A Life of Discipline, week 2: Lent 2010
Feb 28, 2010
Intro:
Welcome this morning to the second Sunday in Lent, which is the season of preparation for Easter. I’ve decided to theme our Lenten Journey this year along the lines of “a disciplined life”, recognizing that God calls us to “Work hard to show the results of your salvation” (Phil 2:12), and also recognizing that for many Christians today our spiritual lives are woefully out of shape. Last Sunday, I went to great lengths to remind us that any talk of “effort” on our part is NOT to earn our salvation, it is not to try to win favour with God, and it is not motivated by fear of rejection by God if we don’t behave “good enough”. I like how Paul put it there in Phil. 2:12, especially the NLT – our effort (or “work”) does not earn but rather demonstrates our salvation.
I concluded last week with a call to try out two specific spiritual disciplines – solitude and study. So I want to begin this morning with an opportunity to hear how those went for you. Anyone care to share??
Perspective:
I’m not going to launch in with “the next discipline to try”, though I will give another assignment at the end of this message, because “trying them out” is not really the point. If we use the physical body as an example, as we have the past couple of weeks, the point is not to “try out” a bunch of different types of exercises once, and expect that to do much for our physical health. The point is that we intentionally build our way of living daily so it includes these disciplines. This is what it means to be a “disciple” of Jesus – we live like Jesus did. Every day, not once a week. Again in the physical realm, we all recognize that we can’t eat nothing but junk food all week, then have one good meal and a 30 minutes stroll through the park, and expect to be physically healthy. So I’m thrilled if you gave solitude and study a try, it is a good start! but I also have to say that in order for them to really impact our lives we have to find a way to build these practices into our lives regularly, so that spiritually we can stay in shape.
In my life, solitude is important to me on a daily basis. I need space to be alone with my thoughts and with God, I need time alone where I can allow thoughts and feelings to churn around in me, when I can have ideas and follow them through in my mind and heart, and where I can allow the presence of God to be with me guiding and joining me on that daily journey. I practice this when I drive. I don’t have the radio on, I am usually by myself, and I choose to use that time as solitude. And no, that’s not cheating! I could listen to music, or talk radio, and thus not be alone, instead I use that time to center myself in Christ either on the way to work or on the way home, to prepare myself for the things ahead at work or the things ahead at home. My great hope is that if I am centered and have had this time of solitude, I’ll have something to offer those people I encounter. I know my life is in balance when, on my day off, if I’m driving around to pick up Thomas after school or for groceries and I feel like turning on the radio – that is an indicator to me that my heart and mind are relatively at peace. So then I do. I tell that story simply to illustrate how these disciplines have to be incorporated into our daily life, and encourage you to find places where you can incorporate these practices into your daily life.
What’s Missing?
To continue our exploration of this Lenten theme of a disciplined life, I’ve been struggling with the realization that something is missing. You see, I believe very strongly in the “Great Commission”, where Jesus calls His disciples to Him just before rising into heaven and gives them this famous instruction (Matt. 28): “18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” I want to hone in on the command to “make disciples”, and the command to “teach these new disciples to obey.” And here is where I see something missing: we’ve taught what the commands are, yet Christians still seem to often break them. Maybe not you, but I see that in me. And lest I start to console myself and think “well, I keep most of them, especially all the big important ones like not murdering…”, I need to look again and be reminded that Jesus said “ALL the commands”. Somewhere there is a breakdown; somewhere, something is missing.
We don’t know:
Maybe the break down comes because we simply haven’t taught – Christians really don’t know what the commandments of Jesus are, so sin unknowingly. Well, I suppose that might happen sometimes, especially with sins of omission (“oh, I didn’t know that helping my brother in need was actually a command, I thought it was one of those optional extras for the super-Christians…”); but honestly, do you and I sin because we don’t really know the commandments? Think of the last time you sinned – actually take a moment now to bring one specific instance of recent sin in your life to mind, and don’t worry I won’t ask you to publicly share. Got one in mind? Ok, was your sin honestly a result of you not knowing the commandment? Probably not…
We don’t care:
So if that isn’t the place where the breakdown happens, maybe it is that Christians don’t really care. We don’t think sin matters, it isn’t a big deal to us, or we figure God will just forgive us anyway. I think this one is more likely than the first. I do think we have far too cavalier an attitude towards sin. I do think we take sin far too lightly. I do think we have a very poor understanding of how sin robs us of life, makes us miserable, and destroys the good things God wants us to experience and enjoy and so we trade them for a momentary and fleeting pleasure that comes with many sins. It is like we drink poison because it tastes really sweet on the tongue, without thought of how this is going to effect us in about an hour. But this is still not down to the root of the basic problem I’m trying to understand here, about why Christians continue in sin when Jesus commanded us to “teach these new disciples to obey all the commands”. I know that it isn’t the root because I know far too many Christians who are genuinely, deeply remorseful of their sin. It does break their hearts, they do recognize it as a big deal, they do honestly want to live differently, they do “try”. But they continue in sinful habits and patterns, almost like they remain as slaves to “the sin that so easily trips us up” (Heb 12:1). So think again about that last time you sinned – was it because you didn’t really care, or do you feel remorseful over that sin and really wish you hadn’t sinned?
We don’t believe it is possible:
So next I wonder if the thing missing is that we believe it is impossible to actually live life without sinning, so why bother trying so much if we are destined for failure anyways. Maybe we have a theological belief that it is actually impossible to “obey all the commands” Jesus taught, so we expect failure is the only option. Then maybe we set out our goal as “to fail less often”, as we mature in our Christian life, but we still expect to fail. There are a couple big problems with this: first, if we again use the recent Olympics as an example, what athlete there is in their sport believing it is impossible for them to win? Doesn’t work, right? You can’t be at that level believing that ultimately you are going to fail. If they start with that attitude, they will prove it correct. The second problem I have with this belief that it is impossible is what that makes Jesus into – Jesus gave the command, and made it very clear. If Jesus was giving us an impossible command, it makes Him at best a harsh taskmaster, and at worst a manipulative sadist. It turns Jesus into an evil person who is deliberately setting us up for failure, frustration, disappointment, and a lifelong pursuit of an impossible goal. That would be incredibly cruel, and that is not my Jesus. But still, as true as this is for many of us, I still don’t think it solves my initial problem. It will help, immensely, if we believe that obeying “all the commands” is not Jesus setting us up to fail. But just believing it is possible doesn’t make it happen, any more than not wanting to sin keeps us from sinning.
So, to recap: something is missing because many Christians still sin. I don’t think it is because we don’t know better. I don’t think that our cavalier attitude of not really caring about sin is the root cause, though it doesn’t help. And I don’t think it is fundamentally about our theological misconception that leaves us believing that Jesus issued an impossible command, though again that doesn’t help. There must be something else, and it is summed up in our frustrated call, “but how could we live the life that Jesus commanded us”?
The “How”
Let me share with you from Dallas Willard’s “The Spirit of the Disciplines”: “How can ordinary human beings such as you and I – who must live in circumstances all too commonplace – follow and become more like Jesus Christ? How can we be like Christ always – not just on Sunday when we’re on our best behaviour, surrounded by others to cheer and sustain us? How can we be like him not as pose or by a constant and grinding effort, but with the ease and power he had – flowing form inner depths, acting with quiet force from the innermost mind and soul of the Christ who has become a real part of us? There is no question we are called to this. It is our vocation as well as our greatest good. And it must be possible. But how?” (p. 14).
He continues at the end of this second chapter with an answer: “full participation in the life of God’s Kingdom and in the vivid companionship of Christ comes to us only through appropriate exercise in the disciplines for life in the spirit. Those disciplines alone can become for us average Christians ‘the conditions upon which the spiritual life is made indubitably real.’ And if this point can be made as convincingly as its truth and its importance deserves, the practical effects will be stunning. There will be a life-giving revolution in our personal lives and in our world.” (p. 26).
“only through appropriate exercise in the disciplines”… Here, I think, is the missing link to our lack of living in complete obedience to Jesus commands – we haven’t lived disciplined lives. We are spiritually weak, because we haven’t exercised. And so when temptation comes, and we know what is right, we want to do what is right, we believe it is possible to do what is right, we still do what is NOT right because we do not have the spiritual strength to resist. Our muscles are weak and flabby, our endurance minimal, our strength too little, because we’ve not trained them. We’ve chosen to compartmentalize our faith into a little spot called “Sunday morning”, with the mistaken belief that if church is “good enough” – if the worship is powerful, the message compelling, and the prayers heartfelt enough – we’ll be charged up and energized and able to face the week ahead and overcome. We think we can coast from Sunday to Sunday without opening our Bibles on our own, without ever resisting any of our desires and thus training ourselves to not be slaves to them, without nurturing an attitude of prayer that enables us to easily hear and know God’s voice when it is quiet so that when it is chaotic we can cry out and hear the clear response, and so on. We sin, I believe, because we have not trained ourselves not to sin. And that is exactly what the classic spiritual disciplines do for us – they train us for godliness. They “teach us to obey all the commands” – not “teach” in the sense that then we know something in our minds, but “teach” in the sense that we have the skills and strength and practice that enables us to respond to our lives “with the ease and power [Jesus] had”.
Conclusion:
Here, once again, is Willard’s list of some specific disciplines. Disciplines of Abstinence include: solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, and sacrifice; Disciplines of Engagement include study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession, and submission. My point today is that we have to find ways to incorporate these into our lives each and every day – back to my earlier example of driving as my place of solitude and silence. So this week, rather than picking one to try, my challenge is that you choose from the list one that you will engage every day. Which one is up to you, but let me give you some hopefully helpful guidance: don’t choose one you already do just so you can say you did it. That’s like someone deciding they want to get more in shape than they are so they are going to walk to work everyday, when they already walk to work. Don’t choose one that is impossible for you, that will set you up for failure and would be like a beginning runner deciding they will go for a 5 mile run, and then getting 2.5 miles from home and having to stop and call a cab. Or maybe an ambulance... Instead, pick one that will train you and help you fight and resist that sin that came to mind earlier. Maybe it was gossip – then choose the discipline of silence. Maybe it was greed or covetousness – then choose the discipline of frugality (abstinence) or giving (engagement). Selfishness – choose service. Wasting time on something trivial – any one of the “engagement” list. And so on… and if you are not sure which discipline will help you fight whatever particular sin you need to build strength to resist, talk to me and I’ll gladly point you in the right direction. So there is this week’s assignment – pick one to work on each and every day.
I’m going to close this morning with a familiar passage of Scripture, which is part of the backbone to this whole Lenten series on developing a life of discipline. 1 Cor. 9:25-27: “25Everyone 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. 26Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27No, 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.”
