You must actively choose to feed your spirit with God's word and worship to train your heart toward righteousness. Stop feeding the idols of this world and instead present your life as a living sacrifice on the altar. By doing so, you will stoke the fire of God's presence within you and find true satisfaction.
You are the custodian of the fireplace of your own heart. You cannot blame someone else or even the circumstances of life for how much or how little fire for God you have in your heart at this moment. You are the custodian of the fireplace of your own heart. My question is, are you "burning for him"? Do you have a passion and a desire?
Do you have a hunger for the Lord? The bible says in Matthew-5:6, blessed are those who "hunger and thirst" for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Another version says, they shall be filled. *Luke-6:21* says, blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Matthew seven:seven says, ask and it will be given to you.
Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew-6:33 says, **"seek first" His kingdom* and his righteousness*, and all these things will be added to you. Hebrews eleven:six says, Without faith it is impossible to please God. For everyone who comes to him must believe that he is, and he is a *rewarder* of those who diligently seek him.
There is this necessity for going after God. God wants you to have an appetite for him, a desire for him that outranks every other desire of your life. Where you willingly say no to the desires of the flesh or to what is desirable to the flesh because you hunger and thirst for God over and above what your 5 senses crave. *Ecclesiastes-6* and verse 7, talking about mankind, talking about us, says, all the toil is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. So appetite.
What is appetite? You know I went to the the dictionary to look it up. Oxford dictionary says, appetite is a natural desire to satisfy a bodily need, especially for food. Or a strong desire or liking for something. Webster's dictionary says appetite is any of the instinctive desires necessary to keep up organic life or to keep up natural life.
You were born into a natural life. There are natural cravings. It's only natural. Right? But you have been supernaturally *born again*.
You are a new creation with a new heart that is designed to be fueled by a **supernatural God**. The bible actually says you are no longer merely a natural human being. You are so much more than that. God has supernaturally put his supernatural Holy Spirit inside of you to lead you and empower you by his supernatural power to accomplish supernatural things and to live a life that supernaturally draws those around you out of a merely natural human existence and into a supernatural lifestyle where they personally know and personally and publicly walk with God. The God of the impossible has created you to live a lifestyle that seems impossible to the natural mind.
He has created you to accomplish naturally impossible tasks that are only possible when a supernatural God is empowering you to do them. Have you think about this. Have you asked Jesus lately what impossible things he wants you to accomplish? Maybe you should ask that. Because there is something impossible on the horizon that if you would just have the faith to ask for and walk with him toward it, you would experience it.
God is the God of the impossible, and he created you to experience the impossible as empowered by his supernatural ability. Otherwise, why be a Christian? It's more than a religion. It's a relationship with a supernatural God. And if it's just religion, you're at the wrong church because we're really stoking a fire to really walk with him.
*Matthew-5:6*. No. What does accomplishing the supernatural require? *Faith*. You're not gonna guess what I'm gonna say because it's an unconventional answer.
Accomplishing the supernatural requires desire. It requires an appetite for God and the things of God. *Matthew-5:6 says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness*, for they will be filled or satisfied. *Luke-6:21* says, blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Matthew-7:7 says, ask and it will be given to you.
Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew-6:33 says, seek and seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Hebrews-11:6 says, without faith, it is impossible to please God. For everyone who comes to him must believe that he is, and he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
Anybody that's been in the diet and exercise business knows that you can control your appetite. You can grow your appetite and you can shrink your appetite. Just ask Bartley. You can train your body for more intake. For those of you that don't know, he's a professional eater and a professional bodybuilder at the same time.
You can train your body to desire less intake. Your appetite follows intake. What you have been eating, you get used to it. You develop a taste for it, And you even begin to desire it. When you eat something, over time, it becomes your normal.
It becomes your habit. Good or bad. You get used to eating that thing in that amount, and you may even develop an appetite for it, and then occasionally splurge. Then the splurging becomes your normal and your appetite for that thing grows. Amen?
Amen. So you can handle larger and larger portions. Have you experienced that before? Maybe? A little bit?
Lot of bit? Of course, you have. You are experiencing it right now. This is your life. You experience this physically with food, but also with activities, with relationships.
You experience this with the desires you have with your emotions. You experience this spiritually. Your life is the product of your appetites. What you choose to input over time will be what you crave. It will be the object of your desire.
What you stop inputting, eventually, you'll lose an appetite for. Your life, your condition, your current condition is the product of your the appetites that you have created. Your life is the product of what you have learned and chosen to put into your body and into your mind. Y'all okay? Y'all ready for what's next?
It's gonna get a little heavy for a little bit. Alright? Idolatry is simply having or developing an appetite for something that outweighs your appetite for God. And you will eventually act on what you allow yourself to long for. You are the custodian of the fireplace of your own heart.
What does your heart burn for? For there to be consistent fire, 1 must consistently put wood on the fire. What kind of wood are you putting on the fire of your heart? What have you trained your own heart to burn for? Is it holy?
*1 Corinthians-10:1-14*. Spend a little time here. It says, for I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, get this, and drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Now listen to this. This means that they participated in Christ without knowing him. There are people that come to church and drink of the rock of Christ. They drink of the drink of the presence of the Holy Spirit. They have experiences.
But God is not pleased with them because they have never surrendered to Jesus as Lord. They might have walked an aisle and prayed a prayer and had an emotional experience. But if there is no life change, then I question if that experience was a legit heart decision to follow Jesus as Lord. Because when Jesus is Lord, you will see changes that represent Jesus as Lord. It may take time, and God is patient.
Very patient because he's a good father. But if Jesus is the Lord of your life, the Holy Spirit will empower changes, and you will experience those changes as you learn to surrender. So why did Paul write this passage? I only read the first 5 verses. The answer is in verse 6.
Now these things took place as examples for us that we may not we might not desire evil as they did. So this is an example and a warning. Which means people today will fall prey to the same things in the same way, to an experience of God without a relationship with God. Don't be that person or that people. Heed the warnings.
So here are the warnings. You still okay? Still heavy for a little bit, but heavy is good. Verse 7. Do not be idolaters as some of them were.
As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. *Idolatry* is simply an appetite for something that outweighs your appetite for God. So here in this verse, it was food and recreation. The desire for food and recreation outpaced their appetite for God, so God called it an idol. Paul says, do not.
Verse 8, we must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did. And 23,000 fell in a single day. Sexual immorality is idolatry. Does your appetite for sex outpace your willingness to obey God and be sexually pure until marriage? Does your appetite for what is sexually appealing to your eyes and ears outweigh what is pure and holy?
I instituted or I input ears as well because what you listen to sometimes creates the same pictures in your mind as what you see. Or what you read in those books that are pornographic, a lot of ladies are reading these days, is just as unholy as the pornography you sell your husband not to watch. We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did. This is a warning. Verse 9.
We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. What was happening here? They were speaking against the spiritual leaders God had placed over their lives. Rebellion is idolizing your way over God's way. Verse 10.
And really, rebellion is also not trusting the leaders that God's put over your lives. He'll either remove them or move you. Verse 10. Nor grumble as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Grumbling and complaining is having an appetite for what God hasn't given you without gratitude for what he has given you.
Verse 11. Here's why Paul wrote this. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks he stand take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Listen to this. Verse 14. Therefore, my beloved, I love you.
Paul loved you. God loves you more than both of us. **flee from idolatry**. What is idolatry? Idolatry is simply an appetite for something that outweighs your appetite for God.
Everyone has appetites. Your life craves things. What are they? Are they holy? Have you done the denying of yourself that Jesus required of those who wants to be his disciples?
Remember, he said, first, anyone who wants to be my disciple must first deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me. Denying yourself means curbing your appetite for the world and building an appetite for God and for the things of God. So how do you do that? How do you build an a holy appetite? First, is that even possible?
Can you build a holy appetite? Well, let's look to scripture. Psalms-84:1-2. David, the psalmist writes, how lovely is your dwelling place, oh lord of hosts. My soul longs.
Yes, faints for the courts of the lord. My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Psalm 42 1 and 2. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul pants for you, oh God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
Your soul is your mind, your will, and your emotions. David says his mind, his will, his emotions, they all thirst for God. Even his heart and flesh sing for joy for the living God. So I would call that an appetite for the Lord. So biblically, you can have a holy appetite.
How? Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Yes. But how? God says to you, I recognize you have a desire for all of these things, and that is natural.
But I'm saying, live by faith. Live supernatural. Supernaturally. Put your eyes on my kingdom and my righteousness. I will fulfill your spiritual needs and all your natural needs too.
Can you trust me? How? Let me show you. You guys get ready to go on a little bit of a journey? Not that we haven't been already.
*Proverbs-13:12 says, a "promise deferred" makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a "tree of life"*. So I'm a say something a little bit crazy that might catch you off guard. God wants to fulfill the desires of your heart. He wants you to experience your desires being fulfilled, and he calls it in this verse the tree or a tree of life. Wait a second pastor.
Hold on. Doesn't the bible say in in Jeremiah-17:9, the "heart is deceitful" above all things and desperately sick? Who can understand it? Pastor, aren't we aren't we all sinners and and and all our desires bad? Check this out.
You were born a sinner. You were born with a heart that was desperately sick, desiring all kinds of things and never finding fulfillment. Yes. No matter how or what you try to find fulfillment in, you will always need more and more and more. Yes.
Only finding temporary fulfillment, not full satisfaction. Yes. Do you know why? Because you were created with an internally increasing appetite. You have been filling it with the wrong things though.
God created you to eternally desire more and more of him, and there's an eternal depth to his goodness. Psalm 34 or 37 4 says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. He longs to fulfill your desires. But there has to be a shift of where your desires go from worldly things of the flesh to the things of God. Then after that shift, the desire for him is fed, it is strengthened, and it grows stronger and stronger.
Let's talk about it again. Proverbs-13:12, a promise deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life. The tree of life is talked about in 3 different books of the bible. In Genesis a few times, in Proverbs a few times, in Revelation a few times. When I'm thinking about the tree of life in Genesis, I'm thinking about what has happened.
In Proverbs, it's wisdom for what I'm walking in right now. In Revelation, it's what will come. You guys follow me so far? Alright. In the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned, mankind became *sinners* and were barred from the tree of life.
Why? God said that if they would have eaten of the tree of life, they would have had eternal life in the living forever since. Meaning, that if God would have let them eat from the tree of life in the Garden Of Eden, they would have lived forever in their sinful state and would have been eternally separated from God. So his barring them from it was an act of mercy. So God blocked their way from the tree of life until mankind was changed from their sinful state of being.
The problem is desire fulfilled is a tree of life. And mankind was blocked from the tree of life, which means mankind was blocked from having fulfilled desire too. That's why it's only temporary fulfilled. But then you always need more because he's the 1 that was that he created you to be able to fulfill the desires that he created you to have. *Proverbs-13:12* says, a promise deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
So mankind has desires, but they are never fulfilled and never enough. Jesus came to save us from our sick heart. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by me. Jesus said, I have come that you may have life and have life more abundantly.
Jesus came to give us eternal life. Then he defined eternal life as knowing God. So through Jesus, we can experience the weight of the true the tree of life. We can experience his truth that sets us free, and we can experience eternal life that we were barred from in the beginning. Jesus is the only way.
*Jeremiah-17:9 says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Again, this is us in the state we were born as, as sinners*. But then, *Ezekiel-26* or 36 26 through 27 Says, I will give you a new heart. I will give you a new spirit that I will put in you.
I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and be careful to obey my rules. When we give our lives to Jesus as the only way, as our Lord, we are born again. God gives us a new heart. He puts his Holy Spirit inside of us to lead us and to empower us to follow him.
And now that you have been given a new heart that is supernaturally bent towards God, you have the capacity to desire what he desires because you now have the nature of your heavenly father inside of you through the Holy Spirit. Your appetites, your desires are simply the product of what you've chosen to commune with. Desire. Again, we split the word apart, d e s I r e. Real church, you've heard me say this before.
D e means of. S I r e means father. Every desire you have has a father that you've been communing with that sowed seeds into your life. As a born again Christian, you have a new heart. You've been set free from sin, but you are also free to sin.
You can choose to sin or not to. You still have a free will. Your appetites are the product of what you've freely chosen to commune with. So this is a call back to righteousness. When you commune with God, your desires are of God, and they are a part of your eternal purpose in him.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Stoke the fire of delight in him. Consume the things of him. Develop a taste for his word, and for worship, and for his church. Learn to hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Remember *Matthew-5:6*, *blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness* for they will be fulfilled slash satisfied. *Luke-6:21*, blessed are you who hunger now for you will be satisfied. *Matthew-7:7*, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened.
*Matthew-6:33*, seek first His kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Hebrews-11:6 says this, without faith, it is impossible to please God. For everyone who comes to him must believe that he is, and he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Cut out the idols. Choose to get rid of the things that you currently crave more than God.
Cut them off. Trash them. Run from them. You are the custodian of the fireplace of your own heart. Throw logs on the fire that will help your heart to burn for God.
Now this is completely different. I wrote this out and just felt like the Lord told me to read it to you. Preach it from reading. After I wrote it, after I was finished, last night, the eleventh hour, I go to do what I do every day because I didn't do it yet yesterday. I edit commentary that I have written because 1 day I'm gonna publish it for you guys as a service to you.
I'm in first Peter editing what I've written a while back. And I wrote this maybe 3 years, 2 years ago. What I was editing just so happened to be on the exact same thing the message was on. It's a confirmation. Let me read you what I was editing.
*1 Peter-2:3*, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. The other English word for here's my commentary. The other English word that could be used as a translation for tasted is experienced. Now that you have experienced that the Lord is good. Both words connote the same thing.
Taste is an example of the type of experience Peter is describing. You can hear that a food is good. You can believe what you have heard and crave the food because you heard about its goodness and truly believed it. But you know the goodness of that food on a whole another level. I didn't write whole, I just added that in.
But you know the goodness of the of the food on another level when you smell its aroma, when you see its pleasant presentation, then feel its texture on your tongue as the rush of flavors wash over your taste buds. You have tasted the food. You have experienced its goodness. Just as you have been created with an internally increasing appetite, there's an eternal depth to the goodness of God. Taste and see that the Lord is good.
Experience his goodness. We know that our food palates can be trained. The first time some of you tasted coffee, you didn't like it. The bitter flavor likely caused you to crinkle your nose, wondering why people say they like the stuff. But over time, if you continued to drink coffee, your palate can be trained was trained to like it.
You can begin to distinguish the different flavors and the different types of beans and the different tastes that come from the different ways those beans were roasted. Your palate matures by exposure. You begin to crave certain aspects of the coffee flavor, certain aspects of which you were first ignorant. Our experience with God matures too as we daily spend time with him. We come to know his goodness in ways of which we were first ignorant.
We develop a deeper desire for his presence and for his word. We develop a deeper desire for those around us to experience the same goodness that we experience and have come to know. The best thing about Jesus is this, there is no limit to his goodness. The promise that he will draw near to us never ends. He is eternal.
For the rest of our lives, and then on into eternity, we will forever be experiencing new notes of his aroma and flavor that we have never experienced before. We'll experience aspects of Jesus that will cause us to appreciate him all the more, desire to know him all the more, and desire others around us to have an experience with the goodness of God. Daily, I want to ensure that I intentionally take time to turn my heart, my attention, my focus to the Lord and Savior. And then I experience him turning his attention, affection, and focus towards me. Back to the message, you are the custodian of the fireplace of your own heart.
Throw logs on the fire that will help your heart burn for God. How do you do that? Obedience. In the Old Testament tabernacle, God would start a fire, but the priests were responsible for keeping it burning. When you become a Christian, Jesus calls you a king and a priest.
You're responsible for keeping the fire burning that he started. You keep it burning by throwing sacrifice on the fire. What is the sacrifice? You are. *Romans-12:1* and 2.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world any longer, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Then you will be able to test and approve what his will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. You're the sacrifice. So here's the prayer.
I encourage you to pray with me. God, here I am. Here's my life. Here are my hobbies. Here's my job.
Here's my family. Here's my relationships. Here's my free time. Here are my habits. I present them on the altar to you as a living sacrifice.
Burn away the idols. Burn away what isn't of you. Consume my life. My answer for everything is yes, Lord.