Fan the Flames

In that song, I don't know if we had actually talked about what I'm going to preach on today, but when we say God, tell God, you provide the fire and I'll provide, do you know what, remember what the song said, I'll provide the sacrifice. Today as we continue in our series, we're going to talk about how God provides the fire and we provide the sacrifice, which the sacrifice for us is who? Jesus provided the sacrifice for us. So if we are going to have that fire that comes like we talked about last week during the sermon, then we just let the Holy Spirit work and Holy Spirit do his thing.

We're in this series called Baptized by Fire and we are going to look, last week we look at what Luke showed with in Acts 2, today we're going to look at what Paul talks about with the fire inside of us. And that fire is what is so important to Paul. If we look at 1 Thessalonians 5 verses 12 through 24, will you stand as you are able.

We ask you brothers and sisters to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in the love, in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves and we urge you brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good with one another and to everyone rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks to all in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Do not quench the spirit, do not despise the prophecies, but test everything, hold fast to what is good, abstain from what is evil. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, he will surely do it.

The word of God, inspired by God, for the people of God. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.

As the school year ended, there's always a lot of end of the year stuff that happens. For us, we went to Colin's Trail Life and they get patches for everything they've completed or different advancements that they show and Colin got several patches last week for the things he had completed and one of them, which is pretty important, which he probably should have been completed before he's teaching someone else how to light the candle, is fire safety. Now when I asked him about fire safety, he started talking about a bunch of stuff that he called outside the fire that needs to be done to prepare for that.

Colin, can you share a little bit about that? Some stuff you might need for a fire would be rocks to surround the fire so it wouldn't spread anywhere. Get rid of any leaves or grass surrounding the area near the fire and look for a safe place that you could start a fire. Okay, all right.

Every time we go on a camping trip at Trail Life, they have a bonfire and they have the boys go through this themselves and they know how to make a safe fire. When Paul's talking about the Holy Spirit, he's not talking about a safe fire. He's not talking about how to contain it.

Colin used the word contain, that those rocks around the fire keep the fire from going out and from spreading because one spark out in the countryside can light up the whole thing eventually. So you have to, in order to be a safe steward of the environment, or their key verse is that they walk worthy, that they walk with the worthy calling of God in Jesus Christ. So one of the things they do to walk worthy is to prepare that containment for a fire, but sometimes we as Christians may make that our main thing.

How can we contain the fire? We don't want to look like we're different than anyone else in the world. That would be embarrassing. Paul says this, that there are certain things and he builds up to what happens when we quench the fire.

See, first he gives them a to-do list. This is what you need to do. The to-do list is just simple basic things of being a good church together.

We ask you brothers to respect those who labor among you and are over you and admonish in the Lord. To respect our co-workers in Christ and respect the leaders and work together. Now that sounds pretty basic and simple, right? But what happens, I know this doesn't happen too much in your experience, but what happens if people in the church that you are with are not doing their fair share? How do you react to them? I still remember a meeting one time where somebody said, you know, they were mad because someone left the church and they were wanting to come back and they were going, we shouldn't even let them back.

And I was like, you get to hear almost everything as a pastor. A lot of new stuff you didn't even know existed. Well, Paul says to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.

Be at peace among yourselves. I mean, it's not much different than Jesus said to the disciples at the last supper when he said, I give you a new command and that command is to love one another. The church unravels if we don't love one another.

Let me say it in a different way. We quench the spirit, which means we put out the flames if we don't love one another. And then Paul goes on to say, and we urge you brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

Admonish the idle means if some, what does idle mean to you? When Paul says admonish the idle, what does that mean? That means doing nothing. Oh, I like the nothing. It does, you're doing nothing.

You're supposed to be a part of the church and you're doing nothing. Paul says to admonish them, to let them know that they have gifts and they have a purpose and they have a place. And he's going to talk about that more as you go.

But admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted. Now, I was looking up faint-hearted and it basically said someone who is timid or afraid or nervous. And a lot of times we can be timid or afraid or nervous in a lot of what we are called to do, that we are too scared to do what God would have us do in the world today.

Even though Paul's saying this to a church that says, admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted. The faint-hearted are scared because they might die if they share the gospel of Jesus Christ. I mean, it's a whole different thing than saying, hey, somebody might look at you funny, or they might not like you as a friend anymore on Facebook.

We encourage the faint-hearted. That's part of what being a church is, is coming alongside one another, walking with one another, lifting one another up, encourage them, helping them to have the assurance of God in Jesus Christ within their heart and within their soul. And then it to help the weak, those who might be sick, those who might just be weak, whether it's spiritually weak or whether it's physically weak, whatever that is, we are there.

I don't know if you've run into anyone like this in the church before, but the last part of this is probably the toughest. Paul says, be patient with them all. Be patient with them all.

That's part of loving them. That's part of encouraging them. That's part of walking with them, is having the patience to still love people who are scared in their faith and who are weak and who are faint-hearted and just don't know.

There's something about being faint-hearted that means you just don't know what to do with it. And we are patient with those people. That's what the Spirit is calling us to do.

And then it keeps going on. Make sure no one repays evil for evil. Always seek to do good and within and without the church.

Always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Seek to do good to someone else. Seek to do good in our lives.

Who can you make a difference for when you go outside the church? So they walk away going, man, there's something different about them or why were they so good to me? Instead of saying, that's another hypocrite. There's no difference. But instead, we let our light shine by being good to others and treating them in this different way.

Now, then he goes through these short verses that are amazing. He says, rejoice always. He's not done.

He's not done. He's not done. Will you take that back? Rejoice always.

That means we rejoice. We rejoice no matter what happens. What if tech issues happen during the worship service? What if it starts ringing when I back up too much? What if a battery goes out or a mic's not working or something's not working with the recording? Whatever might happen, how do we rejoice in this? What if we go home and we realize it's Sunday, I want to rest, but we haven't cleaned the house yet.

How many of you want to stop in that and go, oh, thank you, Jesus, that I get to clean the house now that I'm all worn out. God calls us to rejoice in everything. Rejoice because you can say, thank you, Jesus, that I have a house to clean.

Thank you, Jesus, that I have a bed. Thank you for windows that I can open and close when I need to. Thank you for others who care about me.

We rejoice always when we rejoice. We have the Spirit with us. And then he goes on to say, rejoice always, pray without ceasing.

That means rejoice always, pray without ceasing. We're constantly in prayer. We don't do morning devotions and then wait for another day to think about God or prayers at night and wait to think about God.

When we pray constantly, we might have breath prayers where we go, God, help me. Help me in this, God. Give me strength.

Give me guidance. Help me to know what to say. And we just, it's constantly throughout the day that we're in communication and relationship with God.

And then similarly, give thanks in all circumstances. And Paul closes this part by saying, because this is God's will for you in Jesus Christ. If we, let me not say if, when we forget to do these things, we are going against the will of God.

When we forget to praise God, when we forget to pray, when we forget to worship, when we forget to give thanks, when we forget to rejoice, we are going against God's will. And then he builds up to don't list where he says, don't quench the Spirit. The first time I read this, I remember really being convicted, thinking of all the things we can do that we've already listed or don't do that we quench the Spirit.

When we're impatient, when we snap, when we know what we ought to do, but we don't do what we ought to do. Another word from Paul in Romans. And those things can quench the Spirit.

And then he goes on to say, this can quench the Spirit too, if you despise the prophecies. Now, he's not talking about the Old Testament prophecies that pointed towards Jesus Christ. He's talking about prophecies where God is guiding the church, and God is telling the church where to go forth and how to go forth and what to do and who to reach.

And to do things that take us beyond our comfort zone. And he's saying, don't despise this. Test it to make sure it's of God.

But don't despise it because that'll quench the Spirit too. That we got to trust that it is about Jesus Christ. It is about the Holy Spirit working within us.

Then it is about everything else. The difficulty is, sometimes our faith is like preparing for a great fire. That we put the rocks around it to protect the fire from going out.

We clear out everything around it. We make sure there's not grass, that it's more of an open area. We make sure it's safe.

And we follow all those procedures for safety in the church. But then we forget to do something. What do we end up forgetting to do if we just stop there? Light the fire? That's dangerous.

Why do we mess with danger? If we let the Holy Spirit be lit, then we're not in charge. Okay, Colin, will you help me with this real quick? What do we need to light the fire? You can use matches. You can use friction with rubbing sticks.

You can use flint and steel. You can also use... What did you call all those sources? Things... Fuel. Fuel is what you told me.

We need some sort of fuel. We need some fuel in order for the fire to start. And if we keep the fuel away to avoid the danger of the fire, then the fire never comes.

And we don't get the benefits of the Holy Spirit working in our lives to help us grow. Now, going back to 2 Timothy that we looked at, it says, fan the flame of the gift of God in you. Fan the flame.

Gotta fan the flame. You get that little bit going, and if you fan it or you blow on it, then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And unlike a bonfire, this fire, we gotta spread it.

It's gotta go beyond the fire. It's gotta go beyond this room. It's gotta go beyond our own homes and our own private places so the world can experience this flame of the Holy Spirit that transforms us into who God is calling us to be.

Paul offers two choices for believers. Either we are fanning the flames or we are quenching the Spirit. Now, we think, well, there's a lot of in between.

What about the, there is no gray. Wesley believed we, in his words, we were either growing in our faith or our faith was fading. It wasn't like this.

It could be like this. It probably is like this, but it wasn't like this. It didn't just remain steady.

You had to keep growing in your faith and knowing God better and being filled with the Spirit for the Spirit to transform us. Verse seven says, God gave you a spirit of power and of love and of self-control. That's how we know that we are moving and acting and living and loving by the Holy Spirit because we have the power and we have love and we have self-control or a sober mind.

That is all of those. Some people think you lose all your senses if you let the Holy Spirit take over, but you have a sober mind. But you still have the power of God within you.

A lot of you have probably heard this, but it just always reminds me of this, of what John Wesley said. He said, I'm not afraid, in the 1700s, he said, I'm not afraid of the people who call themselves Methodists, that they should ever seek to exist either in Europe or America, but I am afraid lest they should exist only as a dead sect, having the form of a religion without the power. And this undoubtedly would be the case unless they hold fast through the doctrine, spirit and discipline with which they were set out.

He was more worried about them losing the power and being a meaningless sect than he was about the church not ceasing to exist. God has a to-do list in 1 Thessalonians 5 as well. In 21, he says, hold fast to what is good.

What is good is what has been tested. What is tested and shown as good, we hold fast to. We don't let that go.

We don't let the things of the world seep in and take over and make all this change come through. In 2 Timothy, he says it a different way. He says, guard the good deposit.

Now you guard the deposit of the Holy Spirit that's within you, but it's not a guarding like, you just shut everyone off from it. To guard it, you go through and you do all this other stuff. You pray, you read the Bible, you ask the Spirit to enter you and to help you grow and to strengthen and to become more like Jesus every day.

You ask the Spirit to give you patience with those who try your patience. You don't have anyone like that, do you? Never heard of anybody like that. If the Spirit gives you strength to do that, you're fanning the flames.

If you seek God's word and God's guidance, you're fanning the flames. If you rejoice, even when you don't feel like it, you're fanning the flames. If you give thanks in all circumstances, you're fanning those flames.

So that grows and the fire roars within you. Verse 22 in Thessalonians says, abstain from every kind of evil. And then in verse 23, it says, and God will sanctify you completely.

The God of peace will sanctify you completely. That means if you do all this, if you let God work in you, if you let the flames of the Holy Spirit take you over, then something's gonna be different. God is gonna sanctify you completely.

Not a little bit, not to say, yeah, I'm a little bit more like Jesus. But so you say, hey, God had a plan for me in my life. And God is doing that because the flame of the Holy Spirit is changing me from within and allowing me to have the confidence to share the love of God with everyone.

Paul goes on to say, he will keep your whole spirit and soul blameless until the Lord returns. God is faithful. And he who calls you is faithful.

He will surely do it. God will make it happen. God will sanctify you completely.

He will finish the job. God doesn't just start stuff and then leave you hanging. God walks with us for every step.

And that Holy Spirit, it isn't just giving it to us once, it's growing and growing in our faith, which is the work of the Holy Spirit within us. Sanctification is not something that we just force ourselves. It's something that God does within us.

Sanctification is the work of God changing us and moving us and strengthening us and guiding us so that no matter what we face out there, God will fan the flame within us. Let's pray. Almighty God, thank you for Jesus Christ.

Thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Thank you for giving us the fire of the Holy Spirit, baptizing us by fire, help us to praise you, to glorify you, to lift up the name of Jesus no matter what. Help us to boldly proclaim the gospel.

God, we work so hard to contain the Spirit. Change us so that we work harder to let your Spirit flourish and spread and grow so that it's not just contained in our own little campfire, but the fire of the Holy Spirit transforms the world. Help us to be holy and sanctified before you.

In Jesus' name.