Searching for the passion of God

A few weeks back, after the Leading your Church into Growth’ course, I preached on Nehemiah chapter 1. We were introduced to the figure of Nehemiah - a man in exile. We heard about how he heard the news of the parlous state of Jerusalem - and what it did to him. He was so deeply affected that he went out and wept for three days. Even the king noticed his change of mood and appearance

We read this in chapter 2 verse 2-3. And then the king asks Nehemiah that fateful question - verse 4 - ‘What do you want?’

This was Nehemiah’s moment of truth - the moment to choose between his human responsibility - and his God-ordained passion. When you think about it Nehemiah wasn’t the obvious choice to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He wasn’t an architect, or a builder - he was a humble cupbearer. So far as we know he’d never even been to Jerusalem. Yes, he was severely unqualified for the job. Nehemiah could have come up with any number of good reasons not to do the job. Why didn’t Hanani go and do it - at least he’d been to Jerusalem? Besides Nehemiah already had a steady job and a settled life in Babylon

But when it comes to doing the will of God, calling is more important than any human qualification. And what Nehemiah had was a God-ordained calling and passion. Somewhere deep within his soul, Nehemiah had heard the voice of God. You would have to say it was the prompting of the Holy Spirit He could so easily have quenched it - but he allowed to take root and grow - a flickering ember became a raging fire. Nehemiah had a passion to be more the a cupbearer. He had a desire to do great things for God. The psalmist writes ‘Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart’ (37.4)

Think about the Rich Young Ruler in Mark 10.17ff. On paper, the rich young ruler had it all - wealth, youth, popularity, power. Yet he came to Jesus and asked ‘What do I lack?’ Despite everything he had, he knew that something was missing. What was missing? I’ll tell you - a God-ordained passion
His life was too easy, too predictable, too comfortable. There was a longing in him to do more than just not do anything wrong. He kept all the commandments, but instead of finding fulfillment, it felt like a cage

I’m told that people who have visited Africa and seen wildlife in the wild have a very threshold of boredom when visiting zoos. Watching a caged animal is boring when you’ve seen it grazing in its natural habitat

A lot of Christians are like that. We’re like animals living in a zoo cage. Everything is very nice and cosy, but deep down we know that’s not how it was meant to be. We’re like the rich young ruler
We try really hard to keep God’s commandments - and for the most part - we do. But there a gnawing feeling within us that we were meant to do more

There are lots of reasons we don’t come out of our cages, even Jesus has opened them for us. For the rich young ruler it was obvious that the reason was money. That’s why Jesus said ‘go and sell all you have, give it to the poor - THEN come and follow me’. For us it might be money - but it probably isn’t. There are lots of reasons we - and I include me - don’t follow Jesus in a spirit of wild adventure
But this morning I just want to touch on two

The first is ASSUMPTIONS. I’m too old, I’m too young. It’s too late, It’s too soon. I haven’t been in the church long enough, I’ve been in the church to long. I’m under qualified, I’m over qualified We place so many barriers in between ourselves and God’s will, that doing anything at all for God gets crowded out in a sea of negative assumptions...

Like Nehemiah assuming that he was too far away to do anything about Jerusalem
Like Noah assuming he was too old to build a boat for God
Like David assuming he was too weak to fight Goliath
Like Jeremiah assuming he was too young to speak up for God

Let me say this - and there are numerous biblical examples that I could quote - you will NEVER be good enough, or smart enough, or qualified enough - to follow a holy passion. And I believe it is Satan whispering in our ear that keeps us in the cage

But your qualifications aren’t the issue. When you follow God the best you can do is no longer the best you can do, but the best God can do. And God is able to do immeasurably more than all you can ask or imagine

The second reason I want touch on as to why we don’t follow God is ROUTINE. Somewhere along the way following God stopped being an adventure and started being a chore. Now don’t get me wrong - there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with routine. In fact spiritual growth is rooted in healthy and regular spiritual routine. But when routines becomes routine they become empty rituals that keep us caged. And then we need to break out of those routines - both in the church, and in our lives..

Where have we got too comfortable as Christ followers?
Where has life got too routine?
Where have we allowed what we do in church to become dull and boring?
That’s where we desperately need the Holy Spirit to jolt us out of routine and fire us into the re-discovery of adventure and sheer passion of following Jesus

Comments

[Ken Kruithoff]

Great blog! and so true--obedience to the commandments can become drudgery when we think of them as merely rules to obey--we feel caged in and even bored. But for the the Christian, the law of God is not a cage (although we often see it as that) but rather it is the tool or method to live and prosper in the freedom from sin that Christ's death has won for us!

We try so hard to be "good girls and boys" so that we might be worthy of the grace that has been given us, but It is a well-crafted lie from the mouth of Satan that tells us that if we only try harder we can attain that perfection on our own. We try so hard to merit God's grace, but the beauty of God's grace is that it is UNMERITED!

We do not deserve it by any means! It is a gift, an award based on what Christ has done for us, and in response to that gift we must strive to obey God's law--to show our gratitude for the gift we have been given, not to try and become worthy of it by our own accomplishments--that is a false religion that leads only to despair and self-loathing.

Another thought--I am not sure if you refer to this the same way in the UK, but in America we have something that we call a "comfort zone." This is a term that we use to refer to the actions and environments that we feel most comfortable and at ease. So we will often talk about serving the poor, talking to our friends and neighbors about Christ, and going on short-term mission trips to third world countries in order to get out of our "Comfort Zone." I was thinking about this recently after meditating on 1 Peter 2 on the idea of being sojourners and exiles, and I came to the uncomfortable convicting conclusion that as Christians, we are not supposed to have a comfort zone...you might even say that if we are not suffering in some way for the cause of the gospel, then we probably aren't really following the path that Jesus laid out for us... just a thought!

Sorry for ranting, the things you wrote really stirred up some passion within me :-)

again--GREAT blog! blessings on you and your ministry, I pray that Jesus' name will be made great in and among the Wrose community.

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