Are You Having Fun?

Welcome back to Ignite. I want to talk to you in the subject of having fun. Seems like so many Christians today are not having fun. So, are you having fun? Really, is God your Savior in Lord? Is Jesus your Savior in Lord? I mean, you have the God of the Universe Creator and everything. We're looking after you and giving you the problems of your life. How can you not have fun knowing that? So, I want to delve into the 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 and 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? Do you love God? It's talked about in so many places in Scripture. I love in Revelation chapter 2 where there's the letters of the seven churches. I mentioned before the Karen. I've been to all seven of those churches in Bible study and they're all so fascinating. But on this particular subject in Revelation chapter 2 it comes to the church 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 he says I know you know good teaching for bed but I have this against you. You've left your first love. I'm no longer your first love and you 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 it. If you love the hammer 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 top of mind for you? If he's not then you've probably lost him as your first love. I don't mean you're not going to heaven. I'm not getting into that. But you have moved away and this world does that to you, doesn't it? It just crowds in on you with all the cares of this world, all the problems of this world just almost crushes you. It's important to me 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 ten commandments. Actually you don't have to. You all you have to do is quote two. What's the most important command? Remember they ask Jesus. So what's the most important commandment? And he said to love the Lord they got all a heart, mind, soul, and strength. And the second is like unto it to love your neighbor as yourself. If you love your neighbor as yourself you're concerned for their salvation as you are your own. And that goes through by your with. You have responsibility. You should if you don't you should. I said since responsible 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 your way when you tell them God loves you. They don't get mad at you for telling them God loves you. The question is do you love him? And if you love him you're showing 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? Can it 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 in your clothing, in your habits and where you go and what you look at and what you laugh at 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 adds a whole another dimension to you and quite frankly and literally it fulfills the rest of the law. So it frees you from the law. You don't have to am I in the right space? I used to have that one as a kid. Am I right? Am I just looking like I don't want to get God battery? He will get mad at you. He loves you. He loves you. He can't love you anymore than he already loves you. But living for him, constantly understanding that you have purpose in your life. And you do it for joy. You do it for God's purpose. Understand that everything you say and do full time, you're in full time ministries. And no, no, no, no. Oh yeah, you are. You're a witness. You've always been a witness. Some of us have been witnesses for the prosecution quite frankly. And you're not moving people closer to God. But this is a 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 got to satisfy that law and that law. You have all this legalism. I can't interrupt with legalism. And it robbed me of my joy. I didn't have joy. As I look back now, legalism is not all that bad because we've watched this whole thought of 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 it's done 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, we 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 when they're so demanding. At the end of all that, they they they stiff them on a ship. 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 with the two. What does that say to that waiter? Did you just move on closer to Jesus? I don't think so. You see, I have to say it's like sport. It's 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 on 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 3 says, always be ready to give a clear presentation of the gospel. So you can't go 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 a talkative 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 it? And he said, I'm from Connecticut. I know how bad things could be it. So now I'm in Arizona and I love California, but I couldn't handle California. We're talking about all this and also I started writing around it. You know what the root causes? The root causes 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 racial or political. They're scriptural. There's the fact that we've turned their backs on God. And that's the problem. He's I never thought of that. I said, it seems like you might like to know more. And that's always getting me going at the door. I pulled out my little seeking God card. I should have one here for a frog, you know, you can get it for a website for you to charge. And I said, if you go there, this website would tell you how much God loves you and how he has a plan for your life and what you spend eternity says, really, that's really cool. I said, I 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 got to do this. I got you don't have to do anything. You never have to leave your comfort zone. 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 in the name of the Lord. We're good at loving him. If you were doing it, going doing good things and being very proud and doing good things, but that has nothing to do with redemption. It hasn't do with making you highly recognized and exhausted and appreciated for having loved friends or person in the community, right? That's not what that's not most even juggles think that's sharing your faith. That's not sharing your faith. Being good doesn't get you or anybody else in heaven. Okay. I drove in this restaurant recently. I actually didn't drive a friend of mine drove me in the restaurant. It was 130th Park lot was empty. He could have parked anywhere. Lots of open spaces, but he pulled me up right in front of a of a car with the hood open. And there was nobody there for the moment. By the time I got out of the car, there was a guy there with the Spartan's bottle. You know, there were these big bottles. And he's pouring water into his radiator. All right. Got the picture. So I closed it over and walked up and said, hi, anything I can do to help you. He says, oh, no, I just have a leaky radiator. I just got here from Alabama. I just drove out and I had to have a keep filled with water. So I just got me 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 said, well, a friend of mine, I got a job here, driving trucks. He said he could get me one. And I said, well, what's the 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. 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 said, wow, that's gutsy. He said, yeah, I just got it. And I said, you ever, you ever drive a truck before? I said, no, never drove a truck before. I said, you're a little bit nervous about what's your face here right now? He said, do you think? So I just, I started laughing with him. I said, you know, I started this little car wax. You have me a long time ago. Nobody who we were. Now we're the number one selling car wax in the world. But I found I did that by because I discovered this is a one of our 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, wouldn't you like to know the God or direct your steps? He said, yeah, that'd be pretty cool. I said, you have no idea. You have no idea. So I thought, am I seeking God card? Why did I have one of those here? I said, you 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, I just gave him a treasure. It is a treasure. So it's the word of God. So he looked at me as well. Thank you. And I said, of course, I said, 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 tattered. He had dreadlocks. He didn't look like me, a lot younger than me. And he's asking, yes, give me permission. Yes, I can pray for him. It's so I did. And the Holy Ghost came on us. 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, 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 are, you know, seeking the flesh, you're, you're living for God's purpose. And I got to tell you, here's the end of the game. That is fun. That worked out your life. See you next time.