The Truth About Spiritual Disciplines

Big Idea: Many Christians focus too much on outward behaviors and personal effort rather than the internal transformation necessary to become Christlike.

Hank was a crazy guy. He didn't smile easily, and when he did, it was always at someone else's expense. He never offered encouragement to anyone. He was of the opinion that if you compliment someone, it might lead to a swelled head. He often complained. He would start by complaining to the pastor and deacons. If that didn't help, he would tell visitors and even outsiders. He couldn't effectively love his wife or children, or people outside his family. He was easily annoyed. 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 remained unchanged. 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. Churches are filled with people seeking spiritual growth and transformation, but many do not experience the change God intended for them.

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:

My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you… (Galatians 4:19)

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 8:29)

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. (Romans 12:2)

It refers to our transformation into a person like Jesus, who not only acts as He did but also desires to become a better 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:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

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 hide from the facts nor to jettison the faith… (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 exude a genuine and unpretentious spirituality that inspires us to aspire 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 few 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 is important to begin by examining approaches to spirituality that have been tried and found wanting.

What Doesn't Work

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.

Focusing on Outward Behaviors

You can call this a "pseudo-transformation." Christians are meant to stand out by showing love and joy, yet often we seek unusual ways to differentiate ourselves from non-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: Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)

So why focus on circumcision, dietary laws, and Sabbath keeping? The answer is what is called "identity" or "boundary markers." Groups often seek exclusive characteristics, typically superficial and visible, to distinguish themselves from others. And this develops into a boundary-oriented approach to spirituality.

Look at the church today. If a senior pastor is proud or resentful but preaches orthodox and the church is growing, he is likely secure in his job. If a pastor is seen smoking a cigarette after Sunday morning service, he likely won't be there for the evening service. I’m not defending smoking, but it’s hard to argue that smoking one cigarette is worse 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: 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. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. 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. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. 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. (Matthew 23:23-27)

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.

Focusing on externals isn't the path to growth. There's another approach that also doesn't work:

Relying on Personal 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, they 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 fans imitate everything the star does during games by buying the same shoes, gloves, and bats he uses. 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. We can't automatically react like Jesus just by trying, just as we can't suddenly vault eighteen feet or run a 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: "Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly" (1 Timothy 4:7).

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. (1 Corinthians 9:25)

Many Christians focus too much on outward behaviors and personal effort rather than the internal transformation necessary to become Christlike. I hope you'll join me next week as we explore nine practices that can help us become the Christians we aspire to be.