Following Jesus, part 3
The Care and Feeding of the Human Spirit
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
1 Tim. 4:7-10 (The Message)
Stay clear of silly stories that get dressed up as religion. Exercise daily in God—no spiritual flabbiness, please! [8] Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever. [9] You can count on this. Take it to heart. [10] This is why we’ve thrown ourselves into this venture so totally. We’re banking on the living God, Savior of all men and women, especially believers.
I have told you a few times in the past two-three weeks that our goal in this current series is simple: to focus on how it is that we learn to live the way Jesus lived.
There is a problem for both believers and non-believers, and that is difficulty in understanding what Christian spirituality actually is. The problem is the same, but shows itself in different ways in believers and non-believers. We might expect non-believers not to understand Christian spirituality. But the fact is that most believers don’t understand it either. The purpose of today’s message is to help believers and non-believers look more carefully at our beliefs about what it means to live the Christian life.
We start with a lofty and strange sounding concept called spiritual reality. When I talk about spiritual reality, I’m referring to the fact that just as there is a physical realm to our existence, made up of things we can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell, so also there is a spiritual realm to our existence. Both realities have properties and laws and rules and relationships between cause and effect. In the physical realm, if you drop something it will fall to the ground – that’s a physical law. In the spiritual realm, if you return hatred with love, something inside of you grows larger. That’s a spiritual law. In the physical realm, if you heat water to 212 degrees Fahrenheit, it will boil. That’s a physical law. In the spiritual realm, if you pursue every whim and desire, something inside you grows smaller. That’s a spiritual law. And so on, and so on. You’re pretty familiar already with physical reality – it’s the world around you. It’s what you live in every day of your life. So in the next few moments, I want to introduce you to spiritual reality. I want to tell you what it is, where it is, and how it interacts with the physical reality we live in, because if we can’t somehow live in the spiritual realm at the same time that we’re living in the physical realm, there’s no point in any of us being here today.
Jesus came to earth to tell us about the world he came from. Jesus came to tell us that the world we see around us isn’t the only one. In fact, Jesus believed deeply that the world around us isn’t even close to the most important one. Jesus spoke often of another reality called The Kingdom of God, or The Kingdom of Heaven. The four gospels contain 65 references to the Kingdom of God, and 31 references to the Kingdom of Heaven! They are interchangeable terms – both terms for the reality Jesus came to introduce to us. Jesus was constantly saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like this…” or “The Kingdom of Heaven is like that…” He used parables and stories and metaphors and examples to explain this Kingdom – this very different reality with different principles and rules and ways of operating.
As we talk about spiritual reality and the Kingdom of Heaven, there are two things it’s important to understand. The first is what exactly the Kingdom of God (the Kingdom of Heaven) actually is. When Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed,” we usually immediately think, “How is the Kingdom of Heaven like a mustard seed – how could it be?” What we ought to think instead is, “When Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven,” what was he even talking about?
This actually is very simple to understand. Let’s say that Elise is the Queen of the Kingdom of Grand Blanc. Grand Blanc is the Kingdom of Elise. What would that mean if that were true? It would mean that Grand Blanc would be the range of Elise’s effective will. In other words, Grand Blanc would be the place that whatever Elise says is exactly what happens. It would be the place where her commands are followed, her wishes obeyed, her will accomplished. It would be the place in which her say would be final and her authority unquestionable. That is a kingdom, by definition. Realizing this, it’s easy to understand that the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, is simply the range of God’s effective will. In other words, the Kingdom of Heaven is the place that whatever God says is exactly what happens. It is the place where God’s commands are followed, His wishes obeyed, His will accomplished. It is the place in which God’s say is final and His authority unquestionable. Pretty simple, isn’t it? In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus prayed, “Thy Kingdom come…” what? “Thy will be done…” how? “On earth as it is in heaven.” What is the Kingdom of God? It is the range of God’s effective will, the place where God’s will is done, where what God says, goes.
But there’s something to this so amazing, so incredible, that it adds all the flavor and all the dimension to this whole thing. Because as we are looking at spiritual reality and realize that Jesus came to introduce us to a spiritual realm called The Kingdom of God (Heaven), and as we see that the Kingdom of God is simply the range of His effective will, Jesus adds an incredible twist. Let’s look at it.
Luke 17:20-21 (NIV)
20 Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21 nor will people say, ’Here it is,’ or ’There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you."
Do you get how huge that is? The Kingdom of God is within you. In other words, your physical body can be the place where God’s will is done. Your mouth can contain words that would please God. Your feet can take you to places that will bring glory to God. Your arms can embrace causes that will please God. Your physical body can be the place where God’s will is done, where God has the final say, where his priorities and values are lived out, where his acts of service and love are performed.
This brings us right into our next point which is the interconnectedness of body and spirit. If your body is to be the place where God’s will is done, if the Kingdom of God and all its potential beauty and splendor and goodness is within you, then your body is a place of supernatural intersection of body and spirit. Now don’t think I’m getting heavy on you because I’m not. You know what supernatural means – it means over and above the merely physical things of our world. If the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, then your body – your physical body – is a place of supernatural intersection of body and spirit. Let’s look at how that can be. There are five human realms, five separate spheres that make up every human being.
First is the realm of your body. If you’re here today, you have one – no exceptions! You have a physical body that must be fed and cared for in certain ways or it will die.
Second is your mind. You have one of these too, although some of you often feel you have lost yours. Your mind is the location of both your thoughts and your feelings. They both originate there.
Third is your will. Your will is the part of you that determines to do things. It is the seat of action.
Fourth is your spirit. Your spirit is that part of you that will live on forever and ever after your physical body calls it quits. Your spirit is either being strengthened and enlarged by the things you allow yourself to think about, dwell on emotionally, decide, and do, or your spirit is being weakened and shrunk down by those things. Your spirit is being made better or worse by the things you think, feel, decide, and do.
Fifth is what the Bible calls your soul. Your soul could best be understood as your personality – as the part of you that coordinates all these others parts. Do you know what your soul primarily is? A set of predictable patterns. Your soul takes the shape of the things you frequently do and say and decide and think about.
Do you see how the Kingdom of God (heaven) can be within you? God can live in you more and more as you increasingly surrender each of those areas fully to Him. As your mind comes to increasingly resemble the mind of God, you will think more like God thinks and feel more like he feels. As your will is gradually molded into the shape of God’s will, your decisions will more and more often be the decisions Jesus would make were he in your shoes. Everyone has a mind, a body, a will, a soul, and a spirit. But those who choose to allow God to be the ruler over all of those things will be people in whom God’s life – God’s Kingdom – will be taking root and growing day by day. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. It’s not something you can move into – it’s something you must allow to move into you.
Body and spirit are directly and dramatically connected because there is no meaning to anything spiritual in human experience that is separated from the body (all spiritual experiences -- dreams, sex, prayer, etc. – all are located/experienced somewhere within the body)
Last point on the connectedness of body and spirit. Your spirit and your body are two different things, but your spirit is directly and profoundly affected by your body.
Matthew 26:41 (NIV)
41 "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."
See, the way things usually work is that we usually will to do only what we feel like doing in our bodies. (working out, practicing an instrument, studying, etc.) In other words the typical pattern is that our bodies are controlled by our will. We mostly do what we feel like doing. The practices involved in Christian spiritual formation allow us to gradually reverse this so that our bodies eventually come under the control of our will, not the other way around.
So the conclusion of this thing about the Kingdom of God is that true Christian spirituality MUST include the consistent practice of habits designed to bring us more and more into the realm of the Kingdom of God, so that our bodies, minds, wills, and souls lie increasingly within the range of God’s effective will – in other words, so that God’s will is done completely in us.
2 Peter 1:5-8 (NIV)
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;
6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;
7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We see in that passage a gradual, intentional process by which we allow God’s Holy Spirit to change us, to make us better, to build his kingdom in our lives. We’ll be looking at specific practices coming up in the next few weeks.
Folks we have gotten far away from that in the American church. Look at the progression. Begin with faith. Add goodness. Add knowledge. To that add self-control. To that add perseverance. To that add godliness. To that add brotherly kindness. To that add love. Acquire these qualities and allow them to strengthen and increase in your life, because it is only through a life that is actually changing that what you might know about God makes any difference at all.
I repeat to you the question I’ve asked you last week and the week before. Do you want to be better? Do you want to see yourself actually developing more patience, more self-control? Are you frustrated that even though you are trying to follow Christ, you are staying the same year after year? Do you want to be able to say this time next year that you are not the same person you were a year ago? I do.
And finally, I want to encourage you not to feel impatient as I work us toward and through this. This is a lifelong journey, after all, so I intend to lay a foundation that will help us understand what we are called to. We need to walk before we run. Let’s pray.
