Series - “Preparing to Prosper”
“God loves to bless His children!” That is the declaration of the Bible, a promise that we can live by. In this series of messages, my aim has been to teach how we position ourselves to stand in the flow of God’s blessing, to live in a way that is prosperous, not so much in financial terms, but in the enjoyment of a life rich in purpose and meaning.
Spirituality
Today I want to talk about the importance of spirituality as a part of the life that God blesses. At first that may strike you as strange. “Why would the Pastor feel the need to talk about spirituality in a church, to a group of people who are in the middle of spiritual activity?” The simple truth is that not every person who claims to be a Christian is anything near truly spiritual. Engaging in the rituals of faith is no guarantee of spirituality!
Jesus alludes to this in his story about home-building told in Matthew 7. He says that some take His words and make them the foundation of their lives, in the process building a life that will withstand storms, trials, and that will ultimately survive death itself. Others just treat His words like decorations, little ‘feel-good’ slogans that make them a bit more attractive, but their basic life values are untouched, uninformed by the wise of the Lord.
He says, “Knowing the correct password—saying ‘Master, Master,’ for instance—isn’t going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience—doing what my Father wills. I can see it now—at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, ‘Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.’ And do you know what I am going to say? ‘You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don’t impress me one bit. You’re out of here.’
“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.
“But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards.” (Matthew 7:21- 27, The Message)
PRAYER –
Spirituality is a term that is much used and equally misunderstood in our time. In the broadest sense, when we define spirituality, we think of that person who is intent on the qualities of soul, whose life is not centered on physical matters such as owning material goods or enjoying gratification of sensual appetites.
As followers of Christ Jesus, spirituality is much more defined.
Our Lord said that the truly spiritual person is committed to a two-fold expression of his faith-
1. “Love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength” and,
2. “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
Let’s not fall into the mistake of thinking that because this material world is temporary and because it is so marred by the Curse of Sin, that God is only concerned with ethereal things, that spirituality is just a matter of thinking right thoughts and having a right philosophy! This error has been around since the earliest days of Christianity. A person who is truly spiritual understands that his professed love for God is meaningless unless it finds expression in the world with a transformed heart that brings about godly actions! A true Christ-centered spirituality must never be divorced from the way that we live from day to day in this world.
True spirituality goes to the core of our person, making us deep people.
Gordon MacDonald, pastor and author, illustrates this with the story of his grandfather, Thomas MacDonald. Thomas was an engineer who responded to the call of God and turned from building bridges to and became a Bible teacher. Gordon tells of seeing his grandfather engaged in learning the Scripture and teaching it to others. He was a man who was passionate about prayer. He loved God, God’s work, and God’s people.
When Thomas MacDonald was a very old man, in his final year of life, he was living in a convalescent home. Gordon visited him and found that his mind was mostly gone, that he did not know who people were, or even where he was. But the spirit of that man remained intact, described by Gordon as ‘gentle and noble.’
Gordon attempted to converse with the old man but realized that his grandfather did not know who he was, nor could he appreciate the things he was being told, so Gordon prepared to leave and offered to pray for his grandfather. The man was delighted. Let me pick the story in Gordon’s own words at this point.
“I began to pray the best prayer I knew how to pray. I prayed for his health, for God to be with him, for him to remember that he was loved by his family. When I finished I looked up to say good-bye but it was clear that Grandfather had no intention of saying farewell just yet. He was going to pray also. And pray he did.
Suddenly the foggy mind cleared. Words of praise and intercession poured from his lips, an articulate prayer if ever I’ve heard one. I was awestruck. The old man was oblivious to the world outside of his door, unable even to remember his grandson’s name. But he knew God and he knew how to talk with Him.
I listened as the prayer went on to minutes as he spoke of Bible promises, as he prayed for God to show mercy on the world, as he expressed his gratitude for the love of Jesus.
Then he turned to pray for me, “And now, O God, I pray for.... (Turning to me) what is your name?”
“Gordon,” I said,
“Yes, thank you.” And the prayer continued, “... for Gordon that you would bring him a heavy anointing of prophetic power when preaches the Gospel. And, O God, would you give (turning to me again) What is your name?”
“Gordon,” I said again. “... give Gordon a double blessing.”
My grandfather knew nothing else, needed to know nothing else, except how to live out of his soul. There was no senility in that dimension of his life, only beauty, order, truth, power, and glory!”
- The Life God Blesses,Nelson, 1994
Key Question - So, how do we become people deep in the things of God, people whose relationship with the Lord goes to the core of our being, becoming the very defining quality of our lives?
Absolutely first is to know this - We must be born again, made alive in our spirit, by the Holy Spirit.
Spirituality cannot be achieved by any human effort, not by education, not by self-discipline or deprivation, not by anything that we can do on our own! Jesus met with a man who was good and moral, a man respected as a leader in his community. He came to the Lord seeking answers.
In John 3: 3-6 Jesus uttered these amazing words. READ
By faith, we respond to God’s invitation to life, confessing our sins and failures, and embracing Jesus Christ as the One whose death on the Cross makes us right with God. God, the Father, pours the Spirit enters our lives, and we become children of God, born into His family. But being born again does not guarantee spirituality!
Many, having been made alive in the Spirit, continue to live very much as natural men and women, still directed by the desires of the sinful nature, the natural man rather than filled with the evidence of the life of the Spirit. Genuine spirituality is a partnership. We cannot become spiritual by ourselves, nor will God make us spiritual through some magical process apart from our cooperation!
Some would say the answer is to be baptized in the Spirit as we read of in the book of Acts. I would agree that experiencing the fullness of the Spirit in that way is an important part of becoming a person who is spiritual, but even that experience does not guarantee a deep spirituality.
There are daily choices that allow the Holy Spirit to master our sinful nature so that we are filled with the character of Jesus Christ. Often that process is part of difficult and/or painful circumstances.
Second, know this - there will be no real spirituality apart from the choice to allow Self to be put to death!
Matthew 16:24-26
With all due respect to those who are young, one seldom observes deep spirituality among those who are in their teens and/or twenties in our time, because we work so hard to spare them the difficulties of life, shielding them from the struggles of the soul, that lead us to the Cross where we die with Christ and embrace the life of the Spirit. But, as a person deals more and more with life, coming to grips with the illusions of meaning offered by sex, power, money, or fame, he is more open to becoming part of the process of going deep in the things of God.
Again, suffering does not guarantee spiritual depth. Some who suffer, who do not choose faith in God, become bitter and chase the mirage of life across this world’s deserts even more desperately!
Real spirituality requires a vision of life that centers on eternity as our ultimate home.
Paul says that the struggles of the Christian life are meaningless apart from the hope of the resurrection and life in Heaven with God. If the only reality is the present, then we should adopt the philosophy - “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, for tomorrow we die!”
But, the Word is clear about the fact that because Jesus lives, we shall live also. The consistent theme of the New Testament is that this life is but a prologue the story of eternity, which begins the moment we die or at the moment of the Second Coming of Jesus. But many lack this vision! Nowhere is this more evident than in our American obsession with youth! Lacking an understanding that as our bodies decay, our spirits become strong, we fight the signs of mortality in every way imaginable - from face lifts and tummy tucks, to Viagra and new younger wives.
As I move into the last third of my life, I am beginning to believe that one reason God allows our bodies to age is to wean us from our attachment to the things of this world and to cause us to hope more intensely for Heaven, thus becoming more concerned about loving God and expressing our love to others.
I am quite certain that some of you are thinking something like this ...
“That’s all well and good, but it would appear that spirituality is quite a down-er apart from getting to go to Heaven! Unless I am poor, miserable, sick, and suffering, why would I even want to be ‘spiritual?’ ”
At the risk of over-simplification, my answer is this - apart from God, life gets ugly quite quickly, and the world becomes a place in which none of would wish to live. Only a truly spiritual person lives anywhere near his potential and purpose, or with the kind of richness in relationships that God intends for us to enjoy.
The most stark illustration of that statement that I can think of is found in the history of the middle of 20th century. Remember the National Socialist Party of Germany? Most of us are more familiar with the short-hand phrase - Nazi. Nazism was an expression of what man becomes when he considers himself his own god! Nazis believed themselves to be super-race of human beings. They did not believe that there was a moral restraint on self-expression. The smartest person who held the largest store of weapons had the right to impose his will on those around himself. So, they set out to subjugate the world, to eliminate those they considered inferior to themselves. And they plunged the world into terrible suffering.
Those who see no value in spiritual matters, who see no real need to know or serve God, eventually move towards a similar kind of self-centeredness! I don’t mean to imply that all who reject God will become another Adolf Hitler, but on a much smaller scale, they will eventually come to a place of serving their own needs first. Unless self has been put to death by the Spirit of God, whatever social restraints a person may feel that keeps them from doing things that are harmful or wrong will often be discarded if the possibility of punishment or disapproval is taken away.
The sly advertising campaign for the tourism industry of Las Vegas is built around the theme of self-indulgence. “What happens here, stays here” is the slogan that invites men and women to go to Vegas and for a few days throw off restraint, for there will be no consequences. What is result? It is a city of greed and lust, with thousands of women as prostitutes, where billions of dollars are gambled away.
More than one life has been broken, more than a few people have lost their dignity or self-respect, in that place where restraint is set aside because “What happens here, stays here.”
By contrast, the work of the Spirit creates beauty!
In the book of Isaiah we read,
The Lord will "provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor." (61:3, NIV)
The metaphor is hard for many of us to grasp. Everything around us is happening fast. "Wait" is a despised word. We want quick solutions and instant answers. We hate to wait for anything - from the inconsequential momentary delay at the check-out counter; to the process of healing in our body.
So, the idea of being an ’oak of righteousness’ is nearly unfathomable.
But, what the Word promises is that as we cooperate with the work of God in us, as well as around us in our world, He slowly grows us into something beautiful. If we cooperate with Him, He gives us a strength that is quite aptly illustrated by the tall oak tree that stands through storm after storm!
The Bible says that those who trust God will be known for the beauty they create, the steadiness their presence brings to the world. His Spirit exerts a powerful force in us, that over time, replaces our sinful and selfish nature with the character of Jesus Christ.
Passionate Christians, who love God and others with a genuine godly love, do amazing things wherever they go. The Christian church, while much criticized for her failures through history, has been the cause for many amazing and wonderful things in the world. The highest standards of living, the best models of health care, the most successful economies are found in nations where there are reasons to be selfless because of a shared world view that sees God as the source of Life, the One to be served and that reveres the value of individual human life- which are core spiritual values.
That is one reason I am not optimistic about the future of the Western nations who once had a heritage of Christianity, but who have become secular in the last half century or so. As the foundation erodes, the society above, which has enjoyed the benefit of Christian values even unknowingly, will collapse in on itself!
I want to read one last passage of Scripture this morning as I bring this message to a close:
It is the words of Paul found in Galatians 5:16-25 where two kinds of lives that are contrast -
one is the natural way of life, the expression of Self and sin;
the other is the way of the Spirit, what is created in the life of a spiritual person.
I want to read it to you from The Message – not because it is a superior translation, but because I think you will hear it better without the familiar language in a text so widely known:
"My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness.
... It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time:
repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know.
If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.
But what happens when we live God’s way?
He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way.
Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified. Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives."
(Galatians 5:16-25, The Message)
If you’ve lived your life, to this point, dominated by your natural desires, serving your basic needs - let me appeal to you to consider that God has a better way - the way of the spiritual person! This way produces life that is full and rich both now and eternity. Go for the deep things of God!
Stop living just for today, shallowly obsessed with TV trivia, sports facts, or fashion news.
Turn to Christ, receive the Spirit’s life.
Embrace the Cross and let God bring about the death of the sinful nature, even as the life of the Spirit is released in you. Amen.
Jerry D. Scott copyright 2007 all rights reserved
www.WashingtonAG.com
