is the Apostle. He sets the standard. He is the missionary of missionaries. He is the messenger of God. He is the Chief Sent One. Now here’s the thing, this is not at all a foreign concept in Scripture. Have you ever noticed how often Jesus said things like this? John 5:36 “The Father hath sent Me.” Luke 4:18 “He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives.” John 4:34 “My food is to do the will of Him that sent Me.” John 6:57 “The living Father hath sent Me.” And on we could go. At least some 34 times, just in the Gospel of John alone, Jesus Christ states that He is sent of the Father. Every time He says that He’s affirming His missionary capacity. He is the Sent One. That’s what a missionary is. Christ is the definitive God-sanctioned standard for missions. And I want you to notice something, it ought not to surprise us that it’s John who all these times declares Him as the Sent One, more than any of the other Gospel writers. Why? Why ought that not to surprise us? Because you know how He starts his Gospel? You’ve got this everlasting Word. This Word who was with God, and who was God, and you get down to verse 14 and what does that Word do? The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Now what do we have here? We have incarnation. What do we mean by incarnation? That’s a fancy word that means deity becomes humanity. Or God becomes man. In the beginning was the Word. The Word. The expression of God. The declaration of God. There you have the second person of the Godhead – that is Jesus Christ. The Word was with God. And the Word was God. He’s speaking of Jesus. Now verse 14 tells us this truth. How did Jesus influence the world? He didn’t sit up in glory and send us an email. The Lord didn’t sit on the throne up in heaven and loft tracts down to us or holler down at us. What did He do? He came and He dwelt among us. The Word became flesh. Eternal deity that dwelt forever in power and glory and beauty of the same essence with the Father, He gave up that glory. In condescension, He came forth on a mission. And what was His mission? Remember what He told Pilate? For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world. And what was that purpose? To bear witness to the truth. The mission of the Christ: bear witness to the truth. Not just to bear witness to one truth among many. He’s not saying there’s one truth for you and another for me. Jesus Christ came into the world to bear witness to the truth. He was sent from heaven, by His Father, into this world, as a messenger of truth. Is that not exactly what missions is all about? He laid aside His glory. Laid aside His high position. Laid aside His comforts, His safety. And the Bible says, He descended into the lower parts of the earth, and He took upon Himself the form of humanity. He came, He dwelt in the womb of the virgin. The Eternal Word became flesh. That is the reality of incarnation. And that is the very fabric of missions. And here’s the thing, passion characterized that incarnation. The Word became flesh, and what did He do? He dwelt among us. He did not dwell far away, out there in a field, up on a mountain top, in a monastery. He came and He dwelt among us. Not like some stoic, not all cool and detached. He dwelt among us with His passions. Look at the man. The God-man. He came from heaven. Sent of His Father, and what did He come into this world with? He brought His tears here. He brought His indignation here. He brought His rejoicing in the Spirit here. He brought His sorrows here, He brought His zeal here, His compassion, His weeping, His anger, His love. He brought them here. He came from God with the bowels of love and He got right next to men in their sin and in their need. A passion burned in the heart of Jesus. And by that passion, He was driven to do His Father’s will, and to go hard after the souls of men. To call sinners to repentance. And to go all the way to the cross. This passion drove Him right to where sinners are – in their dark holes, in their back streets, in the depths of where men dwell in their sin, and in their wickedness and their need and their depravity. He wasn’t so cold and so passionless that He wasn’t willing to condescend and dwell with the lowliest, neediest dirtiest, sinful creatures. He came on a mission to dwell among us. So forever stamp that into your minds. The reality of Christ as the great prototype missionary. Now, let’s look at our text. Finally, Luke 19. Now look, the reason that I spent so much time looking at Jesus as a missionary is because what I want you to constantly have in your minds is that everywhere in the Gospels, including right here in Luke 19, Jesus is living, He’s functioning, He’s breathing, He’s going about His business, in the mission field – His mission field. Everywhere we find Him in the pages of these four Gospels, He is the Apostle sent from Heaven to earth by the living Father. I want you to see Him as that. One who came from outside this world, One who laid aside His comforts and His glory to dwell among us. Not far from us, among us. And we look here in Luke 19, I want you to feel this reality. As you experience the yearning, burning, passionate heart of Christ, see all that right there in the missionary context. Now, like I said before, I could have taken you to any number of texts that show you the sort of fire that burned in the missionary heart of Christ, but I find Luke 19 especially compelling. And I want to show you why, by having you notice three things here. First. Christ’s passion agreed with His mission. In other words, you can actually see a distinct connection between what Christ got excited about and why He was there. Now let me explain what I mean. The very term “mission” implies there’s a task to carry out. There’s a goal. There’s some aim at hand. What might that aim for the Son of God be in coming into the world? Well, we looked. He came to bear witness of the truth. He told us in some other places, maybe more reasons or a fuller picture on why He came into this world. Can you guys think of a text right off? He came into this world to? Save sinners. That’s clearly very focal in the mission of Christ. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Here’s the thing, I find that when I look there at Luke 19:41, we would all have to admit that the very nature of Christ’s passion is absolutely consistent with His mission. It was for the souls of men that He wept as He looked over Jerusalem. Christ’s mission is to save sinners. Now look, His passion is towards sinners. His mission is to save sinners. You see a consistency there? You see they’re in harmony. His mission: rescue the souls of men. His bowels of compassion likewise yearned and burned for men. But there’s more. In John 7:18, Jesus describes Himself like this. John 7:18 He describes Himself as the One who seeks the glory of Him who sent Him. The Father sent the Son. And in being sent into this world, one of the aims of the One being sent is to seek the glory of the One doing the sending. The Son was sent and came in order to seek the glory of the Father. And again, if we look right here at this portion that we read: Luke 19:45-46 We find Christ full of holy zeal, for what? Nothing other than His Father’s glory and honor. His mission, He says, was to come in to glorify the One who sent Him. And what do you find Him doing right there? His mission? Glorify His Father. His zeal, His passion, was for the glory of His Father. Now look, you might be saying, ok we see that. Folks, don’t miss the simplicity of this. His passion agreed with His mission. It is any wonder that we can’t sustain high energy, high fervency exertions for some radical missionary advance into the kingdom of darkness when our people’s passions are not consistent with our mission? Folks, when your passion is for the way your house looks, is it any surprising, that the church isn’t sending forth more missionaries? When your passion is for the flowers, your passion is for the car, your passion is for the workshop, or your job, your passion is for your money; Do you really think that where we have people whose passions are not in the direction of the souls of men and the glory of God that we’re going to produce any type of missionary thrust advance whatsoever? Folks, you know what? We can look around at a lot of churches. And I’ve found people, they are passionate for Calvinism. But they could give a flip whether the guy down the street is damned and going to hell. You’ve got people passionate for whether everybody’s on time or not. Now I like that myself, but we have passion for Puritans, we have passion for this thing over here, passion for that thing… Folks, you get a passion for the three point expository sermon, passion for the regulative principle, passion for this and that… Everything be done orderly, and I’m not against all those types of things, but these same people won’t shed a tear. I’d rather have a guy that can’t come to church ever on time, but when you have prayer meeting, that guy is just doubled over, shedding tears. I personally would rather he come on time and bend over and shed tears, but you know what, if it’s one or the other, I’ll tell you what I’ll take. We have to ask ourselves that. Here’s Christ. He had a mission. And He was passionate about the aspects of that mission He came to fulfill. I assure you, folks. We will not see the type of sacrificial giving of time and money; We will not see the fervent prayers and fasting; We will not see people ready to lay down their lives and do some daring endeavors out of love, out of a desire for the passion of God, if we’re all hung up about the Spurs or the Cowboys; if our passion in life is about guns or about the welder, or about the new tires for the car, or this toy and that toy. Who was it that said? And I don’t think I’ll even quote it right, but Tozer, he was talking about man’s susceptibility to idolatry. We have this deep-seated tendency to be pulled aside by every idol that comes along. It seems like even as Christians, there’s always one we’re fighting. It’s always something trying to creep back in – one or two or five things. Folks, you let your passions run off on those things; the church will die when it comes to missions. You just start giving your passions, you start giving your heart to all sorts of other things; this will never be sustained. Amy Carmichael said, “Oh, for a passionate passion for souls! Oh, for a pity that yearns! Oh, for the love that loves unto death! Oh, for the fire that burns! Oh, for the pure prayer power that prevails, that pours itself out for the lost, victorious prayer in the conqueror’s name. Oh, for a Pentecost!” The second thing I want you to notice: The intensity of Christ’s passions. You think with me real quick here. You know what? You’ve got to picture Him. This is what we often times look at with the triumphal entry. He’s coming. He’s on the back of this colt, and He looks out, and I guarantee you, folks, that when it says He’s seeing Jerusalem there, He’s not looking at buildings. He sees people in those streets. There are men, there are women, there are children. They are out about their business in the marketplaces, and He looks down there. Let me tell you something, It says He wept. I’m talking to you right now about the intensity of His passions. That is not the same word for weep that you find over in Luke 11 when He wept at Lazarus’s tomb. When He wept there, that term has to do with the fact that He shed tears. This one here has to do with the fact that He wailed. He lamented. If you ever read these words that He’s speaking here as though He spoke them like some stoic, you are wrong. He is wailing. He is filled with affections and passions for the souls of men that literally rent Him. It tore at Him. Audible weeping is the emphasis. The most intense pity and sympathy and love and kindness compassion and sorrow are flowing together in this eruption of holy emotion. And the amazing thing about this is that in the matter of one verse, all of a sudden, Luke just whisks us away from that and puts us in the temple now. And what do you see there? I called this “From Weeping to Whipping.” Now I hope you’ll grant me that liberty. I realize that doesn’t specifically say whipping here. It does over in John 2. And I realize that’s a separate account, but I imagine that Him taking those cords, making them into a whip, driving them out of there, was effective enough the first time; He probably did it the same way the second time. But I tell you this, when I was lost, my friends and I did a lot of gambling. And I can remember sometimes sitting around the poker table, and there’d be 10 guys, 12 guys, 15 guys and an enormous amount of cash on that table. And I can tell you this, if some guy would have walked in off the street and flipped that table, we would have attacked him first, and then we would have been scrambling like mad to get our money off the floor. And I’ll tell you what, for Christ to walk into that temple and do what He did and send those guys running, I’ll tell you this, whatever He had in His hand or didn’t have in His hand, whatever they saw in His face and in His expressions, it put the fear of God in them and they got out of there! He had passion. It was strong. He had the zeal as it says in John 2. The zeal of God’s house had eaten Him up. Look folks, the Lord walked around this earth with fire burning in His heart. He had a fire there. It burned, it raged for the glory of His father. For the souls of men, there was intensity, there was fervency, it was always there. But you know what? Many folks don’t like people like that in their churches. Why? It makes them feel uncomfortable. People like that, they’re dangerous. They’re unpredictable. They’re unconventional. They don’t follow proper etiquette. We need everything right and ordered. We’ve got to have that regulative principle in order. You know, people like that, they just shout at times they ought not to, or they do things strange, bizarre, make us uncomfortable. Not politically correct. I mean, how many of us, we have to sit and analyze… now if we do this, and we go after those guys there in the temple, there’s likely to be these consequences, we might get put on a cross, they might kill us, we better not do that. But folks, I guarantee you this. It’s these types it’s these types that it’s so amazing how often they can find Christians who are the perfect cold, wet blanket for their fiery heart. How often it’s the Christians. It’s not the lost pagan guy down the street. It’s the Christians who when you find people like this, they just want to take the cold, icy bucket of water and splash it on the folks. I’ll tell you this, it’s those types – intense like Christ, who put the fear of God in the heart of the devil. The masses perish. The enemies of God go unchallenged. And what are we doing? Jim Elliot. He says, “Ah, generation that hears, but feels not. Listens, but aches not. Harks, but knows not pain, nor the pleasurable healing balm thereof. Tell me, is all fire extinguish save in hell? Damned be this tipidity. Have we no fire to hate? Does no flame seize our prophets? Show me one burning heart. Let me see a single worldling afire with true passion. One heavenling, consumed with his God’s eternal burnings. In them, I would find excuse for you, my cheating, shamming, joyless generation; well has your own poet said, you live and die ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed.” He goes on to say, “Oh, that God would shake up some of those married couples around Portland with their prim unconcern for souls and saints, dabbling and building lots, houses, jobs, babies, silverware, while souls starve for what they know. Souls starve for what these married couples know. God shall not hold us guiltless either. He shall suffer loss. The urge comes on me at times to write in scathing terms, articles for these piddly little magazines of comfort and kind words for God’s little flock. Baloney. When are we going to rise like men and face the world squarely? This drively nonsense which condones inactivity because of the apostasy of the days, needs a little fire to show up, the downright ungodliness it hides, we cuddle around the Lord’s table, as though it were the last coal of God’s altar. We warm our hands thinking that that’s going to appease the wrath of the indignant Christ when He charges us with the unmet, unchallenged, untaught generation of heathen, doing their Christmas shopping. It makes me boil when I think of the power we profess and the utter impotency of our action. Believers who know one tenth as much as we do are doing a hundred times more for God. With His blessing and our criticism. Oh, if I could write it, preach it, say it, paint it, anything at all. If only God’s power would become known among us. And then he says, Ichabod. Now, third. I would have you notice this about Christ. Notice the enduring aspect of His passions. When does Luke 19 take place? It wasn’t day number one of His missionary endeavor to the world. It wasn’t the first day or the first month of His public ministry. He was at the end, folks. This is what’s called, like I already said, the triumphal entry. This is the long-expeted King coming in the name of the Lord, in several days, He would be crucified and killed. For nigh unto 33 years, Christ has sojourned on His mission field, and less than a week from the end, the fire still blazes. Some of you guys, these guys go down on the streets downtown and they preach. And they came across a guy from another church, and here’s what happened. First week, he went down there. Tried to get the church excited. Let’s go down there. Let’s do some evangelism on the streets. How many went the first week? . How many went the second week? . Here’s Christ. The intensity. The passion. It hasn’t diminished. It hasn’t grown cold. It’s still hot. As magnificent as ever. It’s there. But how typical… What’s the average stay for the American missionary on the foreign mission field? Do you know? It’s pathetic and miserable. I think it’s right around 1 year. And our Lord was quite a different example. His passion was consistent with His mission. His passion is intense. His passion is enduring. You know, folks, far too often we have this erroneous and probably very arrogant notion, that if we have the right doctrine, it guarantees our success and blessing. I think what Elliot says is absolutely right. There are those that know what? A tenth as much as we do, and they’re doing a hundred times more. And where you find those guys, you’re going to find the passion of Christ burning in their souls. Here’s the thing, we do need right doctrine. But we need more than that. You look at this and you say, I see the heart of Elliot. More than that, I see the heart of Christ. You know, folks, what do we do? Where do we go? You know as well as I do, that you’re not going to get this passion watching t.v., eating your twinkies. It’s not going to come that way. We have a marvelous truth. Oh, how often we get all hung up. We’re like Martha. We become all disturbed, perplexed, distracted, worried about our service for Christ. We’re running around, we’re doing this, and it all becomes so mechanical. We’ve got our thing we do. We’ve got our week, it’s all ordered. We go through the mechanical plottings of this thing, we get all hung up on these things. We need all the people in our churches to get to the place where they say I want more than that. Be done with that. I want the heart of the matter. I want to get in this thing. I want to be immersed in God. I want to be immersed in His fire. Because it can happen. How’s this thing going to happen? It’s not like we look at ourselves, it’s not like Drew, you look at the past, and you say, well, that’s it. Wasted 46 years of my life. Nothing can happen here. That’s not the way I read my Bible. What it says is says this, we can behold the glory of that glorious Christ. We talked about last night, sitting upon that throne. We can behold His glories in the Scriptures, in the Gospels, we can look there. We can get on our faces. We can get alone with God. We can ask Him. Lord, burn that image into our souls. And we have a promise right there, That He will do that, degree by degree, glory by glory, He will write that, emblazon that very image into our soul. That’s why I wanted to show you Christ. Because I trust the Spirit of God. He’s in that business. He has promised. Does not Romans 8:29 say that He has predestined to conform His children to the image of Christ? He has said that. He’s going to do that. If you are a true child of God, and you’ve been going through a season where you’ve been down, where you’ve been dry, you’ve been cold. You’re not going to find the heat in your work, in your money, in your favorite athletic team. It’s not going to come there. It’s not going to come by hours in front of the computer, or the television. You’ve got to get alone with God. You’ve got to get in the very presence of that inner glory, and you’ve got to stand there in the light of that, and in the light of the Scripture, and on your face, like we heard earlier, trembling at God’s Word; you need to find Christ. And you need to look at Him. And you need to gaze at Him. And His mission. And you need to plead with God, write that, burn that, emblazon that into my own heart and life and being. Lord, don’t let me die. Don’t let me just fizzle out. And you’re not going to do that in thirty seconds. You’ve got to take time. You’ve got to get with God. You’ve got to see Christ. I remember one man telling me, “oh, I pray when I’m shaving.” Yeah, you pray when you shave. He made it sound like that’s all he did. And if that’s all you do, you’re never going to do anything. We’ve got to have some people that are serious about this, that are serious about the quiet place. They’re serious. Gaze at His glory, brethren. Immerse yourselves more and more until the fire is lit, and the heart burns, and all hell is afraid, and there is no substitute. Here it is. This is essential. The union of mission and passion. Amen.
