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 la ws, 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
