SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Easter Edge.
SPEAKER_00: It's really great to see you all here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I I am very excited to give you this message today.
SPEAKER_00: Um and uh I uh before before I get into it though, I I do want to say that this message is about fire, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, I I I wrote this message a few weeks ago, and uh, you know, I don't I don't want to uh you know make sure I well I want to make sure that you know that while this message is about fire, I I need to separate the idea between the fire that is happening up north, and you know, we we acknowledge that that is happening right now with the at the boundary waters in Canada, you know, the the smoke in our own town, you know, this week is a very real thing that's happening in our region.
SPEAKER_00: So um we there is exhaustion that's happening for the firefighters, there uh for the National Guard, all the emergency management teams that are that are doing things.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we are praying for them.
SPEAKER_00: We we have stopped and prayed for them several times this week.
SPEAKER_00: So let me say this very plainly is that the fire that we're talking about today isn't the fire that destroys.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, the fire that we're talking about today is is more of the warmth, life-giving fire that we get from God.
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to continue praying for all of those workers and all the people that are being affected uh by these fires.
SPEAKER_00: And today uh we are coming to the final week of our Spirit of God series where we're talking about the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And then next week, we're gonna continue with this second half of it, where we're talking about the attributes of God.
SPEAKER_00: So we you know we've gone all the way from having uh talking about how the Spirit has come down to us and that we experience the Spirit uh at Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks uh life into dry bones.
SPEAKER_00: We are empowered, we are led, we can witness, we can grow, we can have have fruit that's produced in us, and we have gifts that are given to us by the Holy Spirit to build the body.
SPEAKER_00: And through all of it, we have one thread that's joining us all together, and that is the Spirit of God is forming us to be more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But today, Paul ends this section of this letter of Thessalonians with a warning.
SPEAKER_00: There's five, it's five words in our English Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: Do not quench the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And buried inside that warning is a very sobering truth.
SPEAKER_00: God will not force his work on you.
SPEAKER_00: You can resist what God wants to do through.
SPEAKER_00: You can dampen what he is doing, you can quench the fire.
SPEAKER_00: So here's our big idea this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And I really want this to sink down in your hearts because this is where we can kind of get lost with what this message is actually saying is we can resist what God wants to do in us.
SPEAKER_00: But the fire can always be rekindled.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know that.
SPEAKER_00: Let me let me tell you what I know about fires, is because uh, you know, growing up with the loving camping and everything, uh, I was a pyromaniac.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if if there was a fire in front of me with a stick, I uh I lit that stick on fire and I was poking it at things, and uh I have a very vivid memory of you know when I was uh when I was younger, uh and just kind of getting introduced to fire.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we were at a big cabin with my uncles and and my and my uh my parents and stuff, and they all decided to throw you know building material into a big fire and have a big bonfire.
SPEAKER_00: And I saw in the uh in the embers that were down there this really bright red thing, and I was like, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I gotta pick that up.
SPEAKER_00: It was a bolt that was that was that was just had been burning in there for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: And I picked it up and it hurt real bad.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I remember.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, but uh but if if you if you know campfires, if you've been around campfires before, um you know that uh a campfire never goes out because somebody dramatically dumps a bucket of water on it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's what happens in the movies.
SPEAKER_00: Where you know, one bucket of water, it goes out immediately.
SPEAKER_00: Um in real life, fires die a much quieter death.
SPEAKER_00: You know, even the country's largest wildfires don't just go out with big drops of water.
SPEAKER_00: Um my friend uh Adam, uh Emily's husband, actually is uh he works for Aeroflight, and he goes into areas where there are forest fires, and his planes scoop water out of lakes and then they drop them.
SPEAKER_00: We have a video of it here as well.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there's these giant forest fires, and they're dropping this water onto these fires, and then they're they're managing them, they're uh trying to keep them from you know expanding and going further and further.
SPEAKER_00: So this, but you know, one drop is not going to put out the whole entire fire.
SPEAKER_00: One drop is not gonna do all of all of what needs to happen.
SPEAKER_00: But over time you have more and more and more flights and drops, the fire begins to be suppressed.
SPEAKER_00: We tend to do the same thing with the fire sparked in us by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We, you know, we we tend to do the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: We consistently over time dump water on that fire.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's not a bucket of water, it's actually neglect.
SPEAKER_00: Where we stop feeding the fire, we stop tending the fire, we get busy with other things, and we come back an hour later to find cold gray ash where there once was a giant fire.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, you know, we see it and nobody, you know, killed the fire.
SPEAKER_00: It was just neglected to death.
SPEAKER_00: And I have to be honest with you, that that is exactly how it happened uh several times on my own walk with God.
SPEAKER_00: Where you know there have been seasons when God felt distant, when he was away from me, uh where their prayer felt flat.
SPEAKER_00: Anytime I opened the Word of God, I I didn't feel like you know, it was dry.
SPEAKER_00: Um and going I when I was worshiping, I was just going through the motions and I was singing these songs out loud and or playing these songs, and I just didn't feel anything.
SPEAKER_00: It was just it just wasn't there.
SPEAKER_00: And in those seasons, I was tempted to ask, God, where did you go?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: But looking back, I can tell you the truth.
SPEAKER_00: He had not gone anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: I just had stopped tending the fire.
SPEAKER_00: I ignored promptings, I let little sins in my life be there and just be working in me.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of confessed, I stayed busy.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it wasn't a big dramatic rebellion that I was going through.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a big bucket of water, it was just a slow neglect over time.
SPEAKER_00: And a flame that got quieter and quieter.
SPEAKER_00: Most fires don't get put out, they get neglected out.
SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you a question that I had to ask myself.
SPEAKER_00: How is your flame doing?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know exactly what I'm describing.
SPEAKER_00: There was a time when your faith burnt out.
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't wait to open the word, you prayed about everything, you felt God's nearness in your life, and then somewhere along the way, you couldn't even tell me the date, but it cooled.
SPEAKER_00: That flame was going out.
SPEAKER_00: It got dimmer and dimmer and dimmer.
SPEAKER_00: Church became routine, prayer became a formality, or you know, conviction became easier to ignore.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I want you to hear before we go one step further into this message is that if that, you know, if this is you, if this is what's happening to you, where you're feeling that, uh, this this message is not to shame you.
SPEAKER_00: This message is here to hand you kindling to re-ignite that fire.
SPEAKER_00: Because Paul doesn't write, do not quench the spirit, to people who are disqualified.
SPEAKER_00: He says it to the believers, the people who trust in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because the fire in a believer can burn low, it can also burn again.
SPEAKER_00: I promise you.
SPEAKER_00: A dim flame is not a dead flame, and God is very good with working with embers.
SPEAKER_00: So let's read this whole passage here.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, starting in verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: We already read these five words.
SPEAKER_00: Do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophecies, but test everything.
SPEAKER_00: Hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: He who calls you faithful, he will surely do it.
SPEAKER_00: That word quench is fire language.
SPEAKER_00: When we look at that first verse, that that's fire, it's the word you would use for extinguishing a flame.
SPEAKER_00: Paul didn't pick that image out of thin air.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture just reminds us over and over again that there is fire that has to do with how the Spirit works.
SPEAKER_00: When the Spirit fell at Pentecost, it was in tongues of fire that landed on on the on the believers there.
SPEAKER_00: When Paul describes the normal Christian life in uh Romans 12, he says, Do not be slothful in zeal, but be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And that that word fervent actually means boiling in the original language.
SPEAKER_00: So the prophet Jeremiah, when he tried to say stay silent about God, uh the word became a burning fire shut up in my bones.
SPEAKER_00: So follow the logic.
SPEAKER_00: If the spirit's work in you is like a fire, then it can blaze and it can be smothered.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, as the pyrotechnic that I am, I brought a visual for you today that I have, I have here, you know, the the flame that that we're going to use as a visualization.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is going to be lit very quickly, very safely.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we we just had our you know everything checked out in uh our smoke alarms here, so we're okay.
SPEAKER_00: Um but look at this flame, okay?
SPEAKER_00: This is what the spirit wants your life to look like light, heat, warmth.
SPEAKER_00: The kind of warmth that other people can feel when they get near you.
SPEAKER_00: And notice Paul's command is in the negative, which we don't often hear how that works.
SPEAKER_00: That it it he doesn't say, set the spirit on fire.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: God lit this flame, not you.
SPEAKER_00: The the quenching is our own.
SPEAKER_00: Lighting the flame is God's work.
SPEAKER_00: God lights the fire.
SPEAKER_00: We're the only ones who can smother it.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, how do we how do we quench the spirit?
SPEAKER_00: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: How do we actually make that work?
SPEAKER_00: So here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to blow out this candle for me to show you that it gets killed.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need a bucket of water.
SPEAKER_00: All I have to do is cover it.
SPEAKER_00: Cut off its air, give it nothing to breathe.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly how believers quench the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we quench the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We quench him by ignoring his promptings.
SPEAKER_00: That, you know, that nudge to pray for someone, or the uh the to reconcile, to speak, to serve, to stop, to open your Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: Every time we feel it and refuse it, the glass comes down a little lower.
SPEAKER_00: We quench him by unconfessed sin.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So grieving is what happens when we don't confess our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Quenching is what it does in us, the work that is in us.
SPEAKER_00: We sherish, we cherish the that that that sin instead of having confessed sin.
SPEAKER_00: It says, do not despise prophecies.
SPEAKER_00: When God's word is preached and we sit with the arms crossed, and we when conviction comes down, when we're reading the Bible and we we see that glass come down, we quench him by simply neglecting to put fuel on that fire.
SPEAKER_00: No word, no prayer, no worship, no church, family.
SPEAKER_00: We we it's you know, nobody rebels, the fire just runs out of air, and it looks like this again.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody blew it out, we didn't pour water on it, it was just covered.
SPEAKER_00: And the church that we are in right now, there there are there are people in this room whose spiritual life looks exactly like this candle right now.
SPEAKER_00: The wick is still there, the wax is still there, but somewhere along the way the air got cut off, the flame went out.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to fight God to quench the spirit, you only have to cover the flame.
SPEAKER_00: So, how do we keep that fire burning?
SPEAKER_00: How do we keep it going?
SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
SPEAKER_00: Paul tells us right in the passage: test everything.
SPEAKER_00: Hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil.
SPEAKER_00: There are three habits of a fire tender here.
SPEAKER_00: Test everything.
SPEAKER_00: Don't swallow everything and don't dismiss everything.
SPEAKER_00: Hold what you hear up to the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: When you get a prompting from the Holy Spirit to tell you to do something in your life, is it supported by the word?
SPEAKER_00: Is it supported by the people around you?
SPEAKER_00: Is it supported by the wisdom that's coming from you?
SPEAKER_00: The godly counsel, grab it and don't let go.
SPEAKER_00: That's the fuel that will keep you going.
SPEAKER_00: Abstain from every form of evil.
SPEAKER_00: Not manage it, not negotiate it, not kind of play with it a little bit, but you know, be like, oh, you know what, this is an evil thing, but I'm gonna be okay with that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna ignore that while I want to live the spiritual life and fan this flame because it says, abstain from every evil.
SPEAKER_00: Walk away from it.
SPEAKER_00: That's sin covering that flame.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul gives Timothy the positive command that matches our negative one.
SPEAKER_00: In 2 Timothy 1.6.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you.
SPEAKER_00: Which is in you.
SPEAKER_00: Fan into flame.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I love about that idea.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot create the fire.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot.
SPEAKER_00: But you can absolutely feed it.
SPEAKER_00: You can f you can fan that flame every time you open the word and you're hungry for the word.
SPEAKER_00: You can fan that flame.
SPEAKER_00: Every time you pray honestly, every time you obey the prompting instead of ignoring it, you're fanning that flame.
SPEAKER_00: Every time you worship with your whole heart and singing and being loud with it, you're fanning that flame.
SPEAKER_00: Every time you confess, instead of quickly letting it go, air and fuel, that's how fires live.
SPEAKER_00: You can't light the fire, but you can feed it, or you can smother it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if the if the message ended here, it would just be a pressure sort of message of saying, just try harder.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if if you just did more things, if you just did more work, then I think that you could make this flame really big.
SPEAKER_00: But look how Paul actually ends.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.
SPEAKER_00: And may He and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He who calls you as faithful, he will surely do it.
SPEAKER_00: Himself.
SPEAKER_00: God himself.
SPEAKER_00: Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_00: After all the commands, Paul lands on this.
SPEAKER_00: The God of peace himself will do the sanctifying.
SPEAKER_00: He who calls you is faithful, he will surely do it.
SPEAKER_00: Your flame is not finally kept by your fire tending.
SPEAKER_00: It is kept by a faithful God who started this work and intends to finish it through you.
SPEAKER_00: We tend the fire, He keeps it.
SPEAKER_00: And here is one truth we have to manage.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot stop what God is doing in the world.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot stop it.
SPEAKER_00: You can pray for it, you can work towards it, but you cannot stop God's will in this world.
SPEAKER_00: But you can resist what he wants to do in you.
SPEAKER_00: You can resist it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that you need to or that you should.
SPEAKER_00: You it is possible for us to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Because he wants children who respond.
SPEAKER_00: Because he loves us so much, he wants us to respond with love.
SPEAKER_00: Not only to him, but to the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to respond.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just want machines that comply and say, Yeah, I will do exactly what you need me to do out of obligation, out of transaction.
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to feel loved and to love others.
SPEAKER_00: And even and then even then his answer to our resistance is to not give up.
SPEAKER_00: But to keep breathing on the embers until he finish what he started.
SPEAKER_00: The warning is real, but the promise is stronger.
SPEAKER_00: We tend the flame, but the faithful one keeps it going.
SPEAKER_00: And here's where the gospel comes rushing in.
SPEAKER_00: Because some of you are looking at this candle right here and saying, That's me.
SPEAKER_00: That's my fault.
SPEAKER_00: I let it go out.
SPEAKER_00: I my unconfessed sin, my lifestyle, the way I live, that is out because of what I did.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe it is.
SPEAKER_00: It usually is.
SPEAKER_00: It is, it was for me at least.
SPEAKER_00: So listen to how the prophet Isaiah describes the coming Messiah, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In Isaiah 42, 3, it says, A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.
SPEAKER_00: He will faithfully bring forth justice.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear what that says?
SPEAKER_00: We are the ones who quench the spirit, but Jesus will not quench us.
SPEAKER_00: A faintly burning wick, a candle down to its last thread of smoke, he will not pinch it out.
SPEAKER_00: He cups his hands around it.
SPEAKER_00: That is the heart of a Savior toward you all this morning.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I care for this.
SPEAKER_00: I care for you.
SPEAKER_00: I love you.
SPEAKER_00: You are my children, and I want to fan this flame to get it bigger.
SPEAKER_00: But it gets better than that.
SPEAKER_00: Because how can a holy God cup his hands around a smoldering, covered, sin-covered people like us?
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that our sin deserved fire.
SPEAKER_00: The fire of God's judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And at the cross, that fire fell.
SPEAKER_00: Not on us, but on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The light of the world let his own light go dark so that yours could be relit.
SPEAKER_00: He was covered, buried, sealed in the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: The glass was lowered completely all the way down so that you could breathe.
SPEAKER_00: And on the third day the tomb opened, and the light came back blazing.
SPEAKER_00: Fifty days later, the risen Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit, and he came as fire resting on ordinary people just like us.
SPEAKER_00: That fire has been passing from life to life to life for 2,000 years.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've never received it, it is offered to you today.
SPEAKER_00: That light.
SPEAKER_00: Not to people who have it all together, but to us who are smoldering wicks, who are candles that are out.
SPEAKER_00: Turn from your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Trust in Jesus, his death in your place, his resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And God who said, Let the light shine out the darkness, will light a fire in you that death itself can never put out.
SPEAKER_00: You can quench the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus will never quench you.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we respond?
SPEAKER_00: What do we do now knowing that we can absolutely 100% resist what the spirit does in us, knowing that we have to do something about it.
SPEAKER_00: Three things.
SPEAKER_00: You need to know, feel, and do these things this week.
SPEAKER_00: Know that quenching is real.
SPEAKER_00: Quenching happens.
SPEAKER_00: You can quench the spirit, and that is reversible.
SPEAKER_00: It is 100% reversible.
SPEAKER_00: Take this warning seriously.
SPEAKER_00: You can resist what God wants to do with you.
SPEAKER_00: You can resist it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm asking you not to.
SPEAKER_00: But what I'm saying is it can happen.
SPEAKER_00: But take the hope just as seriously.
SPEAKER_00: Nowhere does Paul say the fire is gone forever.
SPEAKER_00: The command, do not quench, implies the flame is still yours to tend today.
SPEAKER_00: The warning is real.
SPEAKER_00: So is the relighting of that candle.
SPEAKER_00: So the quenching is real and reversible.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing you need to feel, feel this in your heart, in your soul, that there is tenderness in this, not condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: If your flame is low, hear Isaiah again, a faintly burning wick, he will not quench.
SPEAKER_00: If you are here this morning and you are feeling like you are low on your flame and that it's not bright, you're here and God is saying, it can get brighter.
SPEAKER_00: It can get better.
SPEAKER_00: There is hope.
SPEAKER_00: Hope.
SPEAKER_00: God is not disgusted with your embers.
SPEAKER_00: He is gently blowing on them right now through this message, through this church, through the table we're about to come to here together.
SPEAKER_00: God does not despite embers.
SPEAKER_00: He kneels down and breathes on them and breathes life back into them.
SPEAKER_00: So the last thing we need to do is lift the lid this week.
SPEAKER_00: Lift that jar.
SPEAKER_00: Name it specifically.
SPEAKER_00: What is your glass jar?
SPEAKER_00: What is your cup that you are snuffing out?
SPEAKER_00: What is that in your life?
SPEAKER_00: What is happening in your life where you are putting that glass on top of the flame?
SPEAKER_00: Name it.
SPEAKER_00: And obey it this week.
SPEAKER_00: Obey what God is telling you to do, the promptings that He is putting forth in you.
SPEAKER_00: Do that this week.
SPEAKER_00: Name the sin you've been managing and confess it today.
SPEAKER_00: Name the means of grace you've neglected by worshiping, praying, opening your word, being in community, witnessing.
SPEAKER_00: And put one back in place tomorrow morning.
SPEAKER_00: And keep saying our prayer throughout this whole series.
SPEAKER_00: Spirit of God, lead me today.
SPEAKER_00: Revival rarely starts with a bonfire, it starts with one lifted lid.
SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to the table here today.
SPEAKER_00: You know, because I can't think of a better place to, you know, end this message with, you know, and this whole entire half of the sermon series than with communion.
SPEAKER_00: You know, did you notice what Paul said in the in that passage?
SPEAKER_00: It's to test everything.
SPEAKER_00: To test everything.
SPEAKER_00: So we're coming to the table today to test it.
SPEAKER_00: Because in 1 Corinthians 11, 28 it says, let a person examine himself and then so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
SPEAKER_00: So before you come forward and partake in communion, you have to test.
SPEAKER_00: This table is where we test our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: So before you take the bread and cup this morning, hold your life up to the light and ask, where have I lowered the glass?
SPEAKER_00: What prompting from the Holy Spirit have I been ignoring?
SPEAKER_00: What sin have I been covering instead of confessing?
SPEAKER_00: And then don't stop examining.
SPEAKER_00: Come to the table.
SPEAKER_00: Because look what's in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: There's bread here, his body given for smoldering wicks.
SPEAKER_00: The cup, his blood, shed so the fire of judgment would never touch you because of his covenant.
SPEAKER_00: This table is not a reward for people whose flame is impressive.
SPEAKER_00: This table is the kindling for people whose flame is low.
SPEAKER_00: So we relight it today and now so that we can experience what it's like to really truly examine ourselves before coming to the table.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you'll be invited up here soon, and uh the worship team will come up here and our board members will distribute these elements.
SPEAKER_00: But really, when you're coming up here, look at this candle.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the flame that's there and say, is my life being rekindled through the Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: What am I ignoring that I need to listen to?
SPEAKER_00: So you should come up here.
SPEAKER_00: Come to the table with us today.
SPEAKER_00: The worship team will come back up here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you guys can come up here now.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to take this communion and remind ourselves that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to remind ourselves that we need to come and confess, come and receive, come and let the good of peace, that the God of peace himself, the faithful one who called you, will rekindle these flames.
SPEAKER_00: And here at Easter, we we celebrate what's called open communion, which means that if you believe in Jesus Christ, if he is your Lord and your Savior, then you can come up and take these elements and we'll take them back to the seats and we'll take them together momentarily.
SPEAKER_00: So you guys can come up and take this.