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This page was last updated 01/15/09
Week of: November 2, 2008
Title: Make Space for God: Prayer
Series: Spiritual Formation Part 16
Scripture: Psalms 131
1. If you’re ever going to make space for God, you’re going to have to learn to pray. Of all the ways in which we can train ourselves to grow spiritually and allow ourselves to be transformed into the image of Christ, prayer is the key.
2. I like what Samuel Chadwick wrote about prayer: “The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.”
3. I also believe what E.M. Bounds wrote about the preacher and the practice of preaching is true. He wrote: “Prayer, with its manifold and many-sided forces, helps the mouth to utter the truth in its fullness and freedom. The preacher is to be prayed for, the preacher is made by prayer. The preacher’s mouth is to be prayed for; his mouth is to be opened and filled by prayer. A holy mouth is made by praying, by much praying; a brave mouth is made by praying, by much praying…. Praying makes the preacher a heart preacher. Prayer puts the preacher’s heart into the preacher’s sermon; prayer puts the preacher’s sermon into the preacher’s heart.”
4. The practice or the lack of practice of prayer makes or breaks us all spiritually. Because “prayer catapults us unto the frontier of the spiritual life” (Richard Foster).
5. But before we can understand how important prayer is, we’ve got to understand what it is and what it does. First of all, what is prayer?
6. Talking to God? That is what most people think that prayer is a divine S. O. S. When we get in trouble, we just talk to God. Yet, there is more to prayer than that.
7. Let’s turn to Genesis 28:12. Jacob has fallen asleep and has a dream. He dreams that a stairway to heaven has been opened and there are angels ascending and descending from heaven. Prayer is a like a stairway to heaven that communication goes to and from heaven. We talk to God and God speaks to us.
8. Now I know what some of you may be thinking: “God has never talked to me, preacher has he talked to you?” No, not in the same way that you and I would talk to one another, but God does speak to us through our dreams, hopes, feelings, impressions, circumstances, thoughts, prayers, scripture, preaching, and even one another.
9. True prayer means learning to listen with spiritual ears to what God might be saying to us when we are talking to Him. True prayer is a two way conversation between us and God.
10. But prayer is more than just conversation between us and God. Let me explain it to you using an analogy. Analogies are just practical ways to illustrate something that is hard to understand by itself. Let me illustrate prayer like this… “Prayer is a key that opens a door.”
11. The door is the entryway to God’s own heart. Jesus Christ is the door, and prayer is the key to Christ which is the way to God’s own heart.
12. God has graciously allowed us to catch a glimpse of his heart. I would imagine that the heart of God is an open wound. He hurts and aches over our distance from Him and our preoccupation with so many things other than Him. He morns that we do not draw near to Him. He weeps over our obsession with all the things that we find so important in our lives that we leave Him out. He longs for the presence of each and every one of us next to Him.
13. He wants us to come home to Him. He invites us into the living room of His heart where we can relax in His presence. He invites us to the kitchen of his friendship, where we can freely talk to one another as old friends. He invites us into the dining room of his strength, where we can feast on His food. He invites us into the study of his wisdom, where we can learn from His wisdom. He invites us into the workshop of his creativity so that we can understand that we are co-laborers with Him in the work of the Kingdom. And yes, he invites us into His bedroom of love where we know just as we are known (Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True home).
14. True prayer is about falling in love with God. If you doubt that then turn with me to our scripture this morning, Psalms 131. Notice the imagery in this Psalm. Do you recall how, as a child, you loved to sit on your mother’s lap? Or if you don’t recall, then ladies, do you remember how your son or daughter sat in your lap and snuggled up against you; safe and satisfied just being close to its mother. Prayer is like snuggling us against God, feeling safe, at peace, and satisfied. Why, because God loves us, and we are beginning to understand how much He loves us.
15. Real prayer comes about, not by gritting our teeth in sheer determination to be pleasing to God, but by falling in love with Him and wanting to be with God. Prayer is first and foremost, just wanting to be with God because we love Him and we know He loves us.
16. However, when you and I think of prayer, what kind or expression of prayer do we think of? Intercessory prayer, right? Intercessory prayer is when we ask God for something. Either for ourselves, or for others. Is it selfish to pray for ourselves? No! Could it be? Yes, how? When we pray out of God’s will. Remember that Jesus prayed “Not my will be done, but thy will be done.” 17. James 5:13-16 is good scripture on intercessory prayer. He ends up by saying that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Why?
18. Well, how did Jesus say that we could sum up all of the commandments? “Love your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind; and Love you neighbor as yourself.” In other words, at the core of a righteous person is someone who loves God and other people.
19. Look at intercessory prayer as being in the presence of God, and sending beams of love at God, about people that we love. Imagine some prayers are a weak flashlight and some are like a strong flash light.
20. How are your prayers? Only God knows for sure. Sometimes I think they are strong and sometimes they are really weak. I think it depends a lot about the burden we have on our hearts for what concerns us the most.
21. The good news is that prayer strength grows, as we learn to love, as we learn to pray according to God’s will, and as we spend time with our God. It grows stronger as we use it.
Week of: November 9, 2008
Title: Making Space for God: Silence and Solitude
Series: Spiritual Formations Part 17
Scripture: 1 Kings 19:11-13; Revelations 8:1; Mark 1:35
1. Someone once said: “If the devil cannot make you bad, he’ll make you busy.” Dr Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology. He wrote: “Hurry is not of the devil. It is the devil.” What are these folks trying to say to us? Maybe, that hurrying around in a busy and hectic lifestyle is not good for you psychologically or spirituality. I would add that finding God and deepening your spirituality is not a matter hurrying around and making our lives busier and more hectic either. Let me illustrate that in the following manner.
2. In our 1 Kings passage, the writer is telling us about a story in the life of Elijah the prophet. Elijah just called down fire from heaven and the 400 prophets of Baal were put to death by the sword. Jezebel the queen of Ahab the wicked king of Israel was obviously not pleased Elijah because these were her prophets.
3. In fact she sent a message to Elijah that he was going to join all those dead prophets as soon as she could get her hands on him.
4. The same brave Elijah who had the faith in God to stand up to 400 prophets of Baal the chapter before now runs for his life. He is scared to death. Anyway, he finally stops and lies down under a big bush and prays, “I have had enough Lord, take my life; I am not better than my ancestors,” then in exhaustion he falls asleep.
5. To make a long story shorter, an angel appears to him, ministers to him and sends him on a long journey to Mount Sinai, the mountain of the Lord, where he spends the night in a cave. He is told to go outside that cave because the Lord God is going to pass by. He does so and a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart around him, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind there came an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after earthquake came the fire, but again the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper, and then the voice of the Lord said to him “what are you doing here, Elijah?”
6. God’s voice and presence was not in the earth, wind, and fire, but in the stillness of a small whisper.
7. To me, the story is a reminder that as powerful and majestic God is it is the stillness, solitariness, and quietness of life that for the most part, he chooses to makes himself known.
8. The Psalmist echoes that belief when he wrote of God in Psalms 46:10. “Be still, and know that I am God.”
9. Why would He choose to be heard in the small quiet moments of life rather than in the great noisey busy moments that crowd our existence? Several reasons I can think of:
10. One, God desires faith and trust from us. Faith that He exists. Faith that He wants to be a part of our lives. Faith that, somehow, He wants us to be better human beings, and live life according to the way He wants us to live. No matter how we expect God to reveal Himself to us it always going to have to be received in faith. No one is ever going to prove or disprove God to us or anyone else. So to me at least, it makes more sense for God to be revealing Himself in a manner that requires listening and faith.
11. Two, we also believe that the greater and more important we believe someone to be, we also believe that greater pomp and circumstance will surround their lives. For example, if President-elect Obama were to show up in our little town today he would come with all the security and prestige of the soon-to-be leader of the free world. However, in God’s kingdom and His way of doing things, Jesus was born not to a king and queen but to a carpenter and virgin. He was born not in a palace, but in a manger. Jesus didn’t have the army the Jews envisioned Him having. Instead, His follower’s consisted mainly but not entirely of 12 disciples. Jesus was not the military leader that everyone wanted Him to be, but instead a suffering servant who died on a cross. And therein is the problem. Jesus was not like everyone expected the Messiah to be, he wasn’t like most people believed the son of God should be.
12. Hence, most people believe that if God ever did decide to reveal Himself to us, he would do in such a way that bells would ring, thunder would roar, the earth would shake, and winds would blow. Not in the small and seemly insignificant ordinary moments of life. But in fact, I believe that is how God, for the most part, chooses to reveal himself—in those small whispering moments, in the stillness and solitude of our lives. Silence and solitude are fertile ground for discovering God.
13. Silence and solitude also are fertile ground for discovering who you are. To which you may be thinking “I know who I am.” Yes, but don’t you ever feel rather uncomfortable in your own skin? Don’t you ever have feelings and thoughts that you think “where did that come from?” Don’t you ever do things and say things that shock you and wonder why you said or done that? Is there un-confessed sin your life, that you have a hard time admitting is there? Do you try to do what is right but you can’t always do what you want to do? Do you ever get grumpy and frustrated and don’t know why? Do you find yourself getting down and depressed, when really you should be up and happy? Maybe you need to have a little self-discovery time in your life.
14. There is story told of a clergyman who went to see Dr. Carl Jung. The clergyman was on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of the long hours and the stress of the job. Jung told him to go home, work only 8 hours a day and sleep only 8 hours a day. While spending the remaining time, he should sit alone in quietness of his study. He went home, worked 8 hours, ate supper with his wife, informed her as to what he was doing and went to his study. Once in his study he relaxed, listened to his music, read a novel, and generally passed the time fairly well. He did the same for the next couple of days and then went back to Jung complaining that he was just as bad off.
15. Jung asked him to tell what he did during this alone time. He explained he listened to Mozart, read a Thomas Mann novel, among other things, to keep himself occupied. But Jung looked at him and remarked, “You don’t understand, I don’t want you to be alone with Mozart, Thomas Mann, or any other musician or author you might listen to or read. I want you to be all alone with yourself.” To which the Reverend replied, “Oh, I cannot think of any worse company.” To this Jung said: “And yet this is the self you inflict on other people 12-14 hours a day.”
You cannot fix anything about yourself until you know what the problem is and where the problem lies. Time alone with God in prayer is an excellent place to begin trying to understand the deepest mystery of all – who you really are.
16. Let me give you some God-given fruit that is more likely to come to a Christian’s life when they practice a time of solitude and silence.
Silence: One, being more attentive to the presence and voice of God. Two, freedom from negative habits of speech (lying, gossiping, impulsive chatter, inappropriate humor, filthy talk just to name a few) Three, freedom from addiction to noise or sound (What do you do when you walk in the house?). Four, receiving a break from the chaos and the noise of our lives. Five, as I said earlier, growing in self-awareness as the silence invites you into deeper levels of knowing.
Solitude:
One, freedom from having to be entertained, occupied, or stimulated. Two, liberation from constantly living your life in reference to other people.
Three, quieting your internal noise so that you can better listen to God. Four, giving yourself the time and space to reflect on things that God has taught you.
Five, speaking what you learn from God rather than just your own store of opinions.
Six, realizing how blessed you can be by being alone with God.
17. I am not saying that silence and solitude are all you need to solve your problems. But for many people, it might help to make a little bit of space in their busy and hectic lives so they can be more attentive to God who can help you solve your problems.
18. As usual, the choice is ours….
Week of: November 16, 2008
Title: Making Space for God: Fasting Series: Spiritual Formations part 18
Scripture: Matthew 9: 14-15
1. It might surprise you that I am going to talk about something that I don’t know too much about. J
2. While most of us are familiar with dieting or in some way regulating what we eat, I dare say very few of us have tried fasting.
3. Fasting as religious practice is very old, and most of the great religions down through the centuries have practiced it. I personally have not practiced it, and to be honest find myself a little reluctant to try it—mostly for health reasons.
4. But if there are no health reasons that might keep us from attempting to fast why shouldn’t we?
5. Let’s look at some information about fasting. First of all, “Is it Biblical?” Yes by all means! Look at Genesis 2: 16-17 in your Bibles. I think that Adam and Eve were the first to fast. Theirs was a partial fast. Does anyone know what their fast consisted of? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was a fast that God imposed on them and which they broke.
6. Other scriptures are Ezra 9: 5 “At the evening sacrifice I got up from my fast…” Nehemiah 1:4 “When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.” Psalms 35:13 says: “Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting.” Psalms 69: 10 “When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn.” Matthew 6: 17 Jesus said: “But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting.”
7. Is fasting commanded anywhere in the Bible? No not really, however our scripture this morning is about as close to it as you can get. When John’s disciples saw that Jesus’ disciples where not fasting, they asked about it, Jesus said: “How can the quest of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.”
8. Certainly the modern day church falls into fasting category because we’ve never had the blessed privilege of knowing Jesus i in the flesh. And therefore, we should be in that category of “then they will fast…” As was the early church, Acts 13:2 says “While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.”
9. Yet as Southern Baptist fasting is another thing that we conveniently leave out of our faith and practice.
10. But what is fasting and what are its spiritual benefits? “Fasting is the voluntary denial of something for a specific time, for a spiritual purpose, by an individual, family, community, or nation.” (Lynne Baab, Fasting: Spiritual Freedom, page 16)
11. Fasting for it greatest benefit and effectiveness is usually accompanied by prayer.
12. The specific time is anywhere from 24 hours to 40 days. 4O days are called by some a supernatural fast, and in many ways is a form of starvation. (I don’t recommend it) Jesus practiced a supernatural fast in Matthew 4: 2, it says: “After fasting forty days and forty nights he was hungry. The devil came to him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’”
13. Most people, including beginners, just fast for 24 hours, usually beginning after the evening meal and fasting to the next day’s evening meal.
14. A normal fast is not eating or drinking anything but water. Some people who are beginners start out drinking fruit juices and water with their fast. A partial fast is when you eat most foods that you normally do, but voluntarily decline some foods like: meat, desserts, that sort of thing.
15. There are some reasons not to fast: One, don’t fast just to lose weight. Most of us at times have denied restricted our food intake to lose weight, however, fasting is something we do for spiritual reasons.
16. Two, sometimes people don’t eat certain things because they want to cleanse their system of poisons and chemicals—which is good, but again that’s not a reason to fast.
17. Three, being proud yourself is another excellent reason not to fast. Like most everything we do for Jesus it is tempting for it to reflect spiritual pride. If you have to tell someone you are fasting don’t tell anyone but your family. That might be the only reward you get.
18. But why should we fast? One, in the most general sense it teaches us that we must depend on God. Deut 8: 3 is an excellent scripture to show us why we should fast: “to teach you that man does not live by bread alone, but out of every word that come from the mouth of God.” You’ve heard me use this illustration before. We are all propped up by many things in life (get a chair to illustrate). It might be our health, wealth, job, vocation, ministry, and family. You name it and we can be emotionally, spirituality, and physically dependent on these things, instead of God. Fasting reminds us that we are supposed to be feasting on God instead of all these other things.
19. Fasting also reveals what controls us. We cover up what is inside us with food and other good things in life. Food acts like a tranquilizer that settles our nerves when things begin to bug us. How many of you like to go to raid the refrigerator when you get nervous or depressed, or stressed out? Eating pacifies us!!! Not eating will allow those things to weigh on our minds, so that we can pray about it. Fasting helps reveal our hang ups, short-comings and sins so that God can work on healing us. Fasting is God’s interior spring cleaning in us.
20. It also reminds us that no matter what problems we have, (and we do have our share of them), that over indulgence is something that we all have deal with. Fasting reminds us to keep balance in our lives.
21. Fasting is another way that we can make space for God in our lives.
22. The fasting and prayer combined is a very powerful combo in our spiritual lives. Why? Purifies our heart so that we can pray out of pure motivation. Reveals our hidden motives so we know why we are praying. Makes space for God to whom we are praying to.
Week of: November 23, 2008
Title: Giving Thanks: God is Present! Series: Thanksgiving 2008
Scripture: Psalms 145:1-3; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 1. Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, once wrote: “The greater God’s gifts and works, the less they are regarded.” (True or false)
2. For example: “A hungry man is more thankful for a morsel of food than a rich man is for a Thanksgiving feast.”
3. “A lonely woman in a nursing home will appreciate a visit more than a popular woman with a party thrown in her honor.”
4. Ralph Waldo Emerson once remarked that if the stars only appeared once in a thousand years, imagine what an exciting event that would be. But because they are out just about every night, we barely give them a look.
5. However, as we spiritually grow in the image of Christ, and as the Holy Spirit influences our lives more and more, we begin to reverse that rather twisted pattern. We become a people who realize that every good and wholesome gift comes from God.
6. We can help the Holy Spirit in a number of ways; one being when we practice the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’ Supper is called the Eucharist by most Christians and simply means in the Greek “thanksgiving.” So every time we practice the Lord’s Supper we give “thanks” for his death and resurrection.
7. In fact every time we worship, giving thanks should be at the center of our worship. Because if nothing else, we are grateful for Jesus’ death and resurrection— which is the means of our salvation.
8. Also as Christians, we should not limit our thanksgiving to the Lord’s Supper or our Sunday morning worship but every day and every moment of our lives. Thanksgiving should be a constant occurrence in our lives.
9. However, in case we are slow learners, which we generally are, then we do have a national day of thanksgiving on the 4th Sunday in November of every year to remind us to be thankful. Do you know the history of Thanksgiving Day? Let me give you a little.
10. Thanksgiving Day draws on three traditions. One, is the harvest festival in ancient Israel called—the Feast of Tabernacles. It is called tabernacles or tents because Israel lived in tents because they wandered in the wilderness once freed from Egypt. The feast marked the end of growing season for Israel which was celebrated by feasting and thanksgiving.
11. Two, Thanksgiving Day also draws on the tradition of harvest celebration in European peasant societies.
12. Three, Thanksgiving, as we know it, finds its origin from the celebration of the Pilgrims in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1621. The Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving Day celebrated abundance but the second was preceded by starvation in which they only received five kernels of corn a day. To remind them of the hardships, the Pilgrims placed fived kernels of corn on their plates during the second Thanksgiving celebration.
13. The early settlers of Massachusetts had several days of thanksgiving through the year, in which the colonists set aside days for “public humiliation, fasting, and prayer.” On these days they intentionally, gratefully, and willfully confessed their dependence on God.
14. July 12, 1775 the Continental Congress set aside a day for fasting, prayer, and thanksgiving. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln turned the Christian practices of humiliation, fasting, and prayer into the national holiday we call Thanksgiving. However, it has not always been on the fourth Thursday in November. In fact, through most of our history we observed Thanksgiving in early December.
15. In 1939, after a decade-long depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving Day back a week to the 4th Sunday, because lengthening the Christmas buying season would help the economy. As someone once wrote: “We were becoming a nation of buyers rather than believers, feasters instead of fasters, football fans instead of people focused on God” (Paul R. Dekar, Holy Boldness: Practices of an Evangelistic Lifestyle).
16. In fact, Thanksgiving is about remembering that every one of us is dependent upon God. There is not a single individual here that is not dependent upon God’s goodness and His great Love.
17. We need to remember that every day, at every meal, but sometimes; God has to settle for what He can get. Thus, we have Thanksgiving.
18. But where do you think thanksgiving of the heart come from? I don’t know for sure, but I believe a lot of it has to do with how we are taught. Taught about God, and being taught about being thankful in general. I’ve noticed that some people don’t seem to have “thank you” in their vocabulary. I think that part of our vocabulary begins at home.
19. There was a grandmother bent on teaching her grandchildren about gratitude. When one of them begin to complain or cry about some disappointment that they faced, she would say: “Sweet heart, I know you don’t like what is happening, but you have the choice of making this a happy day or a sad day. What kind of day do you want it to be? Don’t you remember all that we have to be thankful about this day?” When I wasn’t being grateful for what someone did for me, my mother and father weren’t quite so diplomatic about it; they just said, “Young man, what do you say?” Being thankful is learned at home—by what we say and what we do in front of our children and grandchildren.
20. But at the heart of Christian thanksgiving is “rooted in the reality that, bidden or unbidden, God is present.” That no matter what happens, God is present. Someone once wrote: “Thanksgiving is a thread that can bind together all the patchwork squares of our lives. Difficult times, happy days, seasons of sickness, hours of bliss (disappointment)—all can be sewn together into something lovely with thread of thankfulness.”
21. I really think that that is the difference between a bitter and ugly person compared to someone who has learned to be happy and grateful no matter what has come. One sees only the disappointments and the other sees the whole picture and is grateful for the life that God has given.
22. See Spiritual Disciplines Handbook for the following God-given fruit.
Week Of: November 30, 2008Title: Making Space for God: Submission Series: Study of Spiritual Formation – Part19 Scripture: Mark 8: 34; Philippians 2: 3-4
1. Did you know that Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican President of the United States in March 1861? However, even before Lincoln took office, seven Southern states succeeded from the Union over the expansion of slavery.
2. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter; that began the war “Between the States”.
3. On September 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln issued an executive order called the Emancipation Proclamation that declared the freedom of all slaves in any Confederate State that did not return to the Union by January 1, 1863.
4. After over 620,000 dead soldiers on both sides and over 425,000 wounded Americans, slavery was abolished. Freedom is seldom cheap.
5. Worldwide I am assuming to this day there are still pockets of actual slavery that exist, yet nothing obviously like there was during pre-civil war day and time.
6. Yet, you might be surprised to know that slavery does still exist in America, it exists in St. Paul, and it even exists in our church, in our minds and hearts. There continues on in each of us an inner primordial struggle in our minds and hearts that is waged and will continue to be waged until Jesus comes. It is a slavery of sin and addiction, whether it is alcohol, drugs, sex, materialism, self-righteousness, selfishness, ignorance, willfulness, pride or just unbelief. Slavery is alive and well until we allow God to liberate us.
7. Over the last several weeks, we have been studying the Spiritual disciplines of the Christian church which should have led us to seriously consider our own spiritual formation.
8. The Spiritual Disciplines are intended, with the aid of the Gospel and the help of the Holy Spirit, to help free us from things that enslave us. The purpose of the Spiritual Disciplines, things like: prayer, meditation, Bible study, personal devotions, silence, solitude, fasting, simplicity, service, worship, stewardship, Holy Communion, detachment, personal sacrifice, confession, self-examination, hospitality, chastity, compassion, and witnessing, to name a few, is to make space for God, by freeing us from the things that control us. Our problem in this day and time is there is too much of the wrong stuff going on up here (our minds), and our bodies are just too busy.
9. This morning I would like us to explore a Spiritual Discipline that everyone should be thinking about that is “submission.” Does anyone know what submission might be used to free us from? Pride.
10. When we normally think of the opposite of pride we usually think of humility. And when I think of humility, I think of our scripture this morning in Philippians 2:5 and following where it says: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…” (Read verses 5-11).
11. Jesus who was the very stuff of God, did not consider equality with God something to be desired, but considered himself to be nothing.
12. Imagine, according to Paul, not Mike Moore, that Jesus the perfect son of God, the third person of the Trinity was so humble, and so submissive that He thought of Himself as nothing—a zero!
13. If this is true, then how can someone as sinful as you and I, and someone who has been saved solely and entirely by the grace of God, ever be puffed up with pride? And how could we ever refuse to submit ourselves to others because of how we look at ourselves? Don’t we realize that “there if not by the grace of God, there we too would go”? And for that we have nothing to be proud about? But what is submission?
14. Paul’s definition of submissiveness is found in Philippians 2: 2-4. Submissiveness is being free of the terrible burden of having to have one’s way all of the time. In fact, the more submissive a person becomes the more they look after other people’s interests more than they do their own interests.
15. It is hard to imagine Jesus Christ (God Himself) being so humble and submissive, yet He did not consider His divine status so great and wonderful that He refused to come and died because of our sins and for our souls. This whole process of coming and dying for us was a rather humiliating and humbling sort of experience for someone as great and grand as Jesus.
16. Yet despite the example that Jesus set for us we don’t fully appreciate at times just how humble and submissive that we should be. We don’t realize at times just how far we have to go to be freed from our human pride.
17. Let me tell you a little about honor in Jesus’ day and time. Honor in the New Testament times was the value of an individual or nation in the their eyes and the people around them. It was and still is the estimation of our own worth, our claim to pride, and excellence that is recognized by our friends, neighbors, society in general. Honor is the right to pride.
18. Shame on the other hand is the exact reverse of honor. It is the loss of respect, regard, worth, and value in the eyes of ourselves and other people.
19. I believe the problem that Jesus ran into in the Gospels that contributed greatly to His crucifixion was that Jesus exposed peoples shame, and therefore destroyed their honor. I believe that everywhere Jesus went and everything that Jesus said became an honor challenge to the people around Him. Jesus came making claims about God, God’s kingdom, Himself, and how we all should relate to God and one another, and it offended people. In doing so Jesus became a lightening rod of honor challenges simply because He told the truth.
20. Today it is no different. I believe that 90 percent of all problems in the church is because of pride and honor. And that 90 percent of all problems in church and our community could be avoided, by submissiveness. Just a simple belief and action which says I don’t have to have my way.
21. I know that some might be thinking that part of the problem is that too many people do give in and the right people, who need to give in, don’t. That the wrong people have learned to be submissive, and the people who need to learn to be submissive haven’t.
22. Bullies seemly never learn to back down.
23. But a healthy congregation, community, and even nation learns to recognize when they are standing on sacred principles, and just simply battle because they don’t want to give in. Spiritual babies don’t know when to stand and when to give in. Mature spiritual men and women understand on what sound Biblical principles that they stand and fall.
24. Only the discipline of submissiveness and the corresponding spirit of Christ Jesus can free us from the demon to compete and win the battle of honor and pride.
25. The touchstone of this Biblical principle and Spiritual Discipline is Jesus’ statement in Mark 8: 34: “if any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up the cross and follow me.” Biblical submission is based on the practice of self-denial.
26. What is self-denial? Philippians 2:3, what is taking up one’s cross? It is accepting the death of our spiritual and unspiritual pride. It is the right to embrace the freedom of losing one’s own way…J
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