Disciplines are a way of life for most people. Choosing to do things on a regular basis so that desired goals are reached—those goals wouldn’t be reached without disciplining ourselves in certain tasks:
We teach our daughters and sons to brush their teeth. Why? SO that when the photographer says “cheese” it doesn’t actually LOOK like cheese is plastered to their teeth. I once went about 14 days without brushing my teeth.
Some of you want to acquire high levels of competence and pay in a trade: so, you discipline yourself to work, study, and observing and imitating the masters in that trade
Some of us use greeeeaaaat discipline and skill with our thumb and posterior. In so doing we become quite adept maneuvering through 267 channels while sitting, or alternately laying on the couch.
Runners will brave the elements, regardless of the forecast in order to finish or record their best times in the local 5K 10K or marathon (and some of us are content to watch them on TV)
But my favorite discipline is working with 6 or 7 speeeeecial guys here in the church as we say NO to Twinkies, Pop, and Sweets, and say YES to moderate portions, water, and exercise. Why? So we can pretend we are healthy and 18 again . . .
What is your favorite discipline?
Actually, I hope that our favorite discplines are those that get us closer to God. Now it is true that we could not do anything to ascend to God on our own. He reveals himself to us, HE is the one who made us, He is high and lifted up. He is Spirit. Not so, we. We are but dust . . . but blessed dust we are. Because he reveals to us himself, in makes us in His image, for his people he breathes not just the breathe of mortal life, but also invades us with the rushing wind of His Spirit, who enables us to do many things. And he has also left us with the responsibility and means to grow in love and appreciation and service of him through what many people call:
SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES.
These Spiritual Disciplines, or Spiritual Habits are opportunities for US to build and form Christ likeness wthin ourselves, to change years of bad habits and living in hostility or apathy to the Lord, to remove the remnants of sinful thinking and living and replace them with the knowledge, love, and dedication to the Lord in all we do.
God is ultimately the one who forms Christ in us, but in His grace and wisdome has given us the means to do our part to “work out our salvation”, to “fan into flame” the gifts He has given us, to build a redeemed and holy community of believers that are God’s family, and above all, to develop a close, intimate, relationship with him.
Without pursuing Spiritual disciplines, we become weak and ineffectual at best, spiritually paralyzed, dead, or apostate at worst.
We have already considered some: commitment to each other in community and mutual encouragement, being built up through devotion to the scriptures—the revealed Word of God, Opening lines of communication and relationship to God in regular prayer, and learning to listen and respond to the voice of the Lord, and to see Him at work in the world—as we talked about the role of the eyes and ears of the disciplie, last week.
These habits of mutual encouragement, prayer, study of the Bible, and looking for and waiting upon the Lord in all aspects of life are but some of what true, growing and healthy disciples of Jesus engage in to grow in our love, and service for and with God.
Today we will look at worship and celebration of God.
Specifically,
We will discover that worship is a total way of life of loving our Lord that will stand up under the scrutiny of God himself:
If God were asked to strip all the excess away:
• our status in the community,
• our promotion at work,
• the success of our parties
• our grades at school
• the hominess of our house,
• the beauty of our garden
• the accomplishments of our children
• the padding of our bank account
• the stories of our troubles past . . . AND present
• even, even our service FOR God IN the Church
would we love him? Would it show? If God shined the spotlight on our:
• inner self
• on our relationships away from the stage of the church building and small groups
• on our daily activities when no one is lookin
• even on our inner heart—our motives when we gather for worship together,
would it find a solid love and devotion for Him, or a shadowy mist that vanishes under scrutiny?
Such were the thoughts of David in the 26th Psalm. In fact as we read, we will discover that David is CONFIDENT that the Lord will find in Him a servant who really and truly loves him. He even INVITES the Lord to test him, to examine even his most private self, to discover what he is made of.
This might sound a bit arrogant, because it could sound strange to hear a sinful man talking to the Lord this way.
This might sound unrealistic, because we know that NO man or woman can say they have been able to keep unwavering love for the Lord through all moments of life
We might say this sounds like a major case denial, because we KNOW that David was often a man who failed:
• as a Dad, when his son Absalom rebelled against him, or his son Amnon raped his half sister Tamar
• failed as a husband when he chose to sleep with, and impregnate a woman who was not his wife
• failed as a spiritual leader when he and the priests were lax in their understanding and application of the law, and thereby contributed to the physical death of a man when God struck Uzziah dead because he handled the ark of the covenant in ignorance of the prescribed way of the law
• Failed as a king when he sent Bathsheba’s husband to the front lines to be killed after David’s attempts to cover up his dalliance with her failed
And on down the list we could go. And yet David is described as a man after God’s own heart. Because in spite of his sins, sins have been part of all of the human race since the beginning of time, sins that You, and I, commit, In SPITE of his sins, David loved the Lord whole heartedly. And when confronted with his sin, as when Nathan confronted David with Bathsheba, he was cut to the core in his Spirit, and desired nothing else but to seek the Lord’s face, forgivness, and favor—David repented of his sin, and over the course of his life, dedicated himself to bringing Glory to the Lord, whether on the battle field, in the policies of his kingdom, in his preparations of the Temple, and in the Psalms that he sang, and which we read and gain strength and spiritual insight from.
Lets turn to Psalm 26 and read from the heart of David to his God that he loved:
Psalm 26
We notice in the Psalm that David not only is asking to be tested, but he is also asking to be doing so, so that the Lord may come to his aid and protect him, to redeem him, from the “evildoers” (notice he used the word long before W—and it is an apt description of who they are and what they do), to keep from getting the same punishment they will ultimately receive from the Lord.
He is separating himself from them. His desires and ways are not theirs. They hate God and man, but David love the Lord, proclaims his ways, and walks the way he talks
1 thess 4: walk the talk
Also notice, that though he is facing pressures (the details of which we don’t know) he remains true to the Lord.
How often do we use the excuse that “things are not going well” so we slack off and resist and rebel against the Lord? David shows us that not only is it possible to love the Lord in difficult circumstances (he has DISCIPLINED himself to do the things necessary to do so), but it is BECAUSE of troubles that we need to maintain close ties to the Lord who over and over again proves He is loving and protecting of those who are his.
A note before we start:
“disciplines,” especially spiritual disciplines, or habits, are NOT “works righteousness.” They are NOT ways we attain the Lords favor. They are tools he gives us to grow and love in ever increasing ways. What makes them beneficial for us are the habits and positive influence and expression they give to our spiritual and redeemed bodies, hearts, and relationships. As such, they are USELESS unless accompanied with Love. If we just DO them, but don’t have love as our motive, they will profit us nothing. But as we engage in them, we will ALSO be enabled to grow in our love.
Just as when we do “loving things” for our spouses, children, and friends, we may not always FEEL the emotion of warm, fuzzy, love, but AS we do them, BECAUSE we want to act in love, we find that often our emotions will follow.
BIG IDEA: Our theme today is that worship is a total way of life of loving our Lord that will stand up under the scrutiny of God himself—and in spite of our circumstances:
It is not just something we do on Sundays
We might be able to fool others but not God
Our actions and living will be consistent with our professed love for the Lord.
How is it possible to live a life of love for our Lord—to worship him—in such a way that will stand up to His Scrutiny? Let us look at several elements
The first element of “total worship” that stands up under God’s scrutiny is:
1. He has chosen to love us—in spite of our weakness
His love will always be greater than our love for Him.
This means that in the end, it is not so much the weight of our love that stands, it is really His love for us that allows us to be in his presence.
This isn’t as readily apparent in this text, but it is still there:
V.1 David trusts in the Lord without wavering. One only trusts those who have been proven trustworthy, with those with whom we feel secure.
God over and over showed how he keeps his promises (PROMISE) and redeems his people. (EXODUS). God of A, I, J
In v. 3, David says “your love is ever before me.”
• It is on his mind and thoughts CONSTANTLY
• Because that is his experience and faith
o Ps. 51 create in me a clean heart—he knows God can, will, and does give him a clean heart
o “removes the sin as far as the east from the west.”
o Protected him from lions and Goliath
o He established David’s kingdom, as promised, and extends it
o Lord gives him victory in battle
o God gave him a song on his heart, because of the LOVE that he knew from God, (i will sing a new song—hope and experience)
o because of the beauty of God’s world (nature proved to have ceaseless wonders for David)
• God had the kind of love that loved people who were often unfaithful to him:
o Hosea and Gomer, God, and Israel
We are constantly messing up, and so is David, but it is GOD’s love that overcomes our imperfection—no, let’s call it for what it is—our wicked, selfish, and arrogant decision to put ourselves at the center of the universe—our selfishly motivated decisions to sin against God and others.
Although in this Psalm it looks as though David is sounding like he never sins, we have records of his painful songs—and his biography—that tell us he knows otherwise.
David is very aware of his need for the mercy of God—and that God has mercy. But his is still a world of animal sacrifices and law. What he saw dimly, we see even greater:
That God shows his love for us that WHILE we were yet sinners, his son Jesus redeems us. Wipes our slate clean. Stays true to His promise when our husbands and wives and family and bosses and partners and collegues and presidents and politicians and athletes and role models all, and ALWAYS, will fail us.
Jesus died so that we might live. He took our sins on Him.
When we stole from a hardworking businessman—or from the purse of our mom
When we spewed evil words at the person that cut us off in traffic
When we allowed our emotions—if not our bodies—to be captured by another, instead of being devoted soley to our husband or spouse,
When we acted selfishly in our family relationships
When we abused our body with all kinds of chemicals, habits, and neglect
When we gossiped about someone in the fellowship, past or present
He took our sins on him.
THAT FACT, His Love more than anything else is what allows us to stand under his presence, under his gaze.
The blood of his son purifies us from all sin. And yet, that doesn’t mean we are “off the hook” or without responsibility and direction. Far from it. And for many of us, we would have it no other way, this burning desire to live in love and worship him,
JUST BECAUSE
Of his love for us.
It is his love that draws us.
“Your love is ever before me. . . “
We respond to his love with a life of worship: When we encounter a king, we basically have two responses:
1. To misunderstand who he is (or reject him)
2. To grasp who he is, and worship and serve accordingly
Worship as posture and attitude: (because of what God has done.)
