Power of Positive Thinking

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Holy Spirit, The Consuming Fire:

Fire. It was there from the beginning of God's creation. He said, "Let there be light." And when we hear God say, "Let there be light," we, because of the world in which we've been raised, think of fluorescent lights or spotlights or any kind of light that can be controlled, that seems safe, that we understand. But when God created light, it came out of his fire. It was dangerous, consuming. It was hot and powerful.

Sometimes we get a little deluded by the lights and fire that warm us and give us vision. If you're convinced the lights in this room are safe, lick your finger, go to the nearest socket, and stick it inside. You'll realize that even the fire behind this light is dangerous and powerful.
Our faith should not be a pendulum, but a consuming fire.

William Berquist wrote a book called The Postmodern Organization. He refers to Illia Prigogine, the Nobel Prize winner, in his chapter called "From Pendulum to Fire."

Prigogine suggests that many processes in nature do not work mechanistically, though many scientists throughout the ages have wanted the world to resemble the pendulum or Swiss watch. Rather, many processes of the world more likely resemble the phenomenon we call fire. Fire is an enduring problem in the history of science. Prigogine notes that modern scientists, in an effort to create a coherent mechanistic model of the world, have tended to ignore the complex, transformative process of fire.

Much of what we understand about God and experience in our faith has been shaped, influenced, and corrupted by this mechanistic, orderly, Swiss-watch-framework view of God and faith. And with Prigogine and Berquist, we need to step back and say, "Is the Christian faith Jesus Christ died for better described as a pendulum or as this overwhelming metaphor of fire?"

Most of us here know fire is not God. But how many of us are aware that God is fire? That's what the mysterious writer of Hebrews tells us. In chapter 12 he says: "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." God himself is a fire, and everything he touches he envelops. No wonder throughout the Bible God made himself manifest through this incredible, powerful element of fire.

One of my favorite fire moments in the Bible is in 1 Kings 18. It's the story of Elijah as he opposed Ahab and Jezebel and all the prophets who worshiped false gods.

Then Elijah said to them, "I am the only one of the Lord"s prophets left, but Baal has 450 prophets. Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it in the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire—he is God."

So they took the bull given them and they prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made. …

Then Elijah said to all the people, "Come here to me." They came to him and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which was in ruins. Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, "Your name shall be Israel." With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed. He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. And then he said to them, "Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood."

"Do it again," he said, and they did it again. "Do it a third time," he ordered, and they did it the third time. The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.

At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again."

Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, "The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!"

God is a consuming fire. In his creation he made fire, and out of fire he created warmth, heat, and light, so we would have this continuous reminder of the very nature and essence of God when we come into communion with him.
God's fire leads us day and night.

Remember Moses? In Exodus 3 he sees a burning bush. He's caught by surprise. The Bible tells us he was curious and wanted to come close and see what was going on. Up to this time, everyone understood that fire consumed everything it touched. But now there's a tree and it is on fire and yet not consumed by the fire. Moses comes close and hears the voice of God. God says, "Moses, this is holy ground. Take off your sandals."

Everything God consumes, every place where God's fire comes, he purifies and makes holy. Many of us want to come near to God out of curiosity. We want to check God out and get close to his warmth, but we're terrified to get inside of God and let God get inside of us, because every place where God is becomes holy. His consuming fire purifies.

How many of us want the evidence of God? How many of us want to see fire come down from heaven without having to be burned by his fire, keeping him somewhat at a distance? Sometimes that's exactly why we come to experiences of worship like today. We hope God will speak, God will connect, God will reveal himself. We want God to make himself known in the person next to us so we can be close enough to observe it, to feel its warmth, to be exhilarated by the danger of God's fire—but not to be consumed by it.

Israel was delivered by God out of Egypt, and he chose to guide them out with a pillar of cloud in the daytime and a pillar of fire at night. It's interesting when you think about God choosing this pillar of fire at night, and it makes perfect sense. The Bible tells us God led them as a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire at night so they could travel anytime—both day and night.

When God consumes us with his fire, he purifies us and makes us holy, he swallows up, he consumes, he burns up all our pride, our greed, our jealousy, our bitterness, our anger, our self-righteousness, even our dreams, our hopes, our visions for ourselves.

God consumes us and purifies us, but not only that. When God comes in our life like a fire, he recreates us. He transforms us so that day or night, 24/7, every moment of our existence, we will be prepared to follow him and move at his initiative. Everyone who has been consumed by the fire of God is now God-mobile, day or night. When you are consumed by the fire of God, you become a journeyman in the darkness. God becomes the light. The Scriptures say the pillar of fire always stayed in front of them to lead them as God moved. God comes and consumes us not when we want God to follow us, but when we are ready to follow him.
We can be living sacrifices to God's fire.

There were once three guys. One guy's name was Meshach, the other guy's name was Shadrach, and the third guy's name was Abednego. They lived in the time of King Nebuchadnezzar. Now, King Nebuchadnezzar was enthralled with himself. He could have written Joe Namath's book long before Joe Namath: I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow 'Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day. He was thrilled with who he was, and he felt there should be some kind of idol erected in his name and image. He was going to have everyone worship him through the idol.

Well, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to worship the false god. They would only worship the living God. So through the advice of his counselors, King Nebuchadnezzar established a furnace. He said that anyone who would not bow down when the music played would be thrown into the furnace. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to worship any god except the Lord God. Nebuchadnezzar became so angry he had the furnace turned up multiple times, hotter and hotter, and threatened to throw them into the fire. They refused and said, "God can save us. He may or may not. But either way, we're not going to worship you or your god. We're going to worship the Lord God."

So Nebuchadnezzar, in his anger, had the soldiers throw them into the fire, and the Bible tells us the fire was so intense that those men who threw them in were consumed in that moment themselves. Nebuchadnezzar looked inside the fire. He saw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego inside. When God's holy fire consumes his people, as he purifies us to make us holy, not only does he make us mobile to walk in obedience to him at any time day or night, but we become a people of fire. And fire always does well in the furnace. What did Nebuchadnezzar think he could do except cause God to ignite them even more brightly in his fire?

No wonder John the Baptist, when they thought he was Christ the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, kept saying, "It's not me. It's another." He would try to give them something to look for that was different than himself. He said, "I baptize you with water." Water is a beautiful symbol of God's drenching us in his presence. We observe these baptisms today, and yet we know water isn't magical. Water isn't supernatural. Water can do nothing in and of itself to change a person. So John the Baptist says: I baptize with water, but there is one coming after me whose sandals I'm not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and will drench you with God and with fire.

It's amazing enough that when we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we are enveloped, we are literally drenched, in God through his Spirit. But he tells us we will also be receiving a baptism of fire.

No wonder when Jesus ascended to heaven and the early church erupted on the scene, tongues as of fire fell on their heads. The church was ignited by the fire of God. Fire is the perfect metaphor for communion, for worship. Fire is what happens when we come together on the altar of God and cry out to him. After all, Jesus is the ultimate sacrificial lamb, who was willing to lay down his life on the altar to be consumed by the holiness of God the Father as a sacrifice for us.

Remember Abraham and Isaac as they walked up to that critical place, that moment in history when Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac as a declaration of his allegiance and trust in God. I think Isaac was an intuitive person. They carried the offering up, they set it up, and he looked around. He'd been a part of many sacrifices. The people of God were to set an altar with a sacrifice on the fire, and the aroma would go to heaven. It would be a sweet aroma to God. So Isaac said, "Here's wood and here's fire." But with a deep breath, I'm sure, he asked, "Where is the sacrifice?" I have a strange feeling he already knew. He understood that you cannot simply have wood and fire, but that God demands a sacrifice on that altar. We discover that God had a ram waiting in the bushes for them to sacrifice, and that God was just testing the heart of Abraham.

But we find again in Jesus that God required a sacrifice on the altar. And we find once again in the Scriptures that the Bible commands us to become living sacrifices, placing our lives on the altar of God.
Faith is a communal experience.

But it's not just something you do by yourself. A sacrifice, the offering, and the fire was a communal experience. It was something brought before God, where all of God's people found forgiveness of sin, not just individuals. A lot of us want to become altars independently of God's people, but there's a reason why God tells us in the Scriptures that the Lord God inhabits the praises of his people. Not his person. Not just you. God inhabits the praises of his people. Why did Jesus say, "Where two or more are gathered in my name I am there in the midst"?

A lot of us have bought into this thing: I don't need the community of Christ. I don't need the body of Christ. I can worship God by myself even better than with other people. People hold me back from worshiping God. I have lain on a wooden bridge with the river passing underneath me in the middle of the Blue Ridge Parkway in the mountains of North Carolina and have experienced God for hours. That is a beautiful and indescribable experience. I've had moments as I've driven in my car alone where God has poured himself out in such a way that I knew he was real and that he was with me. But I want you to understand something: Even though we experience God independently and personally, we cannot experience God in his fullness and with all of his textures outside of community.

God himself is communal. God is relational. When he created us he said, "Let us create man in our image, in our likeness." Jesus explained to us that God had God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit commune together in oneness and unity, and that his longing was for us to experience relationship with each other as he experiences relationship. How could you think that God who is communal, God who is relational, God who expresses to us in three persons who he is, could be fully experienced just by yourself? That's thinking a lot of who you are and too little of who God intended us to be.

When you experience genuine communion, you begin to cry out, "Come, union." Not only "come, union" between God and you, but "come, union" between you and all of God's people. And you begin to realize why you need to worship in community. When you connect to God and his fire consumes you, you cry out, "Come, union. God, I want to know you and experience you and be in you and enveloped by you, consumed by you." You cry out, "Come, union. God, I want to see the unity that can only happen as you bring people together through forgiveness and mercy and compassion and tenderness."

And when you are consumed by God, you understand why God seeks and saves that which is lost, why God yearns for those who are created in his image and likeness to worship him. You understand the pain and anguish in the heart of God that those who were created by him do not know him. You begin to cry out "come, union" for all those who are outside God's presence and God's love, that they would come into union with him and with each other.

I'm reminded of Paul's words to Timothy. He tells Timothy to fan into flame the gift God had given him by the laying on of hands. AT&T says you can pick up your phone and reach out and touch someone. But I dare to propose that no matter how wonderful the phone call has been, no matter how much you've anticipated that phone call, no matter how much you love the person, in reality, no one ever touched you.

I still haven't figured out how to fulfill what the Bible talks about without human contact. Paul says to Timothy, "Fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands." It tells me there is something about being a Christian that only happens when we are in human contact with each other. It requires human touch and relationship. It demands a level of intimacy that most of us are uncomfortable with.

The truth is, we can all come into the same building and really be here by ourselves. Most of you, when you look for a place to sit, are looking for an empty aisle, not one full of people. What is the point of coming together and sitting here as an individual—isolated, autonomous, disconnected—pretending you're experiencing the presence of God in communion, if you come and leave and the person next to you is just as much a stranger as he was when you began? A part of our brokenness, a part of the consequence of our separation from God, is that we would rather stand alone, although we desperately long to be in relationship with other people.

There isn't anyone here who doesn't want to be loved, who doesn't want to be connected, who doesn't long to receive some gift from God by the laying on of another person's hand. At the same time, we anguish and struggle with all the layers of who we are, all our defense mechanisms and fears and phobias. God demands that we come together in union.
We must engage our culture with God's fire.

If you follow this all the way through, it makes sense why being relevant to our culture is not optional. Many of us want to say, "Hey, we just want to worship God and experience God. Why do we have to think about the outside world?"

Did you notice there isn't one story about Jesus that doesn't describe him in a human context? Jesus came to this world and he was dark brown, maybe black. Guess what? It was not a shock to Mary. He had her skin color. When he walked around the neighborhood, people didn't say, "Look at the pink kid." Jesus was the color of the culture.

I don't want to sound sacrilegious, but Jesus smelled. He didn't just glow. He didn't just perspire. He was the son of a carpenter. There was sweat that came from that man. He had an odor and an aroma. When he smelled bad, he smelled bad like an Israelite. When he smelled good, he smelled good like an Israelite. Jesus had textures and tastes. Jesus spoke a language. If you were there in the time of Jesus as the person you are right now, you would not have understood him. You would have needed a translator, because he spoke the language of the people. Jesus encountered the culture. He became one like them.

Isn't it odd that we struggle at times with whether our church should reflect the culture in its language and its textures, in its aromas, in its images and colors? Jesus looked like an Israelite because he was one. The language and texture, the color, the aroma, the essence of our world is art and dance and film and images. It's laid back and casual, sofas and footstools. It's coffee and hot chocolate and tea and rice and chicken. And that's the texture and language the church must take on. If Jesus was not too good to encounter the culture at its level, we ourselves are not too good.

At the same time, Jesus created an encounter culture. Whenever you got around Jesus, you understood him. He smelled right. He looked right. He acted right. His language was clear. His accent was perfect. When you got around Jesus, at first you thought, Hey, I can connect. I can relate. We're of the same essence. We're the same kind of people. But then all of a sudden, boom! The consuming fire of God would enter the room, and you would know you were in the presence of God. All that comfort would change to discomfort, and you would start sweating and your heart would begin pounding like it was going to break through your rib cage and explode out of your skin, because when Jesus would speak, he would create an encounter culture. You knew God was there, and you could not run anywhere or hide anywhere from God.

We want to experience in this communion, in this fire, an encounter culture where God himself is made manifest and known. The power of the gospel can be lost if we don't allow God to bring his fire into this time in history.
Conclusion

You know the wonderful thing about fire? It's irreversible. It's a consuming experience. Some of you here are wood. You've been going to church or the temple or someplace all your life, and you carry your wood around. You're religious, and your wood is valuable to you. But you've never encountered God; he's never encountered you. You've never opened your life to him, and you've never been set on fire. So you've got all this wood—it's religion, ritual. And the way you can know you're just wood and not fire is because you're not passionate about the things of God. But be careful with your wood, because God can even consume wood that's been drenched in water.

Some of you here are ashes. What's happened with you is that you were wood, and at some vulnerable moment in your life you said, "God, I'm yours. I understand you're a consuming fire. I give you everything I am. I throw my life, my future, my dreams, my hopes, my pains, everything to you." And God consumed you in that moment, and you were burning for God. But then you let the fire go out, and you discovered you were nothing but ashes. And the way you talk is, "Man, there was a time where I knew God. There was a time I felt close to God." You keep looking back on your life, and you're just carrying around these ashes.

Others of you are little pilot lights. The song "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine" is your song. God says, "It's not enough. I don't want you to have the little, tiny light of mine. I want you to be a fire consumed in God."

Do you know how you can tell if your altar is connecting to God? It's the one that gets set on fire.

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