The Truth About Spiritual Disciplines
- Hank was a crazy guy
- he didn’t smile easily, and when he did, it was
always at someone else’s expense
- he never affirmed anyone
- he was of the opinion that if you compliment someone,
it might lead to a swelled head
- his native tongue was complaint
- he would begin by complaining to the pastor and the
deacons, but if that wouldn’t work, he would complain to visitors
in the church and even to outside authorities
- he couldn’t effectively love his wife or children,
or people outside his family
- he was easily irritated
- he had little use for the poor, and contempt for those
whose accents or skin color differed from his own
- he critiqued and complained, and his soul got smaller
each year
- Hank wasn’t changing
- he was once a cranky young guy, and he grew up to be
a cranky old man
-
- here’s the problem with Hank
- it was troubling that Hank never changed, but it was
even more surprising that nobody was surprised by it
- John Ortberg writes:
- It was as if everyone simply expected that his soul
would remain withered and sour year after year, decade after decade.
No one seemed to be bothered by the condition. It was not an anomaly
that caused head-scratching bewilderment. No church consultants were
called in. No emergency meetings were held to probe the strange case
of this person who followed the church’s general guidelines for
spiritual life and was non-transformed…We expected that Hank would
affirm certain religious beliefs. We expected he would attend services,
read the Bible, support the church financially, pray regularly, and
avoid certain sins. But here’s what we didn’t expect: We didn’t
expect that he would progressively become the way Jesus would be if
he were in Hank’s place.
-
- here’s the problem with a lot of us
- we attend church week after week
- we do our daily devotions – read the Bible once
a year, perhaps, and pray daily
- we give sacrificially to the church
- in short, we do everything our church expects of us,
and we still don’t grow
- and churches are filled with people who long for spiritual
growth and transformation, and yet never experience the transformation
that God intended for us
- as C.S. Lewis said in another context, we’re like
"an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum
because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at
the sea. We are far too easily pleased"
-
- if you have studied the Bible, you know that it’s
God’s agenda to transform us into the likeness of Christ
- we know the word morph in English, a word that
means "the inward and real formation of the essential nature in
a person"
- it’s a word that is used in Greek in the New Testament,
in various forms, and it expresses what should be happening to us as
believers:
- (Galatians 4:19) My dear children, for whom I am again
in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you…
- (Romans 8:29) For those God foreknew he also predestined
to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be
the firstborn among many brothers.
- (Romans 12:2) Do not conform any longer to the
pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good,
pleasing and perfect will.
- it’s a word that talks about our very transformation
into a person just like Jesus, who not only acts the way Jesus did,
but desires and becomes the right sort of person
- the primary goal of spiritual life is our transformation
into God’s character – that we become new creatures
- that we become a masterpiece of God
- so why doesn’t it happen?
-
- I remember grappling for the first time with some well-known
verses:
- (Matthew 11:28) "Come to me, all you who are weary
and burdened, and I will give you rest.
- (Matthew 11:29) Take my yoke upon you and learn from
me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for
your souls.
- (Matthew 11:30) For my yoke is easy and my burden is
light."
- I remember thinking that this was very different than
the Christianity I was experiencing
- at the churches I knew, no one experienced much rest
- and the yoke placed upon us was hardly easy or light
- and what’s more, I wasn’t really becoming
more like Christ, neither were many of my fellow strugglers
- without being judgmental, I came to the realization
that something was wrong
- I read the following words a week ago that summarized
my frustration:
- All of us who take the name "Christian" claim
a faith that is supposed to unleash a spiritual power in us, but the
darker powers of hate and fear (not to mention lust and greed) seem
stronger….As I look around today, sin seems stronger than God the
Father sometimes, sex stronger than Jesus, money stronger than the Holy
Spirit, propaganda stronger than the gospel. This contradicts my faith,
and so I am at a loss, wanting neither to hid from the facts nor to
jettison the faith… (Brain D. McLaren, Reinventing Your Church)
- or, as somebody else put it, "Christianity has
not so much been tried and found wanting, as it has been found difficult
and left untried"
-
- Dallas Willard wrote:
- How many people are radically and permanently repelled
from The Way by Christians who are unfeeling, stiff, unapproachable,
boringly lifeless, obsessive, and dissatisfied? Yet such Christians
are everywhere, and what they are missing is the wholesome liveliness
springing from a balanced vitality with the freedom of God’s loving
rule…Spirituality wrongly understood is a major source of human
misery and rebellion against God.
- if you’re dissatisfied, as I hope you are, with
this state of affairs, the Bible holds out hope for something better
- Frank Laubach said, "If you are weary of some
sleepy form of devotion, probably God is as weary of it as you are"
- thankfully, many of us can think of other believers
who are being transformed into the image of Christ
- spiritual giants, who somehow drip an authentic type
of spirituality that is so unpretentious, and so genuine, that it makes
us long to be like them
- my grandmother was such a woman, who loved God so much,
and was so transformed by God’s greatness, that I still long to
be like her
- I don’t think it’s God’s intention that
only some of us become like her
- how can we experience the same sort of inward and authentic
change?
-
- in the next weeks in the evening, we’re going
to talk about "The Christian Life You’ve Always Wanted"
- we’re going to talk about certain practices that
can help us become the sort of people we need to be
- but tonight I want to begin by looking at what won’t
work
- there have been some attempts to be spiritual that
have been tried and left wanting
- I feel it’s important to begin by examining approaches
to spirituality that have been tried and found wanting
- so look with me at a few tonight if you would, and
then in coming weeks we’ll look at what really does work
- but the things we’ll look at tonight – two
things, really – are usually tried first, although they never work
- THE FIRST APPROACH TO SPIRITUALITY THAT IS USUALLY
TRIED FIRST, AND NEVER WORKS, IS TO FOCUS ON OUTWARD CHANGE
- you can call this a "pseudo-transformation"
- we know that Christians are called out to be separate
and distinct, but instead of being marked by greater amounts of love
and joy, we look for some other (sometimes strange) ways of distinguishing
ourselves from others who are not Christians
- instead of being changed from the inside out, we try
external methods to make ourselves feel that we’re different
-
- in the first century AD, a vast amount of Jewish rabbinic
writing focused on circumcision, dietary laws, and Sabbath keeping
- this seems odd, because no rabbi would have thought
that these matters were central to the law
- they knew its core:
- (Deuteronomy 6:4) Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God,
the LORD is one.
- (Deuteronomy 6:5) Love the LORD your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
- so why focus on circumcision, dietary laws, and Sabbath
keeping?
-
- the answer is what is called "identity" or
"boundary markers"
- groups tend to be exclusive, and to look for identifying
characteristics – usually highly visible and superficial ones –
that separate them from others
- and this develops into a boundary-oriented approach
to spirituality
- look at the church today
- if the senior pastor of a church is filled with pride
or resentment, but his preaching is orthodox and the church is growing,
his job probably won’t be in jeopardy
- but if the same pastor is seen Sunday morning smoking
a cigarette while greeting people after the service, you could guarantee
that he wouldn’t be around by the evening service
- I’m not defending cigarette smoking, but nobody
would argue that smoking a single cigarette was a worse sin than being
consumed by pride and resentment
- but somehow, for us, it’s easier to focus on externals
and make them central
-
- a Christian college banned jazz music fifty years ago
- nobody wanted to rescind the rule, because it would
make them appear to compromise essential beliefs
- and as a result, students were allowed to listen to
punk rock or heavy metal, but not Louis Armstrong
- other organizations focus on externals and end up making
silly rules
- on Sundays at one place, tennis courts were locked
up on Sundays, but volleyball was okay
- at Moody Bible Institute at one time, male students
were not allowed to have a beard or hair past their ears, but every
day they filed by a picture of Dwight L. Moody, complete with a beard
and hair past his ears
-
- externals are the wrong way to spirituality
- Jesus said to the Pharisees:
- (Matthew 23:23) "Woe to you, teachers of the law
and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint,
dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of
the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced
the latter, without neglecting the former.
- (Matthew 23:24) You blind guides! You strain out a
gnat but swallow a camel.
- (Matthew 23:25) "Woe to you, teachers of the law
and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and
dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
- (Matthew 23:26) Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside
of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
- (Matthew 23:27) "Woe to you, teachers of the law
and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which
look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's
bones and everything unclean.
-
- on the contrary, Jesus taught us that the center of
the law is to love God, and to love people
- in other words, don’t focus on the externals as
a route to spirituality
- instead of focusing on the boundaries, Jesus focused
on the center, the heart of spiritual life
-
- APPROACH NUMBER TWO THAT DOESN’T WORK IS SELF-EFFORT
- it’s my belief that the way to spirituality is
not to try to be like Jesus, but to train to be like Jesus
- you wake up on a Monday morning, and say, "Today
I’m going to be patient. I’m going to turn the other cheek."
- and, as one person wisely observed, it’s a little
like trying to run a marathon for which you haven’t trained
- you’d end up exhausted and defeated
- nobody can just try to be spiritual – it involves
certain steps you must take
-
- Dallas Willard compares it to certain young people
who idolize a baseball player
- while they’re playing the baseball game, the try
to behave exactly as the baseball star does
- the player is known for sliding head-first into first
base, so they do too
- the star holds his bat above his head, so they do too
- these young people try anything and everything the
star does during the game – they buy the type of shoes the star
wears, the same glove he uses, the same bat
- but they don’t succeed in performing like the
star
- why?
- because "the star performer himself didn’t
achieve his excellence by trying to behave in a certain way only
during the game. Instead, he chose an overall life of preparation
of mind and body, pouring all his energies into that total preparation,
to provide a foundation in the body’s automatic responses and strength
for his conscious efforts during the game…[his responses] are
available…because of a daily regimen no one sees"
- Jesus never just expected us to turn the other cheek,
to go the second mile, to bless those who persecute us, and so on
- these responses are illustrative of what might be expected
of someone who is a new type of person
- in other words, we can’t automatically respond
the way Jesus would just by effort, any more than we can go out tonight
and vault eighteen feet or run the mile in under four minutes
- we need to embark on a training program
- the emphasis is on training rather than trying
-
- Paul wrote to Timothy:
- (1 Timothy 4:7) Have nothing to do with godless myths
and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.
- (1 Corinthians 9:25) Everyone who competes in the games
goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will
not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.
-
- so we know what doesn’t work
- two things: focusing on externals, and trying through
self-effort
- I hope you’ll join me in coming weeks – beginning
next week, when we’ll begin to look at nine practices that do help
us become the sort of Christian we’ve always wanted to be
- let’s pray
