Crazy Love
Text: Isaiah 62:1-2a - "I will not keep silent because of Zion, and I will not keep still because of Jerusalem until her righteousness shines like a bright light, and her salvation like a flaming torch. Nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory."
Introduction: I want to talk about "passion" here for a minute. Stop and think about that word "passion." What comes to mind? What do you think about? Hollywood displays passion as an extreme intimacy between two individuals usually carried out in a physical way. When I think about passion, I think about more than just a simple love relationship. Love is the key ingredient for passion but it doesn’t end there. Love is actually the propellant that ignites true passion.
When I think about passion, my mind initiates thoughts of intensity and excitement. I think about a combination of physical, mental & emotional involvement. Webster associates passion with an eager desire, a zeal, an extreme agitation. You ever felt any of that before? Know what I’m talking about?
True passion is a God-thing! God designed the human soul to be passionate, excited, fiery, if you will. Passion is a compelling emotion - a strong, intense desire for something. Passion is a powerful catalyst. It often acts like a magnet - attracting its keeper to its source. The hunger for passion is universal.
People of passion tend to get things done - they tend to be able to accomplish great undertakings. We are born with passion tendancies but to be a person of passion requires grooming this trait. Passion involves commitment. The more you commit to that which you have a passion for the more passion you receive in return - that’s how it is with God. The more you give, the more He gives. You will never outgive God!
Passion overflows boundaries. It is not usually logical or even approopriate. Passion is what happens when we let go of control. In one sense, such as with God, this is a fantastic thing. But, uncontrolled passion in a wrong setting with the wrong person provides wrong results.
I want to look at passion from a God-standpoint. God wants you to let go. You wants you to turn it over to Him and allow Him to take complete control. I’m talking now about "extreme passion" - crazy love, if you will. It’s this crazy love that propels you to the cutting edge. It’s this crazy love that allows God to be God and to be in control so we can witness a new and extremely powerful move of God in this "now generation." It is for now!
1. Crazy Love is a personal experience.
A. Crazy love is experiential - get into an intimate relationship with God & you will begin to experience it.
1. It is a pleasure in the soul that God releases - it washes over you & delivers an unexplainable inner pleasure/peace.
2. When it happens, you feel the face of God smiling down on you.
3. A certain spiritual intensity washes over you that disrupts your whole life.
4. I’m not talking about some kind of shallow sentimentalism - I’m talking about a true experience.
5. This is that "first love" relationship Jesus spoke of in Revelation.
B. Crazy love involves an intense passion or desire for Jesus and His eternal purposes - we’re good at loving Jesus but find it a little too much to fulfill His purpose & plan - reaching the world.
1. We must be consumed by this.
2. We are living in a critical moment in God’s timetable right now.
3. God is imparting divine passion unto those who will receive it -
**Caution: this will make you appear fanatical to most out there!
C. We are in the midst of a revival, a surge, if you will, of intimate encounters with God.
1. As a result, more and more true believers are going to be filled with an extravagant fervancy.
2. Isaiah prophesied this event and its results: "I will not keep silent because of Zion, and I will not keep still because of Jerusalem until her righteousness shines like a bright light, and her salvation like a flaming torch. Nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory." (62:1-2a).
3. According to this prophesy,
a. God is going to give out enlarged hearts;
b. These will overflow with extreme passion resulting in worldwide witness;
c. The key lies within those who experience and practice this crazy love.
Application: God isn’t going to give up on you until a new standard of Christianity emerges out of you and reflects from you. He intends to demonstrate a blazing righteousness through you that will go forth like a nuclear explosion - a chain reaction - a supernova revelation of His glory in all its brilliance shining forth out of you. This crazy love experience is a passionate, holy zeal that violently consumes you with an unparalleled inner fire. This is an internal, supernatural fire, a spirit of burning that flows within you then out of you unhindered.
2. Crazy Love is a lifestyle.
A. Paul stands before King Agrippa - a man with the power to spare him or do away with him - and all he can do is tell him about Jesus.
1. It’s because it’s burning inside - he can’t help it - it’s gotta come out - turns a mild-mannered Clark Kent into a spiritual superman!
2. The common man response to a believer overcome by crazy love is seen in the court’s response: "You’re out of your mind, Paul! Too much study is driving you mad!" (Ac 26:24).
3. True revival comes out of something extreme - extreme is going beyond the ordinary - there are plenty of ordinary revivals trying to happen today - few extraordinary, though.
B. Modern culture shuns Christianity because of the lack of extreme.
1. I’m not talking about overt foolishness.
2. I’m talking about Christians who are totally enthralled with who Jesus is!
Application: Literary giant, George Bernard Shaw once said"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man." Paul made a worldwide impact because Paul determined to be unreasonable - out of the box! Reasonable people try to fit in; unreasonable people try to get other people to fit into God’s plan. All real progress depends upon the crazy lover.
3. Crazy Love is a propellant.
A. Crazy love propells (fuels) churches and believers from almost to altogether.
B. Today’s church has given us a strain of Christianity that would better be called "almost Christianity."
1. It masquerades itself as genuine Christianity.
2. What is now "normal" in the Christian realm is far from what the early church recognized as normal.
3. Today’s church needs some people overflowing with crazy love, fanatics if you will, to invade and reintroduce normal.
4. God is calling His church to go from nominal to phenominal!
Illustration: Almost Christianity is equivalent to almost doctor - How many of you would entrust your child to a doctor who almost passed his final medical exam? Almost is never good enough! The fuel of crazy love moves us from almost to altogether.
C. Crazy love encourages you to speak freely and openly about God.
D. Crazy love motivates you to stand up and challenge the institution, the convention, the system, the establishment.
E. Crazy love allows you to stand and flow in the freedom of the Spirit.
Application: The nominal church of today can be the phenominal church of tomorrow if God’s people will allow themsleves to inundated with crazy love. The church must rise up. It is time we move on from being almost to being altogether.
Conclusion: Crazy love is what we desperately need in our lives and in our churches. It’s that crazy love experience, crazy love empowering that will take us to that place where we can cry out with Isaiah the prophet:
"I will not keep silent because of Zion, and I will not keep still because of Jerusalem until her righteousness shines like a bright light, and her salvation like a flaming torch. Nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory."
Out of this will spring forth a refreshing not only within the church but widespread across our land. Consider what the prophet continues to say:
"You will be a glorious crown in the LORD’s hand, and a royal diadem in the palm of your God. You will no longer be called Deserted, and your land will not be called Desolate; instead, you will be called My Delight is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land will be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you."
The church needs this experience. America needs the church to have this experience. You need this experience. So, how does it happen?
1. Crazy love begins when people encounter God.
2. Crazy love is fed through a committed lifestyle.
3. Crazy love grows when we become willing to go out on a limb.
Extreme passion - crazy love - one and the same! To reach this now generation, the church must be overcome by crazy love.
You can hear this sermon and others by going to our website at: www.corministry.com.
