Did I tell you about the time
I got fired up? My Dad and I have
been recently cleaning up some land that had grown over with briars, bushes,
locust trees, and multiflora roses. The
main method of clearing has been cut and burn.
It has been a challenge since some of this land has been untouched for
50 years or more. The multi flora
rose has been the biggest challenge of all.
But even the greatest mass of entangled briars and limbs will succumb
to power of fire. The only way to
clean the earth of these masses of thorns is to burn them.
In the process of this clearing we have already built at least 7-8
giant fires and burned many dead trees and much under brush.
But after all the burning is done, It has been great to see the result.
During one of these fires I was stacking logs from down wind.
I learned a quick lesson, as I smelled the stench of burning hair.
Now, you know that I don’t have much hair on my head to begin with
and following this event I had even less.
I wasn’t in the fire, but the heat of that fire was so great that my
few hairs began to burn from the intense heat.
Last week we were burning some sumac and ashes were flying high.
We didn’t really notice but when the day was done and Dad got out of
the truck his jacket was speckled with burns from the flying ash.
He was a strange site to behold in his newly speckled jacket.
The fires we have been building have
been in the snow and in some cold weather, but the heat can overcome.
It has made us hop and dodge on more than one occasion.
On the other hand the heat from the fires has served as a great source
of warmth in the cold. The fire
of the Spirit of the one true living God is enough to make even a Baptist feel
the heat. Why you say, because He
is real and because you feel Him deep in your soul.
The years of sin and neglect begin to literally roast in the fire as
the Lord begins to possess your mind and your soul. John the Baptist foretold of this baptism by Fire and the
Spirit. Jesus said He had come to
bring fire on earth.
Scripture
Text: Luke 12:49
"I
have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is
completed! 51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but
division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each
other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided,
father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and
daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and
daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
Luke
3:16 John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But
one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not
worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 17
His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather
the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable
fire."
I.
Someone started a Fire:
The
decision to follow Christ and to be baptized is the beginning of the great
fire of God.
The
disturbance begins in you. There
is a fire and war within. The Temperature begins to rise.
You begin to cause friction by serving the Lord.
Why? Because everyone
isn’t so your life causes a few sparks.
When you stand for Him for the first time.
You will no longer drift along but the Holy Spirit will guide you as He
begins to fill your life. Your life has a new direction and a new power.
Your life will go as the Lord leads.
This often creates a fire within you.
This is a burning desire to serve the Lord and to be who He wants you
to be. Also, this creates
friction out side of you within your world.
Since you are now going with the Lord, those who know you will begin to
notice the difference. Then they will begin to think about their own life.
If they don’t choose the Lord the Lord will convict them.
To answer their feelings they will sometimes blame you and seek to stop
you from showing them the right way. One
lady was kicked off of a public bus because she was sharing her testimony with
someone on that bus. Brothers
will go against brothers. Mothers
will go against their daughters. The
fire has begun.
Now
you are a follower of His. You
have been baptized by the Lord into his fellowship.
To fellowship with the Lord is to stand for Him and with Him.
II.
The Fire grows as fuel is poured on the fire.
You
become involved or completely committed.
You are wholly sacrificed to God.
The
difference in a contribution and total commitment is usually the difference in
failure and success. Christ said
He would have to be baptized then so will we.
Baptizo means to immerse. As
with a cucumber, which becomes a pickle or with a piece of cloth that is dyed
it is completed enveloped, the believer is baptized.
God is in you and you are in the Lord.
Then the Holy Spirit of the Lord has baptized you.
“A
chicken and a hog were walking past a church building one day when they
noticed the Sunday morning sermon posted on the outside bulletin board,
"Helping the Poor." They walked a ways when the chicken suddenly
came across with a suggestion. "Say, Brother Hog, why don't we give all
the poor people a nice breakfast of ham and eggs?" The hog thought a
moment and replied, "That's all right for you to say because for you it
is only a contribution, but for me, it's total commitment!"
Jesus
succeeded in His mission because He was totally committed to the task before
Him. He was willing to give up everything, even His life, for the cause He
believed in. No one really succeeds in life until he reaches the point that he
is willing to lay down his life. Jesus said, "Except a corn of wheat fall
into the ground and die, it abides alone." Disraeli said, "Nothing
can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment!"
From Bible Illustrator.
III.
The Fire of God consumes you.
This
divides the sheep from the goats. There
are those who are given to God and those who aren’t.
One brother who stands for Christ is deserted by those who don’t.
Many in ancient Rome were willing to sell out their friends and
neighbors as Christians. Then
people got fired up for the Lord and were filled with His presence as they
allowed the Lord to walk and work through them.
Many of them were burned for their faith.
The fire of the Lord is in you and you are in the world burning away
the hold of sin on the world. You
are warm to the touch as the love of God fills your life.
It is God’s fire on and in you.
III.
Finally the fire of the Lord is on the earth and it comes in judgment.
The
final baptism by fire is the fire of Judgment.
To be fired up with the Lord now means that later the fire of God
won’t consume you, but to the contrary the fire that you feel in your life
now serves as a cleansing agent. It
tests you and burns away the thorns and under brush from your life.
Which would you rather have? You
will have one or the other. He
will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Will we escape the fire?