Filled With Good Things: A Life of Discipline Lent Week 5
March 21, 2010
Intro:
I hope this morning that I am not going to confuse those of you who have been following closely on our journey through this Lenten season, our time of preparation for Easter. While my main point this morning may seem the opposite of what I have been preaching thus far, it is not contradictory. In fact, it is complimentary, as I trust you will see before we finish.
But before we get there, last Sunday I asked you to think about what God has been doing and teaching you as you have practiced a life of discipline this Lenten season. We’ve been using Dallas Willard’s list of Spiritual disciplines, which I’ll put up on the screen again today, and I’ve challenged us all to find one or two that you could integrate into your daily life – and that is important, the daily practice. It works the same as physical exercise – it has to be a regular part of our life, not just a once-a-year sort of thing, if it is going to make a difference. I’m wondering this morning if a few of you would be willing to share about your experience of the Spiritual disciplines this Lenten season, and the things you’ve been learning or seeing God do in and through you. Volunteers??
The Opposite:
So what did I mean by saying that this morning might feel like a contradiction to the main emphasis of the past several weeks? Well, so far in this series of “A Life of Discipline” we’ve talked mostly about the lack. Last week it was the lack of integration of the various parts of our humanity – body and soul and mind and spirit – and how we tend to ignore that God made us as integrated wholes, God redeems all of us, and that since the body (or the physical) is the container for the rest, there is a strong link between our physical part and the other parts, and that is why the “spiritual” disciplines are so physical in nature. The week before that we talked about the lack of understanding of that for which we are saved – namely that salvation is not “we are saved from our sins so we can go to heaven when we die” but instead, salvation means we get to find out what it really means to live starting NOW and for eternity. The couple of weeks before that we were challenged with our lack of spiritual “fitness”, in contrast with the physical fitness of the Olympians we were thoroughly enamoured with, talking about how many Christians fail to live an obedient, holy life, and many don’t even really try. The spiritual disciplines help us chart a way out of those places where things are lacking, they spur us on towards godly living, and they train us so that we are in shape and can live the life that God intends us to live.
Now, even though each week we’ve looked at a list with both disciplines of abstinence and disciplines of engagement, most of us still associate “disciplines” with “difficult”, with “punishment”, with “denial” of self or pleasure – most of us associate Lent with “giving up” something. And there is an important place for that – half of the list of disciplines are entirely focused on what we give up, and how those things form us spiritually.
However, just like with the physical body, there are two complementary sides: our physical health is almost entirely determined by two things – what we take in (food) and what we burn (activity). So also with our spiritual lives – what we give up is important, but so also is what we put in. These are the disciplines of engagement – the good things that fill our lives, that bring life, the presence of God, the opportunities for the Holy Spirit to produce fruit in our lives, and that train us in godly living by enabling us to experience so many amazing things that the other things – sins – absolutely pale in comparison. Let me illustrate with Scripture.
The Kingdom of God: Lk 15:11-32
“11 To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: “A man had two sons. 12 The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
13 “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. 14 About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. 15 He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. 16 The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.
17 “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, 19 and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’
20 “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. 21 His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’
22 “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. 23 And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, 24 for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, 26 and he asked one of the servants what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’
28 “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, 29 but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. 30 Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’
31 “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. 32 We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”
Two Contrasts:
A very familiar story, one of the best loved of Jesus’ parables. I want us to notice two contrasts today. The first is the contrast between someone living life according to their pleasures and living life according to the will of the Father. See, this younger son had it all figured out – he knew what felt good, what made him happy, and he pursued it. He lived the life we see in most of the advertising today – money flying around, far from home and rules and expectations, food and alcohol and sex, feeling “free” (and I use that word in a contemporary cultural sense, not a Biblical sense) to do whatever he wanted. Now, we can’t contrast the younger son with the older son, because the older son was just as lost, he just hadn’t left home. So instead, let’s contrast the younger son’s life in a distant land with the will of the Father for His son. What did the Father want? He wanted both His sons to know they were valued. He wanted them close so He could love them. He wanted them to work so that they would know the dignity of honest Whlabour. No doubt He wanted them to fall in love, experience all the depth of relationships, and no doubt He wanted to be part of their journey, sharing His wisdom, resources, and His life. But this younger son thought he could do better, could have more fun, could be more free, could be better off on his own. And we saw where that led. See the contrast?
I draw that first contrast because I believe our society is still off in the distant land wasting our lives in wild living. I see evidence of it all around, I’m sure you do also. We believe we’ve found a better way to live than the way that Scripture shows us. We believe we know better. I even see this in many Christians, who don’t incorporate even the most basic of spiritual disciplines, like prayer, Bible reading, tithing, regular participation in worship times. These are tangible parts of our inheritance given to us by God our Father, and often they are squandered away because we think we know better how to live our lives than the God who made us and loves us.
That first contrast demonstrates again some of the “lacks” I’ve been talking about throughout Lent, the second contrast demonstrates my main point today. This second contrast is between what the younger son expected (and deserved) when he returned home, and what he experienced. We know the story – he expected to return home and take the place of a servant, and even that he knew was asking a lot after his rejection of the Father and destroying half His entire life’s wealth. What he experienced, in contrast, was a celebration. A royal welcome. Not just begrudged forgiveness, and a second chance to prove this time that he’d smartened up. He got a party! A feast! Robes, jewellery, music, dancing!!
My friends, that is a picture of the Kingdom of God. See, one of the great lies of the devil is that being a part of God’s Kingdom is going to be some hard, toilsome, difficult, grey, painful, hard work, sustenance kind of living. We make that same mistake when we look at the spiritual disciplines only as these enjoyable things we have to give up. When we do that, we distort what the Kingdom of God actually is, greatly diminish our eagerness to be a part of it, and make it really unattractive to anyone else who is currently not living as a citizen of the Kingdom of God. To put it back in terms of the parable, we don’t even have as high an expectation of the return as the younger son! He at least was looking forward to enough food; we tend to think of the Kingdom of God as bare sustenance food after incredibly hard labour and suffering.
But, in stark contrast, the picture Jesus paints of the Kingdom of God is radically different. Jesus paints a picture of a party. An incredible party! A better party than any of the parties the younger son threw with his daddy’s money, for a whole bunch of reasons but especially this one: upon his return, the party was a celebration of the most important relationships in life being restored. He was home – back where he was loved unconditionally, where the people around weren’t there for a free beer, free food or some meaningless casual sex, but because they actually deeply cared. It wasn’t some temporary happiness, it was a deep joy – the kind that comes in those moments in life when we look around and know all is well.
Disciplines of Engagement:
Willard’s list of disciplines of engagement (study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession, and submission) describe how to live in that kind of Kingdom everyday. These are the practices that feed us with good things, that when we commit to integrating them into our lives daily transform us from living a groggy, sleepy, drugged, mundane life into living life in the Kingdom of God. It’s like the difference between scratchy AM radio barely being received to IMAX 3D with Dolby Digital Plus. These practices fill us up – let me demonstrate how: studying the Word of God brings life because as we spend time in God’s Word, the God of the Universe speaks through the Holy Spirit directly into our lives and our situations, with words of life that guide us in all the experiences we face. Hope and comfort, challenge and a ferocious pursuit of an incredible vision, laughter, surprise, a deep and real cure for the essential human condition. All of these are right here, in Scripture, we just need the discipline to pick it up and study it for ourselves. How about worship? Better than an audience with Barack, the Queen, or your favourite rock star or sports hero – you and I have the welcome and invitation to stand before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and offer Him something He deeply treasures – our love – and when we engage these opportunities with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength we walk away renewed, awed, impacted, and feeling loved and accepted and valued. Celebration – that is pictured in the parable. Service: all I want to say about this one is that every time I’ve taken people to serve others they have walked away at the end amazed at how full of life they feel after pouring themselves out for others. So why do we feel like staying home and watching TV is what we need to do when we are tired? It sucks more life out of us; serving breathes life back in. Prayer – like in worship we have an audience with God, but this is deeper in conversation with God, listening to Him speak into our lives and sharing our life with Him. Fellowship – has a similar relationship to celebration as prayer does to worship, in that this is the same deep connectedness with others but in perhaps a quieter, maybe deeper sharing of the soul kind of way. Confession – though we think this is too hard, too honest, too risky, in fact it gives us incredible life and freedom because naming our sins out loud to another frees us from the power of shame they hold over us. It completely reveals the hideous lie that we all believe, that if anyone else really knew what we were like they would be repulsed and reject us, because we are all sinners. When we practice the discipline of confession we hear in audible voice that we are forgiven, that we are loved not because we can pretend to be worthy and good enough to be loved, but precisely because we are forgiven and redeemed and the others around us have also sinned, and rejoice that we are loved in spite of our sin. Submission – last on the list. This breathes life because quite honestly, God does know better than us how to make our lives full, and when we give up the burden of trying to be the CEO of our own lives, and let God have the responsibility, we are then completely free to go where He sends, do what He says, and leave all the responsibility for results up to Him.
Conclusion:
I hope that illustrates the point: the Spiritual disciplines – all of them – are life-giving. And when we practice these things, our lives are so rich and full that sin loses it power over us – it just has nothing to offer than looks remotely equal, let alone better, than the life we are living according to the disciplines. These incredibly good gifts of God actively crowd out the rest of the junk, the noise, the substitutes, the lies, and all the things that masquerade as life-giving and good but are really sucking the life out of us.
We have two weeks until Resurrection Sunday, where we once again see life triumph completely. What are you going to do to be ready? Maybe you haven’t started to incorporate these things into your life, or maybe you need to take another step. But please, do something with all of these spiritual disciplines. Find some way to incorporate these into your life, because until we do we are living a shadow of the life Jesus really wants us to live. There is so much more He wants for us, and these practices are the pathways through which God can give, we can receive, and then together we can live “life, to the full.”
