In The Wilderness: The Cleanse

A guilt offering, but do not count the initial period of consecration because it became defiled. This is the law of the Nazarite. On the day his time of consecration is completed, he is to be brought to the entrance to the tent of meeting. He is to present an offering to the Lord of one unblemished year old male lamb, one unblemished year old female lamb as a sin offering, one unblemished ram as a fellowship offering, along with their grain offerings and drink offerings, and a basket of unleavened cakes made from fine flour mixed with oil and unleavened wafers coated with oil. The priest is to present these before the Lord and to sacrifice the Nazarite sin offering and burnt offering. He will offer the ram as a worship of Christ to the lord together with a basket of unleavened bread. Then the priest will offer the accompanying grain offering and sin offering. The Nazarite is to shave his consecrated head at the entrance to the tent of meeting, take the hair from his head, and put it on the fire under the fellowship sacrifice. The priest is to take the boiled shoulder from the ram, one unleavened cake from the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and put them into the hands of the Nazarite after he has shaved his consecrated head. The priest is to present them as a presentation offering before the Lord for the priest in addition to the present and the thigh of the contribution. After that, the Nazarite may drink wine. These are the instructions about the Nazarite who vows his offering to the Lord for his consecration in addition to whatever else he can afford. He must keep whatever vow he makes in keeping with the instructions for his consecration. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. — Numbers 6:1-21

Good job everybody. Good job with all that reading. Yes, the book of Numbers said nobody, right? Said nobody. I joked last week starting the sermon series that part of my plan for making our church into a megachurch this year was preaching the book of Numbers. You all laughed just like you did now because you know this is a tough book. It's filled with a lot of really difficult passages and this is one that kills people's Bible reading plans and desires to go all the way through the Bible in a year. It's a lot of hard stuff and a lot of times people read things and they're like, I don't know what to do with what I just read. Feels very foreign to us. And yet as I said last week, this book could not be more relevant to us.

Looking again at the title, the title of this book in Hebrew actually comes from the first three words in Hebrew, which are "in the wilderness." And this is a book about people living, trying to trust God as we live between the promises God has made to us and the fulfillment of those promises. And that's very relevant to us.

So today's passage is yet one of those other ones that may feel foreign and irrelevant. These rules designate a special type of devotion among the ancient Israelites called the Nazarite. But I want to help you enter into this today. And the whole idea of this Nazarite vow—this person who makes this vow of dedication—is really very similar to our modern idea of a cleanse.

The Modern Cleanse

Now cleanses are all the rage right now. Maybe after Christmas, you're putting up all your stuff and you realize how cluttered and full your house is of junk. And so a lot of people do a house cleanse. They'll follow the guidelines to make sure they have clean surfaces. They want clean lines. They want everything to look neat again, right?

Maybe you're thinking about your health and you want to do a food cleanse. So there's things like Whole30, where for thirty days you eat only whole non-processed foods. You're trying to get toxins out of your system, or you do a juice cleanse, which is to cleanse your body of all the stuff that you've put in. And you're like, I need to kind of start over.

Or maybe you think about this with a Netflix cleanse. You realize you come home every night and you do the same thing with Netflix and you need to take a break. You need to start over. So you unplug for a time and figure out something to do with your boredom in the evening.

Or maybe it's a relationship cleanse. People are advocating to get rid of draining or toxic or negative people in your life. Cut off those relationships. Or even we're doing this culturally, right? We're in a cancel culture. We cut off people who are toxic and draining and bad.

So cleansing is all the rage. And I want you to think about this: what is the heart of a cleanse? At the heart of a cleanse is a desire to remove things that are toxic and destructive and to be pure, to be clean, really to be whole.

And there's a sense in which looking at this passage this morning, we're looking at the Nazarite vow as nothing more than what we could call the Nazarite cleanse. Now, what's funny about this is we live in a time period where everybody seems to be allergic to this one Bible word: holy. Case in point, how many of you made a vow this year in terms of your resolution to be more holy in 2023? Same as the first service, right? Nobody wants to be holy. I mean, we think of holy as holier than thou, somebody who thinks they're better than you, somebody who looks down on you, somebody who makes you feel bad about yourself. We live in an egalitarian culture where we don't like the idea of somebody being more holy than us. And so that's what creates some cultural distance reading this book, isn't it?

We read in the book of Numbers that describes people who are set apart by God and therefore have to be purified for that. For example, the priests. The priest's job was to represent the people before God when going into the temple and making sacrifices on behalf of the people, and the priest had to be purified for that act. We read in the book of Numbers about these Levites, and they were charged with carrying and transporting all the aspects, all the parts of the tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, all the pieces, and they had to be purified for that act. The same thing if we think about the prophets later in the Bible. These are people who represent the people before God. The priests represent God before the people. And so the prophets too, they have to be purified. This idea of purification, holiness—we're like, no, not really interested in this. And yet, I know y'all are smart people. I know we can get this because the idea in the Bible of holiness with an H is very closely connected to the idea of wholeness with a W. And it's not just because they sound the same. It's because they actually have similar tones of the same meaning.

The Nazarite Vow

The Nazarite vow, this Nazarite cleanse, is an ancient version of this cleanse. It's about setting yourself apart for special devotion to the Lord. Now the word Nazarite, again, a little Hebrew for you this morning, is based on the Hebrew word Nazir—N Z R. If you're taking notes: Nazir. And it means a person who's set apart. And this is literally how verse one of this passage goes. It reads something like this: "Let's just say there's a man or a woman who makes a special vow of dedication, who wants to take the vow of the Nazir, who wants to hazier himself or herself to the Lord."

So Nazir is the noun form, and hazier—H Z R—is the verb form. That means to dedicate yourself, to set yourself apart for a season unto another. So a Nazir would hazier himself or herself to the Lord for some period of time. Isn't that the same thing as holy? No, it's not. The word in Hebrew for holy is QDSH. QDSH is something only God does. God is the one who makes holy, but a person can be a Nazir who haziers himself or herself, sets themselves apart in an act of devotion, in a relationship of devotion to God. These are how these work together.

In fact, that word Nazir appears one other place in the Torah, in the first five books of the Bible. It actually appears describing the clothing of the high priest. The high priest has a crown or a turban on his head that says NZR. And it's not Nazir, it's Nezir. And it means "I belong to Yahweh." And it was a symbol like, man, this person is set apart, is dedicated to Yahweh. And Nazir is someone who sets themselves apart to this special cleanse for God. In other words, a Nazir is someone who's actually taking on the lifestyle of the high priest of Israel. They have to cleanse themselves to be like the high priest in their diet, in their actions. The high priest had always to be ready. He was always on call like a physician on duty, had to always be ready to go into the holy of holies. And so this is what any man or any woman in Israel is invited to do. You can take on the same Nazir and hazier yourself to the Lord.

The Six Rules of the Cleanse

So what's in this cleanse? There are really six parts to this cleanse. So let's look at these rules.

Lifestyle rule number one: no strong drink, no beer, no wine, but way beyond that, no raisins, right? No vinegar. You read this part, right? You can't even have stuffed grape leaves at a wedding, right? Nothing related to the fruit of the vine can go in your body.

Rule number two: no hair cutting, right? No hair cutting. Let the locks grow long. Now, obviously there's some irony to who's preaching this sermon this morning. One of the most common questions I get in this church—the answer is twice a week. How often do you shave your head? No joke. This is what people ask me.

I couldn't be a Nazarite. Lots of my sons who are very adept at growing long hair—they could be Nazarites.

Rule number three: Don't go near or touch a dead body. Now when you're under the Nazarite vow, think about what this means. You can't bury your parents. You have a child that dies. You cannot bury your child. This is "I am having nothing to do with death."

Other people could do this in Israel—that's not sinful. But there's something about touching a dead body that makes you unclean. Now unclean and sinful are not the same thing. Sinful is something that requires the forgiveness of sins. Unclean just means you're contaminated. So you have to purify yourself before you go into worship because God is pure.

Again, this is just like the high priest. The high priest could not be around death. What is one of God's greatest enemies? We're told three of them in the Bible: sin, Satan, and death. Can't be around death.

Rule number four: If this law is violated, you have to start over. Shave off all the hair of your head no matter how long it's grown. Seven days—offer some sacrifices—and then you start over.

In fact, there's a story in the Old Testament commentary on this passage that describes a woman much later named Queen Helena, who dedicated herself as a Nazarite for seven years. She gets to six years and fifty-one weeks, and someone close to her in her court dies and she's contaminated. She has to shave her head and start all over—another seven years. Just begin again as a Nazarite.

Rule number five: When you're done, offer a sacrifice in the tabernacle. I want you to think about that. Isn't that weird? You've done all this stuff. You've gone without. You've done all these acts, and at the very end of this, you still have to offer a sacrifice? Hold on to that. We'll come back to that.

Rule number six: This is totally voluntary and it's totally temporary. A Nazarite who wishes to make themselves a Nazarite to the Lord chooses if they do this, when they do this, and how long they do this. None of this is required.

Famous Nazarites in Scripture

The Bible has some pretty famous Nazarites. Here's a list:

John the Baptist. Long hair, long beard, crazy diet. You know, it's funny—we think of all the people in the Bible, all the men in the Bible have beards. But there's something about John the Baptist where, looking at him, you're like, "That guy's weird." They knew that. He was a Nazarite.

Samuel. The prophet Samuel is set apart from birth by his mother as a Nazarite.

Paul. The apostle Paul—we read this in the book of Acts—makes a vow to the Lord, a Nazarite vow to the Lord. He goes back to Jerusalem and shaves his head, and that's where he's arrested before he's brought to trial in Rome. That's where they catch him.

Samson. Of course, the most famous one is Samson. And Samson is both the worst of the judges in the book of Judges and probably the worst Nazarite there ever was. That's why it's such a big deal with his hair. Samson's story is all about the long hair and the strength attached to the long hair. But what does he do? He drinks alcohol regularly. He touches dead bodies. He gets honey from the carcass of a lion. This is all about him being a terrible Nazarite.

Why Does This Matter?

I know the question that's circling and forming in the room: who cares? Why do we need to know this?

Actually, I want to help us because I know that it's hard when we read passages like this. The distance between us and the Israelites is pretty far. These people—I want you to think about this—they had no TV. They had no books. They had no laptops to open up in the evening. They had no theater.

So God comes to them in the law and gives His law to them—this is in Exodus and Leviticus. He comes and pronounces His law to them and tells them the law's contents. This tells them what God is like—His character. This is how He is toward you. This is how God wants you to be toward Him.

But in giving them the laws, this is like AM talk radio, right? It's a lot of explanation. And so God, knowing that we are also visual people, doesn't just give them AM talk radio. He gives them TV. And actually, that's what a lot of Leviticus and Numbers is. This is why we feel this weird distance from this. But actually, I want you to understand God is accommodating them. He's giving them these visuals—it's like performance art for them—to see not only what He says of who He is, but in a demonstrable way. This is what I'm like. This is what I'm like. This is what it's like to be My people. This is what I require of you. And God's showing them this.

Last week we saw this in the tabernacle. And I just want you to think, just really briefly, about the tabernacle.

The tabernacle is the big tent of God and it's not outside the camp, it's in the middle of the camp. Last thing you saw before you went into the tent for the evening. First thing you saw when you came out in the morning, bigger than everything else, smoke coming up from it, and everything about the tabernacle told a story. It was like TV. A visual of who God is.

So think about this. It's got a holy place, and then it's got a holy of holies. Tells you about God. It's got this candelabra lampstand. God is light—tells them the story. There's this giant basin called the sea, filled with water and cleansing. There's this table that's got 12 loaves of bread and Israel, it's like, how many tribes are there? Twelve, right? Like, they are in the holy place, in the Holy of Holies, ever before the presence of God. There's the ark of the covenant which has a seat on it that's like a throne. See, God is our king. All these things preached. All these were TV. They'd look at this and go, "Oh yeah, visually, now I remember what God told me this way orally. He's told me this, now I see it." See, TV not radio—performative art celebration.

So what's on TV in Numbers 6? What's on the Nazarite channel? What is God dramatizing or demonstrating for them? It's this: He is showing them what every Israelite could be and can be. He's giving them this vision of what it means to be a new Adam and a new Eve.

The Camp's Design and God's Plan

I want you to think about this. Last week, we looked at the design of the camp. The camp had the tabernacle, the tent of God, the tent of meeting in the middle, and around that were the priests and Levites, and around that were all the 12 tribes and we said, God needs to be in the center. This is what God is about. God is to be in the center.

And what is He doing in this desert? What's He doing in the wilderness? He's recreating Eden 2.0. That's what He's about. He's gonna walk with them. He's gonna be with His people. So what does that mean by extension for every Israelite man and woman? You get the opportunity. You get the chance to be Adam 2.0. To be Eve 2.0.

The Nazarite Rules as Living Pictures

So let's go back through the rules because these are not just weird rules. They all tell us about Adam 2.0 and Eve 2.0.

Listen to this. Lifestyle rule number one: no strong drink. God isn't anti-alcohol. Of course, Jesus changes water into wine—His first miracle. The Passover, we'll look at in a couple of weeks. They had four cups of wine that were part of the Passover celebration. God isn't anti-alcohol, that's not the point.

Remember Adam 2.0, Eve 2.0. What did Adam and Eve eat that they weren't supposed to eat? The fruit of the vine. And Noah was supposed to be Adam 2.0, comes off the ark, what's the first thing he does? He gets drunk on the fruit of the vine. See, God is saying, "No, this is what an Israelite can be. This is what you all have the opportunity, the invitation to be—2.0."

Lifestyle rule number two: no shaving or hair cutting. What did Adam and Eve look like? I don't know, but I know it's natural. Right? No bobs, no clean shaves. In fact, in the Bible, over and over again, hair—long hair is a symbol of blessing. Your hair is your glory and your crown. Shaving of hair was associated with shame. It's common to shave the heads of your enemies as an act of shaming them.

Hair was glory, shaved head was shame. — 2 Samuel 10

So what do I hope to look like in the new heavens, new earth? ZZ Top, baby. Maybe I'll get that later. Adam and Eve 2.0—lots of hair.

Lifestyle rule number three: don't go near, don't touch a dead body. Now this one's easy. You get this, right? Sin came into the world and death through sin. Death was never part of God's plan. Never supposed to be like this. And so, not touching a dead body makes so much sense for the new Adam, the new Eve, right? That has nothing to do with the purposes of God in this world.

So what is all this on the Nazarite channel? The Nazarite was intended to be a living picture, a living demonstration of what God invites all the Israelites to be. Every man, woman, and child. Remember, God says, "You're going to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." God is the only one who can make one holy, but His people can respond to this and consecrate ourselves to Him to become Nazir before the Lord. That's what's on TV in Israel.

Now I want you to think about how this kind of thing would affect a community. Again, remember John the Baptist. Everybody's like, "We know what he is. That's weird." And it tells us, it preaches something to us. I don't know if you've ever seen a nun.

Seen a nun several times in my life and it's always kind of startling. It's like, oh, well, okay. Yeah, I know what she is. I know what she's all about, right? She's taken voluntary vows to dedicate herself to the Lord. And I think that this is what a Nazir would be within Israel. People would bump into this person and be like, oh, I know what he's about. I know what she's about. I know what that is. And remember, I belong to Yahweh. And so I think this would raise the question within Israelites, just normal people: Well, just how dedicated should I be to the Lord? How much should I be devoted to the Lord?

Here's what they learned watching the Nazarite channel. Devotion to Jesus, devotion to God doesn't save. Doesn't save. Did you notice what was needed? I made note of this earlier. Jesus was needed after the fulfillment of the Nazarite vow—a sacrifice. Now, if I were an astronaut, I'd be like, man, I just finished all this stuff and now I've gotta go find a couple of animals without defect. I've gotta make all these vows. I mean, obviously, the making of a vow to the Lord doesn't change anybody. Samson, for example, right? He makes this Nazarite vow. He's a terrible Nazarite. But let's say you even crushed it as a Nazarite. Let's say you were summa cum laude Nazarite. Like you were the bestest Nazarite there just ever was. Even at the end of that, it still needed a sacrifice at the end. This active devotion you've done for the Lord, it still needs cleansing. I mean, isn't that fascinating? The cleanse needs a cleanse. I mean, isn't that weird? No, that's biblical. That's biblical. Let me be really clear: A Nazarite didn't make you saved. It highlights for us even that our best works need the atoning blood of Jesus.

Our Best Works Need Atonement

In the Levitical laws—and we've read this in the passage—people were supposed to bring an animal that wasn't sick or maimed. They were supposed to bring one without defect to the Lord. We read male lamb without defect, female lamb without defect, ram without defect, right? None of these animal sacrifices—this is what we read in the New Testament—none of them made anybody holy, but they were meant to be a picture. You brought your best, the one without defect to the Lord. And offering these up to the Lord was meant to preach to the people: We need not an animal without defect. We need a human without defect as a sacrifice for our sin. We need a person without defect.

You know, Jesus is the only one without defect. His prayer life didn't need atonement. The way He handled the Bible didn't need atonement. His relationships with the opposite sex didn't need atonement. The only way that a person can stand before a holy God—if a sinful person—is if there is a substitute. There is atonement made. There is a one without defect who stands in our place.

You know, if God makes a substitute for sinners, if you're in Christ, the Lamb without defect, Jesus Himself is the one who stands in your place at the cross, who sacrificed for sin in order that all of His goodness, all of His sinless handling of the Word and the relationship with the opposite sex and everything good He's done is credited to you. And God looks at you as if you are Kadosh in Christ, you are without defect because of Jesus. And all of your sin, all of your wrongdoing is put upon Jesus. And that is what killed the Son of God. Our sin for Him. He died in our place.

The fact is that even if a Nazarite vow needed sacrifice to finalize it, it says that my best offerings in this life, they don't earn me any credit with God. It means when I do my devotions and I read my Bible—and let's say I'm really into it that morning—even on the days I'm really into it, that needs the blood of Jesus. When I'm praying and on those times when I'm actually really, really praying and my heart is really open before the Lord and I'm really pouring myself out, that kind of prayer even needs the blood of Jesus. We come together and we worship and it's one of those Sundays where y'all are singing it from right here, not just here—right here—and I can hear it. It's like we really mean it. That worship needs the blood of Jesus. When I'm preaching the gospel and I'm not even thinking about what y'all think of me, I'm just thinking about Jesus. That preaching needs the blood of Jesus. Everything we do needs the blood of Jesus.

If you're not a Christian, I really want you to understand this: God doesn't want you. He doesn't need you to do anything to be a Christian. There is nothing that you can do to make yourself holy, Kadosh. Nothing. Even your best works are filthy rags to Him. Even your holiest actions aren't enough. And that is good news, but that is really hard news in the Bible Belt.

I'm very convinced that it's more our goodness that keeps people out of the kingdom of God than it is badness. What I mean by that is people who think "I got it"—that's my testimony of coming to faith in high school. I thought my goodness counted and it didn't. What you need, what I need, what every person needs is the blood of Jesus and it's there in abundance for sinners. Is there abundance for people who know they need it? But for people who think "I got this, I've done a lot"—that's the last thing that you want. You know that you need it. Do you know you need it?

Devotion doesn't save us. It doesn't credit us. But point two: it's fitting. It's so appropriate. And I mean by that, it's appropriate for who God is. It's so appropriate that we would worship Him and honor Him. And then we would say "everything is for you." If you spent every moment of every day of your life honoring Him, that would be entirely fitting. Your design, part of the blueprints of a human soul, is that we are made to worship. We are made to worship the living God. Every cell in your being is made for that. And that would be entirely fitting if you said "that's what I spent my whole life doing"—and you know what, at the end of it there wouldn't be a round of applause. It'd be like, "that's actually right. That's actually very appropriate." It's appropriate to who God is, appropriate to who we are.

In Nazarite language, God is the one who makes us kadosh, but it's so appropriate for people to hazir ourselves to Him, to dedicate, to say "here I am, all of me to you." So I want to put it this way: the vow of the Nazirite, this whole Nazir, Hisir thing—this is for us. It's an invitation. It's an invitation to be a picture of what every New Testament disciple can be and is invited to become. We're invited in this. Am I suggesting we all need to give up alcohol and haircuts and totally avoid funerals? No. This is the invitation of this passage. The real root of this is an invitation to health, to wholeness, to maturity. This is what every New Testament Christian is invited to be.

To offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to the Lord. — Romans 12:1

A Nazirite is a picture of someone who's kingdom-minded. Someone who's like, "Jesus is worth it. Everything about Him." You love His word and you love the poor and you're given to treasuring God and His people. You love God above everyone else and everything else. This is an invitation for us. This is what's held out for us.

This is like we said in lifestyle rule number six: this is entirely voluntary. It's an expression of love. In other words, for us as God's people—we said last week that we live in the New Testament era where the Holy Spirit has been poured out on us richly. And we're in Eden 3.0. The church is God's little Eden in a dark world where He has given of His spirit to inhabit His people in this place. And so the invitation for us is to become Adam 3.0 and Eve 3.0. To offer ourselves voluntarily, dedicated to the Lord—not because you have to, not because it checks off any boxes with the Lord or with anybody else—because you get to. Because you're invited to.

This kind of devotion earns you nothing. It's just "I love you, Jesus. You are worth it. You're worth every bit of it." Again, this is what health looks like. This is what wholeness looks like. This is an invitation for us to maturity, to become mature as Christians, to move beyond "God's useful to me" to "God is beautiful to me. And He's worth every bit of it."

The Hair Must Burn

Finally, a special devotion. This devotion isn't for you. Notice the last weird clause in this whole Nazarite cleanse: when you get to the end and you've done everything else as part of this, and it's time to be done with your vow, you shave off and you have to burn your man bun. You got to burn your ponytail or the braid or whatever you got. You can't keep it. And that, my friends, is genius.

Because if you're like me, you don't want to hold on to that, right? You don't want to hold on. You might keep it in a box under your bed and pull it out and set it on the table and get out the Instagram with the Sepia filter and a cup of coffee and take a picture. "That's me right there, y'all. I did that. It's awesome, right?" Isn't this what we do? We want to capture pictures of ourselves doing great things. We want other people to see. When other people see it, they give us credit. And God says, "No. When it comes to the very end, take the bun and put it on the fire with the sacrifice. You don't get to keep any of it."

So you're not holding on to your devotion. You're just saying "this is all for God anyway. Let it go." There's a pastor up in the Philadelphia suburbs—I was actually ordained in his church a couple of years after he passed away. And he used to push these really hard gospel questions with people.

And one of my favorite ones he would ask is this, his name is Jack Miller. He'd say, what have you started doing or stopped doing just because you love Jesus? What have you started doing or stopped doing just because you love Jesus? You didn't tell anybody about it. You're not looking for applause. You're not looking for it to be posted on social media. You're not looking for other people to see. You're not looking for credit. It's just an act of devotion to Him. It's just this is for you because you're worth it. Jesus, you're worth everything.

A Woman at Jesus's Feet

So by way of conclusion, one last hair story. In the gospels, we read of another story about hair and it's a story where in Luke seven, Jesus has been invited over to dinner at the house of a prominent Pharisee. And we find out through the text that Jesus is not treated very well when He's welcomed to this house. He's not given any way of washing His hands for purification. And He's just invited to come and recline at the table. This is what they did, lay on cushions or a couch at a table.

And so as the dinner progresses, these houses are open air and a woman comes in off the street and she's a woman of questionable reputation. She's a notorious sinner in the community and she comes in and she leans down at Jesus's feet which are sticking out away from the table and she begins to weep and she washes his feet with her tears. She dries them, she undoes her hair and dries them with her hair. She pulls out this very expensive costly bottle of perfume and she just pours it out, the whole thing.

And you can imagine what a scene this created. Like nobody's able to keep going. Smell, you smell somebody spill a bottle of perfume, it takes over. The sound of someone crying like this. And so dinner kind of stops and there's a conversation around this. And everybody thinks this is highly, highly inappropriate except for two people. The woman and Jesus.

Because she's like, this is entirely fitting for who my savior is. He's like, this is entirely fitting for who I am. Everything about her says, I belong to Jesus. It's entirely fitting for who she is as a sinner. Do you hear the invitation of the Nazarite? And the invitation of this woman is to love Jesus with costly devotion. With public devotion, with voluntary devotion. It's entirely fitting who you are and it's entirely fitting who he is. Costly, voluntary, joyful devotion to Jesus.

Two Applications

If hearing this this morning, you find that your heart is cold and you find little devotion to give to Him or little desire to pray or to praise, little motivation to love Him this way, would you bring that to the Lord this morning? That's a sign. If you find your heart is cold, you should take that really seriously. That's a sign of spiritual sickness. There's something wrong with you.

You know, when you get sick, you take it seriously. You go to the pharmacy, you go to the doctor, you treat it like it's really important. And spiritually, if you find your heart is cold this morning, it's a spiritual sickness. There's something off. When love is cold, when your heart is hard, when you can't adore Him, I'm not saying your entire life should be like the Cameron crazies for Jesus, right? It's not supposed to be a pep rally, adoration all the time, but I'm just talking about a heart that's warm to Him, that loves Him, that values Him.

And if there's something dimmed or grown cold in you, I want to encourage you to bring that to the Lord and ask the Spirit to change you. Ask the Spirit to work in you. He longs to do that. I mean, it's the Spirit's job to throw glory onto Jesus. And don't you think He wants to do that in your life?

Second application, one of the greatest inventions of all time I think, soft serve ice cream. So you know before there was soft serve ice cream, it was just hard ice cream. You pull it out of the freezer and you know what that container is like, it's hard as a rock. So the people who work at ice cream places have like these giant forearms from scooping all the time. And one of the great inventions was they invented the soft serve ice cream machine. It's awesome.

But you know there's a life hack that I'm going to offer right now. There's another way to get soft serve ice cream. You pull it out of the freezer and stick it on the counter, right? That's for free this morning.

But what are you doing when you do that? You're taking the ice cream out of its normal cold environment and you're putting it in a different environment, one that's warmer. And over time what happens is that change of environment begins to impact that ice cream. It begins to bring a softening and a warming to it and suddenly it's easy to scoop, right?

I want to encourage you this morning. This is why Christians get callous and cold and unloving is because we're out of the right atmosphere.

And I want to encourage you in this new year to put yourself in a position among other Christians who are going to encourage you. Who are likewise gonna fan the flames of your heart in adoration and love for Jesus. To put yourself around other people in the right atmosphere of other people who are going to likewise encourage a warm heart in you. Lord loves to work through his people.

Hear the invitation to take a step this year in devotion to the Lord.

Prayer

Let's pray together. Come Holy Spirit, return us to our first love where we pray that you would renew in us a desire and a longing for more of Jesus, a deep adoration and devotion for Jesus. A heart that doesn't just like Jesus or like the things about Jesus or songs about Jesus or even a church that's about Jesus but loves Jesus. Restore it in us our joy. Restore renew our cold hearts. Blow Holy Spirit. We pray. Blow on the sparks that are in danger of going out. Lord, renew in us. Make the coals white hot in our praising and our prising of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray these things in his name. Amen.

Let's respond to God's word in song together.