Spiritual Priorities
Stephen Elliott · Tidal Church Moncton · October 9, 2022
Stephen Elliott shares three spiritual goals for every Christ follower and for the church: a pure heart, the power of the Holy Spirit, and a passion for God and lost people. He draws on Colossians and stories of Moody and Finney.
Topics: Holy Spirit, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] Well, it is my privilege this morning to welcome our special speaker. Now he's a special speaker. It's a treat. I'd like to introduce them though. So you have some context, names Reverend Stephen Elliott. And he began his pastoral ministry way back in 1983 in a suburb of Ottawa, and he started out with a congregation of his wife and two people. Okay, this church plant. After 22 years of ministry, the church had around 1300 people and was a second largest in the denomination, and God had done some really amazing things there. Dr. Elliott, actually, Reverend Elliott felt called to become Dr. Elliott and go to Asbury Seminary so that he became could become a teacher of future pastors. And that's just what he does now at Kingswood University in Sussex.
[0:55] He is the director of pastoral ministry and church planting. And then five years ago, he got a tap on the shoulder to take the leadership for our national church. He's our national superintendent now. Now, someone that has a big position sometimes gets a big head. Not Dr. Elliott. He has a warm pastoral heart with a lot of wisdom to share. In fact, I think you'll enjoy so much what you've heard that you'll want to get a couple of his books on the way out. Signs and Wonders book is perhaps the best book I've ever read on the miraculous in the Christian life, combining balance with power. I highly recommend you grab one of those will not be enough, and this latest book is Next Level Church.
[1:43] So let's welcome Stephen. Thank you for coming to share with us today. Now, I suspect all of us in the room, we have some type of goals, hopes, aspirations, dreams, things that we'd love to see accomplished. For instance, if you're a mum or dad, undoubtedly one of the goals that you have in this world is to see your kids grow and be healthy and happy, get well educated, maybe someday find a great spouse, give you grandkids, perhaps someday. We've all got some goals and things that are in the back of our mind. If you're a student and you're here, one of your goals is to get through school as quickly as possible and find a great job. If you're an old person like me, one of the goals that you have in life is to make sure you've got enough money for retirement and to be able to look after our elderly family members and their retirement years as well.
[2:40] And if you're a business leader, you're here, undoubtedly you've got some goals as well, some goals to make sure that your company remains relevant, your products are the types of things that people want, it's a good environment to go to, that you enjoy going there, and that you're profitable. Goals, aspirations, hopes, and dreams. Sometimes they're just in your head. Sometimes they're written down. You say, why in the world are you talking to us about this kind of stuff? Because over the last little while I have been doing a lot of thinking and praying about goals and priorities, not just in the physical realm but in the spiritual realm. What are the goals that I need to have as a Christ follower? And what goals should we have as a denomination?
[3:29] Your goal setting is not inconsistent with Scripture. The Apostle Paul said, the book of 2 Corinthians, he says, we make it our goal to please God, whether in the body or away from the body, because we've all got to stand before God in judgment. And so goal setting is not inconsistent. It's actually very consistent with the Word of God. And so over the last, I've been doing a ton of praying and thinking, where are the spiritual goals that I, as a Christ follower, need to be adopting? These are the things that I'm actively pursuing. And what about for denomination? I feel like the Lord has laid three particular goals on my heart and mind for me as a Christ follower and for us as a denomination in Canada, and the first is this: it's a pursuit of pure hearts.
[4:23] We know that the opposite of purity is something that's contaminated, something that's dirty, something that's been stained in some way. And the more something is stained or there's something wrong with it, we know the less valuable or the less useful it is. That Ivory soap thing that's up there. We know that purity is not an all or nothing. Those of you who are older will recognize the slogan Ivory soap: 99.44% pure. Not 100%, but pretty close. And just out of interest, I thought I'm gonna look up when that slogan first came out. Anybody want to hazard a guess with the first time that Ivory soap used that slogan, 99.44% pure? You wouldn't want to hazard a guess?
[5:10] Right, 1896. It's been around that long. There's degrees of purity. A little while ago, Helen and I had a company come into our house and we were anxious to know what the quality of the water is that comes out of our tap. And so we brought in a person that came in, they did their investigation. It was actually fascinating to watch what they were doing, and they put the chemicals in and all that kind of stuff, and after a long drawn-out process, the person that did the evaluation of the water out of our tap said this to me, he says, I want you to know that of all the houses that I've evaluated the water coming out of their taps, your tap water has got more sediment in it than any other tap that I've ever investigated.
[5:57] And yet you hold up the glass of water, you look at the water coming out of the tap, and it looks really clean. It looks really good. But on closer examination, it's not. And the more something is defiled or dirty or impure, the less helpful, the less attractive, the less we want to have it around. For instance, if you had somebody come and put some water in your gas tank, and all of a sudden your gas tank has got gas and water, or you drive a diesel and somebody put some sand into your diesel tank. You know what that would do to your engine. If you saw a bride standing up here this morning, and she's got a beautiful white dress, but right there, as she was getting out of the car and going into her wedding, she kind of rubbed it against the car and she got a smudge of grease right there.
[6:56] 99% of her dress is beautiful, pure white. But where do your eyes go? It would go immediately to that smudge. Or you buy a loaf of bread, white bread or brown bread or whatever type of bread that you like, and you get it home and it's all soft and ready deep, but you notice the one end of the bread has got green mold growing on it. It'll and it kind of becomes off-putting. You know, I'm not sure how much of this bread I actually want to eat. And King David understood this. He knew that there was something intrinsically valuable about having a heart that was right, and he cried out to God. He says, "Oh God, create in me a pure heart."
[7:44] Now, I want to be really clear this morning. I'm not talking to non-Christians. I'm talking to us as the church of Jesus Christ. You can be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, your name can be written in the Lamb's Book of Life, if you die, you're going to heaven. But that does not mean that your heart is pure. And if you have any doubts about that, read the book of Colossians. The opening verse in the book of Colossians says this: "To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae." Who's he writing to? "Holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae." But then you come into chapter 3, and as he's talking to these Christians in Colossae, he makes a list of the types of things that they're involved in, and I'm going to read some of the list that he said to them. He said, "Amongst you there's things like anger and slander and filthy language and lying and sexual immorality and greed and lust."
[8:45] You go, "Wait a sec. Who is he writing to?" And there's sexual immorality, and there's lying, and there's cheating, and all this bad stuff going on. Who is he writing to? "To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae." You can be a Christ follower and the condition of your heart not be right. Now, to be really clear this morning, it is possible to have a pure heart. Jesus said so. He said, "Blessed are the pure in heart." And He made a promise way back in the Old Testament where He said, "I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." But He didn't stop there. The very next verse says this: "And I will cleanse you from all of your impurities."
[9:39] It is possible to have a clean heart, but there's a responsibility that you and I have towards the clean heart, and then there's responsibility that God takes on. Our responsibility, Scripture says, "Purify yourself from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting the holiness of reverence for God. Purify yourself from everything that contaminates body and spirit." There's some things in our lives, there's some attitudes and actions, that we know are not helpful. There's some things that we say, there's places that we go, there's some things that we involve ourselves in, and Scripture says you need to purify yourselves. God will not purify yourself from something.
[10:26] You are fully capable of purifying yourself from. But inevitably we run up against those things in our life that we know we cannot purify ourselves from, and that's when God steps in. And I love this verse. "God purified their hearts by faith." "May the God of peace sanctify you, purify you through and through." God says, "You clean up what you can clean up, and then rely on Me to do the rest." The analogy that works best for me is the bent of a tree.
[11:15] That tree that's up on the screen right there, that's the tree that's right in front of the chapel at Kingswood University. I live in the house right beside that. I drive by that tree every day, and it bothers my wife to no end. She's like, "Why didn't they stake that thing down properly?" And it's very obvious which way the prevailing wind is going. It's very obvious. The wind is going that way. And so if that tree is going to fall, it's clearly going to fall this way. It's not going to fall this way, not gonna fall that way. It's not gonna fall this way. If it's going to fall, it's going to fall this way. To me, that aptly describes the condition of my heart. Every one of us was born with a sinful nature. "In sin did my mother conceive me." Paul says that which I know I shouldn't be doing, I just keep doing it, and the things that I know I should be doing, oh, they're so difficult. I've got this inclination towards what's wrong.
[12:12] It's my sin nature. And I'm here to tell you God has an amazing ability to take the bent of a tree, our sin nature, and to straighten it up. Now, I have no problem standing before you and telling you I know there are times in my life where the bent to sin in me is gone, and I can also say I know there are times when in my own life where the bent to sin is very much alive and well. The first time I ever heard anybody speak on this issue of our sin nature and God wanting us to have pure hearts was way back in the very beginning of my career, when I was working in industry. I worked for a company that made heavy mining equipment.
[13:04] And I was working in the office on one Monday, and there's been a bunch of things have been happening. But our pastor at our church had been preaching a whole series of messages on God's purifying influence in the heart, and I remember, oh, I remember sitting in the service and going, "Oh boy, that's exactly what I need. I know I'm a Christian. I know if I die, I'm going to heaven. I know my name's written in the Lamb's Book of Life. I know I've asked God for forgiveness. I've done all that kind of stuff. But I sense there's still this inclination to do what's wrong." And that Sunday when he gave an invitation, he says, "Who here says, 'I need God to purify my heart'?" I went forward. And I prayed, and I asked God to do for me what I can't do for myself, to purify my heart, and I asked by faith.
[13:53] And I went to work on that Monday and in the office, and one of the foremen that worked out in the shop, he wasn't my boss. We weren't bosses to each other. We were peers. And he came in, and he had some beef, he was bonded over something, and he was just ragging and he's chewing me out over something. And he's dead, so I can tell you what his name is. You'll never meet him. His name was Wes. And I said, "It's okay, Wes. It's all right, we'll get this thing figured out." And he stormed out of there, and I remember sitting at my desk, and I remember going, "Well, that was weird." Because normally I would have given him a piece of my mind. I would have told him exactly what I thought about him and his mother and her army boots. I mean, I just know that would have been my normal response.
[14:39] And yet I responded with gentleness, and I'm sitting at my desk going, "That's weird," and just like that, God said, "Yesterday at church, you asked Me to purify your heart." Whoo! A number of years later, I'm now pastoring, as Pastor Nathan said, and pastoring in Ottawa. I'm at a McDonald's on Bronson Avenue, if anybody happens to know where that is, and I'm having lunch with somebody, and the person's talking with me. Have you ever had a conversation where people are talking at you? You're not really listening. He's, "Yeah." And I wasn't really listening, and I said to my friend that was chatting at me, I said, I said, "Do you mind if we stop talking for a few minutes?"
[15:29] He said, "Yeah, I guess so." I said, "I've got some really stinky attitudes right now, and there's some stuff going on in my life that is just not honoring to God. This sin nature is alive and well within me, and I need to do some praying." And right there at McDonald's, I started praying. I bum ass. Oh God. This inclination towards what's wrong is so alive within me. God, would You please correct the sin nature within me and give me a pure heart. First priority that I believe God is asking of me as a Christ follower.
[16:14] And the first thing that I believe He's asking of us as a denomination is that we would make it a priority to be going after pure hearts. But there's a second one. And the second priority is this: power. And by power I'm not talking about position and I'm not talking about physical strength. I'm talking about power for effective service. I find it really, really interesting that the last two sentences Jesus ever said to His disciples before He was taken to heaven. He said these things just before He went to heaven. He looked at His disciples and He said, "Stay in Jerusalem until you've been clothed with power from on high." And in Acts, He said, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you."
[17:10] Jesus knew that the mission of the church was so massive that these disciples dare not attempt the mission of the church without the empowering presence of God's Holy Spirit in them and with them. When my son was young, my son was very skillful with remote control cars. And I remember watching him, and he would have his little remote control or thing in his hands and the cars, and he would just like, it was really amazing to watch him go. How fast were these things! It's so skillful, but here's something I noticed. What happens when the battery in the remote control or in the car begins to run down?
[18:00] Instead of that car from like that, this is what the car does, and or drones, I think drones are the coolest thing that's been invented like the last 50 years. There's a little propellers to go up with the video cameras, and you know that they've got competitions where they fly them these days through all kinds of mazes and things. I think drones are made. What happens with the drone when the batteries are weak? Or the one that every one of us can identify with, what happens to your laptop when the batteries get weak and you get the blue screen of death? There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the laptop.
[18:48] It's designed to do things. It's got a purpose. But it cannot fulfill the purpose when the batteries are weak. Neither can the drone, and neither can the remote control car. And I'm here to tell you that is an apt description of the Church of Jesus Christ. There is nothing wrong with the mission of the church. There's nothing wrong with our message. There's nothing wrong with the way that we're designed. But I'm here to tell you, we have been getting incredibly meager results because we lack the presence of God's Holy Spirit in us individually and in our work collectively. The greater the mission, the greater the need for God's Holy Spirit.
[19:41] Some of you would recognize the name D.L. Moody, evangelist, pastor from the 1800s. He had the largest church in North America at the time, in Chicago. Thousands of people come to hear D.L. Moody preach, and one Sunday after he had finished preaching, he came down front like pastors often do. We're talking with people, and as he was talking with people down front, and this thousands of people at this church, he noticed these two little old ladies standing off to the side. And eventually he engaged in conversation and thanked them for being there, and one of the little old ladies said to him, says, "Dr. Moody, we're praying for you." And he said, "Thank you," like pastors would do. And then Moody said to these ladies, he said, "Are you praying for the congregation, too?"
[20:28] And these ladies said, "No. We're praying for you because you don't have the power of God's Holy Spirit in your life." Largest church in North America, people getting saved, people being baptized. And by his own admission, he was a little bit offended at this. Ladies, I don't have the power of God in my life? But I'm going to read you word for word what he said happened after that encounter. And this is what he said. "There came a great hunger in my soul. I did not know what it was, and I began to cry out to God as never before. I felt I did not want to live if I could not have this power for service.
[21:17] Well, one day in the city of New York, what a day! I cannot describe it. I seldom even refer to it. It's almost too sacred an experience for me to name. Paul had an experience that he never spoke of for 14 years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different. I did not present any new truth, yet now hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world." What happened? He had an experience with the Holy Spirit.
[22:02] A few years ago, I was in Kansas City at Adam Hamilton's church, a big mega church. And Adam Hamilton was talking to a few of us pastors that were there, and he told us his story himself. Huge church. It was Christmas Eve. They had six Christmas Eve services planned that evening. On his way to the church for the Christmas Eve services, he felt like God spoke to him in the car. "Adam, you didn't pray very much for the services tonight, did you?" And Adam told us, he said, "I'd been so busy with sermon preparation and making sure all the music was right, the advertising, ushers, agreed, it's the lights and all the stuff." He said, "I was so busy getting ready for the Christmas Eve services." He said, "I had neglected to actually even pray for the presence of God in our midst."
[23:00] So when he got to church, he began going up and down the aisles just like this, praying for the pews and the seats and for the people that would come. The first service was on. His wife is sitting up front. He says, "We had the first Christmas Eve service of the six," and he says, "Everything was fine. Just a fine service, nice comments afterwards. Fine. Second service, same thing. Third service, exactly the same thing. It's fine. If people like the service." Then he said, at the end of the third service, he said, "I felt like God spoke to me again." He said God said to me, "Adam, I let you preach the first three sermons on your own.
[23:50] Now I'm going to show you what it's like when I show up." He said at the beginning of the fourth service, the atmosphere in the room was entirely different. People's engagement with the worship. He said during the preaching of the word you could hear a pin drop. He said the presence of God just fell into our midst. And the same for the fifth service and the same for the sixth service. But in the sixth service, his wife came back. She was in the first service. His wife was back in the sixth service. On the car ride going home that evening, this is what his wife said to him. "Adam, when did you change the sermon?"
[24:41] He said, "I didn't. It's the exact same sermon that I preached in the first service that I preached in the sixth service." She says, "No, it wasn't. That was an entirely different sermon." When the Apostle Paul was asked, "How do you account for these amazing stories of what God's doing and advancing Christianity around the Seaboard of the Mediterranean? How do you account for this?" The Apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 15, he says, "I will not dare to speak of anything except what God has done through me, through signs and wonders, in miracles, through the power of God's Holy Spirit."
[25:28] I'm reading a book at the house right now. It's called Supernatural and the Circuit Riders. It's an amazing book. I talk about inspirational. I can only read like five or six pages at a time, and I have to set it down because it's so inspiring to me about what happens when God shows up in power. I'm talking about visions and dreams and words of knowledge and prophecies and healings and exorcisms and all kinds of things of that nature when God shows up in power. And these circuit riders that were going out on circuit riding like four or 500 miles and planting churches all through New England states and up into Canada and places. These amazing stories that God would show up in power. And people would walk into the services, and the music hadn't even started, and people would immediately begin to weep because the presence of God was so heavy in the place.
[26:20] The farmers would be out in the fields, and they weren't even in the church services, but it was like the Holy Spirit domed in their area. And the presence of God would fall on them. The first thing I believe God's asked of me as an individual Christian is to be pursuing a pure heart. But second of all is the pursuit of the power of God's Holy Spirit, because the greater the mission, like Love Atlantic, and we're going out and representing Jesus, how we need the Spirit of God to empower those acts of ministry. They'll be effective in reaching the hearts of people and bringing them to Christ.
[27:23] But I said there were three priorities. The first one is a heart that's pure, because I don't care how much power you've got. I don't care how much you can do. If you can't walk straight when you're finished, that's the most important. Heart purity is most important. Second is power. But the third is passion. I'm a Canadian, like I suspect almost everybody in this room is. We Canadians are pretty bland. We're pretty vanilla. We don't get too worked up about hardly anything, not even politics. The only thing we get worked up about is our hockey games. When I got married, I was playing six games of hockey a week.
[28:10] By the way, that's not an endorsement for doing that. If you're getting married, that was not a smart thing to do. We get pretty wound up about things like hockey games and things like that, but the rest of life, we're just like, mmm. When my wife got pregnant first, you know, we've got three kids. She said, "This was your action, Steve, this little... Okay, we're pregnant." There has to be some place between bland indifference and crazy enthusiasm that's like nuts. There's got to be some place in between where there is a passion for God, a passion for His Word, a passion for prayer, a passion for the lost, a passion for worship.
[29:04] Just like purity and just like power, passion is quantitative. You can have more or you can have less. "No greater love hath any man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." You've been forgiven little, you love little. God has poured out His love into our hearts. You've already heard that I teach at Kingswood. I love our students. Good grief, I love our students. We got students there from Africa. We got students here from Haiti and Mexico and Hong Kong and China. Typically, we've got students from about 14 different denominations. We got, you know, Wesleyans and Baptists and Pentecostals and Nazarenes and Salvation. I love being in the classroom teaching. I love the dialogue. I love our students.
[29:55] And I'm here to tell you, they've got some passions. They're pretty amped up about things like the sex trade, about child labor. They want to see wells drilled and make sure that people are being well looked after, help people escape out of abusive situations. But my question is this: Do they have the power of God to make it happen? Shin with the power and the purity, passion. Finney, who is also from the 1800s. If you know anything about the revival services that have happened up the east coast of the United States, and Asbury, and the Welsh revivals, in the Wesley revivals, and the Horner revivals in Ontario, and out West, if you know anything about the great revivals of the past, almost without exception, when you dig into them, the people that were leading the charge had an encounter with God's Holy Spirit that lit a fire within them.
[31:04] And Finney said these words about his encounter with the Holy Spirit. He said this: "The Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression like waves of electricity going through and through me. Indeed, it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love. I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me like immense wings." Passion. I don't know if this is a guy thing or not, but it's true for me. I hate shopping. My wife loves to shop. I like to go in and get it and get out.
[31:50] My wife likes to browse. And look at all this, has got flowers on it. This is gold. This has got this, and this has got this. We were at Walmart a while ago, and Helen was doing her thing, and I was doing my thing. I just stood in one spot and waited for her. And I'm standing in Walmart, and I have no idea how many people were in Walmart. Let's say there was a hundred. I have no idea how many, let's say there was a hundred people, and I'm standing there and I'm looking at these people shopping in Walmart, and I'm telling you, this is exactly the thought that went through my mind. Scripture says, "Broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are on it, and narrow is the road that leads to life, and few find it."
[32:46] And I'm standing there and I'm looking at these shoppers in Walmart, and the tears began to run down my cheek, and I'm thinking, "If that verse is true for this room, it means most of the people I'm looking at are going to a lost eternity forever and ever and ever and ever." And I'm just standing in Walmart, and tears are streaming on my face, and I'm saying, "By gum, what am I going to do about that?" God has asked me as a Christ follower to go after a pure heart and go after the power of God's Holy Spirit and a passion that comes from God to love the Lord my God with all my heart and all my soul and all my might, and love my neighbor as myself.
[33:35] And I don't know who this message is for. I spoke with Pastor Nathan and the staff here, and I had another sermon already to go, and I wrote and I called them midweek. And I said, "I've got the wrong sermon. This is what we're supposed to be sharing today." What are your spiritual goals? We got goals in all kinds of other areas of life. Can we get some spiritual goals that honor God? Is there anybody else in the room that, as you look at that list up there, of your heart, you go, "That's me. Boy, that sinful nature's alive and well. I can feel the inclination away from God. It comes real easy for me to fall into sin."
[34:21] And those Colossian people, holy, faithful brothers in Christ, but man alive, they were involved in all kinds of stuff. "God, that's honorary God. I need You to purify my heart and correct that bent to sin." It's not a once and for all. You're not going to have to go to God many times to ask Him to purify your heart. But I'm telling you, Jesus says it's achievable: "Blessed are the pure in heart." And what kind of results are you getting for your ministry service? You teach Sunday school class, you help out with youth, you're involved in children's this year, involved in the worship team, you're an usher, agreed, or you're doing whatever you're doing. But are the results we're getting indicating that the battery of God's Holy Spirit within us is really low?
[35:13] And we need a touch of God's Holy Spirit. Can you honestly say there's a passion within you for something other than hockey that would excite you and get you out of bed in the morning, that will cause us to sacrifice and to give and to do, is motivated by a love for God and motivated by the lostness of people, a love for God, His Word, for worship, for prayer, for the lost people? God, as we bow before You right now, You've just been drilling these three things into me.
[35:59] These are the things that, as a Christ follower, I need to be going after full intensity. God, those times where I'm conscious that the sin nature is alive within me, oh God, purify my heart. I ask by faith. I'll do my part. I'll purify myself from the things I'm capable of purifying. But there's things, God, I can't beat, and I need Your purifying influence in me. And I need to touch the power of God in my life, that the results of what I do in ministry to advance Your glory and Kingdom would make all of our creativity and all of our things of excellence just pale in comparison, because what You can accomplish in a moment is way more than we could do with a thousand years of our best efforts.
[37:03] And the big command of all, to love You wholeheartedly. There's no competing love, to love God with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength. God, that You would be the object of my greatest affection, that would also spill over into the way that I deal with people that are far from God, and I would be a good representative for You. Some combination of these, Lord, would You make these priorities true of every person in this room and online, that we would pursue them? Because these are the types of priorities that are honoring and pleasing in Your sight, I believe.
[37:52] And all God's people said,