Just seeing what God's doing in our church is exciting, and many
of you are part of that. You're here on Saturdays when we
are doing the outreach and you see people come in and maybe
some of you even have a direct, direct impact on the people who
are coming in, and I think you ought to be.
Now, obviously, I say this all the time, our goal is not just
to get people to church. Our goal is to get people to
Christ and many times coming to church is a help with that, but
it's the word of God that's going to to breakthrough that
hard ground for those who need to be saved and those who need
to have their lives changed if they already are saved.
It's it's the Holy Spirit that has to do that work.
And but he uses us. He uses us to do it.
And just seeing what God's doing is is exciting.
Brother Steve accepted Christ as his Savior last week and that's
an exciting thing. Brother Jim and Miss Sue are
going to join the church after the service today.
And just seeing things that God's doing is, is moving us all
in that direction. That is, is just continuing to
build his church. And it's his church.
It's it's him that has to do the work.
And obviously he uses us. It's exciting when he does that,
but it's God that does it. And I'm preaching this message
this morning because we're going into the holiday season and
things tend to get busy during the holiday season time.
And you know, the the work year is coming to an end.
And so you have a lot of a lot of things that you're doing at
work to try to wrap all those things up.
Lots of holiday shopping and traveling and a lot of other
things that that really just threaten to eat up our time.
And here's what the Bible says in Second Timothy Chapter 1 and
verse #3 Paul is obviously writing this to Timothy.
And he said, I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with
pure conscience, that without ceasing, I have remembrance of
thee in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see
thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with
joy when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in
thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother
Eunice. And I'm persuaded that in thee
also, wherefore I put thee in remembrance, that thou stir up
the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my
hands. For God hath not given us the
spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
I think one of the things that we have to constantly remind
ourselves about in our Christian life is that there's a great
danger in allowing the things of God in our lives to grow cold.
I think that's why Paul, even to Timothy, Timothy of this, this,
this young preacher, this this young man who had so much
potential and who had so much promise.
And I don't, I don't think Timothy was a teenager.
I think he was probably at the very earliest in his early 20s,
maybe even into his 30s by this point is a young man that's
moving into ministry and doing a lot of things in God's service.
And even even to Timothy, Paul had to say, I'm putting you in
remembrance. I'm reminding you about the fact
that you need to stir up the gift which is in the by the
putting on of my hands. I Timothy had served Paul served
with Paul for many years and had served Paul for many years.
He was in an he was an experienced preacher.
He had helped plant churches. He had, he had instructed
preachers, but he still needed to be put in remembrance of the
very basic things because it's very easy for us to move away
from those things many times. And if Timothy needed to be
reminded, I think we need to be reminded also how often and how
easily we forget the importance of guarding and cultivating our
spiritual lives in the spiritual things in our lives, the things
that are the most important. And there are times in our lives
when it becomes necessary for us to stir up the embers, so to
speak to, to blow on the coals and get that fire hot again.
And just by way of understanding, I, I, I think it,
it has to be made perfectly clear that this is a message for
those who are already saved. You cannot stir up something
that is completely dead. If a fire is dead, you can't
just go blow on or you can't just go take a piece of wood and
blow on and expect that a fire is going to come out of it
because it's dead. And that's what the Bible says.
For those who don't know Jesus Christ as their savior, they are
spiritually dead. There is nothing that can that
can make something alive if there's not life there already.
Those who have come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior
have that life. They have that everlasting life
that only comes from God. But sometimes in our Christian
lives, we allow that fire to die down.
We allow those the, the, the the the, the fire to grow cold.
And the Bible makes very plain the fact that those who are
unsaved are still dead in their sins.
But those who are saved, We can see a pattern many times that
happens in our lives where, you know, we get right with the Lord
and we get excited about serving him and, and that's a great
place to be. But over time, small things
happen that come in and, and that, that keep us from having
that fervent relationship that God wants to have with us.
And we allow those small things to creep in, little attitudes,
small disappointments, maybe even many times unnoticed
habits. And many times, almost without
even realizing it, we allow that bitterness to form.
And often the things that we get better about and the things that
cause us to lose our fervency are things that in the grand
scheme of things are really not that big of a deal at all, other
than the fact that it's pulling us away from God.
But, but, but if you were actually to sit down and look at
that thing that's pulling you away from the Lord and you,
you'd have to say that it's not really that big of a deal that
I've allowed to come in here and get in between my relationship
with God. So the question this morning is
very simple but serious. What causes us to grow cold in
our Christian life? What causes us to grow cold in
our Christian life? That's the question that I want
to answer this morning. The title of the message is Stir
up the gift. Stir up the gift.
And I want to answer that question.
What what are the things that cause us to grow cold?
Well, there's a lot of things that we can look at.
I'm going to look at four of them this morning and hopefully
it'll be a help to you. Pray and ask God to do something
in your heart as I pray and ask for his blessing on the message.
Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.
We do thank you for bringing us all here together this morning.
And God, there is no there's there's no accident that we're
all here. You brought every one of us here
for a reason. God, whether we come here all
the time or whether we're just visiting or whether we just here
and there when we have the opportunity.
God, you've got everybody here for this message at this time,
and you knew what you laid on my heart to preach, and you know
who you wanted to be here, God. So I pray that you'd speak to
some hearts this morning, especially those who may have
have have cooled in their relationship with you.
God made every single one of us, myself included, may we evaluate
our lives this morning and see where we are in our relationship
with you and where we can make improvements where we can get
closer to you. I pray that you'd give us the
courage to do that this morning. God, I pray that you'd help us
to get something from your word today.
Thank you for all that you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.
The first thing that I see that happens so often in our
Christian lives that causes us to grow cold is willful sin.
Willful sin that would seem obvious, but nothing quenches
the fire of God in our hearts like knowingly walking in
disobedience. Willful sin distances us from
the presence of God it it deadens our spiritual fervency.
It's the dead ends our spiritual sensitivity and I say that it
would seem obvious because how can you expect to have God's
power in your life when you're willfully partaking in sin.
But the truth is that many Christians are involved in sin
that they know is sin and they're making excuses for that
sin to try to give them a reason why they should be allowed to
continue living their lives that the way that they're living.
And they justify why they've allowed to do what they're
doing. Someone who has a a problem with
anger can justify that anger by talking about all the stress
that they're under or all the, you know, the lack of sleep
because of work or whatever it happens to be.
Somebody who is watching pornography can justify it by
reasoning that it's not an addiction.
It's just something that I that I do from time to time.
I'm not addicted to it. And I always ask God to forgive
me when, but when I'm done looking at all those things that
I shouldn't look at, or I'm watching these movies that I
shouldn't watch or looking at these videos or whatever happens
to be on YouTube, It's, it's not an addiction.
So it's OK. As long as I still have a handle
on it. I'm all right.
And we excuse that sin. Somebody who has a problem with
bitterness or unforgiveness can, can justify it by blaming the
other person who they think is the cause for their bitterness
or their unforgiveness. And we, we're so good as
Christians, really just as humans with coming up with
reasons why my sin is OK. No sin is OK in God's eyes.
No, no tiny little white lie, as we call it, is OK in God's eyes.
No little bit of losing your temper, no little bit of
bitterness, no little bit of of things that are inappropriate.
None of those things are OK in God's eyes.
We should not be looking for excuses for any of those things.
We should be looking for ways to get it out.
We should be asking for God's help to get it out, not looking
for ways that we can keep it there.
And that's why I say willful sin many times is what keeps us from
living for the Lord the way that we should and the way that we
can. I read a story in a newspaper.
Diana Valencia was arrested in Texas on drug charges and this
goes back to September of 2008. The newspaper said there was
little doubt regarding her guilt.
Anyone caught with two kilos of cocaine is going to have
difficulty explaining that away as an innocent mistake.
However, she came up with a novel attempt at getting off.
She and her sister decided to bribe the judge who would be
hearing her case to make sure she got off.
And the plan might have worked since the judge was willing to
take the money. Except the FBI got involved and
they set up this lady's sister. They've been suspicious of this
judge for some time, but they set this lady's sister up with
some wires and sent her in to have some conversations with
this judge. And five conversations later,
when they had finally decided on a price that they would pay this
judge to let the sister off, they had everything they needed
against this judge. And the FBI came in and arrested
him and the woman who is trafficking that cocaine.
But a lot of people seem to have the same mindset.
Now, we may not go to a judge and try to bribe him.
Hopefully you're not doing things that will make you have
to go in front of a judge. But we're not.
We're not bribing people. But a lot of times we try to
bribe God. We say God.
Well, if you don't, if I can get through this without getting
caught, then I'll do this for you.
And God, if you could just excuse this over here because I
know that's not something that I should be doing, but just excuse
this. I'll do this for you on the
other side. And we try to make a deal with
God. We try to bribe God into
allowing him to, to let us continue living in that sin.
And a lot of people think that they can joy sin and find some
means of, of avoiding the consequences. 1 old preacher
said they sow wild oats and then they pray for crop failure.
That's not the way that it works.
No matter what devices we come up with, God is a sure and He is
a certain judge, and we cannot bargain with him.
We cannot bribe him. His hatred of sin parallels His
perfect holiness. He does not turn away from sin.
And you can be sure that your sin will find you out.
But in the meantime, it's going to keep you from being what God
wants you to be in your Christian life.
Turn over to Jeremiah chapter 3. Keep your finger there in Second
Timothy. We're going to come back to it.
But Israel's backsliding and Jeremiah's day was, was rooted
in these deliberate choices to turn away.
And of course, we see that happening so many times.
You start in the book of Genesis and you read through and you
just see that that at every turn Israel turned away from God and
they rebelled against him. And God had to punish them and
brought them back. And they lived for him for a
short time. And the next thing you know,
they're turning and doing their own thing again.
And God warned him and warned him and warned him and warned
him. You better follow me.
You better live for me. Or if things aren't going to go
so well for you, but listen, you follow me.
Here's all the good things that will happen.
And it never failed. They always turned away after
these other gods willfully. Nobody forced them to do it.
They, they made the decisions to turn away from God and to turn
into those idols. But Israel did exactly what many
of us do. They justified their backsliding
to themselves. They had a valid reason why they
were moving away from God. Jeremiah chapter 3 and verse #11
Obviously Jeremiah is writing this.
And he said, And the Lord said unto me, The backsliding Israel
hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.
Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say,
Return thou backsliding Israel, sayeth the Lord.
And I will not 'cause mine anger to fall upon you, for I am
merciful, sayeth the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever.
Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou has transgressed
against the Lord thy God, and has scattered thy ways to the
strangers under every green tree.
And ye have not obeyed my voice, sayeth the Lord.
What a wonderful God we serve. God is there waiting to give
them a second chance. Come back to me.
Just come back to me. You're back slidden.
You're away from me, but come back, I'll accept you.
When we choose sin, we choose coldness.
But when we return, God is ready to restore that warmth.
God is ready to restore that fellowship.
What a wonderful God we serve. But you notice that there was a
prerequisite. There's a prerequisite.
God said that they had to acknowledge that known sin.
Look what he says there in verse #13 I'm merciful.
My anger is not going to fall upon you.
I'm ready to accept you back. But only acknowledge thine
iniquity that thou has transgressed against the Lord
thy God and has scattered thy ways to the strangers under
every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the
Lord. That's what he's waiting for.
Acknowledge it. Come to the point where you say,
I am living in sin and I need to change that God will be there
waiting for you when you're ready to make that change.
But he's not going to do it because you say, well, I want to
be a better person. Yeah.
I, I mean, it's OK what I'm doing.
It's, it's not all the time. It's, it's, you know, it's not,
it's not, it's not every day that I go do whatever sin that
is. Not every day that I lose my
temper. It's not every day that I have
lost or whatever it happens to be, and we still continue to
make excuses for those sins. That is not an acknowledgement
of my sin before God. And there is no restoration of
that fellowship. There's no restoration of that
relationship with God until I acknowledge that sin before him.
Maybe you've never heard the name Edwin Cooper, but he was
very famous across America. He came from a family of circus
clowns, and he began performing for audiences when he was nine
years old. And after a stint with the
Barnum and Bailey Circus, he became a fixture on television
in the 1950s as Bozo the Clown. Maybe you remember Bozo the
Clown, but one of the things that he used to tell, as he
called them his buddies and partners every week get checked
for cancer. Get checked for cancer and he
was so busy working that he neglected to follow his own
advice and by the time the cancer was discovered in his own
body, there was nothing that any of the doctors can do about it.
And he died at 41 years of age from that cancer that he had
warned everybody else about. Sin is far more deadly than the
most aggressive and fast growing cancer.
Sin kills and destroys everything it touches.
From the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden until now, Sin does
not take any prisoners. That's the that's the purpose
behind everything that Satan does.
In fact, Jesus said the thief cometh not but for to kill for
to steal and to kill and to destroy in John chapter 10.
But because of, because of the the evil nature that Satan has,
his hatred of everything that's good, the devil brings
destruction to everything within his reach.
And you are no exception. The devil is trying to destroy
your life, and when you're living in willful sin, you are
allowing him to do it. How do you expect God to to hear
your prayers when you have iniquity in your heart?
That's what the Bible says. If I regard iniquity in my
heart, the Lord will not hear me.
You're asking God for His help. The only prayer that God can
hear from somebody who is in sin is a prayer for forgiveness.
Then you can ask him for his help, but until you're right
with God, he cannot hear your prayers.
We'll not make it the subject of jokes that we tell or that we
hear. Sin is a is nothing.
There's nothing amusing or humorous about sin.
We're not going to allow ourselves to be tempted to get a
little closer to the line to see if we're still safe.
You ought to do everything you can to stay as far away from sin
as you can. God hates sin with a holy and a
righteous fury, and we should as well.
Turn over to Psalm 139. See, when we find ourselves
amused by sin, it's time for us to focus on the cross.
When we find ourselves not abhorring that sin, when we find
ourselves excusing that sin, we're in a very bad spot.
We need to find our way back to the cross.
When you see the price that was paid for your sin, it ought to
remind us that it's not anything to laugh at.
It's not anything to to just not take seriously.
Our goal should be that we could say with David in Psalm 139 and
verse 23. Search me O God, and know my
heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any
wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
You cannot honestly pray that prayer with known sin in your
life is if you're praying that prayer and you know you have sin
number one, you're not going to pray it because you know God's
going to find something there. There's no point in begging God
to show you what you already know is there.
Get the sin out of your life. God cannot and will not use your
life if you have sin in your life.
And what a waste of a life to go through the entirety of your
life with willful sin that that renders your life completely
useless to God. You can play all the games you
want to. You can pretend to be a good
Christian all you want to. But if you have sin in your life
that you know is there, that you are not willing to get out, God
is not using you. God cannot use and will not use
a dirty vessel. And he makes it very clear all
the way throughout the Bible. And then that that makes you
step back and think, how long have I been living in this sin
or I've been really useless in God's service.
Oh, God might use you sometimes in spite of yourself, but he's
not really going to use you the way that he could.
You wonder why you, you go out knocking on doors and, and, and,
and, and, you know, doing the Bibles on Saturday and you
wonder why you just can't get anybody to listen to what you
have to say and, and lead them to Christ.
Maybe it's because God's not using you at all.
You're doing the things that Christians do, you're going
through the motions the way that Christians go through motions,
but you have no power because you can't have God's power in
your life with willful sin. And I would venture to say that
a huge majority of Christians in churches all across this country
and even all the way across the world, a huge majority of them
are Christians who are living with sin in their lives that
they know is there, that they're just not willing to get right
with God. And what a waste of a life to go
through your entire life holding on to that thing that you just
can't let go of. One of these days, you're going
to stand before God, and God's going to put all the things on
one side that you could have accomplished for him.
And I believe God's going to show us everything that He
wanted us to accomplish. And then on the other side, he's
going to put that sin that you just couldn't get over, that sin
that you just wouldn't let go of and see how they compare.
Most Christians are going to have to hang their heads in
shame and say, I gave up all, I gave up all of that for this.
It's not worth it. But most Christians live their
lives here instead of here. We live in defeat instead of
victory because of willful sin. Not always, but many times.
It's willful sin that leads to the second reason we grow cold
in our Christian lives, and that is neglect.
Neglect. Willful sin often causes that
neglect in our lives. But sometimes it isn't rebellion
that cools our hearts. It's just neglect.
We neglect prayer, we neglect the word of God.
We neglect church worship, fellowship.
We neglect the gift that God has put in US.
Willful sin will push us away from those things.
But sometimes we just get cold. We allow the fire to die in our
hearts. I've mentioned this and most of
you probably know this, but I heat my house with wood and I
can see this very easily. But many of you have started a
fire either in your house or outside, you know, in a camp or
whatever else. And what happens when you don't
tend to the fire? It dies, right?
It just, it fizzles out. And in much the same way, when
we leave the fire under unattended in our spiritual
lives, it dies. Our spiritual fervency fades
when we don't maintain our walk with God.
You don't have to fight to kill a fire many times, especially if
it's just a fire in a fire pit or something.
Just stop tending to it and it'll smolder and eventually it
will die. That's why it's important to be
faithful to church and to the preaching of God's Word.
You shouldn't be looking for every excuse to miss church.
There's nothing wrong with taking a vacation, but your
vacation shouldn't be from Saturday night to Monday morning
the following week. Ah, perfect.
I was able to miss 2 Sundays. I didn't have to be in church.
I left on Saturday. I got back on Monday.
Well pastor, you just don't understand.
I have work on Friday and I have to be back at work on Monday.
So you're telling me and your kids and everybody else that
work is far more important than being in church?
You won't miss a day of work, but you have no problem letting
God get the raw end of the deal and skipping being in His house.
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
What do you think that means? That means be in God's house.
When you have the opportunity to be in God's house, you should be
looking for excuses to miss everything else and be in
church. That's why it's important to
study the Bible and read sound teaching materials in your
studying. Even if you don't learn
something new every single day in your daily Bible study or
maybe from a particular sermon. Not every sermon is going to
convict you. Not every sermon is going to
teach you something that you don't already know, but it's
going to remind you of the things that you do know.
And many times we need those reminders because of neglect
that moves in and just allows us to grow cold.
If you're not stocking the fire, it's going to die.
It's going to fizzle out. The gift, as Paul says, has to
be stirred up. Go back to Second Timothy
chapter 1 and look at that phrase again.
He says, Wherefore I put thee in remembrance, that thou stir up
the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on in my
hands, that that word stirred up literally means blowing up coals
into a flame. Spiritual gifts have to be kept
fired up. God's given you abilities.
God's given you things that you can do.
He's given U.S. jobs. He's given us a task to do.
Every one of us has a responsibility to to be a part
of the Great Commission if we're saved.
Those are things that God has given us to do.
And what we find here in Second Timothy chapter 1 is the command
to stir up the gift. That's a description of of
continual, continual revival through the zealous pursuit of
what you've been called to do. That verb stir up is in the
present tense, and it means that it's a continuous action.
It's something that we have to constantly do.
I put thee in remembrance to stir up the gift that God's put
in you. The stirring up of your
spiritual gifts is not something that can be done once and then
just let go for the rest of your life or not just something that
needs to be done once in a while.
It's something that needs to be done continually.
If a spiritual gift is not being stirred up, it's growing cold.
If your spiritual life is not being stirred up, it's growing
cold. The second law of
thermodynamics. Stated simply, it's a very
complex definition of what the second law of thermodynamics is.
But stated simply, it's that systems naturally move toward a
state of greater, of greater disorder or messiness.
It's the law of entropy that things tend to disorder, which
is why when you spin a top, if you don't keep spinning it, or
if you don't keep doing something that's going to keep
it spinning, eventually it's going to stop spinning.
If you don't keep up your house, eventually the spiders are going
to take over. It's going to be nothing but
dust and spider webs. Why is that?
Because things tend to disorder. Things tend to to messiness.
That's just the law of thermodynamics.
Things run out of steam, they fizzle after a while.
And I think this law operates in a spiritual sphere as well as in
the physical. You leave it alone.
A cup of coffee is going to get cool and then it's going to get
cold. You leave it alone.
A fire is going to smolder and then it's going to die.
Spiritual lives that are left alone do the exact same thing.
If you are not actively stirring up your spiritual life, it's
going to get cool and then it's going to get cold and eventually
it's going to die. That's one.
That's one reason why every church is only one generation
away from apostasy. When that stirring stops, the
slide toward apostasy begins. You are either going forward in
your Christian life or you are going backward.
There is no, I'm just sitting here in this spot.
You're either going forward or you're going backward.
And neglect always causes us to go backwards.
Exodus chapter 34. For the sake of time, I'm not
going to have you turn over there.
But we read the account of Moses spending the time with God on
the top of the mountain. And when Moses spent that
extensive and that, that, that special time with the Lord face
to face, the Bible says that as he came down from the mountain,
his face shone with the reflection of the Shekinah glory
of God. And Moses didn't really even
notice it, but the people did. And when it came down, they
said, Moses, your face is so bright we can't even look at it.
Cover your face while you're talking to us.
It says every time that Moses went in to talk to God, he
uncovered his face and he talked to God.
But when he came back out, he had to cover his face because
the glory of God was shining so brightly in his face, shown so
much that the people couldn't even look at him.
Next to my wood stove, I have a poker.
Most of you that if you have a fireplace, you probably have one
of those as well. Just something to move the wood
around. And I can take that poker and I
can poke around in the fire and it might get hot.
You don't really want to touch it as soon as you pull it out of
the fire, but it's just a poker. It's not going to get so hot
that it can't cool down in just a matter of seconds when you
pull it out. But if I take that poker when
the fire is roaring and hot and I stick that thing in the flame
and I just leave it there, if I leave you there for a couple
minutes, I'm going to pull that thing out.
It is going to be glowing red. What's the difference?
When you spend enough time in the presence of God, presence of
God gets into you. That's what happens with that
poker. If I'm just poking around in
there, it might get a little bit of fire on it, but there's no
fire in it. I leave that poker in the fire,
it's going to get the fire in it.
That's what causes it to glow burning red.
And that's exactly what we must do in our spiritual lives.
The presence of God needs to be in us.
Not only are you there in the presence of God, but the
presence of God gets into you when you spend time with Him the
way that you should. Turn over to 2nd Corinthians
chapter 3. See, because this is not just
true in the Old Testament. We saw it in the Old Testament.
Moses obviously had the the brightness of the glory of God
in his face. But Paul said if it was glorious
when God gave Moses the Old Testament 10 commandments, then
how? How is the Spirit not even more
glorious? Second Corinthians chapter 3 and
verse #9 But if the ministration of death, written and engraving
in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not
steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his
countenance, which glory was to be done away, how shall not the
ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious?
For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more
death, the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this
respect by reason of the glory that exceleth.
For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that
which remaineth is glorious. You think about that.
I said, I know it's a lot of a lot of words in their
administration and condemnation and all of those things.
What what Paul is saying here is this.
If Moses just by being on the top of that mountain and writing
things down on a 2 tables of stone that were going to pass
away. If that was so glorious that the
face of Moses shown, how much more should it be with us who
actually meet with the Holy Spirit and have the Holy Spirit
living inside of us and can meet with God face to face The same
way? If you thought that was
glorious, how much more glorious it should be for us in this New
Testament era who can meet with God and have the the reflection
of His glory in our face? Man, what an amazing thing that
ought to be. When you spend time with God,
it's not going to fall void. You're going to start looking
like Him. You'll start to reflect Him more
in your daily life. Oh, that we would never let the
work of God die in us because of neglect.
What causes us to grow cold in our Christian life will willful
sin certainly will do that. Neglect will do that, but #3
others turn over to Hebrews chapter 12.
Others cause us to grow cold in our Christian life.
If we're honest, people can affect our spiritual temperature
much more than we wish they would.
Somebody offends us, somebody disappoints us, somebody fails
us, somebody criticizes us. If we're truly dead to self,
whether we talked about last week, then those things should
not be able to affect us. But if we're not careful, their
actions start to shape our attitudes, their actions start
to shape who we become, and they quench our zeal.
Here's what I found. People are human, and people are
going to let you down. People are going to disappoint
you. People are going to do things
that you don't like because that's what people do.
Most of you have no idea how much disappointment, how much
discouragement, how many times a pastor gets let down by people
that he wanted nothing but the best for in their spiritual
lives. If anyone understands the effect
that other people can have on a person, it is a pastor.
But I want you to see this in Hebrews chapter 12 and verse #14
Follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man
shall see the Lord. Looking diligently, lest any man
fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing
up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.
The writer of Hebrews warns us that a root of bitterness can
spring up and defile us. And he says that many are
defiled by that bitterness. See, that's one of those things
that most of the time you can't see it on the outside.
I can look at your faces and you can smile back at me and you can
look so good. And inside you can have that
root of bitterness in there that you're mad at me for preaching
something that I preached, or mad at this person next to you
for something that they said to you, or mad at this person for
whatever else. And that root of bitterness is
just in there, and it's keeping you from being what you can be
for God. Bitterness, we allow so much of
that bitterness starts small, but it spreads very quickly.
And often the things that we let steal our joy are things that
aren't worth losing our spiritual fervency over in the
first place. Somebody has no filter and
offends you or no spirituality and fails you is not worth your
time anyway. And they're especially not worth
your losing your spiritual fire over it.
But so often we allow our spirituality grow cold because
of others. I want you to see this.
Lastly, what causes us to grow cold in our Christian life will
certainly willful sin will do that.
Neglect does that. Others will do that if we allow
them. But #4 if you turn back over to
Second Timothy chapter 1, I think it's pretty obvious that
fear will cause us to grow cold in our Christian life.
Back in our text, Paul reminds Timothy here, verse #7 For God
hath not given us the spirit of fear out of power and of love
and of a sound mind. Now, I don't know if Paul knew
something about Timothy that he didn't really tell everybody
about, but he says stir up the gift, which is in you.
Timothy, I need to remind you, you got to stir up the gift.
God's not God's not given us the spirit of fear.
Timothy, He's given us the spirit of power and of love and
of a sound mind. You can overcome that fear
because of the power that you have through God, because of the
the the love that you have through God, because of the
sound mind that you have through God.
Don't, don't be afraid of what other people are going to say
about you. Don't be afraid of what other
people are thinking. Fear will suffocate the flame
inside of you. Fear of failure, fear of
rejection, fear of inadequacy, fear of the unknown.
Those are the things that keep us from stepping out in
obedience and doing what God wants us to do.
Oh, we use that as an excuse so often why I, I can't get up and
sing in church. I'm just afraid of, of standing
up in front of people. I can't teach a Sunday school
class because I'm afraid to talk in front of people.
I can't share the gospel with somebody.
I'm afraid to, to, to have a conversation.
But you have no problem talking to somebody about something you
really enjoy talking about. Oh, you don't have any problem
walking up to somebody in the store and striking up a
conversation about anything. It's not that you're afraid of
talking to people. It's that you're afraid of the
gospel of Christ also. I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to
everyone that believeth. It's not that you're afraid of
talking to people, it's that you're afraid of giving them the
gospel because you're afraid of what they're going to say.
God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but a power and of love
and of a sound mind. I heard about a man who's his
farm was failing. His wife needed an operation.
The mortgage on the on the farm was due.
The payment on the tractor was due, tuition was due for his
kids who were off at college. The bank wouldn't loan him any
more money. And he was just an ordinary
farmer. He didn't have, he didn't have
money sitting around that he could just go dip into.
And so he decided to do the only logical thing that he can think
of. He was going to rob a bank.
And so he tried to get up his courage.
Now, remember, robbing banks was not his profession.
He was just a farmer, so he was walking around the block trying
to get up the courage to walk into that bank and actually rob
it. He had everything planned out in
his mind, exactly what he was going to do.
In fact, he had a bag that he was carrying under his coat.
He had a gun that he had with him as well.
He was just going to walk in there and rob the bank and walk
out, and that was the only time he was ever going to do it.
He's not a bank robber. He's just in a tough spot.
So he walked into that bank and finally got the courage to do
it. But when he walked in, he got
all confused because he was just scared to death because this is
not what he normally did. And rather than giving the
teller the bag to put the money in, he shoved the gun to the
teller. Pastor the gun.
He took the loose bag and he pointed at her and he said,
don't stick with me. This is a mess up.
Fear will do that to you. But the truth is, when we ought
to succeed in our Christian lives, many of us fail for one
reason or another because we've listened to the minister of
fear, the devil, rather than listening to God, and that fear
has paralyzed us. No matter how gifted we are, no
matter, no matter how much we say we love God and we want to
live for Him, we can become afraid of what God will call us
to do in our lives if we completely surrender to Him.
That's where most Christians get afraid.
Well, if I, if I really get right with God and I really get
my get my relationship with him back up to where it needs to be
and I allow that, that fervency to come back in.
And I, and I and I and I blow on those coals and get those embers
burning hot again, and I really surrender to God.
I just have no idea what he's going to call me to do.
And I'm afraid of what God's going to call me to do.
I'm convinced that many people don't surrender to sell out for
Christ because they're afraid of what it will cost them.
They love their comfortable life and they they're fine with their
mediocre Christianity because it doesn't really cost them
anything. I really get to the end of
myself and give up all my sin I like to enjoy.
And I really started getting God's word and I really
developed that relationship with God.
Then who knows what what he could ask me to give up and I
just can't take that risk now. You would never say that out
loud, but many Christians have that exact same mindset.
There are many people, some of who may be sitting in this
congregation today, who could be greatly used of God if they
weren't so afraid of selling out to Christ.
But God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and
of love and of a sound mind. You sell out to God, you're
going to find out that the life He has to offer you is way
better than the life you think you can create for yourself.
He's given us power, love, sound mind, everything that we need to
obey Him boldly, everything that we need to obey Him confidently,
everything we need to do to go forward for Him.
If we do sell out for Christ, most Christians will never get
to that point because of fear. I'm afraid of what God's going
to ask me to do. I'm afraid that God's going to
make me go be a witness. I'm afraid that God's going to
ask me to teach a Sunday school class.
I'm afraid that God's going to ask me to lead a ministry.
I'm afraid that God's going to call me to the mission field.
I just. I can't take that risk.
I love the life that I'm living. Too much fear keeps us from
being what God wants us to be. I need to close, but how is your
fire? Where are you at in your
spiritual life? Are you using your gifts for the
Lord, or have you allow allowed things in the way that have
stifled your relationship with God?
The fire may have died down, but the embers are still there.
And I believe, especially in our church, that that's the way that
it is for most of us. Your fire is not dead, you've
just allowed it to die. The Lord's calling you just the
same way that He inspired Paul to call Timothy to stir up the
gift blow on the coals inflamed once again the the passion and
the purpose and the spiritual fervency that maybe you used to
have, or maybe you've never had it at all.
It's time to let God do what He wants to do in your life.
Are there sins that you need to confess and forsake?
Willful sin is always going to keep you from being what God
wants you to be. It's all.
It's the quickest way to allow your spiritual life to grow
cold. And The thing is, most of us are
not sitting here saying, boy, I wonder if I have any sin in my
life that I need to get rid of. Most people are saying that is a
sin that I need to get rid of because you know what it is?
That's willful sin. That's willful sin, that sin
that you know is there that you're just not willing to get
out of your life. And God can never use you with
sin like that. He wants to, but he's waiting
for you to acknowledge it. Only acknowledge, he says, only
acknowledge your iniquity and I'll have mercy.
I'll, I'll build that fire back up hot again.
But you got to get the sin out. You got to acknowledge that you
have a problem with it. You got to ask Him for help.
What about neglect? Apathy maybe would be a better
way to say it. Are there things you need to
start doing again that you've been neglecting?
What did God put on your heart about that as I preached this
morning? That's something that you need
to take care of, something that you need to deal with God on as
He's dealing with you. What about some bitterness or
some unforgiveness that you need to just let go, or some fears to
surrender to God? There's a lot of things that we
allow to hold us back in our relationship, things that we let
in that cause us to grow cold. Today is the day to start to
stir the embers again. Let God get in there and blow on
those embers and you do what you need to do to get everything out
of the way to allow God to blow on that fire.
Allow him to get it hot the way that he wants it to be.
God's ready to give you a fresh start.
That's renewal. God wants to renew you.
He's waiting for you to acknowledge the problem and stir
up the gift. The question is, will you do it?
Will you do it? Stir up the gift.
We all need to be put in remembrance.
Paul says stir up the gift. Let God get in there.
Get that willful sin out. Get the neglect out.
Don't worry about what others have to say about it.
Don't worry about what others have done or said to you.
Get rid of the fear and stir up the gift that God's put in you.
Will you do it? Will you do it?
Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you so
much for your goodness to us. Thank you that you are willing
to allow any of us to come back to you that have gotten away
thankful. Thank you that you're willing to
still use us even when we fail you in so many ways.
God, I pray that where decisions need to be made this morning, I
pray that they would. Only the Holy Spirit can do the
work. You know every single person's
heart in this room. You know where we've come up
short and the chances are that every single one of us know
where we've come up short as well.
We need your help, God. I pray that you give the courage
that we need to step out, make the changes in our lives so we
can be what you want us to be. God, may we have a church full
of people that are on fire for you, Not a church full of people
that are apathetic toward the things of God.
Not a church full of people who have allowed the fire to die and
now it's just smoldering and they're barely hanging on.
God, may you help us to stir up the gift that you've put in US.
Thank you for all you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.
If you would please stand at your seats with your heads bowed
and your eyes closed. Only the Holy Spirit can do the
work in your hearts. Only the Holy Spirit can bring
that conviction and only you can respond to it.
Will you do it this morning if God spoken to your heart as the
panel plays? You come do business with God.
Ask Him to help you. He wants to and He will.
You come as the panel plays.