Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and.
This is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Enjoy the message.
So over in the Book of Revelation, Chapter two, verse two through five. There's a challenge, and I'm going to try to be disciplined as I preach this one. I got a little I got a little bit off my plan at the last one. This one, I'm gonna try to just stay right right there and preach it, and because there's so much there that I believe will help you. But let's turn our attention now to the text. The Angel at the church in emphasis is receiving a message, and.
The word of the Lord comes. I know your works verse.
Two, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not found them to be false. I know you're enduring patiently and bearing up for my Name's sake, and you have not grown weary.
You're doing a lot of things right.
And I see it, and I see you struggling, and I see you showing up.
But I have this against you.
There's something that's working against you. There's something that I need to challenge you on today. I have this against you that you have abandoned the love that you had it first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen. Repent It means to change your mind. It means to change your direction. Repent therefore, repent, Remember and repent and do the works you.
Did it first.
If not, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place unless you repent. I see you, I love you, But if you don't remember and repent, you're gonna.
Lose your place.
So I want to appreciate to you today on the subject put your passion in its place, and I want you to pray with me that I could communicate this message in a powerful and clear way. Father, anoint your word and open our hearts. May we hear it and do it never be the same. We declare it, and thank you in advance for feeding us from your hand.
In Jesus' name, Amen, on your way to.
Your seat, touch somebody, say you're gonna get it back today.
You're gonna get it back. You're gonna get it back.
I'm just telling you right now, you're gonna get it back today. Hey, So bring up my props and put my little picture up. I want to show you something from last summer. I took my kids back to my hometown and took them on a tour of Monk's Corner, South Carolina.
A lot of people want to go to the Holy Land and then, and.
Some people on their bucket list, they just want to see Monk's Corner. So I took my kids to all of the sites that I could think of that were memorable to me growing up, very proud of my small town heritage, and very proud.
Of the church I grew up in.
I took them by Monk's Corner United Methodist Church. A lady who recognized me saw us full up. She said, little Stevie Verdick, her sister taught my Sunday school class, and she knew I was pastoring. Now, proud of me and all that said, we could walk in and do whatever we wanted. She was there cleaning, and we went over to the choir room and I showed the kids how I used to suit up on Sunday mornings when I was about well was it ten, mom eleven? And I was an acolyte at the Methodist church, and so
I kind of walked them through. I wanted to show him how I did it back in the day, because you know, not just anybody could be an acolyte. Took a special talented kid, very spiritually elite children were called upon it. They didn't let you light your own wick. They had a committee member for that. But I walked them through it. And so that's me at the front of the church there showing them how I used to
do it. And you had to do it a certain way, you know, you come down during the first song and you I don't remember it exactly, it's been a while, but there was a certain way you did the candles and all of that, and then you light it, light the well, it's been a while. Abby had a funny line when I was showing her all this. She said, Daddy, did you have to practice that? I said, yeah, baby, took a lot of practice, and do it just right, can't mess it up.
And plus Melissa Hydric was sitting up there in the.
Balcony and I had a crush on her, and I didn't want to burn down the church in front of my childhood crush, light my robe on fire in front of my crush. So you had to practice that. And then at the end, how you put the fire out. That's important there at the end. And while I'm standing up there with them, it's memories, you know, because sometimes you go back.
And you just you remember things.
That was where I preached my first sermon on youth Sunday. Now they only give you twelve minutes to preach in the Methodist Church, And I know what some of you are thinking, can we make this a Methodist church?
That sounds awesome.
It takes me twelve minutes to tell you, hello, how many of you are glad I preached long sermons because you know you're jacked up. It's going to take me a whole lot more than twelve minutes to straighten you out. Weird though, touch somebody say it's gonna take more than twelve You're a mess.
Me too.
Anyway, I was remembering that first sermon. I was preaching on Peter walking on water, and I didn't even need the full twelve minutes to be honest with you. Within five minutes I had used all my notes and there was seven minutes left. I had nothing more to say. Because I was sixteen. I didn't have content. I was preaching on the storms of life, sixteen years old, trying to tell seventy three year old Methodist women about the storms of life. I didn't have a lot of life experience.
But I tell you what I had. I had passion. I had passion. I mean, if I could have walked across the pews, I would have walked across the pews to show them how Peter came out to Jesus on that boat. And I didn't have much much sense, but I had passion. In fact, they brought up a group of people last night when I was preaching. They had people up who have been in the church ten years, and it made me remember back to all the things that we have now as a church that we did
not have ten years ago when we started. We didn't have all these lights and cameras for video, and all this money to start campuses. God knows, we didn't have a building our first capitol campaign, you remember, Greg Weinberger, I didn't have a building, a blueprint to show the people. We didn't have any of that. But we had passion. Oh man, we had passion. We had the kind of passion that they were calling us a cult. Until they're calling you a cult, you ain't doing nothing.
We had passion.
I had passion preaching in that senior center. I wish I could tell them, Josh, remember you wrote me that letter the other day about my first green room.
It wasn't a green room, it was a closet. It was a closet.
We would move the plants out the closet and you would knock on it one minute less, so I come out and lead the music. We didn't even have that many people, but we had passion. How many know you can push through a lot.
When you have passion. When you have passion, passion matters.
And I was standing there with my kids and thinking about when I started appreciating and having conversations with my young self and checking my passion because in Revelation chapter two there is a challenge to passion, and I think it's good every once in a while to challenge your passion level. In contrast to the passion that you had, do you still have passion? You remember the first apartment that we lived in together, Holly, you remember it well.
You remember the mouse traps. You remember it well. You remember how you cooked.
All that fried rice and pasta and made me fat within a year and a half of being your husband, And I think you were trying to make sure I stayed with you. She got me so fat that first year cooking for me. I found a picture the other day. In fact, she brought it to me. I don't know if she's trying to keep me motivated to stay in the gym, but I was about forty five pounds heavier bro not in the biceps this picture. I wish you
could see this picture. I thought about putting it on the screen, but some of y'all are going to lunch after this. I don't want to mess up your lunch. And I'm standing there, got my eyes closed and my shirt off and my belly out, looking like an infomercial before picture. That little apartment a Juniper Terrorists apartment CEE fifteen. It was very small and the insulation in the walls
was very thin. And the reason I know because Tammy from Juniper Terrists Apartment C sixteen came over to us after our first night and the apartment knocked on the door and said I'm your neighbor, Tammy, and I just want to let you know we can hear everything. It was a duplex. I just want you to know here everything that happens in fifteen and I mean everything, because we didn't.
Have a lot of space, but we had all the.
Which brings us to Revelation chapter two. This is the connection obvious people. He said, you had something when you were small that you lost now that you're significant. Ephesis was not an imaginary place. So when the Book of Revelation is issuing seven letters to seven churches, they're real churches with real people, with real histories. And it's been forty three years since Paul started this church, traveling Inland with a group of compadres that are spreading the gospel
of Jesus Christ. That he spends a couple of years with these people in Ephesis. And when he started out he just met some people. There were twelve guys who were disciples of John the Baptist, and Paul asked him do you have the Holy Spirit?
And they said, we.
Don't even know that there is a Holy Spirit. They didn't have a lot of theological knowledge, but you know what they had passion. Paul laid his hands on him, and when he did, they started to speak in tongues and they received the Holy Spirit, and they didn't just speak in another language. They started speaking about Jesus. They were speaking in the synagogues, and their passion was so
strong that the crowds started coming out. And then they didn't like it, because sometimes when you get passionate, apathetic, people get threatened. And the Jewish religious system was not a fan of the prevalence of the Gospel, so they kicked Paul out of the synagogue. But how many know, when you have passion, you'll find another place. Nobody can shut you down. When you have real passion, if they kick you out the synagogue, you'll go to the lecture hall.
And that's exactly what Paul did. And he preached powerfully in emphasis. And it wasn't just an accident that he ended up in emphasis. God strategically placed Paul in emphasis because there were three hundred thousand people who lived there.
Fourth largest city in the world.
At that time, known as the Seventh Wonder of the World, home of the Temple of Artemis, daughter of Zeus I mean emphasis, was a place where people would come to get their shipments, it was a port city, it was well situated, it was an important place. So Paul is passionate, and Emphasis is an important place, and God says, I've got to get the.
Guy with the passion in the right place.
When I look back over my life, I'm grateful that God has directed.
My past and made sure that my passion had a place to operate.
I'm grateful that God found me as a teenager and gave me a place to preach because God saw a passion.
Now, as a parent, I'm always trying to look.
And make sure that if my kids have a passion, I encourage it. If you're into a Rubic's cube, I'll buy you three. If you like mindcraft, I'll tolerate and pretend to listen to you as you explain it to me.
But I want you to have a passion.
Passion mattersh It matters no matter what position you're in. Passion matters. And if you can't do it with passion in a small place, why in the world would God promote you to a bigger one. Paul didn't start an Emphasis, but he ended up there. Started in Damascus, spending time in isolation, but the same passion that was developing in his isolation.
Did that make you.
Think of David when I said that, because that would be a great Old Testament illustration of this New Testament personality as a shepherd killing lions, killing bears and didn't even know he was preparing for Goliath. But it was the same passion in the pasture that got him to the palace, same passion waiting for a place to happen. And that's one of the frustrating things, is that you can have the right passion in the wrong place. You can have more passion than opportunity.
To express it. It's frustrating.
I know some of you who come to church here, some of you would express yourself more in church, but you don't know if it's appropriate.
I have one friend.
Who grew up in churches where it was more demonstrative. He said, when he first came to elevation, it was kind of hard for him. I said, really, He said, yeah, because I would want to.
Stand up while you were preaching and shout you down. There's a black guy.
By the way, okay, incidentally, he said, But I was around a bunch of white people and god blos and we all have different personalities but I stood up. When I was stand up, I was the only one I was stand up, and I was expecting everybody else to be standing to he said, because you were preaching so passionately. The word just got in me and I couldn't stay seated. And I'm standing up, but I'm the only one all
these people around me. You know, sometimes you can let other people minimize your passions and downplay your passion to the level of other people. Don't ever let another person become the.
Ceiling on your passion.
I'd rather change people than lose passion. I'd rather get some new friends that want to.
Serve God and want to love God.
I'd rather move seats and stay in my seat when the spirit of God hid me. In fact, if you're sitting at a campus and nobody around you looks excited, raise your hand and ask the I'm sure, and they'll move your seating assignment because I need some room to praise God, because when I think of the goodness of Jesus. Come on, anybody got passion and see when you have passion. Sometimes when you get around complacent people or people who have a different personality, you feel funny. My friend Carl
Lynz came to preach out our code Orang's revival. He pastors in New York City, and so his kids play ball in Brooklyn, and he came to my kids little league baseball game. He came to Graham's baseball game in South Charlotte, and he tried to bring a Brooklyn passion to a South Charlotte baseball game. I mean, no, sooner had he got out there to the bleachers than he was talking trash to the ump. Now, this is not a high school baseball game. These are eight year old,
nine year old kids. And Carl's telling the ump. He's telling the ump look good to.
Me, hump, be happy to get to some glasses. Ump. Next thing, I know, he's talking trash to.
The kid on the other team on den to about not today number eleven. I don't think so, little guy, I said, Carl, we don't.
Do that here.
I appreciate your passion, but this is the wrong place. I gotta come to the field with these people.
Oh season, some of them on the other team go to my church. Shut out touch.
Somebody say, keep your passion in his place. Right place for sex is in the marriage bag. I know you got passion but passion needs a place to operate, like a fire. If you're in disagreement with what I just said, let me prove it using natural elements. When I started this sermon, I lit this wik and none of you had a problem. Why because it was in its proper place. But I bet if I brought this wick down to the crowd.
And put this fire in your hair, you say I.
Got it, preacher, Keep it in its place. Misplaced passion is very dangerous. Misplaced passion, you know, it's even more dangerous to let somebody with Brooklyn passion get around somebody with a South Charlotte attitude. What I'm trying to say is, I mean, I love my city. We're a great city. I'm not saying we owe anything to those Yankees, but I'm.
Saying that.
Sometimes a new person will come into the church and they're excited. I mean, they are fired up, they got a passion, and let them get around Bobby who's been a Christian for twenty three years.
And Bobby's looking at him saying, you don't do that around here.
See, because people who are new to the faith, people who have that first love, they don't know that you're not so supposed to read your Bible.
Yet they don't know that.
We only listened to it on Sundays and we don't bother with it during the week.
So if you don't watch.
Them, they don't bring that passion into your church. If they don't get around, they are on people, and something's happening in Ephesus because when they first started, they didn't have the knowledge, but they had the passion.
They didn't have the people, but they had the passion. They didn't have they didn't they didn't.
Have the political support of the government, they didn't have a five oh one C three nonprofit tax exempt status, they.
Didn't have a Christian president, but they had passions.
They had false doctrine coming into the church. In fact, Paul told Timothy one time, he said, Hey, I want you to look at this in one Timothy one three.
Because Timothy was a young.
Man and he didn't have much experience, and the Bible gives us reason to believe that Timothy had a timid personality, Paul had to remind him over and over again, Hey, God didn't give you a spirit of timidity. Timothy Timid Timmy Timid. Timmy is pastor in a big city church, and there's people teaching false doctrine, and there's people trying to deny the gospel of Christ. And Timothy in his twenties with a timid personality. By the way, passion is
not a personality type. Passion isn't how high you jump. Passion is how straight you walk when your feet hit the ground. Put this down. If you're passionate, you take notes in church. The proof of passion is perseverance. I'll prove it to you in the scripture. I'll prove it to you from verse Timothy one to three. Paul says Timothy. I urged you before when I was on my way through Macedonia, and I'm telling you again. Remain in ephesis. Now watch this. You don't have to tell somebody to
stay somewhere they want to be. I've never had a massage therapist have to.
Tell me to stay on the table.
I have had a physical trainer have to tell me to do another rep to urge me to keep going. You don't urge people to do something they naturally want to do. So there must have been an instinct in Timothy to run. You're young, you're inexperienced. There's false doctrine circulating in the church.
Timothy must not have been feeling it anymore.
Timothy's fire might have been going out. So Paul said, I want you to remain there in Ephesus and do the hard stuff and persevere and persevere and stick it out, and come home to a family that might not even appreciate you right now, and show up at a job that might not even recognize your value right now, and preach in a place where you're persecuted.
And the proof of your passion is your perseverance.
I don't know if I was really passionate when I was preaching when I was sixteen. I was just excited. There's a difference. Interest is not passion. Come on, Knowledge is not passion. Passion is something different. When you watch a movie and they go home after a night at the first time they meet at a bar and rip each other's clothes off, that's not passion. That's attraction. One is from the heart. One is from the hormones. Passion isn't I rip your clothes off after the first.
Time we met. That's not passion.
Passion is when I saw my mom taking my dad's clothes off while he was dying. To give him a bath because he couldn't move his own body. That's passionate passion, June Am I right about passion. Passion is proven by perseverance. Passion is proven when you kneel down in the garden of gethsemine like Jesus and say, I'm under pressure right now.
I don't want to do it right now.
Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. You haven't even found your passion until you've passed your feelings. And I'm concerned about this because we've convoluted it. We've talked to people that if you don't feel it, you don't have to do it. But if you have real passion, you'll do it when you're up, do it.
When you're down.
Do it when they pay you, do it when they go, do it when they thank you, do it when they look you over.
Do it when they hate you, do it when they love you. I got passion.
I got passion to preach, I got passion to parent. I got passion to pay down my debt. And if it doesn't happen.
All at once, that's all all right.
I got the passion to stick it out.
I'm like Ruth Naomi. You can't run me off if you want to.
I'm like alifsha Elia. You can tell me to leave, but I won't because.
I got a passion. Where is your passion? Passion? Say it?
Passion, say like that with the concentration on the vow passion.
Passion. You can't say passion sounds ridiculous. Passion.
I mean, can you imagine if I preached how some of y'all listen, that'd be horrible. Well, y'all know something say today that's gonna get around to it.
And there's a Bible area.
The relationship to the Book of Ephesian gives us a picture of the.
Church of Officis from a doctrinal standpoint, but now it's been in a couple of decades. And then listen, the passion lost their first love, first love, love, passions, love, passions.
The boy got me about the Church of Emphasis is that he commends their labor, but they've lost their love. See it isn't like they weren't making progress, but in the process of making progress, of keeping the false doctrine out, in the process of eliminating things from their life and their church that didn't need to be there.
In the last forty three.
Years because now John is writing from a place called the Island of Patmas, sending a messenger to the Church of Emphasis, and he says, I see your progress.
You got a job, now, you got a wife now.
But the question is the question is do you still laugh passion? You've got the apparatus, but you've lost your passion. All this is kind of pointless. If nothing's burning passion, you lost it. You lost your passion.
One thing I always ask our worship team is that they lead you with passion, because I don't know what kind of hell you went through this week or what kind of hell you're going home to.
So let's make it heaven on earth in here.
And I think they do a really good job at every campus. Kelly Summers and Jane Williams and John sal Barrion tests you let me roll that out. Barri In tests, Barrien test what bar in testest? This is a place for passion. This is a place. Hey, hey, hey, you want to cry in the church. You can cry. Here's a hanky and shout.
You can shout. You want to run, just don't run towards.
The stage and makes me frightened, distracting me run in place?
What kind of running motion was that.
And sometimes your passion is waiting on a place to happen. Sometimes your passion is waiting on a place to happen. Graham's teacher told us the other day in the parent teacher conference. She said, Graham just loves life, she said, but sometimes I got to work with him on where it is appropriate to express that love for life. I said, example, Please, she's a great teacher, Kimberly Springs, teaching my third grader.
She said, though, that.
Sometimes Graham will just jump up in the middle of class and.
Dab on a math problem and just dance across the room, just jump up, and there's a time to dab. But uh, but sometimes sometimes that flame becomes an ember. And I felt like the Lord wanted somebody today to get your passion back, and he.
Tells you how to do it.
He doesn't just challenge that you've lost your passion. I mean, I don't know your reaction to the scripture, but I take it as parental guidance that God is warning me. If you lose your passion, you're going to lose your place. Can I break that down? If you don't love that woman now that you're married, to her the same way and in increasing ways that you did when you dated her.
Somebody else might. Now that's not a threat, that's just reality. I don't want to preach with passion.
You think God can't raise up another preacher who's smarter than me.
No, no, no, no, no, no no no. I don't.
I don't operate out of the assumption that I'm entitled to anything that God gave me. I got to keep my passion. How can you have so much passion before you have the position?
How do you get it back? He said, you've abandoned it. You didn't.
You didn't lose your passion. You left it. You didn't lose it.
You left it.
You abandoned your first love. You stopped doing the things look at it. He said, you've abandoned your first love. Remember therefore, from.
Where you have fallen.
I love God because he doesn't say that we should regret where we are. He says, we should remember where we were and get your eyes back to the hills where your help comes.
Come on, I'm preaching with passion, but I could use a little participation. I'm not staying where I am. I want my passion back so much. Shout I want it back. I want it back. I want it back. I don't just want to look like a Christian. I want a fire in my heart. I want to go through the emotions. Here's what you do. Remember from where you were falling. Remember from where you're fallen. Repent.
Let's look at the scripture together, repent, and let's read the next part together and feel the feelings you felt at first. Well, isn't that how we treat passion like it's a sinsa But yeah, when he challenges their passion.
He calls them to action. Do the things you did it first. It's a decision, not a sensation said. Let me tell you something else. Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it? How do I get it back? Okay, I'm gonna pray, Lord, I want my passion back. It ain't coming. Not like that. You don't pray to get it back. You practice.
Do the things you did at first. I don't feel grateful anymore. Be grateful. I don't feel excited anymore. Be excited. I don't feel love anymore? Be loving?
Do it?
Do it?
Do it? What's it? What you did it first? Do it? Practice?
Got shay you something you got? A second is this word good. I sure enjoyed preparing it. I think I like cooking this better than you could ever like eating it. While I was preparing it, watch this late need. The Lord gave me an illustration of it. You guys may not know the names of these musicians. I mentioned them already on the platform. One of our musicians here, LJ. He's a little newer to the team, but.
He's got passion.
And he's not some young buck who always wanted to be on the stage. He's done some things, he's wasted some seasons, and I didn't know about him. I was looking for somebody in this particular position, and I wanted somebody who would have not just the technical skills or proficiency to be back here by someone who would have the passion for it. You know how I knew he
was the guy. He said that when I send in my scriptures for them to put on the screen, he begs the people that get the email with the scriptures if he can see them so he can figure out what I'm going to preach on, so he can start thinking through what song he might start playing when I start closing. See that's passion, that's passion, And I brought him up because I love all of our team.
Don't get me wrong, You're not my favorite or anything like that.
But just something I heard that when he was he was living in Canada, and which is known for its.
Passion of you, Wayne Finch, Stephen Finch, God bless you guys.
But he was he was going through season. I'm not going to tell all of his details. Maybe maybe you can ask him one day, but he would sit when his wife would go to bed at night.
He would put on his headphones and.
He would practice playing with preachers online.
Now he didn't have a position, but he.
Had a what a what a passion and he would put his headphones on so as not to disturb his wife's sleep. I assume and sectually appreciated that, and he would play.
Along with the preaching.
I heard that there was a season where you would play along with me online.
And I didn't know who he was.
Never heard of him, never heard never even heard his name. They didn't even call David's name when he was out in the field tending sheets. Come on, I'm about to preach right section of I sure could use your passion.
I sure could use it. I see he didn't have a position.
But when you have a passion, you practice. You don't wait for a position. You don't do it because somebody's watching. You don't do it because there's a performance. You do it because it's a passion. And he didn't know he was just killing lions.
He didn't know he was just killing bears.
But when Goliath came stepping forward to the battle line, he had been practicing. And now he's back there and I'm up here because he had a passion.
Passion will bring you from.
The pastor to the palace.
Pastor will bring you from the lowest to the highest. Repair again, passion back. Come on, take fifteen seconds and praise him.
Passionate, passion, passionate.
Come on, Rondell, bame on, late Norman, come on, you'll see.
Get your passion back. God's not there, he's not going with you.
Get your passion back in place.
David said, oh yeah, I've been practicing for this. I've been waiting for an opportunity. I've been waiting for a giant said, I can princh anyway I want to, and practicing. You gotta practice your passion. Practice. I was riding home with Elijah, just on't fry and we were filling up the little gas cans with gas to put gas in the four wheeler. Very spiritual activity. And we filled them
up and put them in Holly suburban. And I said, Elijah, we gotta put them just right because if the gas slushes around the back of the car, your mom isn't going to be happy about our outing. And he said, Dad, I'm worried because all the way here they were sliding around in the back.
But I said, don't worry, boy.
They might have been sliding on the way, but they were empty. Now that they're full, they're not going anywhere. I started preaching to Eliza while I'm driving. I'm practicing. Breaching is not just my professor, it's my passion.
If you got passion, you are a preaching the car.
You are a preach in the kitchen. You are a worship gone Monday Tuesday.
It's my passion, my passion, a practice, my passion, a practice, my passion. Practice practice, practice, practice, practice practice, Find.
Seven people, tell them practice.
Practice, practice, practice, practice practice. You never know, you never know what God might want to do through you. You gotta practice. You gotta practice well. I would pray, but I just don't feel anything. When I pray, you hadn't practiced enough. If you would pray two minutes, you would see the peace that two minutes brings, and tomorrow you want to pray five. If you practice, if you'd open your Bible and read a verse, you'd want to read two.
You might read four, you might read ay. You might finish the Book of the Relations before.
The week is over.
If you would practice practice, I'm practicing.
So if you ever see me in the grocery store and I'm mumbling, I'm not crazy.
I'm practicing. I'm practicing. I'm practicing. I'm practicing. What are you doing throwing that stick on the ground, Moses.
I'm practicing because I got to use this stick to park the waters. But until I practice, I can't perform it. And you've lost your passion because you stopped practicing.
Even the best.
Lose their passion without practice, even the best, even David, even David, the kid who ran to the battle line and said, I.
Don't need a position. I got passion.
I don't need the endorsement of Saul. I've got passion. I don't even need my brothers to like me.
I got passion.
That kid who ran to the battle. A kid who practiced found himself decades later. He was in the palace, but he had lost his passion. He sat down and wrote a psalm, and he cried out to God and asked the Lord to recreate and restore his passion, create a clean heart in me, O God, I had a pure passion when I started. And I've allowed some things to come into my life. And I've allowed some people, and I've allowed some memories, and I've allowed some decisions
and some distractions and even some good things. I've been trying to keep the false stuff out. I've left my first love, and I want my passion back. He was home one day, walking around on his roof. That same kid who was willing to run to the battle lines. He's seen a lot of years now, maybe not forty three like the Church of Ephesus, but it's been quite a few years since that time, and he's not running toward the battle anymore.
He's avoiding it.
And the Bible says that in the springtime, when the kings go off to war, David stayed home. The king in the palace had lost that passion of the kid and the pastor, and he got out of place, and so we saw a beautiful woman bathing on the roof. He called for her and she had no choice but to come, and when he slept with her, they conceived.
A child that resulted in a national scandal. Her husband was murdered.
At the behest of David's henchman, and David received word that the child born to his wife would die, and he cried out from that place. I want my passion back. I've lost my baby, I've compromised my integrity. But if it took me losing some things to realize that I had lost my passion.
God, all I can do now.
I can't get back the baby, but I can get back my passion.
I can't get back last week, last month, last year. Would you redeem the time I've wasted?
Go?
I want my passion back. I want my passion back.
I just know somebody's heart is crying out, maybe even watching online. You couldn't even get the church, didn't even come today, and your heart is crying out as I preach. Stand to your feet. It's a holy moment in the sanctuary.
Stand to your feet.
I want my passion back. I want my passion back. I want my passion back, and I'd be asking me a question. She said, Daddy, Daddy, did you have to practice that? And I just I was standing there thinking about my kids. Maybe one day they'll take their kids to the church they grew up in, and I wonder what they'll be telling them about our church.
Will they be telling them what God used to do?
Will they be telling them about the people who used to give sacrificially, who didn't have a building but had passion. Will this be the place where they had revival one time? Or will it be a place where the revival fire never die because of the people.
With a passion. And I want to pray for you.
Because when David got done lamenting what he had lost, and he prayed out, God, don't take your spirit from me. I can lose anything, but I don't want.
To lose my place.
To the Angel of the Church at Ephesus, to the husband of for at Valentine, to the teenage girl in Rockhill, write these words, if you will find your purpose, you will recover your passion.
I think the worst advice.
That we could give a young person is to follow your passion. That might sound exciting, but it's self destructive.
You don't follow your passion.
If you follow your passion, you're gonna get your passion confused with your feelings, and the first time the wind blows real good, your flame will go out. Don't follow your passion because sometimes you can't tell your passion apart from your preference. Sometimes you can't tell your faith apart from your feelings. So you don't stay in ephesis. You don't stay in the hard places. Don't follow your passion. Follow your purpose. Remember the reason God saved you. Get your lamps stand back.
Every candle needs a stand.
The passion is the flame, and the purpose is to stand. Put your passion on your purpose. My passion follows my purpose. My passion follows my purpose. So when I feel it, when I don't, same purpose, same purpose. And you've been here and there and everywhere, losing time, losing joy, losing passion.
Following your passion, that's ridiculous. Follow your passion. How ridiculous is that? Follow your passion? You know you would have married that crazy girl. Follow your passion.
No, no, no, no.
Find your passion and teach your passion to follow your purpose. Tell your passion where.
To show up in the place of your purpose.
I mean, imagine church.
Imagine if the people running the cameras at this church it got it flipped. Imagine if the people running the cameras while I'm preaching, Imagine if they all of a sudden thought that it was my job to follow the camera. How ridiculous would that be? How ridiculous would it be if they? In fact, I'm gonna illustrate it. I'm gonna show you how ridiculous it is when you follow your passion, Show them real quick on the camera. So I got to preach now, and while I'm preaching that camera, so
now I gotta follow the camera. How ridiculous is it when you run around in life letting your feelings tell you what job to take and what job to quit, and what.
Relationship to be in.
No, no, no, I don't follow the camera. The camera follows me. You gotta stay with me. I don't follow passion, My passion follow my purpose.
Does anybody have purpose?
Looking up to Jesus? Be after the better?
Sir?
Top my bag?
Oh brother John set before.
It endured the cross, despising as shame.
I want my passion back, and my passion is waiting in the place of my purpose. I want to pray for you if this message hit your heart today, If it was for you, I want you to know that after David laid down and prayed and asked God to give him the baby back, the Bible says that he made a decision to get up, to get up, to repent, to get up. After he had been there long enough. He got up and he went in and he.
Had another baby. He got his passion back. Could this be the day that you get your passion back?
Not just goosebumps, not just a comfortable feeling.
But an inner determination and.
Resolve that says, I will, I will, I will.
I don't feel it, but I will. I don't even want to sometimes, but I.
Will, because my passion serves for permantness.
Bow your head. Created me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit for me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation, and renew a right spirit, and grant me a willing spirit.
Somebody say I will, I will, say.
I will, I will, I will, I will, even when I don't feel I will.
Because I have a passion I will, I will I'm not waiting on the position.
I have a passion. Father, we thank you today for returning us to our first love. We don't want to labor without love, and we don't want to serve you without passion.
We don't want to lose our place. We don't want to miss our chance. So while the.
While the lamps stand is still in place, while we still have breadth in our bodies, while we still have an opportunity, we call out to you God, and we don't ask you to restore our passion, because the fact is you didn't take it away. It's still in us. It was just waiting for this word, for this moment.
To be awakened. So God, we call our passion to the surface.
Like Elisha called the iron of the accent to float to the top of the water, We're calling our passion forth today. We're calling our victory forth today.
Like David got up, we're getting up. We want our passion back. We command our passion.
To serve your purpose in our lives.
We will by your spirit, we will.
By your power, we will.
We're getting up today. We're getting up today.
Not staying down, not staying lost, not staying lonely, we're getting up.
I'm getting up. I'm getting up. I'm getting up. I'm getting up.
Right now, right here, right now, right here, right now.
How about my passion about.
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