Sermon Tone Analysis

The Prerequisite of Spiritual Passion

 

What excites you today?

Today we begin a new series on Developing a Hunger for God.

I’ve decided to do this because of how the worldview series ended.

As we concluded that series last week, I shared with you that people of passion influence the world around them.

But for you to live a life of growing passion you not only have to know what that means, you also have to be intentional about taking the necessary steps toward it.

So today we begin with the prerequisite of spiritual passion.

Now, when I say “passion”, I’m talking about a hunger for God.

But for there to develop a genuine hunger for God, we have to make room in our lives for God to do a new thing.

But in order for there to be room for God to do a new thing, the old things must go.

So as we begin this series, let me ask you, how hungry are you for God? Are you hungry at all? Let’s look today at what this means.

Open your Bible please to 2 Kings 4.

         

In *2 Kings 4,* we have a very unique story involving the prophet Elisha.

It’s a story about a lady in crisis.

Let’s first identify the nature of the crisis:  *vV1-2   *Okay, let’s look at the crisis more clearly:

 

*#1 This lady is in emotional pain* – her husband has died.

Some of you know what it is like to lose a spouse to death.

*#2 There is Financial pain* – The death of her husband ,as it so often did in those days, has left her not only penniless, but deeply in debt, and now the creditors are demanding payment.

IOWs, the phone calls are coming in.

*#3 There is Physical pain –* She says in verse 2, the refrigerator is empty, and we’re hungry.

In fact, I feel fully comfortable saying that she and her children have been without food for days, and it doesn’t take long for someone who is barely getting enough to eat to begin to experience pain when food is completely withdrawn and the digestive juices begin to burn the lining of the stomach.

*#4 She has Maternal pain*—Not only have the creditors come, but in verse 1 it says they’ve come to take her children that they might be sold to satisfy the debt.

Can you imagine?

She’s lost her husband and now she’s about to lose her children.

Finally…

*#5 There is Spiritual pain* – Look at verse 1 again, you have to look closely to see this one: *V1a*, * “Your servant*…*my husband*…* feared the Lord*.”

Do you hear the question underneath?

I’ve heard it 100’s of times from people in distress.

IOWs, we know we’re in a crisis when we starting saying my spiritual status and my circumstances don’t match-up.

IOW’s Elisha, I feared God and I served God!

So why am I in this kind of a mess?

I mean how can I come to church every week and meet with God every day and still be going through all this!”

 

Can you relate?

She needs a spiritual breakthrough…how about you?

Maybe you’ve been hurt by relationships of perhaps the absence of them.

Or perhaps there is some other scar on your soul that you feel every single day of your life.

Whatever it is, may be a financial situation in which creditors are calling, or may be a physical situation stealing your strength and destroying your body, or maybe a parental situation in which you are watching as a child turns from everything they were taught to believe, or may be even a spiritual pain in which God just doesn’t seem fair right now.

Whatever it is, if I’ve just described you, then standby, commit to being here for this series because a breakthrough may be at hand.

If I haven’t described you, then commit to being here anyway, because you will eventually need this series.

In our text, the woman cries out to the prophet, her pain is too much to bear.

And indeed, this is what the pain of a crisis does: pain ultimately drives us to the Lord.

In fact, in the Bible whenever we read that phrase “cry out”, we have encountered a desperate situation.

And so here, the woman cries out because she wants to know what God has to say and what God intends to do about her crisis and */how/*/ God intends to give her a breakthrough/.

Because you see, her situation was bigger than any human could fix…the creditors were at the door to take her most prized possessions.

So here’s the first principle I want you take with you today:

 

*Principle #1**: You will never discover that God is all you need, until God is all you have.*

And let me tell you something, when you’re at this place, you don’t pray casual, routine prayers anymore, you cry out.

IOWs, when you get to this place, you’re no longer worried about your sophistication, you cry out.

I mean someone in the other room just might hear you pray for once because like a baby who has grown hungry and wants everyone within ear shot to know it needs to be fed, you cry out.

So why doesn’t passion just automatically develop?

I mean, if Jesus said, “Blessed is the one who hungers and thirst for righteousness, for he shall be filled,” why don’t we see more of God’s power and presence today?

The answer is simple…we are too full.

We’re too full of ourselves…our money…abilities.

So hear me loved ones, the prerequisite of spiritual passion, is spiritual hunger.

You’ve got to be hungry.

When we have gone on short-term mission trips to Honduras and Equator and Latvia, we saw God’s Hand move in miraculous ways because those people understood that when God is all you have, God is all you need.

So the question today is, how hungry are you to experience the things of God?

In fact in your sermon notes put:     *HUNGER  =  PASSION.*

You see, passion is the driving force that takes a person to the next level of performance.

Without passion, you will always stay where you are because there is no reason to go anywhere else.

I floundered in college until I finally developed a passion to finish my pharmacy degree.

Without passion, if you get there ok, if you don’t, ok.

This woman wanted it so bad, our Scripture text says, “She cried out.”

She let her voice be heard.

She needed things to be different in her life.

And indeed, when God allows a crisis to come into your life, one of its goals is to make you hungry for change.

When a photographer goes into a darkroom where no light can be found, her sole aim is to turn a negative into a positive.

It may be dark in there, but it is purposeful in there, and the purpose of our dark times is often to get us ready for the light.

So if God has you in a dark place, it may be that its purpose is to take a negative in your life, and turn it into a positive.

The woman cries out to the prophet because she wants to hear from the Lord.

So Elisha says: *V 2*  Then Elisha says something strange, it doesn’t make sense:  *VV 3-4*

 

That’s odd advise.

Now isn’t it just like a preacher to come with something that doesn’t make sense?

Elisha says, “I want you to go to your neighbors and get all the vessels you can: I mean clay pots, I mean cooking pots, any pots they have BUT #1, make sure they are empty and #2 make sure they are NOT just few in number.”

“What?!…Elisha, I need money, I need money honey.

I don’t need this wild stuff you’re talking.”

She says, “I’m empty!

I don’t have anything but this one little jar of cooking oil.

I mean I don’t even have anything to cook.”

And Elisha says, “I know, but go get all the additional emptiness you can anyway.”—Stay

with me now, I’m going somewhere with this, don’t drift now—Elisha says, “I not only want you to have your emptiness, I want you to go get your neighbor’s emptiness and add it to yours.”

Multiplied emptiness: some of you have multiplied emptiness.

IOWs, you’re a mess and the folk you live with in your house—they’re a mess.

Are you with me?

Have you ever found yourself saying, “Everybody wants to bring their problems to me when I’ve got enough of my own emptiness.”

But loved ones, there is a 2nd critical principle here, and you must not lose sight of it, it is the key to spiritual filling, catch this now:

 

principle #2: The amount of your emptiness will determine the amount of your filling.

IOWs, when God connects your emptiness with the emptiness of those around you, God is increasing the possibility of your filling.

Why – because the amount of your emptiness determines the amount of your filling.

What the prophet did was give her a new perspective, a different approach to a normal problem.

We all have debts, we all have pain, we all have crisis.

But the response she gets is not the answer she would have gotten at a bank or a credit union or from a politician…NO the Lord wants to increase her emptiness.

And so now she is faced with a question: Do I believe the man of God or not?

IOWs, do I believe that what he is saying, God is saying?

So many times loved ones…listen to me…we cry out to God and get an answer from God, but we don’t like it because it requires a step into the unknown.

IOWs, it boils down to this, without faith it is impossible to please God.

*Hebrews 11:6 (sermon notes) *So when I’m seeking a passion for God, the question is, “*Do I believe God*?”

Because when it comes to getting your breakthrough, God will often bring odd methods to validate whether or not you trust Him.

IOWs, if you’re looking for neat – clean – well defined next steps as you live the Christian life because you think you know God…forget it!

Why—*Isaiah 55:8 (sermon notes)*/ /