Catching Fire 1981

Most of the problems that we experience as believers would disappear overnight if we were to really catch fire with the zeal of God. Half the time we spend licking wounds, which wouldn't even be there if we were really on fire with the fire of God. So I'd like to begin by reading a passage which we just love to apply to all the hypocrites around us but which always makes us feel uncomfortable when we dare to apply it to ourselves.

Revelation 3, 14, 15, and 16. To the angel of the church in Laodicea, write, the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. I know your works.

You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.

And the reason this passage makes us uncomfortable is because there are very few of us, if any, who can rest in the assurance that we're hot. We have our moments when we feel like we're hot with the zeal of God, but then we have days, months, years, when really the best that we can come up with is maybe a couple degrees above lukewarm. So how do you get hot? Oh, it's easy enough to, you know, hoot and holler and come out with a little bombast for the Lord and sustain that for a while.

But where do you get that inner blaze, that flame of God that burns within the soul and drives us with a passion to do the Father's will? Where do you get that zeal that never fades? How many times we make resolutions. Now I'm going to make a decision. I'm going to turn over a new leaf, and from now on, my life is going to be all for God.

But how long does it last? Not to take anything away from making decisions. The prodigal had to decide to come home to his father's house, and the young ruler had to decide whether he was going to leave his riches and go with Jesus or leave Jesus and go with his riches. But there are some things in our lives which are really beyond the power of decision.

I can't decide that now I'm going to come alive with flame for God. It's beyond my power to choose with an act of will to now begin to have zeal for God. But suppose this fire comes to me.

Suppose that the fire of God that I've really been hungering for all my life is now suddenly right in front of my face. And from within that flame, God calls me by name and invites me to open my heart to the fire. Now, if I will open my heart to the God who has so come near me in this flame, I will catch fire with the fire of God.

To open my heart to the fire that has now come near is something which is within my power to decide. Exodus 3. Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro the priest of Midian. And he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. And he looked, and lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside and see this great sight.

Why the bush is not burnt? When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. Then he said, Do not come near. Put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Up to this point, Moses was no doubt a religious man, a man of principle.

I mean, he had the guts to do what he knew was right, even if it endangered his life. He was willing to pay the price of exile for sticking his neck out for his fellow Jews. But one thing Moses did not have up to this point, Moses did not have zeal for the God of Israel.

When it came to God, he was obviously, from what we read up to that point, lukewarm. But now Moses sees this strange bush. Flames are shooting up.

Heat is coming from it. And yet as he looks at it, the leaves are still green. This was a sign of God, but it was more than that.

It was also a sign of what Moses was now to become by the presence of God in his life. Moses was to become the burning bush of God to Israel. Moses was now to become a living sacrifice, a man, a human being, ablaze with the zeal of the Lord of hosts.

What is zeal? Zeal is the flame of God burning in our hearts to the point where our consciousness of self is consumed in consciousness of God. Now, as long as self-consciousness and God consciousness are mixed within us and who of us doesn't find his or her heart to be like that, as long as there's a mixture, then what we have is not zeal. What we have is really some form of ambition for self riding on a promise from God.

But when the fire of God's zeal begins to consume the heart so that now self-consciousness and self-centeredness begins to dissipate and get burned up so that body, mind and spirit are now alive to God, then we become a living sacrifice, a burning bush, a light that is able to pour itself out and keep pouring itself out and yet never get stale. Truthfully, most of us, for all our religious experiences up to this point, if we're honest, we'll have to admit that we're pretty much where Moses was before the burning bush. We may have done a few heroic things and had a few good months or years, and yet if we are honest with ourselves, pretty much of our life is spent wandering around in Midian.

Up ahead lies a work to be accomplished by us that requires a zeal, a vision, a passion for God and a freedom from the fear of man, which we simply do not have. And within our hearts, there is a sense of dislocation, emptiness. But now suddenly comes the moment when the God who chose us in Christ from before the foundation of the world breaks through and calls us by name.

We may not see a literal burning bush, but in some way, by God's grace, the eyes he gives us to see, we see God's fire. And we also understand that that fire of God desires now to take its residence within us and upon us, that we are now to begin to become the burning bush of God, a living sacrifice, a life that is aflame with zeal to fulfill the purpose of the Lord of hosts. But how do we get the fire from the bush to us so that we really catch fire? God has spoken to us now from within the flame.

And now from within the flame, he waits for us to do three things, to answer our call, to take off our shoes, and to offer ourselves to him as a living sacrifice. And if we will do these three things, we will catch fire. First of all, we need to answer the call, Moses, Moses, here am I, Samuel, Samuel, speak Lord, for your servant hears.

Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Lord, what will you have me do? See, they answered when their name was called. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

To him, the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he calls us by name, we have to answer.

Something happens when we, in fact, open our mouth and speak. Yes, Lord, here I am. Speak, Lord, I'm listening.

What do you want me to do, Lord? There can be no relationship with God or with the Lamb until we answer. But when we answer the call with our mouth and with our heart, the fire of zeal begins to fall. Then we have to take off our shoes.

Take off your shoes. You're standing on holy ground. The first act of service to the God who calls us always is the honoring of his holiness, worship, the hallowing of his name.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Before Isaiah could say, here am I, send me, he first had to acknowledge his unworthiness and had to worship the only worthy one in the universe. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.

And I said, woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having in his hand a burning coal, which he had taken with palms from the altar.

And he touched my mouth and said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin is forgiven. When the burning coal touches his mouth, Isaiah catches fire.

God help us to learn what this means, to take off our shoes, hallow God. We get, you know, God is our friend. God is our Father.

Jesus is our elder brother. He has become one of us. But this can never be truly understood and experienced if we don't learn to hallow him and worship him and honor him.

We need to learn to humble ourselves. Take off our shoes and worship. Don't worship your worship and don't worship your feelings.

Worship God. Very different. Worship the Lamb.

And then finally, we have to offer ourselves to him as a living sacrifice. But Moses said to the Lord, oh my Lord, I am not eloquent either heretofore or since thou hast spoken to thy servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue. Then the Lord said to him, who has made man's mouth? Who makes him dumb or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now, therefore, go and I will be your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.

Moses is fighting him. God is trying to make him see and understand that what he wants from Moses is his body with all its limitations, even with that stammering tongue, just as it is. Give it to me without reservation and throw in your mind along with it, Moses, and I will make you the burning bush to Israel.

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind in that flame, by the passion of God, by that zeal. That you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

God will not seize our bodies against our will. Satan will try to, but God won't. Nor will God take possession of our minds against our will.

Satan will attempt to, but God will never do this. We have to offer them to him. We have to present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice.

God will not take possession of our bodies against our wills and won't seize our minds against our wills. We have to offer them to him. We have to present them to him, dear Lord, here is my body, here am I, send me.

Here's my mind, enter into my thinking and into my willing, and we have to continuously do this over and over and over again until our being, our very being, understands that it belongs no longer to us, but to God. Out of that flame of divine zeal, God calls each of us by name today and urges us to enter into a life with him beyond anything we've ever known. The fire of divine zeal will fall upon us and will drive us forth from this place to accomplish things in the name of the Lord that we never dreamed we'd even see, much less do.

If we will expose our hearts to that flame, if we will answer the call, take off our shoes and present our bodies and minds as a living sacrifice to God, we'll catch fire and the zeal of the Lord of hosts will enter into us and drive us forth to do things in God beyond anything we could ever ask or think. Let's wait upon him now and pray.