The Case for Spiritual Formation
The Company We Keep, prt. 4
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
May 23, 2009
John Ortberg asks us to consider what it would be like to be doing what we do every night – sitting on the couch eating Twinkies and potato chips – when suddenly the phone rings. You answer it and, to your surprise, it is the US Olympic Committee. You have been chosen to compete in the marathon for the US Olympic team. Yes you! Twinkie eating, potato-chip munching, TV-watching you, going to the Olympics! Oh, you are so excited. You’re going to the Olympics. Millions of people will be watching. You can’t wait to tell your friends.
But wait. You can’t just show up to the Olympics and run a marathon. You’ve never run a marathon before, you don’t know the first thing about it. How goofy, what were you thinking? First thing the next morning you head off to the library and check out a stack of books on marathon running. You read about famous runners, marathon or otherwise. You memorize the life story of Steve Prefontaine. You change your name to Steve Prefontaine (or Stephanie). You buy every t-shirt you can find with one of his quotes on it, then you have a bunch more custom-made. You change your email signature to an inspirational quote by Bruce Jenner. And of course, since you’re a TV kind of person, you rent Chariots of Fire and watch it a hundred times. You subscribe to Runner’s World. You start hanging out with Cindy Perkins, following her to the store and buying the same shoes she wears. You start saying stuff like “Be the change you want to see in the world,” and “Man imposes his own limitations, don’t set any.” You memorize Philippians 4:13 – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” You are pumping yourself up. Never has there been a US Olympic runner who was more pumped up and enthusiastic than you. Never has anyone been so determined to win. You are working as hard as you possibly can to make this dream a reality. You’ve left no stone unturned. With one small exception. As you stand there on the day of the race with the other runners you notice that their bodies look like cucumbers – firm and lean – and yours looks – well, kind of like a Twinkie – kinda squishy and soft. For a second you wonder if maybe instead of doing all that reading you should have gone out and tried to run a little bit. But you put it out of your mind. You say, “Sure, I haven’t actually done any running, but I want it more. I have the drive. I’m in it to win it. I’m ready to be the change and to not set any limitations. I can do all things through Christ.” And the more you repeat this, the more excited you get. Suddenly the gun goes off. It’s race time. You and all the other runners take off. I’ll let you take it from there because I think you know how this ends.
What’s wrong with this story? What’s wrong is thinking that if you learn a lot about marathon running, you could just show up and run a marathon by trying really hard. When that gun goes off, all the education, all the information, all the inspiration on the planet is not going to amount to anything beyond about 50 yards if you have failed to include dedication to the kinds of activities that will enable you to run this race. See, you might have followed Cindy to the store, but you failed to follow her to the gym. It is not in the store, but rather in the gym, that you become the kind of person who is capable of running marathons. Inspiration and education, in fact, are only valuable when they are used in conjunction with practices known to actually make it possible for you to run. The error was in choosing trying over training. Trying won’t get you very many things that matter much. Steady training, however, will surely get you where you need to go.
Most of us live the Christian life by trying rather than by training. We read Christian books and magazines. We buy “Christian” shirts and listen to Christian music. We listen to sermons, given by people we think might be successful in this area and we hope some of that rubs off on us. We even read the Bible, but we read it the same way we read other books – for information. But without engaging in the practices that will make us into the kind of people who can actually love our enemies, actually pray for those who persecute us, actually live free from worry, actually release bitterness toward others, etc., the Bible reading has about the same effect as the running magazines. Again, the information is valuable only if we are engaging in the training that will enable us to do what we need to do.
Now let me ask you something. What’s the easiest way to run a marathon? To submit to the regimen of training that is required and then show up mentally and physically prepared, or to simply show up and try really hard? Obviously without the training, all the trying on this planet won’t get you to the finish line, or even close. But if your goal is to run a marathon, there are steps you can take that will surely get you to that goal, if applied with consistency and patience.
Christians are people who routinely show up to the marathon unprepared, and then heap guilt upon ourselves for not being able to run it. We live hurried, anxious, noisy, chaotic, undisciplined, frantic lives, filled with TV-watching, Twinkie-eating, and other activities of questionable value, and then don’t understand why we cannot seem to be more patient with our children, more loving to our spouse, love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, let go of offenses committed against us, or kick our various and sundry addictions.
If we are ever to live the life Jesus has called us to, we must go into training. Somewhat like marathon running, the things Jesus calls us to do are simply impossible if we do not train ourselves so that we become capable of doing them. This is such a solid Biblical idea, yet it is so often overlooked in our churches.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (NIV)
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.
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.
26 Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air.
27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
Let’s look at this in a calm and reasonable way. I say that because we live in a self-indulgent society. Anything that talks about denying ourselves in any way is seen with suspicion. Our culture worships pleasure and feeling good. Not the kind of pleasure and feeling good that comes from training hard for a marathon and finishing it, but the instant and cheap pleasure of the Twinkie-eating, TV watching variety.
Paul starts out by telling us to run in such as way as to get the prize. What does it take to get the prize? Focus. Intentionality. Determination. Consistency. But it begins with a clear vision of what we’re training for. Now it just so happens that because of an injury, Cindy nearly dragged one leg behind her the last six miles or so. But I assure you that when she was training she did not envision this. In her mind, she saw herself finishing that race with confidence and in good condition. The vision of dragging one leg behind her for six miles, in terrible pain, would simply have been too discouraging, and not motivating enough, to keep Cindy going through her training. Of course you can be aware of possibilities, which I’m sure she was, but you get a clear vision of what it is you want, and you work toward that vision. Notice something. Although Cindy finished in pretty bad shape, it’s only because of her positive vision that she even made it to Boston in the first place. Her positive vision helped her prepare for other possibilities.
Do you have a vision for what your life would be like if you were the kind of person who could do what Jesus said to do? What would it be like to not take insults personally? How would it feel to be slighted by someone and be able to still love them graciously, without harboring resentment or desiring to set the record straight? What would it be like if you were the kind of person that when someone treated you like dirt, you still maintained your confidence in yourself (because you would be rooted in God), and you could still love this person freely and with no ill will toward them? What if at some point in the future you stopped being the kind of person who could ever again utter the words, “He owes me,” or “She owes me,” or “I’m sick of his disrespect.” Those things just wouldn’t have any control over your life anymore, because you would no longer be relying on people to meet your deepest needs. What if your addictions – to gambling, to pornography, to food, to approval, to work, whatever – slowly began just falling off because God would be filling whatever space those addictions currently fill? What if you found yourself not feeling owned by the things you own anymore? Wouldn’t it be amazing for your possessions to have no hold over you? You could enjoy them, but hold on to them loosely. What if you got to a place in your life where forgiveness was easier and more appealing than nursing resentment? What if you didn’t have to wrestle with yourself anymore to do what was right, but you just naturally desired to do whatever is right, as soon as it became clear to you? And what if instead of struggling to learn what is right, you just developed a natural sense of it because you were coming to know God better and better, and it just began to make sense to you what God would want you to do?
How’s that sound? Does that sound like a life you might desire? My friends, that is the life Jesus has called you to. Not the life so many of us lead, characterized by anxiety and suspicion and getting what’s ours and withholding approval until people meet our standards and making sure to be judgmental enough that people know what we expect in the future, and insisting that we’ve been wronged – all of that is the way of sin and selfishness, motivated entirely by fear that we will not be loved properly and will not get what’s coming to us.
Galatians 5:19-25 (MSG)
19 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;
20 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;
21 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.
22 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,
23 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.
24 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.
25 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 (emphasis mine).
As I stated in my email to you this week, trying to get our own way (v. 19) – controlling outcomes – is at the root of almost every problem we experience in life. The answer to this (v. 22) is to live God’s way. But this must be learned. I mean, you learned to live the way you live now that is bringing all this bad stuff into your life. You will have to unlearn it and then learn to live God’s way. When you leave today, you will get a copy of that text I just read to you. I hope you will read it frequently and be reminded of the life that results from doing everything our own way, and the possibilities that are there if we will learn to live God’s way.
I have entitled today’s sermon The Case for Spiritual Formation. It could be called Spiritual Reformation, or Transformation because each of you has already been formed spiritually. Those terrible results and qualities Paul lists come out of lives that have been spiritually malformed. Spiritually malformed lives produce actions and attitudes that are maladapted to human life and well-being. I think I have made that case. I have established in previous weeks that you and I have been called by God to learn to live lives of love as we keep company with Jesus and learn to live our lives as if we were living them today. I have made it clear that Christians fail to live spiritually vibrant lives because we get mucked up and caught up in religion. We do the church thing, a little prayer and Bible reading here and there (usually for information, not transformation), maybe a small group, but we find that those things are not adequate to the challenges we face in learning to love others. We still can’t be the people we want to be. We’re trying really hard, but are not submitting to the kind of training that will be effective in making us into the kind of people who can routinely and easily do what Jesus asked us to do. We’re not experiencing God, and therefore we’re not experiencing the freedom and joy that come from God.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (NIV)
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.
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.
26 Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air.
27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
Verse 25 refers to strict training. Now that seems intimidating doesn’t it? Strict? Yikes, I can’t do that. But you know what? You can! Again, going back to running, we see that “strict” training involves an understanding of our limitations. There are days of rest that are built in and those “down times” must be “strictly” observed for your own good. Overtraining is counterproductive. So there are rest days. There are days when you would do just a short run through a beautiful wooded area. Then there are long-run days, but the rest days and short run days prepare you for the long-run day so you’re not just putting out this ridiculous spurt of energy out of nowhere but have prepared yourself for it properly.
So it is that a “strict” regimen of spiritual disciplines/habits/practices will involve some big efforts here and there, but also some resting, some down-time, and some really pleasurable stuff. After all, strict training requires it! Notice verse 26 Paul says, “I don’t run aimlessly or like a man beating the air.” In other words, I know what I want, and I’m on a path to get it – systematically. No overwork or overtraining required. Overtraining is counterproductive. Jesus will surely get you to your destination if your faith is in him.
Finally Paul refers to beating his body and making it his slave. Again this sounds intimidating, but it means taking basic control of yourself. As I’ve said, we live in a hedonistic culture – a culture that seeks pleasure, and preferably cheap and instant pleasure. We say that indulging your desires is good, and even that it is harmful to deny yourself too much. Of course this is just an excuse to pursue boundless sensual pleasure. But the Jesus life is one of intentional movement toward the goal of living like Jesus would live if he were us, and setting aside distractions.
I have been slowly but steadily moving you toward being ready for the unveiling of specific things we can do to train for godliness. But I want you to have a vision for it. I want you to get excited about the kind of person you could be if you were stripped of your sin and lack of love. I hope you can get a vision for living freely and lightly. Once we get the vision, we move toward your intentions. I want to talk to you next week about the kind of life you intend to live.
