Celebrating Discipline

New Series

Today we are starting a series for the month of January where we are looking at Spiritual disciplines…

Why?

Well I thought I’d start by reading you this quote out of CS Lewis’s, Mere Christianity

The Quotable Lewis Eternal Life

Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse—so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be.

Do you see the point that Lewis is making?

If it’s true..and we know it is… That God exists and has created all of this…

If it is true that God has breathed life into all of humanity then it means that you are going to keep on living, even after you die.

How many of you have experienced that person in your family that as they got older they got more angry

more grouchy, more bitter

complains more than they ever did…You know sort of just gives into their anger a little faster than they used to

This is who Lewis is talking about

Lewis’s precise point is look, the change in a person might be very small in 70 years, but the fact that there is a change at all shows you what life will be like for this person in a million years……

But on that same note, I have know Christians who as they grow older are more grace filled

Christians that as they approach death they are not filled with bitterness but hopeful anticipation of whats to come

Christians who are less judgy than they have ever been

Christians that when you spend time with then it feels like they had breakfast with Jesus.

I have had both opportunities to see people this way and both sides

And I think the great question of the church should be…How do we get to a place where it feels like we just had breakfast with Jesus all the time…

How do we get to a place where we are not slaves to our ingrained habits in our life?

There is a tremendous need today for people with depth to them.

Think about the superficiality of our age.

We are all experts in almost nothing…

We get little scraps of information through out the day in social media

Our education system is quickly moving away from real knowledge to a system of advocacy

We are producing people without spiritual depth

So today we are going to start a series on spiritual formation and the disciplines

We are going to call our church to practice the disciplines

So the first thing that I want to do is to talk about what a discipline is…

Here is the first thing in your notes this morning:

A discipline is any activity pursued in an orderly or systematic manner that improves or determines other activities, including our habits and abilities

Four fill-ins in one fill-in the blank!

Well what does this mean?

I want to give you a few examples from my life

I have told you before that I have been doing intermittent fasting for a number of years now. I started doing this for one reason…to lose weight…There was no greater spiritual motivation, I was 6ft 220 pounds and I wanted to drop 20 pounds…well I ended up doubling that

But see when you do this sort of fasting you are creating a new routine, in a very systematic way that set new habits for me.

I became very self controlled around food

Which I have to tell you, I used to not be in control of myself around food at all. But I started setting new habits in my life

These habits led me to working out

So out of the fasting I started running and riding a bike

When I moved up to Sacramento I basically stopped running and only rode my bike

Then all of the sudden I discovered this passion for riding a bike far and fast…I love doing hard things and seeing what I can accomplish

So I train to do hard things, nearly every day …

I want to give you some stats, you dont need them to prove this point but here it goes

As of today of this year

I had 312 active days on the bike

I spent 617hrs and 31minutes on the bike…This is about the equivalent if you were to ride your bike for almost a month straight without stopping…

My longest ride was 201miles

This is a total mileage of 10,513 miles The Average Californian driver drives 12,000 miles per year

I climbed 184,436ft…it is the equivalent of going up Mt Everest 6 times…

Now I am not telling you this to brag… There is a purpose for this

The habit of intermittent fasting gave me gifts of self control and discipline, so putting together a riding schedule and sticking to it is easy…Because it is a new habit in my life.

Now I really started working out and running during covid because I felt like I was working non stop and needed to get outside

So here is what all that time biking has done to me in my life with God

It has given me the discipline of silence and solitude

See I already study a ton every week…I am always reading multiple books, multiple commentaries…

In my calling I need to always be teaching something but in order to do that I need to always be learning something so I have these disciplines of studying and writing

What the bike riding has given me these last few years has been huge in my life

Because its given me solitude and silence

Why was Jesus always going up on a mountain to pray by himself?

Well he conducted his ministry out of his relationship with his father

It turns out I needed solitude and it was like a missing link in my life because when I got it out of it was the ability to organize everything that I was studying into sermons

It has allowed me to see some deep places in my life where I needed repentance…It has allowed me to forgive others when they needed forgiving

Just this past summer I came home from a bike ride and I told my wife…when we see this family member next time I need to pull them aside and apologize for my younger self…

I was sarcastic and often made jokes at their expense, and that wasn't right ……It was immature and dumb and I just need to apologize for that

Now remember we started with fasting…Fasting led to working out…Working out led to long periods of silence and reflection from the study I had been doing……and with these three spiritual disciplines alive in my life my regular habits have been transformed

The primary outcome of practicing the disciplines is depth with God

See in this entire series I am afraid that you will think the point of the christian life is to practice the disciplines that we are going to share with you

No that is not the point at all

The disciplines are just a tool to get to depth and maturity

So here is what I want to do with some of the rest of our time…

I finally want to get to the bible, so if you can flip with me to the book of Ephesians chapter 4

This whole book has a motif and a theme

And that is Paul is writing to this church from prison and calling them to be united.

He is calling them to be different from the world

and what he explains in his letter is how to bring all structures of authority under the headship of jesus

So marriage, parenting, the church etc…So let’s peer into this letter

Ephesians 4:17–24 NIV

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Paul is saying here that there are two ways to physically live…Either like the gentiles or the godless…or like people who walk in the ways of Jesus …

Here is one of the points that I want to make today

But either way, Paul calls the church to depth in Jesus…

Everyone practices spiritual disciplines whether or not they realize it.

In this text Paul is reminding the church that you are called to actually become like Jesus, to put off your old self to throw away those deceitful desires

He reminds them…Your highest calling is to be like God!

But you have to remember that everything forms you!

The gentiles that Paul is talking about form themselves to continue to live in rebellion to God.

Now in the gentile world there were a lot of things that formed these people

There was temple prostitution

Worshiping Cesar

food sacrificed to idols

Glorification of violence

Now those are spiritual disciplines, That produce spiritually dark behavior

So Paul is now talking to christians, People who are already saved…and this is impotrant because the disciplines don’t save you they form you…

So Paul is telling these Christians to form themselves in a different manner than the world

Now I want to give you an example

Men and women I am going to pick on you a little bit to give an example

A number of years ago I was around a couple who loved to very openly pick on each other…And they did it with that kind of serious laugh…

Super awkward, by the way…but these are very open people and they said to me, Pastor Dave what do you think we should do…

And I have to be honest…I like pastoral counseling because I can say tough things to people but pastoral counseling doesn’t go as well around a dinner table…

So let me tell you what I told them

And then none of you will ever invite me to your dinner parties

I said to the Husband: I think your wife is right, you are lazy and your laziness makes it hard for the rest of the family to function…

Oh man, when I was saying that…The wife was waving my flag!

I told him that ultimately his laziness is a huge spiritual problem because when your lazy with everything in your life then you will never go deeper with God.

Laziness keeps you content where you are at…to never grow… and it is just as much as a spiritual discipline as anything else…The Devil loves a lazy christian…Someone who refuses to go deeper, someone who will only crack a bible at the last resort.

Ultimately it takes effort to form yourself to be like Jesus and if you are just going to indulge in your laziness then I dont see you ever caring to be with God

Oh man you should have seen that wife…If I had a banner or a flag she would have been waving it …

And then I turned to the wife and said this…I said your husband says you constantly nag him…This is a horrible spiritual discipline as you are trining yourself to be in control of all the outcomes. What happens when God does something you dont like?

And honestly to me nagging shows a lack of faith in God. Not that you dont believe God can work or transform your husband but because through nagging you are trying to become his God and you know what, your a stronger christian than him so you need to show him who Jesus is and Jesus definitely doesn't nag

In fact I wonder if you had the opportunity to go to heaven right now you might reject it and tell God that your husband needs you too much to tell him what to do and to plan his day for him.

I like to practice the discipline of honesty!

Here is my point…This couple had really bad habits and they were just allowing those bad habits to form them and define their life with God.

So everyone practices spiritual disciplines whether or not they even realize it

But here is one point that I want you to know

The spiritual disciplines don’t transform you, Jesus does

Philippians 1:6 NIV

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians tells us the one who begins the good work can cary it to completion and that is Jesus

The spiritual disciplines do nothing except get you to the place where something can be done.

The disciplines put us into a place in life in which God can bless us.

and how does that work…The disciplines make us force ourselves into living in obedience to God…Make no mistake, God wants our obedience

See God can’t bless your disobedience

The disciplines get you to a place where you are ready and willing to hear from God and to be formed by Him.

But there is this huge warning that I have for you about the disciplines

Spiritual disciplines have the power to bring life, but if they are made into a law they will bring death.

Look at what Jesus said to a group of Pharisees…

People who look really religious…

people who were the spiritual powerhouses of their day

Everyone looked up to these guys

But they had a way of making things that are life giving, like practicing generosity or the sabbath into such a cumbersome law that it suffocated their followers

Matthew 23:4 NIV

They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

We have to remember that there is a caution around the disciplines

We can very easily take what is meant to bring life and make it a law in our lives

This is what Jesus constantly criticized the pharisees for especially around the sabbath.

God made the sabbath as a gift to know God more deeply, a practice for communion with God

And the pharisees put so many rules and traditions around it then your sabbath became more about keeping the rules then fellowshipping with the Lord

The disciplines exist for you to have freedom in your relationship with God

Just like Jesus said, the sabbath was made for man not man for the sabbath…

So let me give you a quick example of this in my life…

I read the Bible a lot…Not only for individual devotions but for my study time for teaching…

I used to be a part of a men’s group where we had this text chain…You’d read for the day and then text the person who you were assigned to text with what you read and maybe one sentence of what you got out of it that day…

And the first time I did this it was so wonderful and life giving and the people who were leading this constantly told us…

Don’t make this a hard and fast rule, if you miss a day, no guilty just get back on your horse the next day…

And that was so freeing to hear from the leaders of the group

And we constantly changed people whom we texted maybe a few times a year and I got this one guy that if you missed a day, he’d let you know, and in not really a kind way

See the problem with changing a discipline into a rule or a law is that I began to read my bible and send this guy my notes but my internal motivation was so that I didn't get chastised

And then I realized a few weeks in…I am no longer reading my bible to get intimate connection with God…I am doing it to appease this other guy I am in the group with

All of the sudden reading my Bible went from a light and joyful experience to a burden…

So don’t get me wrong, Disciplines are absolutely essential in your life to form you into the person that Jesus would be if he were you…But dont turn them into laws! You that is the way of death…

So as we close today

Response:

There are two things that Jesus said that I believe deserve serious consideration

Matthew 7:24–27 NIV

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

What is your plan for building your house on the words of God?

Practicing the disciplines help you to build the house

And lastly

Luke 6:46 NIV

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?

Guilty right?

What is your plan for declaring the lordship of Jesus and doing what he says?

What is your plan for 2024 to hear the voice of Jesus and do what he has asked of you?

Let’s pray