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This page was last updated 08/02/08
Week of: July 6, 2008 - Pastor on vacation
Week of: July 13, 2008
Title: Our Spiritual World – Part 1
Series: Study of Spiritual Formation
Scripture: Galatians 4:17-20
1. About a month ago, I gave a sermon entitled: “All is Grace, yet….” As the sermon progressed, I tried to say: “All is grace, yet all depends upon our willingness to cooperate freely with the Spirit of God that flows in our lives.” I challenged you, and myself, to take seriously our spiritual growth, and to do so immediately.
2. By any chance, did anyone decide to take me up that challenge?
3. Well, over the next several weeks and maybe even months, by the grace of God, I am going to try to hammer that challenge home to you.
4. First off, what do I mean by spiritual? Well, those of you who know me know that there is nothing that gets my Baptist blood boiling than someone saying that our services and our church is not spiritual. I know better than most people that we have a long way to go and that we are not by any stretch of the imagination perfect. In fact, as long as you have me as your Pastor, you will not be a perfect congregation. I am not perfect. But anyone who says we are not a loving, caring, spiritual congregation is just about as ignorant as they can get.
5. The problem lies and will continue to lie in what we mean by spiritual. Everyone has their own ideal of what spiritually means even though they may not always be able to articulate it. Some folks continue to confuse spirituality with emotionalism, hooping and hollowing, screaming and jumping, and having a good time as spiritual. Some people even talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk, and they think that they are spiritual.
6. Let me give you a very general working definition of what I think is Biblical Spirituality. If you have pen and paper, you might want to write this down: Biblical Spirituality is a Christ-centered orientation to every component of our lives through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Meaning that in every area of our lives the Holy Spirit is at work to make us more like Christ—which is the walking, talking, acting, breathing, embodiment of what is to be spiritual.
7. Now let me throw another term at you—Spiritual Formation. It is a term you’ll be hearing from time to time. Spiritual formation is very important in the life of our church and it is very important in the life of each of us as individual Christians.
8. Turn to our scripture this morning to illustrate this concept. Galatians 4:17-20. “Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may be zealous for them. It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always and not just when I am with you. My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!” (NIV) In this scripture, Paul is encouraging a rather immature group of believers in Galatia, who evidently are being easily misled (by Judaizers, folks who believe that they need to be Jewish as well as Christian), to allow Christ to be formed in them. Paul says he is perplexed about them. Possibly because he doesn’t understand how they could be so easily misled.
9. As human beings we fail miserably at times to realize just how we’ve been influenced by the world, and even false doctrine. In 1 John, John tells his readers not to “love the world or anything in the world…” He goes on to tell his listeners that “everything in the world-the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and boasting of what he has and does-comes not from the Father, but from the world.”
10. He is not saying that there is nothing good about the world we live in. He is not encouraging us to withdraw from our communities, quit our jobs, take our children out of schools, and become Christian hermits. He is saying just don’t embrace and love the way that sinful and evil people in world see reality. TV values are a good example. By that, I mean the values that we see in the news, sit-coms, soap-operas, TV dramas, and so-called reality TV shows. Don’t let their way of seeing things become your world view. Don’t let them shape you. What are these worldly world views?
11. A worldly world view, according to John, is a very self-centered, selfish, proud, loveless way of seeing reality. It is so strong in us at times that we see only one’s own needs and cannot see the needs of other people. If the truth be known, every one of us has been or is being influenced and shaped by this kind world view. It is so easy to believe and act like this because this worldly world view is so in line with our basic selfish nature that it is hard to resist alone.
12. Instead, what Paul and John are encouraging their readers to do is to allow their churches and attendees to be shaped and formed in the image of Christ. To allow Christ to be formed in us thus changing our world view—our basic selfish way of seeing reality.
13. Spiritual Formation is the practice of being conformed into the image of Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is the practice of changing how we see and behave in the world around us.
14. Now the question is, how much help does the Holy Spirit need from us for this process to be carried forward? “All is grace, yet all depends upon our willingness to cooperate freely with the Spirit of God that flows in our lives.” Can we actually retard and hinder the process? We certainly can and, in many cases, we have. Can we even spiritually move backwards, to the point we doubt whether or not we’ve been saved? Yes, just like it is possible to move forward in our spiritual life, it is possible to move backwards. In fact, that is the ends to which Satan is working.
15. What is the evidence of spiritual formation taking place in our lives? When people attend our church and feel the Spirit, what are they experiencing? When your heart is strangely warmed after reading your Bible, praying, singing songs of praise, worshiping God, serving God and your fellow human beings, visiting the sick, witnessing to the lost, doing deeds of kindness, what is it that you are experiencing? You are experiencing all the byproducts of the Holy Spirit. What are they? These are the evidence of the Spirit. Read Galatians 5:22. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (NIV) These are what we mean as Spiritual. These constitute whether a person or a church is truly spiritual or not.
16. Now, do YOU want to be more spiritual?
Week of: July 20, 2008
Title: The Journey With Christ – Part 2
Series: Study of Spiritual Formation
Scripture: Hebrews 11:13-16
1. How many of you like to take a journey? How many of you like to take trips? I think, for most of us, a journey is a little more anxious term than a trip. A trip is like a trip to the beach, or a trip to grandma’s house, while we think of a journey as a long and sometimes difficult process. In our instant-gratification society, we don’t like to think of things as long and time consuming, and especially something that is long, difficult, and anxious.
2. But life, for most us, is a long and sometimes difficult process. Someone once wrote: “Life is its own journey, presupposes its own change and movement, and one tries to arrest them at one’s own peril.” (Lauren Van der Post, Venture to the Interior)
3. However, I think the longest journeys; the most difficult journeys are the ones we take inside here (pointing to the heart)-the inward journey. Down though the centuries, numerous saints of Christianity have called the inward journeys pilgrimages—pilgrimages of faith.
4. The pilgrimages of faith are nothing more than the movement of one’s life toward and with Christ. In the truly Biblical way of understanding things, it is not just enough “to get saved.” Salvation is also about making the most you can of your life with God while you can. Salvation is about a pilgrimage of faith that we start in this world and continues till the day we die, and then throughout eternity.
5. There is a classical pilgrimage of faith in which the saints have divided their journey with Christ into four stages. One is the awakening; it is an encounter with the living God and it is an encounter with our true self. It is coming to see something of who God is and who we are at the same time. The experience can be gradual or it can be sudden and very radical. But it is what we call being “saved” from hell or being awakened out of our spiritual sleep or spiritual death.
6. The next stage is purgation; it is a process of bringing our behavior, our attitudes, our desires into an increasing harmony with what we know is the life that Christ would have us to live. This can be a purging from our lives attitudes and behaviors like that Paul lists in Galatians 5: 19-21 “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, drunkenness, carousing.” Or, it can be dealing with the purging of things like worry and anxiety which keeps us from maturing in our faith because, frankly, we have a lack of trust in God. Someone has described a mature faith as “a decline of anxiety and an increase of peace” in our lives. Some things are easier to purge than others.
7. The third stage is harder; it is called illumination. I think it is called illumination because we begin to see things a lot different than we ever dreamed we could. It is a shift from seeing God as someone or something “out there,” like some people who believe that “God is the man upstairs,” to an experience of God present deep within our hearts. Someone else once said, “as long as God is perceived as ‘out there’ separated from us, we understand ourselves as independent, autonomous beings. We labor under the anxiety that causes us to attempt to retain control of our relationship with God and to control our limited world.” You might say that this deeper level of faith comes from a very deep realization that we cannot control God and that God Himself is present and very much in control of our very small existence.
8. The final level of faith is called union. It is really what all of us want, to be completely one with God, to find ourselves caught up in deep joy, adoration, praise, and peace that surpasses all understanding. It is sheer ecstasy. Such a time, maybe once or twice in a lifetime, is truly a gift of God, not the results of our efforts.
9. Paul tells us of such an experience. Turn to 2 Corinthians 12: 1-7 and read along. In John 17:20-23, Jesus says in His prayer: “I pray…for those who will believe in me…that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us…that they may be one even as we are one.” Here is the ultimate conformity to the image of Christ—transforming oneness with God in Christ.
10. Notice 17: 23 “I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” This whole process of Spiritual transformation, your journey in Christ toward the image of Christ, is meant for the sake of others. To let them know that Jesus Christ has been sent to love us as God has loved Him.
11. Now I have told and shown you all these things, not to discourage you or intimidate you, but as to how far we all have to go. I just want you understand some of the possibilities for those who take their spiritual growth seriously. We may never get to the point that we can honestly and accurately say like Paul: “that is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” but what if we can move close enough to it that we can begin to get a taste of what that really means. Let me illustrate that by our scripture.
12. Look in Hebrews 11. The writer of Hebrews is naming the saints of old one by one and declaring their acts of faith. Read with me the following verses and passages—verses 4, 5, 7, 8. Verse 13, in our scripture passage, tells us that all these people where still living a life of faith when they died. But they had not at the time of their death received all the things that were promised to them, but they did get a glimpse of many of the things they were promised from a distance and were glad.
13. Look at the last part of verse 13; even though they didn’t get as far in their journey with God as they hoped, they had to admit that they were aliens and strangers on earth. That their true citizenship and home was with God. Therefore, at end of their lives as they had journeyed toward God, he prepared a city for them- a heavenly city of God.
14. I tell you this… no one knows just how far they will be able to go in their journey with God. But the problem is that so many people have lost sight of the promises that God has given them in Jesus Christ and have simply given up, settling for being average in their spiritual life at the best.
15. Your life is a journey. Your Spiritual life is the most important journey you will ever take. Please take it seriously while you can.
Week of: July 27, 2008
Title: My Life is Like… – Part 3
Series: Study of Spiritual Formation
Scripture: Psalm 42
Handout for Sermon (Click to download)
1. What is your life like? Do you ever stop to think what your life is really like? You might be thinking, “I’ll tell you Preacher, I don’t have to stop and think about it. My life is hectic. It is like I am on a speeding rocket and I don’t know how or where to get off.”
2. Or could it be your life is like a gloomy dark cloudy day with very little sunshine? Or as far as you’re concerned, is your life all peaches and crème? Only you and the Good Lord can really judge. I remember while I was pastor at Wildwood Baptist church in Maryville, TN, every so often we’d go to a nursing home in the area and lead a worship service. I was just out of seminary, new to the ministry, and thought I knew just how people felt about being in a nursing home. So I gave this little talk about the gloom and doom of being in a nursing home, and how Jesus was with them and would never forsake them.
3. After my little talk, a little lady came up and took exception with what I said. Not about Jesus being with them, but about my gloom and doom speech. She said: “Preacher, I want you to know that I’ve never had it so good. I’ve got a nice place to stay with my very own room and bed. I have three good meals a day. I don’t have to work, or as much as lift my finger if I don’t want to; and I have plenty of good friends to keep me company.” So, she wanted me to know that despite her being in a nursing home, her life was just as rosy as it could be. It taught me a lesson about assuming I understood how people really felt about their situation in life.
4. In our scripture this morning the psalmist is crying out for God. His life is definitely not what he wants it to be and he is not bashful about expressing it. Evidently his health is not good because, in verse 10, he says: “My bones suffer mortal agony….” Like a lot of sick or injured folks, he is also depressed or as he would say: “My soul is downcast within me….” People, especially his enemies, are mocking him “all day long” by saying: “Where is your God that you are such a shape?” In the meantime, he cries night and day for God to rescue him.
5. The imagery of the psalmist that interests me is the panting deer. When I was a young lad my mother, father, and I were working in our garden and we heard a pack of dogs barking off in the distant mountains. I remember dad remarking that there must be hunting dogs after a deer or something. Anyway, after finishing our work in the garden, we headed back to the house only to see a deer standing in the middle of the road looking at us. It was panting, its tongue was sticking out, and sure enough not too far off in the distant background, were the barking dogs. The deer stopped only a moment to look at us and was off again running for its life. The image of the deer running for its life, panting for air and water is what reminds me of this Psalm. Except David is not panting for water per se, he is panting for God. Either because of sickness, injury, persecution or whatever it may be, he is on the run, tried, and panting for God to rescue him. It quickly becomes “as the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.”
6. Indeed, when trouble comes, we find ourselves wanting God to be near, wanting Him right beside us. But where do I want God to be when there are no troubles, or when I seem to be doing ok? How close do we want Him?
7. As evangelical Christians, as Baptists who believe in the security of the believer, I think that, at times, we are guilty of acting like “once we get saved” or once the crises in life are over, we don’t need to have a strong desire for God.
8. It is very easy for us to become complacent in our relationship with God, and to lose that passion we had for Him in years past. In other words, we got Him now and we don’t need to hunger for Him anymore.
9. And because of this lack of hunger and desire for God, our priorities in life get messed up and we lose sight of what is important.
10. Take a moment to look at your worksheet. Don’t get nervous about the worksheet; it is just a way of trying to visualize what I am trying to say. First off, I’d like you to write in your worksheet the metaphor that bests describe your life right now. “My life is like a ________________. “ (sunny day, gloomy cloudy, speeding bullet, etc.)
11. In addition, last Sunday if you recall, I mentioned that there were four steps on the way to Christian perfection: 1) was an awakening to our need for God 2) purgation, where we are asked to purify ourselves of the things that hold back our pilgrimage to be conformed into the image of Christ. On the handout sheet, there is a section labeled: “Things I have left/or need to leave behind to become like Christ.” Write some of them down. This is not for anyone else—this is for you.
12. The center section is for things that are or need to be in their proper place—they are or at least should be secondary concerns or passions in our lives. They all have a place in a Christian’s life, they are good in and of themselves but they must never be our number one concern.
13. The right side of the paper is the goal of a Christian’s life, to be one with Christ, to be conformed to the image of Christ, and live our lives according to His will. How do I go about this? What goals in life do I need to set so that my life pants for God like a deer does for water?