Hearts on Fire

There is a song that we used to sing that says it only takes a spark to get a fire burning. There is a tremendous need for a fire to burn in these days. When we think of the word fire in the spiritual sense, there are several images that may come to mind.

We may think of the fire of God\’s judgement, or the fire of God\’s wrath.

We may think of God\’s refining fire, that is able to purify our hearts.

We may think of the fire of the Holy Spirit, described in the book of Acts as tongues of fire.

Today I want to speak to us about a fire which is unlike these immages.

It is the fire of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ which ought to continuously burn within the heart of every believer.

This is a fire that cannot be contained.

In the Old Testament when Jeremiah attempted to quit the ministry he said, Jeremiah 20:9 But if I say, \”I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,\” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.

When the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal was converted, he described his conversion experience as one word, \”Fire\”

James Stewart, one of the greatest Scottish preachers in this century once said, \”When all is said and done, the supreme need of the church is the same in the 20th Century as it was in the first: that men be on fire for Christ.

I think he might have been thinking about the apostle Paul, because he was a man like that.

In Romans 1:14-16 he describes this fire that was in him and gives a model of what every Christian’s experience should be.

Romans 1:14-16

I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish.  15That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome. 16I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

What Paul is speaking about here is a fire that is burning within his heart. This may not be immediately apparent from this passage, but if you study the content a little more closely, you will discover that Paul is a man with a Holy heartburn.

In vs. 15. \”I am eager to preach the gospel.\”

This phrase is really two words in the original Greek text. prothumon euangelitzesthai. The first of these words is a very active word, and it comes from the same stem as a Greek word for \”fire\” or \”burning\” The second word means to share the gospel. It is the word from which we get our word, \”evangelist\”. In other words, Paul is saying, \”I have a burning within my heart to tell the good news. There is a fire that ablaze within my being that compels me to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.\”

Family, everyone of us has had that spark applied to our hearts when we were filled with the Holy Spirit and I pray that today we would not suppress that spark, but that we would allow the Holy Spirit to fan it into flame until it becomes a roaring fire of passion for a lost and dying world.

Paul had a good reason for feeling the way that he did, and each of us who are Christians have the same reason.

The first reason we are compelled to share the gospel is because of:

I. The Call from Above.

Paul says that the reason he must go and tell others about Christ is because of the call of God on his life.

Paul starts out that chapter in Romans by saying, \”Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.\”

In Acts 26:16 he describes this call. He speaks about his conversion experience on the road to Damascus. The Lord Jesus on that day said to Paul. \”I have appeared to you …\” read vs. 16-19

Paul speaks of a commissioning. He speaks of orders from the commander in chief.

Look again at 2 Cor. 5:17.

Our lord\’s orders are very clear. When we come into that life changing experience with Jesus Christ, He immediately appoints us His ambassadors, to speak out His message of reconciliation. He does not give us the option of waiting until someday when we might have more time, or when the circumstances are more fitting, or when we are in the right neighborhood, or when our health improves, or when our kids have graduated and moved out, or when we are more mature spiritually.

He does not give us that option. He requires of us immediately to be obedient to Him. The woman at Samaria was a spiritual baby, yet she ran and told the whole village about this one who had given her living water and changed her life.

And when it comes to not having the time, look at Jesus own example. He was never too busy. He always had time to invite the little children to sit on His knee. In the middle of a busy itenery, the disciples tried to shoo them away, but Jesus found the time. He had time to heal a woman who touched the hem of His garment when thousands thronged about Him. She saw how busy He was, and thought, \”He will never have time for me, but if I could just touch His clothes\” and what did Jesus do? He stopped the procession. He canceled the parade so that He could minister to that one shy little lady in her personal moment of need.  Jesus always had time for those who needed Him, and in John 20:21 His words echo throughout the ages: \”So send I you!\”

It is out of obedience. When Peter, James and John were interrogated as to why they so brazenly shared the gospel, they simply replied, \”We ought to obey God\”

So I must do the same. I have a heart burning with desire to share the gospel because of the call from above me.

The second factor that motivates me to share the gospel of Christ is:

II. The Crowd all Around Me.

:14. Paul shares that it is more than the call from above.

Strange words. Paul, as far as we know, had never seen, nor done business with these people. How could he be indebted to them? And how would he repay that debt? But Paul was not speaking of a financial obligation. He was speaking a truth that when anyone becomes a recipient of the saving grace of our Lord Jesus he immediately becomes indebted to the rest of humanity to share that grace.

Romans 13:8 says, \”Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow  man fulfills the law.\” And how can we love our fellow man without feeling a tremendous burden for the lostness of their souls.

Let me illustrate for you.

Imagine for a moment you are on a cruise to Honolulu. Right in the middle of the ocean you come across the scene of a shipwreck. There are thousands of people without life jackets swimming frantically against the tide. Hundreds of miles from land, they are drowning one by one. Men, women, boys and girls. All drowning. You look around and you see all of those life preservers aboard your ship. You look back at the drowning mass. You know that if you throw out those life preservers you will save those people.

The question is, do you owe them anything? Is it our responsibility they are where they are? Did we cause the shipwreck? Did we have anything to do with them boarding that ship in the first place? Absolutely not. Yet there is not a single sane person who would deny that we owe it to those drowning souls to throw out the life jackets. We are indebted to them. It is our responsibility.

This is what Paul is trying to say. We are living in a sea of drowning souls. God has given us a life preserver and we are indebted to throw it out to them.

There is a verse in Ezekial 33:7-8 which came to my mind as I was preparing for this message. Quite frankly, it scares me.

Church, it is a debt. Are we honoring it?

We have more ordained ministers in the US than in every other country combined. 1,330,000.

We have more Christian radio and TV stations than the rest of the world.

There is more Christian literature in the English language than in all the other languages put together.

There are 60,000 young people attending Bible colleges.

In America there are more people in Sunday Schools than in the rest of the world combined.

There are Bibles in 100,000 hotel and motel rooms.

In spite of all of these things in our favor, it takes an average of 4 Christians to lead 1 person to Christ every 365 days!

In our denomination last year, 6000 churches that meet every Sunday, recorded zero baptisms for the entire year.

Why? We are not understanding the nature of our heavenly calling and we are blind to the catastrophe of human depravity that prevails around us. We have taken our lights and hid them under a bushel. Our spirituality is suffocating.

We ought to have such a heartburn for the lost that it causes us to weep when we see a man or a woman, a boy or a girl without Christ.

Once again we can look at the model that Jesus presented to us. Whenever He saw the crowds He had compassion on them because they were like a sheep without a shepherd.

When that arrogant lost man on the freeway cusses you out because he thinks his a better driver than you, how do you respond. Jesus would have wept at the realization that he was lost. When you see that snot faced little urchin steel a candy bar at the store, or push her way in front of you, how do you respond? Jesus would have wept at the prospect of her lostness.

San Antonio is full of them. All around us. Lost people. Broken homes, broken lives. Broken hearts. Broken marriages. But God can put them back together again, if only they knew. And how will they know if no one tells them?

Every 24 hrs., 146,000 people die. That is 6000 every hour. By the time our service ends this morning, 9000 people will have died. 7,200 will end up in hell.

Our hearts should be on fire to share the gospel because of the Call from above me, because of the crowd around me, and finaly, we see in the example of Paul\’s life that our hearts ought to be burning within us to share the gospel because of:

III. The Cross Behind Me.

:16.

What power is Paul speaking of?

I believe that is speaking of the power of the cross.

Paul\’s thoughts were forever fixed upon the power of what was accomplished through the cross of Christ. Whenever he looked upon a lost person I believe that he had this image of a dying savior on a cross shedding His blood for that person.

We sing that old song, \” I have decided to follow Jesus\” There is a verse that goes, \”The cross before me, the world behind me.\”

Have you looked at Calvary lately?

In 2 Cor. 5:14 Paul writes: “For Christ’s love compells us, because we are convinced that one died for all…”

Paul knew that Jesus Christ took upon himself the sin of every man, woman, boy and girl. Lost in our sin, deserving nothing but God’s judgment, Jesus provide a way for us to be made acceptable to God.

His death for every person proves His love for every person. We can look every person we meet in the eye and tell them with absolute assurance that somewhere way back there, there is a cross upon which Jesus died. And in dying He took upon himself all of our sins. All of our suffering. All of our sorrow. Every stripe that marked His back brought healing to our infirmities.

There is not a person in this world that Jesus does not love and that He did not die for.

He loves the up-and outers. He loves the down and outers. He loves the man who spent last night in a drunken stupor. He loves the woman who cheated on her husband. He loves the teenager who woke up this morning all strung our on drugs and alcohol. He loves the young lady who in a moment of confusion and deception took the life of her unwanted, unborn child. He loves the homosexual in his depraved and disgusting perversion of all that is holy, and He longs for all of these to be born again through the blood that he so willingly poured out on that Roman cross.

Without our sharing with these desperate ones the love of Christ, they will never be able to share in this love, and that is what breaks the heart of God.

On August 5, 1982 Janice and I were out shopping. Janice decided to call home and check on the kids. Her call was greeted by the hysterical screams of our little son, Sean. He told her that his little sister, Candice had been hit by a speeding car as she stepped off the school bus. By the time we had got all the information from our maid, we knew the hospital she was at, but we had no idea whether she would live or not. They gave us very little information about her condition. The next 30 minutes were the most traumatic that I can remember. As we raced the 45 miles to the hospital I became overwhelmed by a tremendous sense of grief, imagining the worst. What would I do if she died? What would I do with that precious little gift that God had given to us?

Soon the grief turned to relief as we were assured that although seriously injured, she would live. Later the relief turned to joy as we saw that little girl recover with hardly a trace of her injuries.

But as I considered that brief season of sadness, I thought about what it was that made me so sad. Yes, she was our precious little girl and she was suffering. Also, we had grown attached to her in those 6 years and we would miss her.

But I realized there was something far more significant. It was the fact that I would never really get to know her. She would never be able to share the intense love that I had for her. I would never be able to receive those warm smiles that I have become so used to over the past 28 years since the accident. I realized that I would not have been able to share in the joy that every dad has of walking her down the isle on the special day when she was united with her life’s partner.

The sadness was more to do with a future without her rather than the past experiences with her. And the thought that my little girl would never really come to know how much I loved her just broke my heart.

Family, that is what breaks the heart of God every time a lost person dies and goes to hell. It is as if He is saying, “I can’t believe that those I loved so much will die and never know or share my love. Without ever really getting to know me. Without experiencing that for which I created them and then bought them with the blood of my own son.”

And this because someone failed to respond to the call from above, the crowd all around and the cross that is behind.

This is what Paul is trying to say when he says, “the love of Christ compels me!” This is why he says, “There is a burning in my heart to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Can you say it?

If enough of us say it, my brothers and sisters, then it will be said of us as it was said of the apostles. “These men who have tuned the world upside down have come here to us”