Episode Transcript
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Fear able to remain standing. Please
do as we hear God's word now from
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Romans. This is the portion I'm
going to be preaching on this morning.
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Romans Chapter Twelve, verse eleven.
Romans twelve, verse eleven. But,
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as I've been doing over the past
a few weeks, I'm going to be
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reading this larger section. If you've
been here for all of that and are
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starting to get used to these words, perhaps you can start committing them to
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memory. Even now. Let's pay
attention and really hear, amaze, even
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for the first time, God's word. I'll start in Romans twelve, verse
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nine. Let love be genuine a
phoor what is evil, hold fast to
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what is good, love one another
with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in
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showing honor. Do not be slothful
in zeal, be fervent in spirit,
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serve the Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant
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in prayer, contribute to the needs
of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
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Bless those who persecute you. Bless
and do not curse them. Rejoice
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with those who rejoice, weep with
those who weep, live in harmony with
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one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never
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be wise in your own sight.
Repay no one evil for evil, but
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give thought to do what is honorable
in the side of all. If possible,
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so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all beloved.
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Never avenge yourselves, but leave it
to the wrath of God, for it
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is written, vengeance is mine.
I will repace as the Lord. To
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the contrary, if your enemy is
hungry, feed him. If he is
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thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing you will heep
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burning coals on his head. Do
not be overcome by evil, but overcome
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evil with good. You may be
seated. So as we come to consider
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verse eleven this morning, and we'll
read it once again here, do not
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be slothful and zeal, be fervent
in spirit. Serve the Lord. So
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you consider verse eleven and the contents
and instructions of all this, these surrounding
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verses, remember that these stand on
everything that has come before. Here in
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Romans, we've been taught over and
over again, in many different ways,
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of who Jesus is, of what
he's done and of how nothing that we
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can do can establish us as justified
before God. How even our sanctification is
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a required work of God's spirit.
But once God begins that work in us,
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is a work that he brings to
completion, we are justified, sanctified
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and will one day also be glorified. It's in light of that Good News
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Gospel that comes to us, apart
from anything that we've done, but merely
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by God's love and pleasure, that
he then speaks to us about these commandments
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and he calls us, in light
of all that he's given to us,
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to be zealous. Do not be
slothful in zeal, which, of course,
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they very opposite of zeal. Right. Lazy zeal doesn't go together right.
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Do not be slothful in zeal,
be fervent in the spirit, serve
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the Lord. This is what we
have been brought into. We have been
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made a people save to be a
people that are of good works. But
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what is zeal exactly? What is
a fervency in the spirit? Well,
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the best place to learn about any
virtue, or to see any virtue at
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work is to think about Jesus.
Always remember that when you're wanting to understand
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something more, some attribute and good
thing that God has given us, start
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by thinking about Jesus when? What
do we learn when we think about zeal
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and in Jesus's life? Well,
we see that zeal is a kind of
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single mindedness that causes us to give
even the best parts, not even to
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give the best parts, of ourselves
to the thing that we're zealous for.
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Zeal is kind of a single mindedness, a burning passion, a drive to
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complete a mission. Psalm sixty nine
nine says that Jesus was clad with his
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zeal as with a cloak. Remember
that when Jesus drove out the money changers,
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that zeal for the Lord's House consumed
him or, in some traces translations,
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devoured him. Those are strong words. You cannot, at least I
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hope, not get to the end
of this sermon and think that zeal is
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not a strong word. It is, by definition. That's what it means.
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It's it's a strength of passion.
Zeal is this single minded determination to
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do the things of the Lord,
at least Christian zeal is that way.
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For Jesus, that meant doing the
will of the father, which meant completing
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with perfect faithfulness his mission to bring
salvation to the world. It's like a
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fire and an engine. That causes
the whole thing to move forward. Zeal
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is like that. When zeal burns
within a person, it gives fire and
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power and energy to every single part
of them, their mind, their emotions,
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their feet, their hands, and
so from zeal we have strength of
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will, endurance in the face of
obstacles, courage in the heart to overcome
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fear. And you see that in
Zo in Jesus, zealous, drops of
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blood dripping from him as he would
prayed, being completely and totally committed to
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going to the cross, to going
to his own death, to going to
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betrayal and unfairness and injustice, to
go and take all the sins of the
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world, to take your sins on
his shoulders and in his body. That
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was zeal. Zeal was so essential
to Jesus life that he called it his
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food. That is God's will,
he said. My food is to do
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the father's will and to finish his
work. Jesus said man does not live
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by bread alone, even the most
basic things that you might be zealous for.
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Jesus said there are more basic things, more essential things even than eating.
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What does this mean for us?
I know that I'm not on a
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mission to save the entire world.
From their sins, at least not in
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and of myself, but certainly to
preach the one who does. But our
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mission is in some ways different than
Jesus. We have different callings in our
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lives, different things that God has
given us to do. But in another
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way it's exactly the same when we
consider it broadly, which is to do
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the will of God. Our mission, as our catechism puts it, is
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to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That is our chief end, our
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primary goal. When we wake up
in the morning, that's the thing we
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should be thinking about. How can
I glorify God and how can I enjoy
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him today? That's what God designed
us for, that's what he made us
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for and as zealous heart feels that, thinks about it, reflects on it
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and then moves forward with Gusto and
speed and energy. That means being zealous
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for the worship of God. It
means that being zealous for the church,
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his people. It means being zealous
for things like the spread of the Gospel,
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for salvation of souls, for holiness
in our own lives and in the
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lives of others. It means doing
this and thinking of all of these things
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in the particular callings that God has
called us into. That's what being zealous
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is, and so I think it's
right to ask right off the bat.
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Are you zealous for that? Are
you zealous to glorify God and enjoy him
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forever? Is that the thing that
you want most do? Frame all your
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thoughts in your works and your words
and your schedule and your friendships and your
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reading and everything else? Is Everything
framed in this way? You may be
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a sincere Christian, in earnest Christian, a dutiful Christian, but are you
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as zealous one? Do you have
what William is, William Ames the called
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an intensive quality of obedience? Is
your obedience something that happens when it's convenient
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or merely sort of moving you in
a direction because, well, you've been
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there for a while, or is
there an intensive quality to it, as
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zealousness to it? Do you have
what JC ryle described as a burn,
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a burning desire to please God,
to do his will and to advance his
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glory in the world in every possible
way? We hear stories about zeal in
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the world, non Christian zeal,
and they're inspiring. About a person who
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starts saving a thousand dollars every week
when they're twenty five, dutifully never straying
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from that, and then all of
a sudden they're multi millionaires when they get
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older and we say wow, that
is impressive, that kind of diligence and
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saving. Or the inventor who tries
again and again and again and again and
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again and again and again, and
goes through all kinds of iterations and fails
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over and over and over, but
then finally, decades later, after everyone
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said Stop, stop trying, you're
wasting your time, does the thing he
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set out to do and we all
say, wow, I want to be
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like that, I want to be
zealous and in these kinds of things.
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or The woman who waits for her
one true love year after years, spurning
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after spurning, and then finally gets
him, and we say that was zealous,
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that was amazing. I don't know
if I could do that. There's
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a kind of admiration we have for
these things. But then, strangely,
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when it comes to religion, when
it comes to zeal and religion, when
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we see people that are zealous,
even our own friends, our own family
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members, people that we know and
love and trust, when we see them
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as zealous. All of a sudden
we become a little nervous, little restless,
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a little cautious. One of the
first friends I met in college,
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one of the best friends I've ever
had, had a hat, black hat.
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It said I love Jesus and giant
letters and he were all the time,
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everywhere he went. And I'll be
honest, I'd always bothered me a
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little bit. Clayton, if you're
listening, I love you. It bothered
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me because I was this way and
in some ways still am. I hate
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that about myself. Why should we
ever be cautious or nervous about people expressing
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their love for Christ? He wasn't
doing it in an offensive way. I
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never heard anybody get mad at him. I only heard a thousand conversations start.
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Many people see him and say,
boy, that guy is committed,
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he sure loves people, and he
did. It wasn't just a hat that
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he wore, but he lived it
in his life. But for some reason,
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despite the examples we have around us, our Lord and Savior people called
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and praised for being zealous and scripture. And then right here in Romans Eleven,
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it says do not be slothful and
zeal be fervent in spirit, serve
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the Lord. We say well,
yeah, I don't know. We shy
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away from people who do this.
We avoid situations that require boldness. We
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give it and this virtue. We
relegate it to others in other times,
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other places, people who have giftings
that are different than our own. But
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I have to be honest with myself, and I think you do too.
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If we want to please the Lord, we can't ignore what he says and
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we can't change the definition of zeal. It is what it is, and
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so I want to resurrect this virtue
among us. I really want you to
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see this morning. It's goodness and
it's greatness, it's benefits. Why?
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Because here it's commanded of us.
Our good and Holy God has given us
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his good word and has called us
to it. It's to be a mark
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of the church. It is to
be a mark of our church. So
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let's clear away some objections before we
go any further. One objection that we
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have sometimes to zeal is that what
we're supposed to live peaceably with other people?
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Well, first of all, let
me remind you that Paul himself knows
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this. He says it in verse
eighteen. Live peaceably withal right. Paul
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does not see living peaceably and being
zealous as two things that cannot go together.
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They can, they must. Yes, we are to find the right
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time and the right place to say
the things we say, the right mode
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and method which to say them.
We are to speak seasonably. This is
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all true, but let me ask
you honestly. Do does living peaceably keep
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you from saying the things you shouldn't, or does the command to leave live
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peaceably keep you from saying the things
that you know you should? In other
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words, are you using God's word
as it's intended, or are you using
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it as an excuse? As we
see, peaceableness and zeal will are here
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compatible. And you know what the
fact is is that a lot of times
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were much too cautious, much too
cautious. There was a study a few
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years ago of various people that were
not Christians, that were unchurched, had
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never experienced much time in the church, and they were asked various questions about
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how would you feel if someone invited
you to church? I think was one
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of the questions. The vast majority
of it in the middle said either yeah,
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I might consider it, or probably
not. And then there were a
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few people on the very top who
said of a small percentage on the top
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who are basically begging for someone to
ask them for church, to come,
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to be invited to church, and
then there was a small percentage on the
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bottom that we're going to be really, really mad if you invited them to
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church. These were sort of the
spread. I think, if we're honest
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with ourselves, this is probably resonates
with our own experience. Most of us,
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when we talk to people about Jesus, when we asked him to come
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to church with us, when we
think about them or think with them about
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godly things in our lives, usually
they're in that metal portion. They're thoughtful,
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they're considerate, they're listening. They
might be a little more encouraged a
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little less encouraged depending on how things
go, but very rarely do we have
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people that scream at us and yell
at US and draw us out of their
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presence. And yet we're so afraid
of it. We're so afraid of being
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hurt, we're so afraid of someone
being mean when, at least statistically,
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it's probably not even going to happen, and even if it did, wouldn't
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it be worth it? We've been
given the most wonderful things that could ever
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be given a people. We've been
given the salvation of our souls. That's
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worth a little conflict, isn't it? Jesus certainly endured a lot of conflict
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to obtain it. Jesus is zeal, in other words, is part of
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what saved you. It's right for
us to follow in his footsteps. Piece
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is important, and so is being
winsome and loving and seasonable and cunning in
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the way that we speak and the
act about the things of God. But
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these things do not equal silence.
This is a way of talking that we
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are commanded to in scripture, not
a refusal to talk. We are the
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ambassadors of the Lord and Ambassadors require
a message to be proclaimed, and honestly,
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just from a very practical standpoint,
if we're trying to serve the Lord
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and we're trying to be zealous,
we might make some mistakes, we might
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good things up or say things in
our wrong way or overstep our bounds from
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time to time. Zeal made me
may need directing, it may need instructing,
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but I think for most of us
we're airing far too much. On
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the other side, a second objection
that people have is that it's only for
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particular Christians, and I hope I've
already put this one down of a little
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bit. We see it here in
the text. Let me give you just
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a little bit more exposition to show
you that this really does apply to you,
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by reminding you that before person nine, Paul spent some time talking about
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the particular gifts of grace that are
given to each of us. Not all
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of us are given exactly the same
gifts and same functions, and but when
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he comes to verse nine through Twenty
One, he's now addressing us all in
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all the things that we share.
These Zeil, in other words, is
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not a special gift that is given
to the few. It is not.
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It is a common gift that is
given to us all. Now, sure,
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some people are going to have perhaps
more of this or have grown and
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matured more of it others of us, but nevertheless it's all there, and
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call commands all of us, it's
not a few of us, to stir
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it up in ourselves to be fervent
in the spirit. So what I want
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you to do here at the very
beginning, as we hear this clear command,
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brothers and sisters, is to let
your heart be sensitive to it.
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I know that oftentimes, when we
hear things that we don't want to hear,
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one way of dealing with that is
by callousing up a little bit.
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This doesn't apply to me, or
I'm trying hard enough. Whatever those feelings
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of guilt and paying those pangs of
guilt that we have, we try to
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push them away, but that's not
how we are to deal with our consciences.
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If you've pricked, we turn to
the Lord. We don't push it
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away and say never mind. Instead
we ask for forgiveness and strength and grace,
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and of course the Lord gives us
these things. And so if you
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find yourself lacking in the zeal or
any of these other things that have been
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commanded to us here in Romans twelve
and other places in God's word, if
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you find yourself lacking, begin to
start asking that the Lord would forgive you
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strengthen you, because he most certainly
will. Well, having defined zeal and
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cleared away some ob actions to it, let's consider a couple things. First,
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where does it come from and how
can we get it? If zeal
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is something you want, if you
want to please the Lord and walk in
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his steps and be strengthened and passionate
about the work that God has done and
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is doing in you and in the
world. How can you get it?
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Where does it come from? Well, when we think about the first of
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these things, where we find Zevil, in one sense you already have it.
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You already know it. Zeal is
in all of us from our birth.
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Babies, by nature, are vary
zealous to nurse. Their mother's single
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minded, devoted completely to this one
thing. Even other activities, as young
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moms know, like sleep, often
play second fiddle to a baby that wants
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to eat. It will cry,
it will call out, it will do
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whatever it needs to do. There's
a sense of in all of us,
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things that we get fired up about, and as we grow older this applies
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to more and more things. Kids, perhaps you've been zealous about a toy
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or a game, something that you
just keep thinking about. You take get
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out of the closet and you want
to play it again and again and again
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and you think about it and you
play with it and you draw it and
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you ask others to play with you
and you talk to people about it.
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That's zeal. As you get older, these things will transfer to other things,
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perhaps learning a particular skill or making
money or finding a spouse or getting
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healthy or advancing your career. If
you're not sure what zeal is, all
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you have to do is look to
some area in your life, maybe in
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the past or maybe in the present, where you've seen this at work,
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and then you'll know. Oh,
okay, now I know what zeal is.
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Sadly, however, this kind of
single mindedness also applies to sin.
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Some of US have experienced the strongest
aspects of zeal in our anger, in
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our lust or in our selfishness,
unable to let go of this one thing
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that just drives us and pushes us
staying angry or having the desert, the
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sinful desires of our heart, doing
crazy things like we read about in proverbs,
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to get the thing that we want. That's zeal too. And so
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when I ask where does it come
from, and as way, I'm saying
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it's kind of built into you already, because the problem is is that bear
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zeal isn't good enough. Just having
passion, just having a desire and movement
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and energy and single mindedness towards something
isn't enough, especially when it's moving towards
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sin. That kind of zeal consumes
people, destroys people and frankly damns them
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to hell. That kind of zeal
and intensity that fights against God is not
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the kind of zeal that you want. But if you can take that and
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recognize your feelings in it and begin, perhaps even in part, to understand
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that this is the kind of feeling
that the Lord wants attached to him,
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that that kind of zeal and single
mindedness and energy is what he wants for
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us and his things, now we're
starting to get on the right track.
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Now, where does that kind of
zeal come from? Well, it's a
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kind of zeal that can only come
from heaven. It's a zeal that can
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only come with the knowledge of the
Gospel. You can use the apostle all
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who wrote this, as the perfect
example. Here was a man who was
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zealous from beginning to end. He
pursued his studies, didn't he? He
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worked with the best teachers, he
followed all the laws, he worked and
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he strived and he worked and he
strived. He persecuted Christians and the things
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of God with zeal. But what
he says in chapter ten of Romans is
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that it was a zeal without knowledge. When the Lord Jesus revealed himself to
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Paul on that road to Damascus,
something changed, that zeal switch got flipped
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from bad to good because of something
that happened, not from within himself,
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that zeal that was already there,
but the zeal was transformed and changed from
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above. To steal an example,
I read somewhere this. It's the difference
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between the fire that Nadab and a
by who offered this strange and unauthorized fire
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that God took their lives for,
took the lives of these priests for numbers.
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It's the difference between that kind of
fire and passion and the fire that
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the Lord sends down on Mount Carmel
when Elijah is battling it out with the
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prophets of bail, a fire that
consumed this wet offering and they altar and
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everything. We don't want a fire
that's below or from below, but one
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that is from above, the fire
that comes to us from Jesus, a
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Christian zeal that is rooted in his
Gospel. What Paul learned when he began
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to hear about the glory of God
that comes to us in Jesus Christ is
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that all his striving and all his
zeal for even some good things would never
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save him. We're what, as
long as it was done in his own
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self righteousness, as long as it
was done with a spirit that was desiring
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to save himself, it would be
a zeal that was against God. As
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long as he is zeal, even
if it was a zeal that was seeking
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to obey the law, as long
as that zeal was a zeal that was
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not founded and rooted in the Gospel, that rejected Jesus Christ and persecuted him,
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it would not be glorifying to God. And this is what we must
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remember. This is what Paul is
telling us to remember. That zeal that
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is turned away from God and turned
towards sin is useless, it's worthless,
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it's damnable, it brings us nothing. Paul will say that all the good
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things that he did, all his
zeal, he counts as rubbish for the
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sake of knowing Jesus Christ. But
in knowing Jesus it changes things. In
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having his life and all of his
work rooted in God's free grace that comes
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to us in the Gospel, in
Christ, that zeal is purified and made
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holy. Instead of striving for our
own righteousness, instead of striving to check
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off a bunch of commands, knowing
that we've been given at all. Now
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we have the zealousness of a freed
person, someone who can go out in
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the world knowing that they are entirely
protected by God, knowing that their sins
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are completely forgiven, knowing that you
aren't trying to establish the Kingdom of Heaven,
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that it has already come to us
in Jesus, and so you can
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take a little persecution because it's all
right. You can even die a martyr's
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death, because heaven belongs to you. Knowing what Jesus Has Accomplished in the
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Gospel gives you great strength and courage
and passion, knowing that what he has
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done he has done for you,
and that it will never fade away or
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die or perish. This is what
God wants for us, not just to
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be zealous, but to be fervent
in the spirit, to serve not ourselves
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but the Lord. We do that
by coming to know the Lord, and
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that's how we receive it. Where
we receive true Christian zeal is well,
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unsurprisingly, in Christ, through faith
in him, true faith in him,
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growing faith in him. And that
gets us to the last point, which
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is how it grows in us.
There's no magic, there's no formula.
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Godly zeal is given to everyone freely. When we ask for it, God
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gives it to us. Jesus accomplished
everything on the Cross. There our sinful
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zeal is put to death and righteous
zeal is brought to life. He simply
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gives it to us and we receive
it through faith. Does that seem too
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easy? Does a zeal that great, that powerful, that strong? That
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seemed too easy? Just trusting in
Jesus? Well, if it sounds too
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easy, maybe it would help to
consider not how easy it was or is
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for you, but how much it
was for him. Grace indeed, does
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come easily to us, freely to
us. We don't work for it,
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we don't strive for it, we
don't pay for it, we simply receive
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it as a gift that's offered.
But grace did not come easily to Jesus.
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Your grace was bought with a price. The righteous zeal that God gives
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to us in Jesus is something that
cost a very great deal. There was
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nothing cheap or easy about it when
Jesus went to the cross zealously to pay
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for our sins. That's what makes
it Christian zeal. Our zeal isn't a
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zeal that sort of runs parallel along
Christ's zeal. Our zeal is one that
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feeds and draws from his evil.
That's why it can be go so great
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and that's why it comes to us
in the way that it does. So
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if this is something you desire,
to serve God with all your heart and
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with all your soul, with all
your might and with all your strength,
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to be Z allous for the Lord
and never fearful, then trust him,
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believe him, give up on yourself
and your fears and your worries and give
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yourself to Jesus. You will find
everything that you need in him. This
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is where our zeal is found in
this is where our zeal grows. So
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spend time and learn who Jesus is, his love for you, the strength
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of his kingdom, his perfect goodness, his awesome glory, his desire for
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obedience and his work in you.
And, as you learn of him,
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put your faith in him, trust
him and follow him in every step,
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wherever he would go. Follow Jesus, never lose sight of him, stay
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in his word, follow Jesus,
be zealous about him, be fervent in
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the spirit that he gives you,
and he will indeed prosper. You're following
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in him. He will bless your
works and you'll see much benefit from it.
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Let's ask God that he would help
us to repent and be zealous.
