Get Your Zeal On

Here in the morning, thank you, Rhonda, for that special music. I always love piano music. So soothing. It's good to be here in the morning. It's such a beautiful day. I think we could finally say spring is here, and it's very nice to see the sun shining here in Cincinnati. In March of this year, if you looked out over the horizon and you were standing on the beach of Antigua, I know, right? That would be great. If you looked out into the ocean, you would have seen a small speck out in the middle of the ocean.

You see, 93 days earlier, on December 6th, Chris Bertis, a South African surfer, left the coast of Morocco from Africa in a one-man vessel. He crossed the Atlantic Ocean alone. He did most of the work at night to avoid the heat of the day, because, you know, being out in the sun, he would have really gotten fried. So he would stand up in the middle of the night in his little vessel, and he was journeying across the Atlantic Ocean. He had to fend off sharks on his journey.

He had to go through massive swells as, you know, storms would come. He had to fix a leak on the hatch of his craft. You see, the vessel that Chris Bertis was navigating was a stand-up paddle boat. It was the first person in the world to cross the Atlantic Ocean with no motor and no sail. Stand-up paddle boat. Now, granted, it was a bit of a souped-up paddle boat, because he needed a place to hunker down in when the weather got too fierce for him, and he needed a place to get out of the heat of the sun.

So, you know, it was mostly a flat board, but then the front had sort of a little cove he can sort of get into to escape some of the weather. No sails, no motor. He paddled a marathon distance every single day for 93 days on the open ocean. At the end of his 93 days, he traveled 4,500 miles all by himself out there in the middle of the ocean.

Why did he do it? Why would anyone do this? Well, charity, of course. He did it for charity. There were three charities he was raising money for. He maybe did it to be the first. He was the first one. The first one to cross the Atlantic Ocean, leaving Morocco and ending up in the Caribbean on a stand-up paddleboard. He had to push himself to do this. Whatever the cause that he did this for, it could not be a half-hearted effort. It couldn't. This was a massive undertaking. To travel across the ocean, it took complete investment.

Total investment. He couldn't just kind of one day wake up and say, okay, let's cross the ocean today. He had to research. He had to immerse himself in navigation equipment and survival gear, the engineering of his own vessel. He had to immerse himself and find out, you know, what can I do to make this journey possible? And in the end, before he even got started, Chris Burdish had to see and know that he can complete this venture.

You could say that he was zealous for this crossing. We read in the Bible that we are supposed to be a zealous people. Zealous. We're supposed to have an enthusiasm for God's way of life. How? How do you do that? What if you've had zeal in the past, but you've been wearied by the endurance race that we've been running? It's left you weary. Trials have been hard.

How do you get it back? How do you find that zeal and that passion for God's work, God's way of life, for this difficult road we have ahead of us? How do you do it? How do you become zealous? Chris Burdish was a man. He had a mission. He wanted to cross the ocean on a stand-up paddleboard, and it was hard work.

It took so much of himself to be able to do it. He had zeal. He had zeal and passion for this one thing that he wanted to accomplish. Let's start in Acts as we begin today. Paul was taken up to defend himself because he was accused of bringing some Gentiles into the temple.

In Acts 22, he starts to speak and says, let me speak. Actually, if we start at the end of chapter 21, as we see here in verse 37, Paul was about to be led into a barracks. That's Acts 21, verse 37. And he says, may I speak to you? He replied, can you speak Greek? Are you not the Egyptian who sometime ago stirred rebellion and led 4,000 assassins?

And Paul says, verse 39, I'm a Jew from Tarsus, a citizen of no means city, and I implore you to prevent me to speak to the people. So then he's granted permission to speak. And in verse 22, he says, brethren and fathers, hear my defense before you now. And when they heard that he spoke to them in Hebrew language, they kept all more silent. So he had their attention. He said, I am indeed a Jew born in Tarsus, but now up in the city, I was brought up in the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our Father's law, and was zealous toward God as you are today.

He was seeing their own zeal and their own passion to arrest him. And he was using that as he sort of started to speak to them. He said, I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons, both men and women. See, Paul is addressing these mobs here that are trying to accuse him.

He sees their zeal and he sees their passion and says, I understand. I know exactly how you feel. I too was passionate against this way of life. But God called him. God called Paul. He changed his mind. He redirected the passion and zeal that Paul had. And he was completely on the other side now. And under the evangelizing and teachings of Paul and his zeal, the church grew. He went and we read about his fantastic journeys, teaching this way of life and being shackled and being put in prison and being left for dead.

You can't do that half-heartedly. Paul is a great person to look at for his zeal and his passion for this way of life. And he had it against the church at first. And God used it. God used what he had inside of him, that zeal, that love, to use it for the work of good. We should often measure the amount of zeal we have for God.

We should take stock. Because if we're not purposeful, if we're not intentional about our relationship with God, it's easy. It's so easy in this day and age to let it just slip away. It's so easy to be bogged down by society, by trials, by stresses. It's easy for it to slip away. So how do you do it? How do you find that zeal again?

How do you find that passion for this way of life? How do you do it? Let's start in Matthew, then, as we sort of start to navigate, you know, searching in ourselves of reconnecting and rekindling that zeal that we need to have for this way of life. In Matthew 4, we see the beginning of Jesus' ministry. I told myself I wasn't going to say Jesus' ministry. I did it. The beginning of Jesus' ministry. We're always harping on the presenters on Beyond Today for saying that. I won't say which one. So we're trying to find, you know, how do we find that zeal that we need to have for this way of life?

Matthew 4, and starting in verse 18, Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon, called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea. For they were fishermen. Then he said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately they immediately left their nets and followed him. So verse 21, going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets. And he said to them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him.

These were fishermen outdoing their job. Outdoing, you know, their daily occupation. This was their livelihood, fishing. And all of a sudden they see this man named Jesus come up to them. Hey, follow me! I will make you fishers of men. And whatever it was, whatever they saw, they dropped everything.

They didn't say, Well, you know, let's finish the catch today, you know. Let's see what we can finish today. Nope, they dropped everything. If you're trying to rekindle that zeal in your life for this way of life, take stock of what you have invested, because you have to invest everything. You have to invest absolutely everything. To spark zeal, this is the first step. You have to invest in this way of life completely. They didn't just leave their occupation. They left someone else there on the shore. It says they left their father.

You know, leaving one's family in their livelihood at this time, it was a serious commitment that they were making. Fishing was a major occupation, and there they left their own dad on the beach, because they saw something in Jesus and what he said and the way he spoke with authority, and they left everything. They were ready to invest in this way of life. In the book of Matthew, we also have a contrast if we are not willing to invest. Let's go back a couple chapters to chapter 19. If you're looking to rekindle that zeal in your life, take stock of the investment that you are making.

Because in Matthew 19, we read a story here. Starting in verse 16, we read, Behold, one came and said to him, Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? So he said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, that is God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments. He said to him, Which ones? And Jesus said, You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, you shall love your neighbors yourself.

Verse 20, The young man said to him, All these things I have kept from my youth, what do I still lack? And Jesus said to him, If you want to be perfect, go and sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me. Verse 22, But when the young man heard that saying, He went away sorrowful, for He had great possessions.

He couldn't invest everything. He couldn't put aside some of these things that were holding Him back. If you think about what Mr. Phelps said today, you know, he had been doing some good things, but he sort of set himself up for a sprint, not the marathon race. We have to ask ourselves, what's holding us back? Have I held back the amount that I've been willing to invest in this way of life for whatever reason? Job, money, status, reputation? Have I not invested fully because of whatever distractions that I've been willing to have in my life? It's so easy in this day and age. We have, you know, and our younger generation, we feel it. We feel like it's so easy to feed ourselves with whatever information we want, whatever entertainment we want.

It's so easy. Netflix. You know, we read, Daniel, that the knowledge shall increase, and I see it today. You know, Judy and I were talking just recently, if I ever want to know something, I can know it in a matter of seconds. I have the internet in my pocket.

No knowledge is withheld from me. But with that, also, I have to balance that out. We all have to balance that out. We have to balance our diet out. We have to make sure that we are investing first in what we've committed to. To gain the zeal to follow God and to be excited about this way of life, it takes absolute investment. You know, God knows our human nature. He knows that, you know what, if I don't have to make any sort of commitment, we'll just, you know, feed ourselves and with whatever entertainment, knowledge, fun, we have to make a commitment to this way of life. We have to invest. It takes commitment. If you've found your zeal waiting, examine. Examine your level of investment you've made. A couple chapters back in Matthew 13, Jesus was teaching and he was giving parables. And parables are such great ways to learn because, you know, he's teaching with stories. And he says in verse 45 of Matthew 13, again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. Another example of complete investment. He was, you know, we have to be willing to put all of our eggs in that basket, the basket of this way of life. If you've lost zeal, take stock of the amount of investment you have in this way of life.

The second thing that we could talk about, after you've taken stock of how much you've invested in this way of life, then you have to immerse yourself into everything. You know, Chris Burtis, he didn't just say, okay, I'm ready, I'm willing to make this investment, the sacrifice of my life to cross the ocean and then just, okay, the next day just go out and do it. He went and immersed himself in all the best navigation equipment that there is out there. He immersed himself in the best survival gear that he could use while he's out there in the ocean. My favorite show for a while was Survivor Man. I don't know if you've seen this show, but Judy and I caught up on it a couple years ago, and the one episode that he had to bail out early was the open ocean survival episode.

It was just too hard. It was just too hard. You can't just go out there and have survival gear and make it. You have to plan for it. There's this man who crossed the ocean, he immersed himself to try to find out everything he could do and to plan for every scenario that would happen.

He immersed himself in the engineering of his craft, so he'd know, you know, if the swells are huge to this day, I need to be able to hunker down inside the vessel. Like a new language, you have to immerse yourself. You have to invest the time and resource to learn that new language, but then the best way to do it is to just drop yourself in the middle of that culture to learn that new language, and then you'll gain even much more.

How immersed do we want to be? Well, in the book of Acts that we read earlier, when Paul was talking about, hey, I was just as zealous as you were against this church, but he said it, he said, I was against the way. I was against the way. When Paul referred to this way of life as the way, I think that that is such a precise term to use because when we think about immersion, and how invested we should be, that's exactly the way we should look at it. It's not just a part of what we do. It's the way that we do. It's an entire way that we are a part of.

We are asked to become part of something big, and it's not just something we do throughout our day. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm a part-time Christian.

It's all-encompassing. It's a way. It's a way of life. In the book of Acts that mentions, it calls this way of life the way a couple times. To be a part of that way of life, you have to invest yes, but then you have to just immerse yourself, and all that encompasses.

Let's go back to the book of Psalms as we examine how we can immerse ourselves in this way.

Psalm 119 I'm 119, and we'll read starting in verse 97.

It says this, When we find that our zeal has waned, and we've taken stock of the level of investment, we need to then immerse ourselves first in God's word, in prayer, in Bible study, and meditation. Here, the psalmist writes, I have your commandments all through the day.

That's what I think about. Are we immersed that way?

Are you so immersed that that's your thoughts all day?

It's a big task. It's a big task for that level of immersion.

I have more understanding than my teachers, he recognized, when it's this way.

For your testimonies or my meditation, I understand more than anyone before me because of the amount of thought and meditation I have.

I think meditation, for this day and age, is one of the most underused ways to connect with God. Because when do you have quiet? When do we have quiet time to sit and reflect?

It's so easy to turn the radio on, to have the TV going on in the background. It's so easy to catch up on all the books and all the reading I want to do and all the newspapers.

But if I really think about when I have time to sit and just think about what God is doing in my life, and when I think about what God is doing as purpose for all mankind, like that when you do that, it is a way to sort of rekindle that passion and the trust that you have in God for His plan, for His way of life.

Reading God's Word and meditating is something we always say, and it seems like it's basic, but it's essential. It's absolutely essential to keep the zeal for this way of life.

When you start drifting from the basics, you start to lose connection.

Start to lose connection with what you fell in love with in the first place.

Reconnect with the Scripture. Ask God for understanding. Ask God for those quiet moments so that you can just understand completely this way of life.

Sports professionals, they begin the sport because of their zeal for the game, for their passion for the game. I remember as a kid playing baseball, I remember outside, my dad would hit me a thousand grounders, it felt like.

Oh, I remember being so tired, so sore.

He would say, but this is what you have to do. These are the basics that you have to understand.

I love the game. I still love baseball. We talk all the time about how baseball is so great. It's just like the perfect, relaxing thing. I read a story at the beginning of this year, about a professional player who had not been throwing his curveball correctly. He had no idea why. He had no idea why. He used to have a wicked curveball.

He started to go through some of his old tapes, and he found an old interview where he was explaining how to throw one. Watching the interview, he was like, stop, rewind that. He found out that he was not holding the ball correctly anymore.

So he went out the next day, and he started throwing again with the grip that he sort of remembered, and he was like, that was it. These players are such a high level of competition. We can imagine that they are focused on so many other things, rather than the basics. That's what it took for him. When he found out there were problems, and he no longer even wanted to throw the curveball, he said, okay, what can I do? How can I get back to the basics? He went and reviewed some tapes, found it, and that is a wicked curveball again.

He was able to go back to the basics, and now he loves that pitch again. It's one of the best in the National League for throwing it. It goes for you and I as well. Sometimes we have to sort of go back to the basics and find out, you know, what is it about this way of life that I love? That's what it takes. To find that zeal to rekindle that fire for this way of life, you know, it's the basics. It's the basics. Let's go to 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 11.

2 Corinthians 11, verse 3.

He's writing here, But I fear lest somehow as the serpent deceive Eve by the craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he comes, preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit from which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it. Paul is concerned that it would be easy to drift away from what is the simplicity of this way of life, the simplicity of Christ.

You know, all we have to do is just read what it says in this book and do it. Now, that's the hard part. That is the hard part. But the concept is that simple. I remember a couple years ago, we were doing a camp video, and I remember interviewing one of the teens, and I was asking them about this way of life and how it is for them in school, and they said, you know what, if I didn't have any outside pressure, this way of life is pretty easy. It's written here. I could just keep it. And the concept there is simple. I keep the Sabbath, I love God, and I meditate on it. That part is the easy part. What he struggled with was the pressure from everything else.

And that's what we have to find a love for. Immerse ourselves back into, you know, the basics.

Immerse yourself. Find out what it was that you fell in love with the first time. Read what it says, do it, and overcome. We can't let the repetition of this way of life bore us because God gave it to us for a good reason. He knew that we needed it. He knew that we need to keep the feast every week. He knew that we need to keep the Sabbath every week. We have to do those things.

Immerse yourself in the love of the simplicity that is in Christ. If you find yourself drifting from the love of this way of life, immerse yourself. Immerse yourself in the word and the understanding of it. Immerse yourself in study, in prayer, and in meditation.

And there's another way we need to immerse ourselves. Let's go to John 17.

There's a few ways that we can sort of immerse ourselves to rekindle that love and passion as way of life. We can read in John 17. This is Jesus' prayer before he is arrested.

John 17. Verse 20, here Jesus is praying to the Father. He says, I do not pray for these alone, but for those who will believe in Me through their word.

So that's us. We are the ones who believe through the word and testimony of the apostles here. Verse 21, that they all may be one as you, Father, are in Me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent Me. That's kind of a difficult Scripture to read. It's encouraging, but to read like, God, I am praying for these people, that they are one just as you and I are one. If you want to rekindle the zeal for this way of life, immerse yourself in the church, in the lives of the people sitting next to you. If you start to lose passion for this way of life, reach out. Reach out to those who are with you, because, yes, we were called individually, but we're called to be part of a body, of a community.

He called us to be part of something, and if you've lost some of that passion, make sure you immerse yourself. When you have lost some zeal, it's not the time to say, well, if I skip church this week, it's okay. It's not going to really hurt anything.

That's our human nature. That's exactly what our human nature says. But to have that fire, go. Come to church. Be with your brothers and sisters. A few years ago, we were producing the feast video, and one of the lessons that I learned was from one of the interviews. This is my favorite thing, is doing these interviews and finding out what people have learned through their lives. To have a passion and a zeal for the people in your church, one of the interviewers said, be intimately involved in the trials of the people that are in your church area. Be intimately involved. Be intimately involved. When you do so, you are immersing yourself in someone else's life as they're running their race. You're coming up alongside them to run next to them, to be the encouragement for them. And when you do that, there's so much positive encouragement there that it just will revitalize the passion that we should have for this way of life. In Titus 2, it says this, in Titus 2, verse 14, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people.

His own special people who are zealous for good works.

That's the third way that we can immerse ourselves, is to find out what can I do for someone else.

You know, it's so easy for us to turn inward. You know, when we have trials or when we become weary, when it's hard, this way of life is hard, but it's when we sort of open up and start to look and say, how can I serve someone else? It takes that level of effort to come out of that.

So another way that you can immerse yourself is you give of yourself. You give of yourself to someone else, whether inside the church, outside the church, whatever community work you may want to do. This is exactly what Jesus did. He gave himself. He gave himself for us and the church and for the entire world. The wording here in Titus 2 shows that doing works is what's expected of us.

Zell is for good works, it says, that his own special people are.

So if you find yourself waning from the zeal in your life, the second point is to immerse yourself.

The third point is to see and believe in the outcome. See and believe. Once you've made the investment and once you've immersed yourself in studying the Word and in the church and in the lives of the people in our church, then believe. Believe what's going to happen. Believe what's going to come. I have found when I've done all these things correctly in my life that the return of Jesus Christ and his kingdom isn't this some far-off possible thing. It is real.

You know, I can see it. I can see it. It's tangible. And when you do these things, you are on fire for this way of life. When you do these things and put these things first, it's not this some far-off thing. Yeah, I'm working towards it. It's real.

It's real. And God wants us to have that hope. He wants us to have that hope that's so real that you taste it. Let's go back to Hebrews 11. The third thing when you have tested the amount that you have invested and you have immersed yourself is to see and believe in the outcome. In Hebrews 11, it speaks to this very thing. In verse 13, we read this, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them far off, and they were assured of them.

And they embraced them and confessed that they were strangers in pilgrims. You know, being assured and embracing that, I mean, that is in the heart of who you are.

These are our spiritual forefathers. They lived a life that could be full of distractions just like we have today. They had doubt, they had trials, they had hardships, but they were able to overcome, to immerse themselves in the truth that God has given to us. And they were able to be assured of them. It's all about hope. It's all about hope. Verse 16, But now they desire a better, that is heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to call them their God, to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. When you know that, I mean, it just drives you. It is the driving factor that pushes you every single day. You know, meditating on the lives of these individuals brings so many things into perspective. When you read and you see a life of faith, I mean, that is encouraging. That's something I don't think we talk a lot about. When I was growing up, I had one lady who would often share stories, and she was so humble. She has no idea that when she would share her stories of faith, things that she had to overcome, I was so encouraged as a young person growing up. I was so encouraged. I was like, wow, you had so many things to overcome. Obstacles, trials. Sharing your faith is a good thing. It's encouraging. It's encouraging to others. We have to see and believe in the outcome, just like our paddle border. You know, you don't go out there and say, well, I hope I make it.

I mean, to cross the ocean, to have that sort of undertaking, he knew it. He was going to make it.

He was going to make it.

Let's go to Psalm 51.

This is David's song of repentance that we know very well. I'd like to read one verse from here, because sometimes it's not easy. Sometimes it's not easy to always see it. Even after we've invested and we've immersed ourselves in the truth, it's still made to be just out of our grasp. In Psalm 51, after David is having this prayer of repentance from the sins that he committed, he says this in verse 12. I'd like to read this actually in the New Living. He says this, restore to me the joy of your salvation. He asked God, he said, you know, I had a passion for your way of life. Please help me. Get it back. He asked God. He went to him and said, I lost it. I've been separated from this joy. He asked, please restore it.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation. The New Living puts it this way and make me willing to obey you. Ask God to help you find your zeal. Ask God to help you find your love and your enthusiasm, especially if your zeal has waned because of a sin and you've distanced yourself from our father.

Ask. He wants to give it to us. We're supposed to be a people on fire for this way of life.

We have the Holy Spirit, yes, but sometimes after a long endurance run, we get weary. We get fatigued and we just have to dig deep to get that zeal. We have to dig deep.

The race we run is a marathon. It's not a sprint.

Let's go to Revelation 2. This sort of boils down.

Everything that we're talking about, this is the letters to the churches.

Revelation 2.

It says this, 1. To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands.

2. I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil, and you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars, and you have persevered and have patience.

And have labored for my name's sake, and have not become weary.

These are all things that, you know, he's telling them, these are the good things.

These are the good things. You recognize evil. You despise evil. You call the false apostles liars. You've persevered. Nevertheless, I have this against you. Verse 4. You have left your first love.

Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works.

Or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

Isn't this what we're talking about? We can be a church that has doctrine right.

We can be a church that can recognize false teachers and hate evil.

We can be a church that, you know, is persevering. There has to be a little bit more.

We have to have that first love. We have to be excited. We have to have a teachable spirit willing to yield and on fire. When you find yourself not really excited, not really excited about this way of life, ask yourself, how invested am I? How invested am I?

And then immerse yourself in God's word and in the church and the people around you. And then ask God to help you see the outcome of His plan.

By doing so, you can reignite the passion and excitement of being a light in the world today.

You know, zeal, it's more than just an emotional feeling. It's not just a feeling. It's an outcome. It's an outcome from what you have put in. It's what you've invested in.

Verse 7 of Revelation says this, So if you're trying to rekindle that zeal, your passion, your love for this way of life, look at the lessons we see right here and this short passage of Revelation.

And you will find that once again that you have a love for God and His way of life.