Welcome back to ignite. I want to talk to you this idea of having fun. Like so many Christians today are not having fun. So are you having fun? Really Is God your Savior and Lord? Is Jesus You’re safe here and learn. I mean, you have the God of the universe secured everything. We’re looking after you giving you the promise of eternal life, how can you not have fun knowing that? So, I want to delve into this subject a little bit because what we say we feel and what we really feel can often be two different things. Our actions are not somehow supporting the scriptures that we know when we love and we quote, but we still don’t live them. So let’s go back to say how do we how do we love God? How do we show God that we love him? New love God? It’s talked about in so many places in Scripture I love in Revelations chapter two, where there’s the the letters to the seven churches I mentioned before the Karen, I had been to all seven of those churches and in Bible study, and they’re all so fascinating, but on this particular subject, and reverential chapter two, he comes to the church at Ephesus, and he says, I know you go to church to speak into Christian speaking to us. I know you go to church, and I know you’re faithful and you give sacrificially it is my words. But I know you know, good teach you prevent, but I have this against you. You’ve left your first love. I’m no longer your first love, and you’re no longer doing the first work. The first thing every Christian does when they get saved is tell people about Jesus. When you love God, you tell people about Jesus when you love anything you tell people about if you love the hamburger you had last night you’re probably telling somebody about it today. Whatever you’re excited about you talk about. So it’s really a self test for you. Are you talking about Jesus? Is he is he top of mind for you? If he’s not, then you’ve probably lost him as your first law. I don’t mean you’re not going to happen. I’m not getting into habit. But you have moved away in this world does that to you? Doesn’t it? It just crowds in on you with all the cares this world all the problems is grow, just call was crushes you. It’s an important subject because Jesus says if you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. So are you keeping His commandments? You probably can’t even quote all 10 commandments, actually, you don’t have to you all you have to do is quote to what’s the most important combat remember, they asked Jesus. So what’s the most important commandment? And he said to love the Lord thy God will the heart mind, soul and strength. And the second is like Intuit to love your neighbor as your self. If you love your neighbor as yourself yours concern for their salvation as you are your own. And that goes to everybody you’re with. You have responsibility. You you should if you don’t, you should sense responsibility. You can’t get them say, but you have you have this responsibility to tell them there’s good news. You don’t have to worry, there’s a God who loves you. And nobody turns you away. When you tell them God loves you. They don’t get mad at you for telling him God loves you. The question is, Do you love him? And if you love him, you show him that you love him by living by by living His commandments, and the most important commandment is to love Him and love your neighbor as yourself. So you might say well, I kind of get that but how does that kid that really satisfy all 10 That’s pretty cool. What Jesus said it so it is true. But why did he say it? He said it because if you love your neighbors yourself, you’ll change all the stupid stuff you do. And you’ll stay focused on what you should be doing. I mean if you realize that everything you say and do and your clothing and your habits and where you go and what you look at and what you laugh and I’m talking about your whole life, if you realize that the whole sum total of you is leading people watching you closer further away from God, that that adds a whole nother dimension to you. And quite frankly, and and literally if it fulfills the rest of the laws, it frees you from the law you don’t have to am I am I in the right space? I use it as a kid. Am I Am I right? Am I ever looking like I don’t want to get God battery he does. He will get mad at you. He loves you. Okay, he loves you can’t live any more than he already loves you. But living for Him conscious understanding that you have purpose in your life. And you do it for joy. You do it for God’s purpose. I understand that everything you say and do for time you’re in full time ministry. Is it? No, no, I have now Oh, yeah, you are. Your witness, you’ve always been a witness. Some of us have been witnesses for the prosecution, quite frankly. You’re not moving people closer to God. But this responsibility we have every day, all day long everything we do everything we go, that changes your life. And you’re not doing it focus on I gotta satisfy that law on that, Lord, you have all this legalism. I kind of grew up in legalism, and, and it robbed me of my joy. I didn’t have joy. As I look back now, Legalism is bad because we’ve lost his whole father, being holy as He is holy, right? The idea of living a life where you’re leading everybody to Jesus seeps into our everyday lives. I tell you how not to do it. And instead, often, Sunday lunch, we go out with our friends after lunch. We probably stay a bit too long because we’re having fun talking about God loudly. Right pastor who said this, and this. You know, waiters do not like to work on Sundays, because church people come in to their restaurants and they take so much time and they’re so demanding at the end of all that they say they stiff upon it. Yep. Christians are notorious for stiffing on tits. What does it do when you’re when they know that the waiter listens to you? And then after all they’ve done to satisfy all your needs and allow you to take twice as long on that table? Then you sit down with a tip, what does that say to that waiter? Did you just move them closer to Jesus? I don’t think so. You see, I have to say it’s like sport. It’s like sport, you always look for every opportunity you can to move people closer to Jesus, it might just be a tap on the arm and God bless you. But when you do it, you don’t look away, you look right in their eye. And you take them out and you say Have a good day and and God bless you, you know, more than half the time I would guess people tear in their eyes because they want to believe that God is blessing them. First Peter three says, always be ready to give a clear presentation of the gospel. So you can’t go to sleep on this. You need to be doing it all the time. Right? I had my annual EKG yesterday. And so but you’re always ready right? And so he’s he was attacking you chap. Really nice guy. And he’s putting the things on me. You know how to how to hook me all up. But he’s talking about the world. How crazy is that? He said, I’m from Connecticut. I know how bad things could be. So now I’m in Arizona, and I love California but I couldn’t handle California we’re going well this also is brought around to you know what the root cause is? The root cause is that we’ve left God, the further away we get from God as a country or as individuals, the more chaos we have. And the closer we get to God, the more peace and joy and love we have. And so our problems are not ratio or political. They’re scriptural. There’s the fact that we’ve turned our backs on God that’s the problem. He’s I never thought of that. I said seems like you might like to know more. And that’s I was getting we’re going out the door. I pulled out my old seeking God card. I should have one here for frogs. You know, you could give her a website free of charge. And as I said, if you go there, this website will tell you how much God loves you. And how he has a plan for your life or what you spend eternity is really that’s really cool. Have a good day. God bless you. It’s fun, okay. It’s it’s fun. If you’re nervous sharing your faith. You’re not doing it right. Something’s wrong because you’re you’re caught up in the process of I gotta do this. I gotta You don’t have to do anything. You never have to leave your comfort zone you if you’re a Christian, you love on people. But you just need to do it in a way that they know it’s coming from the Lord. You don’t want them walk away saying wow, Bob is really nice guy. You want them to walk away say that Bob, he’s a Christian and he just loved on me. And maybe I should be a Christian. Right? We just love on people and the name of the Lord. We’re good at loving if you are doing a good doing good things and be very proud of doing good things. But that has nothing to do with redemption. That has to do with making you a highly recognized and exalted, appreciated fragile loved friend or person in the community. Right? That’s not what that’s that. Most evangelicals think that’s sharing your faith that’s not share your faith being good doesn’t get you or anybody else into heaven. Okay. I I drove in this restaurant recently, I actually didn’t drive a friend of mine drove me in the restaurant was 130 parking lot was empty. He could have parked anywhere. Lots of open spaces, but he he pulled me up right in front of of a car with the hood open. And there was nobody there for the vote. By the time I got out of the car, there was a guy there were those Sparkletts bottle, you know, there were these big bottles. And he’s, he’s pouring water into his radiator. All right, got the picture. So I closed it all go say hi, anything I can do to help you. He says, oh, no, I just have a leaky radiator. And I just got here from Alabama just drove out and I had to have a heap filled with water. So I just got a big the biggest bottle I could find. And it lasted. I just pulled in here. I just got here. I said, Wow, what are you doing all the way from Alabama. He’s, well, a friend of mine got a job here. driving trucks. He said he could get me one. And I said, Well, what’s wrong with back home? It’s just tough. I can’t I have a daughter and a wife and I need to take care of them. But I couldn’t find a job where I could do that. So I decided I’m on the road. I’m going to come out here. I should have watched what you got to see. He said, Yeah, this guy and I said, you ever you ever drove a truck with horses? No, never drove drove. As a little bit nervous about what you’re facing right now. You said do you think? So I just I started laughing with him. I said, you know, I started as an old car WAGs got me a long time ago. Nobody knew who we were now we’re the number one selling car wax and, and the world. But I found I did that by because I discovered this a secret, a wonderful scripture in the Bible that says, Trust the Lord with your whole heart. And he’ll direct your steps. He’s what? I said, Yeah. Would you like to know that? God would direct your steps. He says, Yeah, that’d be pretty cool. I said, You have no idea. You have no idea. So I pulled out my seeking gun card. Why don’t I have one of those here. And I said, take this. This will tell you everything you need to know about how much God loves you and wants to direct yourself. He’s looking at that like, wow, like I just gave him a treasure. It is a treasure. So it’s the word of God. So he looked at his whole thing here. And I said, Sure, of course if can I pray for you? He says, Oh, that would be wonderful. Now, this guy was not like me, okay. He was a black guy. He was tatted he had dreadlocks and look like me a lot younger than me. And he’s asking me Yes, give me permission. Yes, I could pray forever. So I did. And the Holy Ghost came on as it was a wonderful moment. He got out and he looked at me. And then he just grabbed me. He said, Thank you. Wow. That’s living for God’s purpose. That’s that’s is that’s what it’s all about. I mean, it’s when you live for God’s purpose. He ignites your life. You’re not living for the world’s purpose. You’re not just living for things that that are. You know, seeking the flesh. You’re, you’re living for God’s purpose. And I gotta tell you, here’s the end of the game. That is fun. That will ignite your life. See you next time.
