Spiritual Disciplines

We are continuing on in the series that we are calling Discipleship. We define discipleship as ordinary people learning to live everyday life like Jesus. We decided here at Bellevue Christian Church that there are three primary ways that help facilitate your discipleship here: to gather, to train, and to go. To gather together, train together, and then go together into the world to begin to make a real impact. Today, we are continuing on with this theme of training. Specifically, we are going to talk about some of the primary tools that we use to train, and those tools are collectively called the spiritual disciplines. Last week, if you were here, you know that I put a big emphasis on the idea of training to be like Jesus rather than just simply trying to be like Jesus. In order to get my point across, I talked about the idea that someone like our very own violinist Mark Andre or Cleveland’s LeBron James didn’t simply one day decide to step on the stage or step on the basketball court and begin to play an instrument or play basketball. Instead, they developed some good training habits that over time made them able to step on the court or step on the stage and perform with a sense of ease and excellence. Likewise, what I suggested is that even though our ultimate aim is to be like Jesus, really if we decided to go out into the world and go out into the midst of the trials and tribulations of life and try to act like Jesus, we would probably fail. We would fail miserably. In fact, many of us do. Instead, similar to the basketball player and the musician, we have to learn to develop spiritual training habits off the spot so that when we come on the spot, we will begin to perform like Jesus with ease and excellence. I suggested at the end of the sermon that the primary training tools that we use to become like Jesus are collectively known as the spiritual disciplines, the spiritual practices, or the spiritual exercises. And I explained that just like a musician has musical scales that they practice or an athlete has drills that they go through and diets that they adhere to, Christians have these practices that are modeled by Jesus that enable them to not only connect with Jesus but to look like Jesus.

I struggled when I was putting together this sermon because there is a lot of information when it comes to the spiritual disciplines. Really too much to put into one sermon, so I am struggling with whether I should go on with this series a little longer or have a whole separate series. But, today, what I am going to do is just briefly talk about the spiritual disciplines. I am going to give a high flyover of the purpose behind the disciplines and really show how they connect you with God. But, more importantly, what they do is help you begin to realize your deepest needs of your heart, which is really about the need to become like Jesus, the way you were designed by our creator.

Before I get into the disciplines a little bit more in depth, I want to first address what I would call the four major myths about the spiritual disciplines. Myths or ideas that, when you mention the phrase spiritual disciplines, they automatically give pushback to some people. They are something that they struggle with. I think the first myth that people get in their mind is that the spiritual disciplines are an attempt to win favor with God. If you have been a Christian for some time, you may have heard the phrase works based righteousness. It is the idea that somehow we can do things to win special brownie points with God or increase the chance that we are going to be saved and go to heaven. Although there are Christian who probably do practice the disciplines for those purposes, the people who practice the disciplines on a regular basis understand that you don’t practice the disciplines to gain some sort of favor status with God or to gain some sort of spiritual brownie points, so to speak. The reality is they know that Ephesians 2:8-9 suggests that there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation. All the work has been done by Christ. Ephesians 2:8-9 says “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” There is no boasting when it comes to our salvation. If there is any boasting, the boasting is in the work of Christ that has been formed on the cross. We cannot do anything to earn our salvation. All we can do is accept it by faith. This passage should be a very freeing passage. Unfortunately, for many, it also becomes a very paralyzing passage. Paralyzing in the sense that there are some people that are so into this passage that they are so scared about doing anything that might give the appearance of working to earn their salvation that they don’t do anything at all. They really do as minimal as possible to practice to become like Jesus. Maybe they go to church and maybe they crack their Bible and maybe say a few prayers, but they really don’t want to do anything that would somehow be perceived that they are trying to earn their salvation. So they don’t put any effort forward. There is a man by the name of Dallas Willard who summarizes this. When it comes to our growth in Christ likeness, God is not opposed to effort, but what he is opposed to is earning. In other words, if we try to claim special status with God because we have done certain things, God doesn’t like that because of that passage, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t make the effort to begin to work out that salvation that has already begun in us. Our spiritual growth in Christ likeness is not a God thing and it is not a me thing, it is a combination thing. It is a cooperative effort between God and us to help to facilitate Christ likeness. We do have to do something. I don’t have the passage up there, but I think I have used it before. Philippians 2:12 speaks of “Continue to work out your salvation for it is God who works in you.” Again, the emphasis on God does the initial work and we cooperate with God to continue on our Christ likeness. That is the first myth.