-Transcript-
00:36 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:41 Welcome to the cafe. Hope you’re having a wonderful day, a wonderful week. My name is Pastor Clark Covington here from Heartland Ministries to share a message on godly zeal.
00:52 We were talking about having zeal today for the Lord and we are getting into what it means to have zeal and why that is so helpful for us today as believers to understand that God wants us to be a zealous people. Amen. What does it mean to have zeal? It means to be passionate.
01:12 You can’t have zeal if you’re not passionate. You know I think that some people especially maybe as they get older they get settled. Do they not? They kind of get in a routine.
01:24 Things don’t surprise them as much. You know they go through their day-to-day and maybe they’re pretty even-keeled. But when it comes to the things of God, hopefully Lord willing, they’re very passionate.
01:36 People could tell that hey God is important to this person. A zealous person, someone that has zeal for the Lord is very passionate for God and that passion is a true deep down part desire to live for God not some short fleeting emotion
01:54 but it is something that is much deeper than that. They’re devoted which again gets into the idea that it’s not some spring of emotion that’s here for a day gone tomorrow but the devotion a lifelong devotion is once you’re saved forever living for God being kept by God serving God being passionate you know growing in the knowledge of the Lord each and every day being more understanding of the Lord
02:23 and growing closer to the Lord each day progressively right growing in God being devoted not turning from God and not wishy-washy one day you’re on fire for God one day you don’t believe if he’s real you know all this the Bible says it’s impossible to please God without faith Amen.
02:38 without faith it’s impossible to please God but it was in the book Hebrews and so we must be devoted passionate and devoted and then living it out applying principles to your life
02:47 and viewing others in this light you know when we are zealous for God it should inform our actions our life you know if you’re zealous for God and the Bible tells us to be of a sober mind
03:00 and we know that we are a living example of Christ we know all these things are you then gonna go and hang out at the bar where wicked people are devising evil plots
03:11 and plans and mocking God and living for themselves and living in a way that that hurting their Holy Temple which is their body what the Bible tells us are you gonna go to those places and frequent those places if you are living it out if you’re applying the principles of your
03:30 your Christian understanding and your Christian Walker are you gonna live those things out in a way that compromises your faith that compromises your witness that’s as many people have said the only Bible some people will read is you
03:45 and so if you believe in the Lord amen and then you’re out there doing what they’re doing they’re gonna say there’s no difference between that person and here I am in the world I’ll just stay right here in the world
03:54 and we don’t want that Amen we want them to be in heaven with us we don’t want them going to a devil’s hell and so if we’re saved here today we need to be different we need to be set apart
04:02 and we need to be zealous amen and zeal literally means great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective
04:18 and zeal isn’t something that we decide we’re going to have Amen zeal I believe in my understanding and in my walk with the Lord comes naturally as we seek him
04:29 and so the more that we seek God in his word in understanding the idea of the Lord knocking and us opening the door or us knocking and him opening the door but the idea of being receptive to what he’s telling us and seeking right asking God the tough questions going to him in prayer researching beyond researching becoming a mission in some sense for the Lord even if it’s in your workplace or your school
05:00 but evangelizing all these things all of these proper Christian ways that we are to live right which again are also inspired by God and done by the Holy Spirit that will create a zeal in us
05:13 and so truly here the message behind the message is if you don’t have zeal for the Lord get close to God seek him make it a point to pray you know we have discipline about a lot of things do we not we’ll say no to a wonderful dessert a beautiful cake
05:27 I’ll say no I can’t eat that my you know whatever it is my diet or dietary needs or whatever it may be we will have a discipline we’ll say oh I’d love to watch the show but it’s it’s 10:30 I got to go to bed I got to get up early for work
05:41 or you know we’ll have discipline your friends want to go to a movie I can’t go I got to go you know with my kids on a trip tomorrow whatever it is we have discipline right but then when it comes to the ways and the things of God do we sit there
05:53 and buckle up and say Lord every single day I’ve committed to read your word and I’m gonna do it because when we have discipline for God whether it’s reading his word whether it’s praying without ceasing
06:02 whether it’s seeking his will in our life whether it’s working to overcome a temptation whether it’s witnessing to others when we have that discipline about us God will provide us with a healthy zeal for him
06:14 I believe that and we see this zeal in 2 Kings 10:16 here’s our text verse and he said come with me and see my zeal for the Lord so they made him ride in his chariot now who is he that is Jehu Jehu is a commander he was a commander of the northern Israel army later he becomes king of northern Israel and he said about to judge the wicked Israelite rulers Jehu was the one that finally gets to have Jezebel killed rids all the house of Ahab remember Ahab was a very evil ruler
06:51 and he even removes all Baal worship from the people and that’s who Jehu is Jehu is telling this other individual whose name is Jehonadab son of Rechab to come in his chariot because he was he wanted him to see his zeal for the Lord
07:06 and Jehonadab is a devout individual he’s part of the Rechabites he’s kind of the father the figurehead of the Rechabites and the Rechabites were a nomadic people there were nomads they were here there and everywhere
07:20 but they weren’t settled in a place they did not build houses they abstained from wine they did not sow or plant seeds they did not plant vineyards they were sober people they were faithful to abide by these rules from this time here in 2 Kings 10 all the way to the time of Jeremiah 35 which scholars believe is over 200 years so there are devout people the example I gave the congregation on Sunday they kind of remind me of the Amish
07:52 and I’m not making like legal legalistic comparisons of what the Amish live and how the Rechabites lived but the Amish are they not set apart right if you start thinking of the most pure version or most the most set-apart version of the Amish
08:09 whatever you want to call it maybe not pure but the most set-apart version of the Amish they follow an individual who teaches separation from the world and they use scriptures to back up not using electricity and and all of these other things and they are just set apart the Rechabites
08:26 kind of remind me in that way that they’re they have a belief and they have a zeal for God and they are going to stay set apart in fact the Rechabites were loyal to their beliefs Jeremiah 35:2 go into the house of the Rechabites and speak unto them
08:45 and bring them into the house of the Lord into one of the chambers and give them wine to drink
08:46 and then Jeremiah 35:5- 6 and I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites pots full of wine and cups and I said unto them drink ye wine and they said we will drink no wine for Jehonadab the son of Rechab that’s the same individual that Jehu was saying get in my chariot watch how zealous I am our father commanded us saying you shall drink no wine neither ye nor your sons forever and s
09:09 So they abstained even when God had tested them saying go ahead and offer them wine they said we will not do it because of this individual and so we see here Jehu saying get in my chariot I’m going to show you how zealous I am for the Lord to Jehonadab a Rechabite and kind of again the father figure of the Rechabites
09:25 and they go off and what do they do for time’s sake I’ll paraphrase they go in that chariot they make sure they wipe out the rest of Ahab and his followers they then go to the temple of Baal they have everybody come in they make sure cleverly to get everyone in there
09:42 and they slaughter them all they don’t leave a single one behind they absolutely wipe out all of Baal worship they bring down the the images and the altars of Baal everything is gone and God is pleased by this because this was an abomination to God
10:00 it was a false God can you imagine being God and creating all things being all knowledgeable and all wise and being so merciful and delivering the Israelites out of the hand of Egypt out of bondage to only see them turn to these false gods with these people that are not his own
10:17 and they turn to false God worship and they’re involved in these pagan things it’s an abomination to God to a holy God could there be anything worse it’s disgusting and so God had Jehu come and wipe it out in Jehonadab the Rechab is a the Rechabite excuse me is a picture of a zealous on fire believer that is set apart or different than the world
10:44 and so what we are to learn from this is that we too need to be set apart Jehu and the Rechabites they were zealous for the Lord in this passage of Scripture and I say this because sadly Jehu later on falls short here and ends up in trouble and so he’s not perfect Amen
11:04 but he did do this thing and he was rewarded for it and I’ll get to that in a later episode but he was rewarded for it and so what we want to think about today is how can we be zealous for the Lord because in the scripture
11:16 and you may be thinking brother Clark I’m hearing you I hear what this happened but this is Old Testament and these individuals were wiping out a pagan temple we don’t really have that these days what does this have to do with me it’s a good question if you’re thinking that and the answer is it’s got a lot to do with you
11:36 you know the whole Bible can instruct us that God calls it the Living Word and in these last days we are tempted to turn to false idols we are tempted to turn to false gods is a sports team not an idol if it’s more important in your heart than God is a Hollywood movie or franchise of movies more important if it’s in your heart above God is a school
11:59 or even a peer group more important if it’s in your heart higher than God is work or a job title or job status more important if it’s in your heart higher than God you know God knows the heart and so he knows the idols that you have in your life and if you are unwilling to wipe those idols out
12:25 and to be zealous for God then you are falling short of what he’s called you to do he’s called us to be a zealous people and there’s actual scripture on what God wants us to do that we’ll get to Lord willing in the next episode but just for now for time’s sake I want you to think about this idea of what have you put in your life ahead of God because it pleased God for Jehu to go in
12:52 and wipe out all these false prophets of Baal it pleased God to test the Rechabites and to see their faithfulness in abstaining from the thing that they were abstaining from for the glory of God that pleased God
13:04 do we have a testimony that pleases God do people look at us and say you know what they don’t get yoked up in the world right that would please God that would be an example of God’s holiness shown through our lives we call ourselves Christian
13:20 we are to be Christ like and if we are to be Christ like that we are to be set apart or different amen we are to be like our Lord you know the Bible tells us Jesus tells us that the servant is not greater than his master so we accept X we expect exceptions in our lives we expect God to just understand this is how it is and so what the crowd does when in fact we need to be on fire for God
13:47 and not expect any kind of exception but to live in a way that destroys the idols in our lives and when we do that we will show godly zeal and when we do that we will please the Lord and when we do that we will be a witness to others that living for God is much different than living for the world
14:05 I thank you so much for listening I wish I had more time to dive in here I got a lot to say but I thank you for listening I urge you to tune in next time as we look at more godly zeal examples
14:15 thank you take care God bless and Amen