Sustaining spiritual passion

 JUST TO REWIND THE PREVIOUS SERMON

Figurative introduction

Passion is like fuel. It sustains the motion of automobiles but in the process is consumed. So passion can die/run out.

The five steps in sustaining spiritual passion

• Understanding the heart of Christ
• Demystifying kingdom principles
• Befriending the Holy Ghost
• Cultivating the discipline of intimacy
• Testifying to the manifestation

PART II

INTRODUCTION

We must all upon reflection admit that there is a place we want to be with God but that place has remained a fantasy. With vividness we can narrate the not so frequent interludes when we have experienced spiritual ecstasy. However, the majority of our Christian life knows but a lackadaisical phase, a travel through pilgrimage with complete lack of energy and I dare even say, purpose. This gap of indifference is loathsome to us all and hence our gathering here to answer this question, ‘How can one sustain spiritual passion?’ How can one have a perpetual hungering and an ever deepening thirst for The things of God? That brothers and sisters is why we are gathered here this evening

Just so that we are on the same page let me demonstrate what spiritual passion is

The article on the crucifixion of Christ.

Note: Much of the following information comes from Martin Hengel’s work on Crucifixion, and from an article written by Dr. Truman Davis called “A Physician Testifies About the Crucifixion.”

After the arrest in the middle of the night, Jesus is brought before the Sanhedrin and Caiaphas, the High Priest. It is here the first physical trauma is inflicted. A soldier strikes Jesus across the face for remaining silent when questioned by Caiaphas. The palace guards then blind Him with a cloth, and taunt Him to identify them as they pass by. They also spit on Him, strike Him in the face, and pull out His beard. Spitting on someone was the lowest form of disgrace to a person in that time. Furthermore, while we do not know exactly how many guards participated, we know from history that the palace guard consisted of 900­1200 soldiers. Even if only ten percent participated, Jesus endured a lot of shame, disgrace, and pain at the hands of the soldiers.

In the early morning, Jesus, battered and bruised, dehydrated, and exhausted from a sleepless night is taken across Jerusalem to the Praetorium of the fortress Antonio, the seat of government of the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. Pilate tries to pass the responsibility to Herod, the tetrarch of Judea. Jesus apparently suffered no harm at the hands of Herod and is returned to Pilate. It was then in response to the cries of the mob, that Pilate orders Barabbas released, and condemns Jesus to scourging and crucifixion.

The Scourging of Jesus

Preparations for the scourging are carried out. Jesus is stripped of His clothing, and His hands are tied to a post above His head so that the flesh of the shoulders and the back are stretched to the limit. The Jews had an ancient law prohibiting more than 40 lashes which is why Paul several times received 39 lashes. But the Romans made no attempt to follow Jewish law in this matter and Jesus probably received many more.

When the back of Jesus is bared and stretched tight, a Roman legionnaire steps forward with the flagrum (sometimes it is called a flagellum or cat­of­nine­tails) in his hand. It is a short whip consisting of nine heavy leather thongs, each with small lead balls, embedded with bits of glass, stone, or bone attached near the ends. The heavy whip is brought down with full force again and again on the shoulders, back, and legs of Jesus.

At first the heavy thongs cut through the skin only. Then, as the blows continue, they cut deeper into the subcutaneous tissue, producing first an oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin, and finally spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles. The small balls of lead, bits of glass, and stone produce large, deep bruises which are broken open by subsequent blows. Eventually, the skin on the back hangs in long ribbons, and the entire area is an unrecognizable mass of torn bleeding tissue.

The blows do not hit just the back either. When the long strands of the flagellum strike, they wrap around the victim’s body and dig into the front and sides of the body. Then the flagellum is quickly pulled back, violently ripping and tearing the flesh off the body. Sometimes, in the process, a victim will have several ribs broken by the lead balls. This probably did not happen with Jesus since it was prophesied that none of His bones would be broken. When it is determined by the centurion incharge that the prisoner is near death, the beating is finally stopped.

The half­fainting Jesus is then untied and allowed toslump to the stone pavement, soaked with His ownblood. The Roman soldiers see an opportunity tomake a joke out of Him. Here is a provincial Jewclaiming to be a king, but was now barely alive. Sothey throw a robe across His shoulders and place astick in His hand for a scepter. To make the travesty complete, a small bundle offlexible branches covered with long thorns are woven into the shape of a crownand pressed into His scalp. Since head wounds always bleed a lot, the blood runs down His face and into His eyes.

After mocking Him and striking Him across the face some more, the soldiers take the “scepter” from His hand and strike Him on the head, which drives the thorns deeper into His scalp. After they tire of their sadistic sport, the robe is torn from His back. It had already adhered to the clots of blood and ribbons of flesh on His back, and had begun to dry in the hot mid­eastern sun. The tearing of the robe from His back, just like the careless removal of a surgical bandage from a wound, causes excruciating pain as wounds reopen and more flesh is torn from His back.

Most artists do not even come close in depicting what Jesus looked like after all of this torture. He was probably the most inhuman looking thing you’ve ever seen. The prophet Isaiah wrote of the Messiah: “They shall see the Servant of God beaten and bloodied, an object of horror; so disfigured many were astonished. His face and His whole appearance were marred more than any man’s, one would scarcely know it was a person…” (Isa 52:14).

The Journey to Golgotha

The procession leads down the Via Dolerosa. With Jesus are the two thieves who will be crucified with Him, and the execution detail of Roman soldiers. They walk slowly through the crowded streets. Some people jeer and mock. Others shrink back in horror.

In spite of His efforts to walk erect, the weight of the heavy wooden beam, together with the shock produced by blood loss, is too much for Jesus. He frequently stumbles and falls. When He does so, the rough wood of the beam gouges into the lacerated skin and muscles of His shoulders and sends splinters deep into His skin. At one point, He tries to rise, but human muscles had been pushed beyond their endurance. The centurion, anxious to get on with the crucifixion, selected a stalwart North African onlooker, Simon of Cyrene, to carry the crossbeam. Jesus follows behind, still bleeding, and sweating the cold, clammy sweat of shock.

After the 650­yard journey from the fortress Antonio to Golgotha is complete, the crucifixion begins.

The fourth cry is from the beginning of Psalm 22, and shows that not only was Jesus experiencing great physical torment, but was also undergoing intense spiritual pain. He says, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Hours of this limitless pain, cycles of twisting cramps, and intermittent partial asphyxiation, eventually lead to another type of pain. He begins to experience a deep, crushing pain in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with serum, and begins to compress the heart. This did not happen to all victims of crucifixion, but was known to occur. In the case of Jesus, it sped up His death. The loss of tissue fluids has reached a critical level, the compressed heart is struggling to pump thick, heavy blood into the tissues, and the tortured lungs make a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of air. The markedly dehydrated tissues send their flood of stimuli to the brain.

Jesus gasps His fifth cry, “I thirst.” In response, a sponge soaked in Poska, the cheap, sour wine which is the staple drink of the Roman legionnaires, is lifted to His lips. Since this was different from the drugged wine He had been offered earlier (Mark 15:23), He did drink some of this (John 19:29­30). The body is now in extremis, and He can feel the chill of death creeping through His tissues. This realization brings out His sixth saying, possibly little more than a tortured whisper, “It is finished.”

While this article is gruesome and horrid, I ask myself why did He allow them, those merciless, incorrigible and incurable people, why did He allow them to degrade Him that much? Isn’t there a point when suffering is for the weak and incapable? He had the power to stop them but Jesus allows me through this example to learn what it truly means to take up my cross and follow Him. I have had moments when Christianity has lost its vigour in my life:

• Those days when I lost my loved ones, especially my dad and like a vagabond felt lost in a world whose inhabitants cared less.
• Those days when work drained all of my energy and left my spirit with No zeal to seek Him…no energy to serve Him

I have been to days when the need to pray, fast or even read the word was clouded by the pain in my heart

• Other times my own sin drowned me into guilt unprecedented, my conscience so unsettled that conceiving the idea of intimacy with God becomes superfluous.
• I do not have time to talk about laziness, procrastination and sheer indifferencethat have conspired to rob me of all the zeal and passion

And yet, Jesus’ suffering was indescribable and incomparable to all these. So I ask myself, how did he sustain spiritual passion?

I would like to suggest to us that the Master was convinced of the truth-indeed He was the truth. He was transformed by His understanding of the heavenly.

Matt 18:18  18Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on the earth will be loosed in heaven. 

19Again, I tell you truly that if two of you on the earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven…

Could it be that it is in this area that the Gospel has not touched us, saved as we may be. I appeal to us to open our hearts as God chooses to reveal to us two forms of truths.

John Bunyan pictures the pilgrims as passing at one time through Vanity Fair, and in Vanity Fair there were to be found all kinds of merchandise, consisting of the pomps and vanities, the lusts and pleasures of this present life and of the flesh. Now all the dealers, when they saw these strange pilgrims come into the fair began to cry, as shop-men will do, "Buy, buy, buy--buy this, and buy that." There were the priests in the Italian row with their crucifixes and their beads. There were those in the German row with their philosophies and their metaphysics. There were those in the French row with their fashions and with their prettynesses. But the one answer that the pilgrims gave to all the dealers was this--they looked up and they said, "We buy the truth; we buy the truth," and they would have gone on their way if the men of the Fair had not laid them by the heels in the cage, and kept them there, one to go to heaven in a chariot of fire, and the other afterwards to pursue his journey alone. This is very much the description of the genuine Christian at all times. He is surrounded by vendors of all sorts of things, beautifully got up and looking exceedingly like the true article, and the only way in which he will be able to pass through Vanity Fair safely is to keep to this, that he buys the truth, and if he adds to that the second advice of the text, and never sells it, he will, under divine guidance, find his way rightly to the skies. "Buy the truth, and sell it not."

I speak of two truths tonight--doctrinal truth and experimental truth/ practical truth- and as I talk about them I pray that you will seek to have a religion that will bear the test--a true faith, a living faith, a faith that moves your soul, a deep-rooted faith, a faith which is the supernatural work of the Holy Ghost, for the time cometh when, as the Lord liveth, nothing short of this will stand you in good stead…… Charles spurgeon

• Doctrinal truth/ Reformational truth

The present day Christian is not like those of old. He is inducted into the faith but never disciple beyond the doctrinal. Doctrinal truth is knowing the basic tenets of the trinity, redemption and eternity. There are five pillars of reformational truth

• "Sola Scriptura"- By Scripture Alone

The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as inspired by God, are the sole and sufficient authority in all matters of faith and practice. The written Word stands gloriously alone in its majesty. It testifies in God's name.

• "Sola Gratia"-By Grace Alone

Grace is the unmerited favor of God, or His free love. People have done nothing to deserve it. By grace, God redeems them through Jesus Christ, calls them by the Holy Spirit, justifies them by faith, adopts them into His family, and preserves them unto eternal life.

• "Solo Christo"-By Christ Alone

Christ is set forth in Scripture as a mediator. Only through Christ can we have acceptance with God. He is the only way of access into God's presence and the only channel by which blessings are bestowed.

• "Sola Fide"-By Faith Alone

Faith is simply the sinner's personal reliance on Christ as Saviour. God only justifies us when, in our desperation, we flee to Christ and place our entire confidence in His substitutionary life and death.Romans 5:1 or Galations 2:16

• "Soli Deo Gloria"-Glory To God Alone

The true doctrine magnifies God's grace in salvation and causes us to lift high the voice of adoring praise and thanksgiving, so that all the glory is given to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The modern day disciple is well vast with doctrinal truth but very lacking in the experimental and practical truth.

The transformational truth

The Apostle Peter may have been the most outspoken of the twelve apostles in Jesus’ ministry on earth. He certainly became one of the boldest witnesses for the faith.  His beginnings were certainly humble in origin.  He was born about 1 B.C. and died sometime around A.D. 67.

Fishermen at that time were gruff, unkempt, vile, shabbily dressed, and often used vulgar language.  The fishermen of the first century were a man’s man.  They were full of vigor and had boisterous tempers.  This is perhaps why James and his brother John were called the Sons of Thunder (Mark 3:17).  Their’s was a rough life since fishing was a very physically demanding job.  They must have been somewhat fearless too because some of the storms that came quickly upon the Sea of Galilee were fierce and furious.  They often caught the fishermen by surprise and could easily capsize the 20 to 30 foot boats they used.

Peter was always putting his foot in his mouth but one thing you could say about Peter was that when Jesus told them (Peter and Andrew) to “follow me” they simply walked away and left everything they had without a second thought (Luke 5:9-1).  Consider the fact that this meant that they left everything – all of their fishing boats, their fishing nets, and all the accessories that came with their trade.  How many today would be willing to leave their own business to follow Someone that had simply asked them to follow Him?

REF: (Read more: http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/apostle-peter-biography-timeline...).

It appears to me that there is a place a man must reach and consider.

A place of laying bare the issues that one is grappling with, a place of truth. In this place is God on one hand and the cares of this world on the other hand. At this place chuff that puffs up and the sin that so easily ensnares must be called for what it is, a hindrance. In this place you silence and bring to order the chaos and clutter that surround you. Ever realised that the reason you do not operate in the deep is deep is because of the noises that call for your  attention  When the bible says deep calls unto the deep the implication is that a shallow soul, shallow in the revealed knowledge of God, shallow in transformational truth cannot thirst for the deep things of God. One must therefore sink their soul to a place where the superficial clutter and the cares of this world are silenced dimmed. Then and only then will we begin to speak like David in Psalms62-63 See Bible script

It is as if David was lifted upin the spirit and with a birds eye view could see himself holding on to two worlds, like a typical modern day Christian: On one hand they cling tightly onto eutopia and chuff-the riches, the studiousness, the social media, the busy-body, the hang-outs, the food and material wealth…name it. On the the other hand is a weak grasp at the things of God, a loose grasp of eternity and a refusal to go deep with God, a refusal to sacrifice. But as David looks at all this he goes into the house of God and at the time of prayer he sees the fire of god come down to test the worth of men, just as the purity of gold is tested through fire. With unequalled anxiety he sees how the things that men clung to go up in smoke leaving the sons of men vulnerable to the heat thereof. He realises that them or chuff you heep around you the greater the fire of destruction that befalls you. And so he cries out as though with a voice of realisation Psalms 63 .

Peter was an eyewitness to the many miracles that Jesus did and also witnessed the Shekhinah Glory along with John and James in the Transfiguration.  This was where Jesus’ humanity was peeled back to reveal the glory of His Divinity (Matt. 17:1-9).

In the days leading up to Peter’s death, almost all of the apostles had been martyred.  Did Jesus actually predict Peter’s death by crucifixion when He said that “when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and take you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18-19)?  The church historian Tertullian, Origen, and Eusebius state that Peter’s was stretched out by his hands, he was dressed in prison garb, he was taken where no one wanted to go (a crucifixion), and was crucified.  He was said to be crucified upside down because he felt unworthy to be crucified in the way that the Lord Jesus Christ had been.

From an arrogant, cocky, man of thunder, he became a humble, willing, obedient servant of the Lord even to death. He rejoiced in that day of his death, knowing that he would be reunited with his beloved Savior.

I suggest to us that this transformation that occurred in peter’s life is what the present day Christian is lacking in. Notice that like a wheel this transformation was turned by the engine of the revealed truth. Peter was the only one among the disciples that was able to identify the lord as the Messaiah.

Elisha’s servant had a similar experience 2Kings 6:17

We must of essence hunger for this rhema word. A place with God where His word has a personal impact in our circumstances. This experimental and practical truth has to be yearned for.

Mathew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled

Jeremiah 29:13-14

And you will seek me and FIND me when you seek me with all of your heart. I will be found by you says the Lord.

Scriptures: Matthew 5:6

"For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:20). The Pharisees had concocted a religious system built around attendance at the temple. It involved intricate rules and regulations and meant following precepts and traditions. It was very professional and very routine. It was like wearing cheap perfume that you splash on to make yourself smell good. It's not really a part of you and it can't cover the odor underneath. True christianty starts in the heart and changes a person from the inside out.

The people Jesus addressed understood what it meant to be hungry or thirsty. In that region, few were prosperous, and more than likely, at one time or another, those listeners that day had experienced the kind of hunger he's talking about here. They lived in poverty without grocery stores and refrigerators and running water. They may have gone days without food. They were well acquainted with hunger pangs.

We have never known true hunger like these people? To us, hunger means waiting ten extra minutes for the rolls to come out of the oven, or thirty minutes for the preacher to finish. Hunger for most of us is that sensation in your stomach that makes us stop at McDonald's for fries and a Coke even though we just ate two hours ago. We are the best fed people on the face of the earth. Our problem isn't finding something to eat, it's losing the fat that comes from eating too much

The verbs for hunger and thirst mean an intense desire, an ardent craving, and all-consuming pursuit. It is as though you are parched and nothing will stop you from getting to the water fountain to drink. Or, you are so hungry you will pursue food at all costs. It's a desperate kind of hunger.

In a different context, to describe a person who is ambitious, passionate, and desperate to achieve or to succeed we will say "he's hungry." It is that same kind of passion and drive that should motive the believer to pursue righteousness.

Listen to the psalmist, David, to see if you can hear the longing, the drive, in his pursuit of righteousness. "As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God?" (Psa. 42:1-2). "God, You are my God; I eagerly seek You. I thirst for You; my body faints for You in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water" (Psa. 63:1).

Appetites aren't filled until you do something about it. It is one thing to intellectually say I am hungry and desire food. It is quite another to take the steps to satisfy your hunger and to quench your thirst. At some point you have to go eat or drink.

By the way, a loss of appetite is a sign of illness. Physically, we know something is wrong when we have no desire to eat. The same is true spiritually. When we no longer hunger and thirst for time alone with God through Bible reading and prayer, or aren't committed to the worship of God, or fail to get alarmed over our sinful condition and the sin of the world, we see clear signs of spiritual sickness. When we no longer take the appropriate action of developing and deepening our relationship with God, a warning light - like on the dashboard of your car - needs to be illuminated, signaling that something is wrong. We need help.

I have discovered that hungering and thirsting for righteousness is like a narcotic. You get hooked. You become addicted. You need more. You keep coming back. Once you have encountered the living God nothing else satisfies. You want more and more of him.

John MacArthur said, "If you claim a relationship with Christ but you aren't hungering and thirsting for righteousness, you need to honestly question whether you know Him."

The person who hungers and thirsts after righteousness wants it all. They want all of God.

Could that be the problem with too many Christians, today? We just want enough of God to appease not to change us. We want enough of God to get us into right standing, avoiding the fire of hell, but not enough to bring on righteousness - the kind that would radically change our lives. As long as it is superficial change, we're okay. A little cosmetic surgery is fine. Any more than that we're uncomfortable. We are like Wilbur Rees who wrote

"I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please." (Wilbur Rees, "$3 Worth of God," Judson Press, 1971.)

The French philosopher Pascal said that there is a "God-shaped vacuum" inside every human heart. Since nature abhors a vacuum, if we don't fill it with God, we will fill it with something else. So many of us have filled our hearts with the junk food of the world. No wonder we are so unhappy. No wonder we jump from one job to another and from relationship to another.

We have full stomachs and empty hearts!

We're like a little child who won't let go of the marble in order to receive a diamond. "No, I won't give up my weekend affair for eternal joy. Trade a broken marriage and a failed career for peace and forgiveness? Forget it. Give up my drug addiction and be forgiven for all my sins? No way, man. You say I can replace my anger and bitterness with peace and contentment? I can't take the chance. Sorry."

No wonder we stay the way we are. We're trapped in the pit of a thousand excuses. We'd rather have misery and pain than risk it all on Jesus.

Sixteen hundred years ago Saint Augustine explained both the problem and the solution: "O God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you." You will never be happy until you put God first in your life. And you can never do that until you surrender your life to Jesus Christ once and for all.

Let me give you some good news. In the kingdom of God, everything begins with a seeking heart! Salvation begins with a hungry heart. If you are tired of the life you've been living, you can make a new start.

Whatever you want in the spiritual realm, you can have if you want it badly enough. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? If you are, you can be filled. This is the promise of God to hungry hearts and thirsty souls.

Ref:  (http://www.lifeway.com/Article/sermon-inner-workings-4-hungering-for-the...)

I suggest four ways that you can seek the Lord:

• Lectio divina 

,

• Fervent in Spirit-Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; Romans 12:11
• Reflective prayer -Prayer Jeremiah 33:3
• A heart of gratitude

1Cor 1:26

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  This leads to worship and praise and rendering a Christian ever so fervent for God.