STAY On track
In the past few months we’ve heard a lot about trains coming off their tracks.
Every time I turned on the radio another train had come off the tracks. The rail network had obviously not been maintained as it should have been and the tracks had gotten into a terrible state.
The Lord spoke to me through all this showing me that it’s very much the same in our spiritual lives. If we don’t take time to maintain our spiritual tracks then we risk coming off the rails.
We’ve seen also over the last few months how these derailments have slowed down the whole rail network all over the country. In the same way if we derail spiritually all the time it’s going to slow our development. It will take us longer to reach maturity.
Not only does it slow us down but it can cause us to lose ground we might have made. A train that has derailed will most probably be taken back to the depot for inspection, it doesn’t arrive at it’s final destination, it has to go backwards. This can happen to us to. If we’re not careful how we live, cracks start to appear and before we know it, we’re off the rails and we don’t progress. The Bible likens this to a child who never grows and is never able to go on to solid food but has to keep on having milk,
Hebrews 5:12
12 You have been Christians a long time now, and you ought to be teaching others, but instead you have dropped back to the place where you need someone to teach you all over again the very first principles in God’s Word. You are like babies who can drink only milk, not old enough for solid food. And when a person is still living on milk it shows he isn’t very far along in the Christian life, and doesn’t know much about the difference between right and wrong. He is still a baby Christian!
When we are born again, we are born as spritual babies. We can only feed on the milk of the word. We don’t have much strength, we are clumsy and awkward but after a few years we should move on to spritual meat and our walk with God should become more assured and we should be more adept at living the way God wants us to live. It’s impossible for a baby to do the things an adult does and it’s abnormal for an adult to be behaving like a baby when he’s fully grown.
I work with adults who have learning disabilities. I often hear people saying about the clients I work with that they have a mental age of 5 for instance. Perhaps we’ve been born again 10 years, maybe more, for certain it could be 20 or even more than that, but what’s our spiritual age. Are we behaving like spiritual 5 year olds? Are we walking in unforgiveness? Are we still indulging our flesh? Do we react every time someone says something we don’t like? Are we selfish, considering our own needs above everyone elses. These are questions we need to ask ourselves.
There is a well known expression. We often say about someone who’s gone a bit barmy, who’s gone to all the extremes that he or she has "gone off the rails". The dictionary definition of this expression is, "become disorganized or out of control".
When we let ourselves go spiritually we get out of control, but the Bible tells us to be self-controlled,
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Galatians 5:22-23.
A train that’s out of control can have disastrous consequences. It can cost lives as we have experienced not all that long ago in the Hatfield accident.
Similarly, if we go out of control spiritually, that too can spell disaster. When that happens we open the door to Satan.
The Bible says in the gospel of John, chapter 10, verse10,
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy..........."
When we open the door to Satan we give him the chance to steal, kill and destroy. He will steal our peace and our joy, he will undermine our faith, he will cause us to be depressed and bring sorrow into our lives.
We can find an example of a brother who had not maintained his spiritual tracks and had gone very seriously off the rails opening the door very wide and Paul had harsh words to say about it, yet it was out of a deep love, a deep concern for the believers in Corinth that he said it,
1 Corinthians 5:1-6
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife!2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.3 For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed.4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,5 deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.6 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
Paul hands him over to Satan. Some commentators actually say that what Paul is saying to the church in Corinth is to excommunicate the brother in question. The church at Corinth had tolerated this mans conduct but Paul told them in no uncertain terms that they were not to be complacent over it but act and deal with the situation.
I think in the above passage Paul calls the believers in Corinth to excommunicate the ’immoral brother’ not only to show him that what he had done was wrong and bring him to repentance but also as a testimony to those outside the church.
When a disaster happens, people start to point the finger. In the case of a rail disaster people won’t just point the finger at the workers on the ground but they’ll go straight to the top man.
In the same way when we get complacent in our Christian walk and our lives are spiritual disaster zones it affects the entire church family and it ultimately shames our Lord Jesus Christ.
So how do we keep our lives from becoming spiritual disaster zones. I think two things are necessary. Regular inspection and regular maintenance. Trains and tracks need to be regularly serviced if they are to remain in good condition.
In the same way cars also need regular servicing if they are to remain in good working order. It’s a false economy not to have your car serviced because you think you’re saving money. You’ll end up paying more on repairs in the long run and your car won’t last as long.
In the same way it’s a false economy spiritually speaking to think, "It doesn’t matter how I live. God loves me no matter what I do". Although that is certainly true, it’s also true to say that God saved us from sin not to sin.
1 Peter 2:16
16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. Live as servants of God.
Our lives will not have the impact God want’s them to have on those around us if are lives don’t reflect the nature of God.God wants to transform us in the image of his Son. He can’t do that if we don’t do the necessary spiritual maintenance.
We need to inspect our lives in the light of God’s word. When his word says for instance,
Colossians 3:8
8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.
Does it reveal cracks in our spiritual tracks. If it does we need to deal with them or we risk going off the rails.
A mechanic or an engineer when they discover a fault will first of all report it, then go about fixing it. A car mechanic will ring you and let you know what the problem is before going ahead and fixing your car. If you tell him that you don’t want it fixed he won’t fix it.
When God comes to us with his word and tells us that something in our lives needs fixing, how do we react? God won’t fix us unless we allow him to and the best thing with God is that there is no charge, it’s already been paid by his Son Jesus Christ.
Let’s look how the Corinthians reacted when they received Paul’s letter about the ’immoral brother’.
2 Corinthians 7:8-11
8 I am no longer sorry that I sent that letter to you, though I was very sorry for a time, realizing how painful it would be to you. But it hurt you only for a little while. 9 Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you but because the pain turned you to God. It was a good kind of sorrow you felt, the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so that I need not come to you with harshness.
10 For God sometimes uses sorrow in our lives to help us turn away from sin and seek eternal life. We should never regret his sending it. But the sorrow of the man who is not a Christian is not the sorrow of true repentance and does not prevent eternal death.
11 Just see how much good this grief from the Lord did for you! You no longer shrugged your shoulders but became earnest and sincere and very anxious to get rid of the sin that I wrote you about. You became frightened about what had happened and longed for me to come and help. You went right to work on the problem and cleared it up, punishing the man who sinned. You have done everything you could to make it right.
Paul’s letter produced a godly sorrow in them which caused them to act. That’s because his words were inspired by God. God’s word doesn’t condemn us but it will convict us of things that are not pleasing to God. When his word convicts us of something do we mourn and grieve over it?
Do we bring it to him in repentant prayer or do we shrug our shoulders. Do we become earnest and sincere and very anxious to sort it out.
If we look into God’s word with an open heart and a willingness to change then there will be a Godly sorrow over our failings which leads to life and abundance.
Britain’s rail tracks have obviously been in need of repair for many years and it has taken a serious accident for things to change causing months of disruption and chaos.
Let’s not let our lives fall into a spiritual state of disrepair.. Lets not be complacent about the cracks that appear.
Don’t let your situation get really bad before you come to your senses. Don’t be like the prodigal son who went off and lived in sin. It was only when he ended up feeding pigs and wishing that he could eat some of what he was giving to the pigs that he came to his senses and said to himself, "In my fathers house there is plenty, even the servants have all that they need".
We are on a journey. It’s important that our train and the tracks it travels on are in good working order. We start our journey at salvation but it doesn’t end there, that’s just the start.We then have to move on to the next stop which is sanctification. This is where God get’s to work on us, slowly transforming us, testing us, burning away the chaff. He expects us to be active in the process, working at it, putting a lot of effort into it.
Philippians 2:12
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;(NKJ)
That means reading his word and not just reading it but hearing it and doing it. It means praying, coming to God and asking him to meet our needs, to change our hearts, to reveal to us where we are going wrong, to tell us when we’ve gone off course. When he does that it’s up to us to re-adjust, to get back on track.
It means really wanting to change because God want’s it. He loves us as we are but he doesn’t want us to stay as we are.
30 years after his conversion . .Paul says . .In Phillipians 3:12
12 I do not mean that I am already as God wants me to be. I have not yet reached that goal, but I continue trying to reach it and to make it mine. Christ wants me to do that, which is the reason he made me his.
’I’m not what God wants me to be.’ I Haven’t reached the goal … I am still in the process …
Self - dissatisfaction ….- That’s the starting point…Whatever we achieve ….Begins with …Self - dissatisfaction ….
I can relate to that as a tennis player. I reached a fairly high standard, being selected to play for England as a junior and winning many tournaments both as a junior and an adult. I would never have achieved all of that if I wasn’t prepared to work at it, to accept that I hadn’t arrived, that I still had room for improvement.
If we become content with where we are, we will not progress any further. In fact if we are content with our spiritual condition we have reached a very dangerous point.
That is the point where we will find ourselves insensitive to the sin that is in our lives and defending ourselves when we ought to be admitting our weaknesses.
It’s not about beating ourselves over the head everytime we get it wrong but it’s about wanting to grow with God, wanting to be more like him. That’s a good goal to have.
God wants that for us too because he knows that it’s only as we grow and become more like him that we will know true happiness and that our lives will become a blessing to those around us. If we walk in bitterness and unforgiveness, if we behave just like the people in the world behave how will we stand out as being different, as having something more, something extra, something special, something that they might want.
When I had reached a high level in tennis, when I was playing my best tennis, to be able to control the ball and do what I wanted with it was a great feeling.
In the same way as we mature as a christian, as we get better at doing the will of God and walking in his love, what a great feeling that will be when we do the right thing, when we walk in love instead of hatred, when we are gentle instead of being hard and bitter, when we can put others first and the list is endless.
It will take perseverance. A tennis player needs constant practice to maintain what he has achieved, otherwise he will lose it. Then he’ll have to stretch himself a bit further to get that bit extra. It’s the same in our spiritual lives, we will never be able to say that we’ve ’arrived’.
We need to come before God everyday to renew our strength, to hold on to what we’ve got then give a bit more to go further with Him.
When the going get’s tough you’ll often see a tennis player look up at his coach who will respond with a sign of encouragement, ’Go on you can do it!’ In the same way when we find it hard going we need to look up at Jesus. "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith..." it says in Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 2. He will never leave us nor forsake us, he’ll help through the hard times.
So spiritual growth ….starts with a recognition that we are not where we ought to be. Someone once said, "I’m not there yet, but at least I’ve left."
We are all headed for the New Jerusalem. That’s our goal, our destination. This life in our mortal bodies is the journey we take to get there. Salvation is the starting point.
If you haven’t received Jesus as your saviour then you are on the wrong train. You are also on a journey but the destination is to Hell where there will be darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth. It’s a horrible place of suffering and torment. You can get off that train any time you like. Just confess your sins before God and believe in your heart that Jesus died for your sins so that you might be forgiven. Ask him to come into your heart and you’ll transfer to another train, you’ll get a free ticket and you’ll be headed in the right direction.
Some christians are happy to get on at salvation and not get off until they get to the promised land. They skip the sactification stop, content to be saved and not wanting more. They live their lives in spiritual mediocrity. Not only are they are missing an intimate relationship with God, knowing him and the power of his ressurection, his peace and his joy and the depth of his love, they are also missing the opportunity to be a blessing to others. That is not only a very selfish existence but a very foolish one.
Sanctification is where we get off and start building on the foundation already laid which is Jesus.
When we get to the promised land the lives we have lived will come under scrutiny. Their will come a time of testing at Christ’s judgement day. The kind of house that we have built for ourselves and the materials we’ve used will be inspected by God. He’s the divine foreman.
1 Corinthians 3:10-15
10 God, in his kindness, has taught me how to be an expert builder. I have laid the foundation and Apollos has built on it. But he who builds on the foundation must be very careful. 11 And no one can ever lay any other real foundation than that one we already have—Jesus Christ. 12 But there are various kinds of materials that can be used to build on that foundation. Some use gold and silver and jewels; and some build with sticks and hay or even straw! 13 There is going to come a time of testing at Christ’s Judgment Day to see what kind of material each builder has used. Everyone’s work will be put through the fire so that all can see whether or not it keeps its value, and what was really accomplished. 14 Then every workman who has built on the foundation with the right materials, and whose work still stands, will get his pay. 15 But if the house he has built burns up, he will have a great loss. He himself will be saved, but like a man escaping through a wall of flames.
How do we want to enter heaven? Do we want to enter as someone escaping through a wall of flames or do we want to enter hearing the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things: I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!"
The best form of evangelism is in the lives we lead. We need to show people Jesus as we go about our everyday lives. As we do our spiritual maintenance and as we desire to grow, not being content with where we are or complacent about our weaknesses then we will begin to do that more and more.
AMEN
