Ok, the property was prepared, the blueprints are laid out on the table in the construction trailer to be followed every step of the way, the foundation of the Holy Spirit, prayer and worship has been poured and is firmly in place, and now we need some building materials and tools to actually put up the house.
I have always admired people who can drive a nail in with 3 or four blows and still have a thumb. I would have to hit that darn thing 15 times, and every tenth time I would probably miss and if I didn’t hit my thumb, I would have to deal with this bent nail half way in. Sure it takes some skill to build, but it sure helps if you have the right materials and tools for the job.
So far we have talked about desiring to get sin out of our lives and coming in repentance to God for cleansing and salvation. We have discussed the importance of the Bible as our blueprint for the Christian life. We looked at the cornerstones of our faith in prayer and worship, living with the power of the Holy Spirit.
These are all necessities of being a Christian. Now I want to present four biblical practices that I believe are the main tools for building our spiritual house. Unlike the previous ones, these are not absolutely essential, but they greatly influence the quality of our building. The disciplines build holiness and if you think holiness isn’t important listen to the New Testament. Christ died “that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2Cor 5:15)
We were chosen in Christ “before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph 1:4). Christ “loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her…so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” (Eph. 5:25-27). And, Christ “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:14).
God wants to save us and sanctify us, He wants this house to be spotless, and with the essentials that we a have already talked about we have the power to do it if we so choose.
The first of these disciplines is Serving. If Christ was anything, he was a servant and he demands that we also be servants not just to him as our master, but to each other as well. Remember the little dispute that arose between the apostles at the last supper about which one of them was to be the greatest? Here’s how Jesus responds in Luke 22:25-27:
“The kings and Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest amoung you become as the youngest, and the leader as the one who serves. For who is greater, one who reclines at the table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am amoung you as the one who serves.”
He then proceeds to wash their feet, the ultimate servant posture of that time and says “do as I have just done”. A Christian is a servant perhaps above all else. The word Christian means Christ follower. We are designed and created to serve God. And using Jesus as the example we are also to serve each other and Christ’s church.
So what does serving practically look like? This is not in the Bible, but I think a good way of thinking about service is anything we can do to make another person’s life easier or more pleasant. Stacking chairs after a potluck, doing the dishes, setting up and taking down communion, running the powerpoint week after week. I could go on but you get the idea.
These are valuable ways of serving and absolutely necessary and appreciated, but there is another kind of service in the church and that is spiritual serving. Another word could be ministering. Serving or ministry is listed as one of the gifts in Romans 12 and literally means an attendant, but it is also from the word for deacon and has to do with Christian teaching.
So there is the physical service, but there is also the spiritual service to each other. It could be teaching, it could be praying for or with someone, it could be holding another Christian accountable, but the point is that even though some people are gifted with this more than others, it is clear that Jesus desires all of us to serve one another in some way for building up and equipping spiritually.
For it is one of the most practical ways we can live out our Christian life, and very often it’s through our service that we are blessed and actually discover our true purpose as a child of God. I want to encourage all of you to think about what your ministry is, you all have one whether you are active in it at present or not. God put you here for a reason and you need to explore your passions and gifts to see how God wants to use you for His Kingdom and in his church.
What are you good at, what do you love? It is at that crossroad that you will find your ministry. I read of a Christian woman who loved to cook and loved truckers, her husband was one. Well she decided to open a highway truckstop, which became a ministry centre where truckers came not only to eat and rest, but soon there were prayer meetings and Bible studies happening at that truck stop. Many truckers would specifically go out of their way to stop there and many of them came to Christ.
Your ministry may be in the church itself, or it may be outside, but the truth is you were saved to be used by God, and using your gifts in service of the Lord and His church is why you were saved for the equipping and upbuilding of the saints.
The second tool I want to mention is Stewardship. When we think of stewardship, we usually first think of money and possessions. But a very important aspect of stewardship is to be stewards of God’s grace.
Paul in Ephesians 3:2 calls himself a steward of God’s grace, and in 1Peter 4 Peter is talking about living for the passions of the flesh or for the will of God, and then in verse 10 he says, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace”.
Both service and stewardship of God’s grace are mentioned in that verse. Grace is a word we have often limited to just God’s undeserved forgiveness, but here is an excellent definition of the Greek word for grace, charis. “The divine influence on the heart, and its reflection in the life”. That is straight from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.
It’s also the word from which we get spiritual gifts or charisma. So literally we are stewards of God’s many gifts, including salvation, money, property, children, and our ability and passions to be used in service of the body of Christ. Grace is a power that God bestows upon us, it is not just a position of no longer being guilty before God.
Thirdly there is the often mentioned in Scripture, but rarely mentioned in church, practice of Fasting. All over the Bible fasting is mentioned in conjunction with prayer. Jesus himself assumes we will fast when he says, “When you fast clean yourself up and don’t let everyone know that you are fasting”. He doesn’t say if you fast, but when.
Fasting is also very much associated with communion with God. The idea that we need nothing else, even food when we are in the presence of God. Jesus fasted 40 days in the wilderness before starting his ministry. Moses went forty days without food or water up on Mt Sinai when he received the Law. By the way, no one can survive more than a few days without water, food yes, but not water. Moses was miraculously sustained.
In the book of Acts we hear of the importance of eating together, but we also hear of fasting, especially when they needed God the most. “When they appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting…” (Acts 14:23).
What comes to mind when you think of fasting? Is it only for health nuts, legalists, hollow-eyed Jesus freaks? Fasting can definitely be done for the wrong reasons, and certainly non-spiritual reasons, but why is fasting an important spiritual discipline when done voluntarily for the right reasons?
I would say, because food is the one thing we voluntarily consume on a daily basis primarily for enjoyment over survival. We don’t need to eat everyday, we certainly don’t need as much as we eat everyday, we need a little water, and we involuntarily take in oxygen to stay alive. Fasting, for believers, becomes what I would call the ultimate act of self-denial and reliance on God, giving up the thing we take in everyday for the sake of what? More of God. That should be the purpose of fasting.
As I said earlier, the Bible clearly assumes that fasting can strengthen prayer. A few years ago I decided to fast for three days and on the third day I walked to this beautiful park in Mission to spend the day doing nothing but reading Psalms and praying.
At the time I was having liver problems that zapped all my energy and made me ache all over to the point where walking was very difficult. I got up in the morning and walked the mile or so to the park on a beautiful clear day and was surprised that the walk didn’t make me tired or give me any pain in my back or hips.
In fact my energy never left me all day, it was like I was walking on air, my body felt so light and energized. The spiritual benefits of feeling so close to God like I imagine David did, have never been duplicated either. I remember later that afternoon walking to a water park to meet the girls, and Denise can attest that I still had so much energy and joy inside me, that she hadn’t seen in a long time.
It was also a time of deciding which direction I was to go in ministry, I had quit my job, I was studying up in the bedroom of our rented duplex everyday, and that day I felt like I had so much clarity and confidence about the direction I was to go.
What was interesting for me is that there was no hesitation to fast that time. It was as if the Spirit just said let’s do this and I had no reservations. The feelings subsided after the fast, and since then I have thought about fasting again but it always felt like it was forced, and I knew I wouldn’t follow through so I didn’t. The truth is, I don’t think I have felt that desperate for God since then. And I think my motives may be to feel that good again rather than to seek God.
Fasting, whether it be from food or some other thing or activity that has become a staple in your life, is a statement to God that “I am willing to give this up for you”. My desire for you is stronger than my dependence on this”. And I believe God blesses that kind of physical statement.
So the question is, how is fasting a tool for building my spiritual house? How is it going to make me a deeper disciple? If we look at the Bible, and the experiences of many Christians who have fasted throughout their Christian life, we can say that it is because it brings us into closer communion with God, and it shows our humility and absolute dependence on God. The benefit of those things can be varied for each person, but clearly they are helpful and seem to make God more of a force in our lives.
I might put it this way. Can you get the job done with a good old hammer? Of course, but it gets done much more efficiently with a nail gun. Fasting isn’t necessary for spiritual growth, but it does help you make more progress.
Finally, I want to mention silence and solitude. How much time in your waking life is spent in complete silence and solitude even when you’re praying or reading the Bible? The word most often used in the New Testament for this is withdrew. We see many times that Jesus withdrew, first before he started his ministry he withdrew to the wilderness for 40 days, and in Mt 14:13 he withdrew to a desolate place by himself.
Before I ever became a Christian I discovered the benefit of silence and solitude. Every spring I would head down to Arizona by myself and spend a couple weeks camping in the middle of the desert. Not at fancy campgrounds, but in the middle of nowhere with nothing but jackrabbits, roadrunners, and geckos. At least those were what I could see.
The silence was so complete, that it was loud if that makes sense. I could hear the functions of my body, and more importantly I could hear my thoughts, and later, what I believe was the voice of God, because these thoughts were too grand and wise to be coming from me.
There is so much unnatural noise around us constantly, lights make noise, the air conditioning unit down the road, vehicles. You could go outside by yourself at 3 in the morning in town and not come close to having real silence. It’s a little better out on the farms, but still not complete. The sounds of his creation in nature are different because they are really the sounds of God.
The point is that we pretty much never have real alone time with God. How often do we have a relatively unlimited amount of time with God that is completely free from distractions. Can that even happen if we do not withdraw somewhere? Again, notice how much alone time Jesus spent in the wilderness.
I think we owe that to God, and I think he rewards it by speaking clearly to our spirit when we give him that undivided, unlimited attention. If all you truly have is ten minutes, then OK, but maybe we need to make more time. What if you could spend a couple days of complete silence and solitude, because to be honest it takes a while to get used to, and there is a restlessness that sets in at first, but then you surrender to it because there is nothing else to do, and it’s wonderful.
It seems like God waits patiently for us to let go of needing or wanting to do something else, being distracted by our thoughts of what else we could or should be doing, then he speaks. He wants our undivided attention. But the fact is most of us never give ourselves enough time to get to that place and we are missing out.
Notice what each of these tools have in common? They all first of all go against our natural human tendencies and desires. Our human nature is a self-centered nature, an independent nature, a self-sufficient survival of the fittest nature. These are all in direct contrast to the spiritual nature, which is completely dependent on God, focussed on loving others, and desiring to be united with our Father in heaven.
That is why they are called spiritual disciplines. We have to make a point of doing them regularly in order to become more Godly, more Spirit led. Our habits are worldly, our worldly desires tend to overshadow our spiritual desires most of the time, and the truth is most of us are OK with that. We have enough God to make our lives comfortable, and this other stuff sounds like more work in an already busy life.
In fact very few Christians throughout history have ever really dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to being completely surrendered, disciplined children of God. Those who have are famous for what God did with their lives.
And this is the question for us. Are we satisfied with the amount of God we have, with the amount of impact we are having as individuals and as a church for the Kingdom, with the degree of spiritual maturity and Godliness that I demonstrate in my life?
I want to say it’s OK if we are satisfied, because I am including myself in that. Most of the time I want that to be enough. I am inherently lazy. But the problem for me is that I know that is not enough for God, otherwise he wouldn’t have put all this stuff in the Bible, he wouldn’t have given us examples, he wouldn’t have given us commandments. He would have told us how to get saved and left it at that.
Have you ever seen a building lot where the lot was cleared and prepared, blueprints were developed for the building, the foundation was poured and they ran out of money or something and the property sits like that for years? Just a foundation on a lot. What a waste.
Let’s not be that. We don’t have to be perfect, but what do you say we try to develop some of these disciplines and build a house that God can use. A foundation is useless if it is not used to put a building on. What do you say we desire to be more, desire more of God, desire to see more new believers that don’t come from the church down the road, and most importantly desire to be what Jesus Christ sacrificed so much for.
