Prayer for Spiritual Formation 8/27/2006

Review- Prayer for Restoration

Last Sunday, as we considered the sins of David and his prayer to find forgiveness, we could all identify. Perhaps we could not identify with his specific sins, but we surely could identify with his guilty conscience. In weighing Psalm 51, I took these key points -

A. MERCY is the beginning point of the restoration of our relationship with God!

B. ACKNOWLEDGE your sins and your sinfulness without excuse.

C. EXPECT NEW LIFE!

This morning, I want to build on that final point. Expect new life! I’m going to get a little close to where we live, so don’t get angry if my words offend you for a moment. The truth is —

∙ We talk a lot about becoming holy men and women, about knowing and doing what God wants us to do; but there is often a wide gap between the what we proclaim we believe and what we actually do.

∙ We talk about being humble and even attempt it, but our lack of humility is quickly evident when we blow our stack the moment we are inconvenienced or slighted by someone’s oversight!

∙ We talk about loving one another but mostly live separate lives of little concern for others because we do not want to deal with personalities and people unlike ourselves.

∙ We talk about desiring pure lives but eagerly tune into Desperate Housewives to enjoy their salacious dalliances!

Dallas Willard, author of The Spirit of the Disciplines, and other books on the Christian life, observes –

“A lot of us nod amiably at the instructions for a big life in God’s kingdom and, then we ignore them... God doesn’t seem real to us, so we don’t pray. ... We divert God’s kingdom resources to our own side-projects and then lament when He doesn’t bless them....

We’re afraid to follow Jesus, because we would actually have to die and rise with Him. ... We would have to mortify our lusts and make alive Jesus’ excellent virtues in their place. The truth is, we’re mildly attracted to His virtues, but we’re strongly attracted to our vices. We wouldn’t like to lose them because they please us and a prospect of a significant life with Jesus doesn’t so much.

Do we expect a new Christian life will just happen without our having to make some inconvenient changes in how we live from Monday through Saturday?....

The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy. That feature of human character explains why ‘the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.’” - Dr. Willards’s Diagnosis, Christianity Today Magazine, Sept. 2006, pg. 51

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So is this tendency to profess a better Christianity than we actually live a new phenomenon in the Church in the 21^st century? No. It is as old as the church. Paul faced it in the churches he cared for, at one point reminding the Corinthian church that was full of sin despite having times of fervent worship experiences- “the Kingdom of God is not just fancy talk; it is living by God’s power.” - 1 Corinthians 4:20 NLT

Believer, my challenge to you today is that you can and you should truly EXPECT new life in Christ!

Despite the anemic forms of Christianity you see all around you,

the compromised forms of Christianity that find their ways onto TV in the mouths of preachers more intent

on enlarging their audience than in training true disciples,

the shallow devotional stuff that fills the books that line the shelves of our so-called Christian bookstores,

- there is a genuine experience of Christianity that is evidenced by –

the transformation of sinners into saints,

by holy lives, and

by the life and light of God standing in stark contrast to the death and darkness of sin that pervades this world!

The Bible describes those people saying {Philippians 2:15 NIV} they are: “blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, ... shining like stars in the universe.”

An Example –

Ernest Gordon, the late Dean of the chapel at Princeton, wrote a book, To End All Wars. In it he told the story of the blossoming of true Christianity in the darkest of times and places. The book was made into a movie of the same name which I highly recommend, though not for young children.

After the total defeat of the British by the Japanese at Singapore in 1942, thousands of soldiers were captured and put into slave camps. The men were taken to Southeast Asia and put to hard labor in the jungles in temperatures that were often over 120 degrees. The Japanese needed them to build a railroad line hundreds of miles long that was critical to Japan’s war effort.

Starvation and torture were the order of the day. They died slow and terrible deaths. Despair was everywhere and self-preservation came naturally. Men stole from each other, desperate to stay alive no matter what it cost others. As a man died, others quickly moved into to take whatever meager possessions he had that might be traded for food or medicine.

Ernest Gordon, a Scotsman educated at the University of St. Andrews, was among the captives. At 6'2" and well muscled and athletic, Gordon was a natural leader among men. This strong man however became ill, so ill that he was carried to the Death House to await his demise. For reasons not fully explained, two of Gordon’s former shipmates in the Navy came looking for him, but he was in such terrible shape they didn’t even recognize him until he croaked out his name. They took him out of the Death house, back to their hut. They built a separate room for him and began to feed him from their own rations. One of his old schoolmates from university took special interest in him, bathing him. Another man, sick himself, began to massage Gordon’s paralyzed legs to restore circulation. On his birthday, the little group scavenged around for ingredients to make a cake for Gordon. Slowly he recovered, but miraculously along with his recovery, there was a spiritual transformation coming over the camp.

The despair that led men to climb over their dying friends to try to survive, gave way to sacrificial concern for one another. This was powerfully illustrated one evening when the men returned from their work. The guards mistakenly thought a shovel had been stolen. The guard in charge demanded that the thief confess or he would shoot them one by one. “All die! All die!” he screamed at the men as they stood at attention. At that point, one brave man stepped forward and confessed to the non-existent crime, The guards beat him to death in front of the men standing in rank. But, his self-sacrifice saved many lives that day. Moments later, as the guards counted the shovels again, their mistake was found!

The men began to look past their terrible circumstances and began to inquire about faith. Gordon, because of his education, was asked to teach them the Bible. He had no faith of his own, yet. But, together they studied the Gospels and the life of Jesus. And they found a completely new way to live in this broken, sometimes terrible, world, a Christ-life that transformed them individually and changed a ‘hell on earth’ into a place, though terrible, that was full of life, light, compassion, art, and beauty!

Later he recalled,

“We understood that the love expressed so supremely in Jesus was God’s love - the same kind of love that we were expressing for ourselves - the love that is passionate kindness, other-centered rather than self-centered, greater than all the laws of men ... (We saw) the Crucifixion as completely relevant to our situation. ... It told us that God was in our midst, suffering with us.”

“I was beginning to see that life was infinitely more complex, and at the same time more wonderful, than I had ever imagined. True, there was hatred. But there was also love. There was death. But, there was also life. God had not left us. He was with us, calling us to live the divine life in fellowship.” – As quoted by Colson, The Good Life, pg. 153

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I don’t know about you, but a story like that stirs something deep inside of me. Though I have not ever experienced anything that comes close to that kind of desperation, I am only too aware of the brokeness of my world. I feel the pain of my own fallen nature that fails God and others too often. I share the lives of many who are living in places of pain, suffering, cruelty - brought on by sinfulness - sometimes their own, sometimes that of others. I desire is for spiritual transformation that begins with me and radiates to my world - bringing light into the darkness.

How about you?

The Q! – So, how do move out of living with superficial religion of words,

out of a Sunday morning experience of Christianity that has little or no effect on our Monday morning life, into a vibrant Christian life that makes us shine like lights in dark places?

A Pattern Found in a Great Prayer –

It is a prayer that I make my own from time to time. It is found in the 64^th chapter of Isaiah.

vv. 1-5a The Longing for the Presence of God

vv. 5-b- 7 A description of the desperate plight of humanity

vv. 8-9 The cry of a hungry heart

First - the focus can never be on human resources alone. We cry for a move of God.

"When you came down long ago, you did awesome things beyond our highest expectations. And oh, how the mountains quaked!" (Isaiah 64:3, NLT)

The world is changed when the Sovereign Lord of Glory arrives among us, revealing His power. Isaiah references the way that God first showed Himself to Israel in the giving of the Law. Mt. Sinai, where Moses went to receive the Law while the nation camped at its base, shook and smoked with the Presence of God. The people felt holy awe and they were properly in awe.

I believe we can reference the 2^nd revelation, the coming of Jesus Christ! When He walked here, His life transformed us. When He was hung on a Cross, the world trembled. An earthquake shook the people who witnessed the moment of His death that would satisfy the holy demands of God. When He rose from the dead, the earth shook once again, at the momentous announcement that sin, death, and Hell were defeated along with the Prince of Darkness.

So, first we cry out for God to touch us, to move among us, to stir us by the Spirit. We pray for a new Pentecost, when the Spirit moves on us, as He did on the birthday of the Church in Jerusalem. It saddens me that we argue over forms and experiences that mark this experience. We should not become fixed with having exactly the same experience, but rather to know God’s empowering Presence in a personal way that leads to similar results in this world. Those men who were filled with God’s Spirit went out and changed the Empire of Rome in one generation. Those who dealt with them said of them; “they have turned the world upside down!” - Acts 17:6

Second - the real problem must be acknowledged.

"We are all infected and impure with sin. When we proudly display our righteous deeds, we find they are but filthy rags. ... Yet no one calls on your name or pleads with you for mercy. Therefore, you have turned away from us and turned us over to our sins." (Isaiah 64:6-7, NLT)

Humanity’s (and yours and my) greatest need is not economic, political, philosophical, or educational! It is spiritual! We have turned away from God, we are caught in the web of a world where the best efforts at good and reformation are so corrupt that they amount to nothing.

Until you and I humble ourselves before the testimony of the Word and admit, without excuse, that we are sinners, who deserve the judgment of God, we cannot be saved. But, when we join with Isaiah honestly admitting our impurity and sinfulness, God moves to meet our need. The Holy Spirit “makes us alive with Christ,” and then we have the potential for a new kind of life!

Don’t misunderstand this part of the message.

Christianity has implications for economic policies and political decisions. But the change cannot start from the outside of us. It must start with God’s transformation inside of us, which will release us from the chains of greed or the blindness of political systems shaped around the needs of powerful special interest groups.

Certainly knowing Christ will change our philosophy, making us truly wise and able to wrestle with the great questions of life. And, Christians will love inquiry and knowledge, recognizing that God is the source of Truth! But we will be transformed only at the moment we acknowledge our moral and spiritual bankruptcy, our inability to know, serve, or please God even in our best moments!

Third - we present ourselves to God for the process of being molded and shaped into a vessel of HIS choosing.

"And yet, Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter.

We are all formed by your hand." (Isaiah 64:8, NLT)

God, has invited you and me into a partnership with Himself. Isn’t that simply amazing? The Lord of the Universe, the Eternal God, gives us responsibility to work with Him to see His work accomplished.

There are two extreme views of God’s Rule and Human Responsibility.

One view of life is that God is in charge and, therefore, whatever happens is His will. In one-sided presentation of that view, I may come to believe that I am a puppet on a string without choice.

Another view of life is that I, alone, am responsible for what happens to me. In a lopsided presentation of this view, I may come to believe that God is present but has left me alone to work out the difficulties on my own. If I believe that, then I will make God into the 'Divine Advisor' and I will try to become my own god.

The Bible tells me that God is 'sovereign,' and that I am a 'free agent.'

Both statement are true, although that defies my limited logic. God is 'in charge,' and I am free to choose to participate in His purposes or to reject His will! What we usually set up as an 'either/or' situation, the Scripture teaches as a 'both/and' situation.

God said to His People,

“O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand. If I announce that a certain nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed, but then that nation renounces its evil ways, I will not destroy it as I had planned. And if I announce that I will build up and plant a certain nation or kingdom, making it strong and great, but then that nation turns to evil and refuses to obey me, I will not bless that nation as I had said I would." (Jeremiah 18:6-10, NLT)

What does Jeremiah learn from the Spirit of God? That God has determined a course of action. Is that plan inevitable and unchangeable? No! Our choices are important. We are not puppets on a string, helplessly dancing as a God of inscrutable purposes pulls and twists from His throne.

That is why I pray the prayer of Isaiah 64, asking God to shake me and my world, recognizing my sin and the sin of my world, and presenting myself to Him, the Potter, to be molded into someone useful to the Kingdom.

I want to align myself with that will, so I live contentedly in the center of it, enjoying the serenity that comes from being a part of His best plans. I don't want to sin against Him by becoming a self-willed rebel, or an angry fool that shakes a puny fist in His face because of unpleasant circumstances.

Isaiah warns about an inflated sense of self and the folly that comes from a failure to submit to the sovereign God. Using the same imagery as Jeremiah, he writes -

"Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?” You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pot say of the potter, “He knows nothing”?" (Isaiah 29:15-16, NIV)

If we ignore either part of the equation of obedience, we will end up in error.

∙ If we look exclusively to our God-given freedom to choose, we will grow proud when life is going well, as though we alone accomplished something wonderful. And when suffering comes we will look around for someone to blame, or even sink into despair!

∙ However, if we believe that we have no responsibility, then we may fail to pray, stop seeking to be a part of His work, because we mistakenly conclude that our choices and actions are irrelevant to the outcomes we experience.

The practical implications of the twin truths of God's rule and our freedom of choice is that we can live in powerfully transformed, Christ-honoring ways in this world. When difficult situations arise in our lives or in the world around us, we run to the One who is unchanging, 'the same yesterday, today, and forever.'

We take solace from His promise that He will never leave us, never forsake us. But we do not stop seeking to bring the Kingdom of God into those situations. We pray for change. We present ourselves to Him, and discipline ourselves so that His purposes are not hindered by our self-will. The Believer's focus is always on seeking God, even as the Spirit works to strengthen our faith.

Believer, when you ache from sin, from dealing with the evidence of the kingdom of Satan, things like conflict, sickness, and suffering – do not despair. Instead ask this,

'what are You asking of me, Lord?'

Present yourself, with a humble prayer for transformation, to the Lord of Glory who will accomplish His purpose in you.

If He wills that we go through the fire to refine our character, we can then walk through that fire with peace.

If He wants to lead us to repentance, it is imperative that we respond with humble acknowledge of our sin, so He

can clean us up and make us holy.

If His desire is to make us a living example of His grace, then our momentary sufferings become a thing of glory, the pain we experience inconsequential compared to the privilege of being used in His plans.

"Let me hear of your unfailing love to me in the morning,
for I am trusting you.
Show me where to walk,
for I have come to you in prayer.
Save me from my enemies, Lord; I run to you to hide me.
Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God.
May your gracious Spirit lead me forward on a firm footing." (Psalm 143:8-10, NLT)

Amen