Finding Peace in the Silence

Call to Worship

To all who are weary and in need of rest

To all who are mourning and longing for comfort

To all who fail and desire strength

To all who sin and need a Savior

We, Moraga Valley Presbyterian Church, open wide our arms

With a welcome from Jesus Christ.

He is the ally to the guilty and failing

He is the comfort to those who are mourning

He is the joy of our hearts

And He is the friend of sinners

So Come, worship Him with us.

Scripture Reading & Reader

Scripture Reader: Giancarlo (Coco) Cereghino

Luke 5:16 NIV

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Post-Scripture Prayer

Pray.

Body of Sermon

Good morning! I would invite you, if you haven’t already, please turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 5. We’re going to be hanging out for just a moment on verse 16.

As you’re turning there, let me tell you what we’re going to be up to for the next 5 weeks.

As we’ve talked for the last year about Jesus’ call to being His followers, we’re now entering the phase of our Sunday gatherings where we want to give you the tools you need to be His followers.

Our series is over Spiritual Practices, what some have called, Spiritual Disciplines, or Sacred Rhythms, or Rhythms of Grace, or Means of Grace — but for our series, I like what Pastor John Ortberg had to say about the subject of spiritual practices.

When he talks about spiritual practices, he says it’s like a musician learning their musical scales. They learn the scales so they can be free to play whatever they want to play. When we take part in spiritual practices, what we are doing, is learning to be free to become who God wants us to be.

A practice is where we align ourselves with God, and when we do, God often does something miraculous and transformative in our midst — He ends up making us into people who reflect Him more and more.

Over the next 5 weeks we’re going to be talking about Solitude, Fasting, Simplicity, Submission, and Service.

This morning we’re going to be talking about Solitude, and what we mean by solitude is simply: being alone on purpose.

And I think you could probably agree with me pretty quickly that we live in a culture, and specifically our community, that glorifies busyness, the need for constant stimulation, and just noise in general.

If you don’t think I’m wrong. Look at your calendar over the last 6 weeks, check how many notifications or badge icons are presently available on your phone, and tell me you’re not uncomfortable by the people who can fly on an airplane and not listen, watch, or read anything!

Was I wrong about any of those?

We’re presently living in the biggest barrier to our own spiritual transformation, where we get to partner with God to become exactly who He wants us to be.

Luckily, I think there’s hope.

I’ve been reflecting on a quote from Los Angeles area pastor, John Mark Comer. John Mark says, "If you want the life of Jesus, you need to adopt the lifestyle of Jesus."

I want to see us, as a church community, bridge the gap between what we do and what Jesus does, so we can become who God is calling us to be. I don’t think we’ll do that without some kind of intentionality, and some kind of example. And frankly, I think we lack good examples. Culturally, we live under a different pressure.

Pressure to perform.

Pressure to conform.

Pressure to be perfect.

Pressure to be beautiful and put together.

I think the body of evidence suggests that what we’re doing isn’t sufficient, and also suggests that Jesus has something for us.

Luke 5:16 is going to be a launching place for this, this morning.

Luke 5:16 (NIV)

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Jesus provides the example that we’re in need of. He has a counter-solution for the trying-harder-and-doing-more. Before I say anything about Luke 5, let me make a comment that’s related but slightly different.

There’s a Hebrew idiom that Jesus uses to explain why His counter-solutions are worth jumping on. He says in Matthew 11, “Take my yoke upon you,” — and the whole idea behind this was to take on the life of, and to live out the teachings of your Rabbi, of your teacher, to do what they do, live how they live. But Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, my burden is light” — His ways are where you’ll find rest. There’s no pressure here. No unrealistic expectations. No more sliding scales of perfection and performance.

The way into the life we want, the life we know we could be living, is just on the other side of a life with Jesus… and I want to be clear, that there’s a difference on a LIFE WITH JESUS, and a LIFE FOR JESUS — I don’t think it is semantics.

I think, evangelicals, born again believers, people who believe in the gospel, whatever you wanna call us — we do a great job of living a life FOR God because we feel compelled. Jesus has rescued us therefore we must go out and rescue others. I think that’s a very healthy application of the gospel in our lives. Where I think we miss life WITH God, and this seems to be extra unique about Christianity, is that we are now invited into a life with our rescuer — but that’s easy to miss.

But, going back to Luke 5, not even Jesus can be on all of the time.

In Luke 5, Jesus is in one of the towns in the area of Galilee and Jesus has been performing His ministry of healing, and Luke tells us that as the news spread about Jesus and the crowds continued to grow where they came to hear and they brought others to be healed, that Jesus would step away into solitude and meet with God.

Jesus gives us an example in that we can’t be on all of the time. We can’t thrive in a 24/7 world. We need regular moments where we’re quiet, where we’re present — where something else, somewhere else isn’t forming our character, our identity, or occupying our minds.

I get that there’s some additional appeal to the practice of solitude.

If you’re a mom, this is a millionaire idea! A little peace and quiet away from your husband and kids!

Unfortunately silence and solitude isn’t an excuse to get “me” time from your kids, or to get away from your husband who doesn’t know what to do with himself in retirement.

Solitude is actually painful. You’re learning to be with God. And a good way for you to remember why solitude is so difficult, is you take your age, and that’s however many years you’ve been conditioned to listen to someone else, or to be entertained by something else. I’m 32 and I’ve got 32 years working against me where I’ve been formed to a different direction.

And if Luke 5 isn’t compelling enough, I want you to listen to Jesus’ invitation in Mark 6:31

Mark 6:31 (NIV)

“Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

This is why I do pretty much the same Call to Worship every single week… Every week we make an invitation to everyone who is weary and needs rest, because I know that with Jesus is the only place I’m going to get, in a desperate way, what I can’t get anywhere else.

Ruth Haley Barton wrote that, “Because we do not rest we lose our way.... Poisoned by the hypnotic belief that good things come only through unceasing determination and tireless effort, we can never truly rest. And for want of rest our lives are in danger.”

Another way to think about this is when someone is on bed rest. You might be on bed rest for a variety of reasons: pregnancy, illness, broken bone — and it’s really simple: confinement to a bed as part of a treatment.

Some of us are probably terrified of this idea… you mean, we have to do nothing to be healthy? Yes! That’s exactly what we mean. Solitude is an invitation into healing and wholeness, on purpose, and within it, we learn to develop what the scriptures calls “stillness.”

The Psalmist says in Psalm 46:10

Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;…

And the Hebrew idea of being still means something like, “let go of your grip,” and we have an aversion to stillness because there are lots of things we are holding onto, and equally, a lot of things that have their hold on us.

Solitude is counter-terrorism for your heart and mind, and you know, I know, that your heart and mind are constantly having violence done to them.

Another way for you to think about the practice of solitude, or the discipline of solitude, is like you are preparing for something that hasn’t happened yet.

This is why people lift weights, or they maintain their cardiovascular health through running, or why people take up a martial art — to prepare them to lift something heavy in the future, to have the endurance to get away if need be, to safely and ethically subdue an assailant.

When you take on the practice of solitude, you are undergoing the discipline of forming your life with God, so that God can call you to be the person that He has made you to be, whenever He wants to call you to it.

It might be through tragedy, it might be through an event like a promotion or a season of notoriety that will test your character. It might be for a season intense dependence on God. It might be a season of perspective, where you keep your cool when everyone is losing theirs.

And you won’t know it until that moment, but you’ll have been prepared for it, because of how you’ve been formed by living a life with God.

The Apostle Paul is an excellent example of this. Most people think Paul had a massive conversion and went straight to work. What actually happens is that Paul gets converted, he goes to Damascus to preach and almost loses his life, and then he disappears into the Arabian desert for the better part of three years before going back to Damascus before connecting with the rest of the Apostles in Jerusalem.

This is what Paul writes in Galatians 1:15-17

Galatians 1:15–17 (NIV)

But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.

I can’t stress enough how important that place of cultivation is.

Jesus and Paul both go to that place, what otherwise we know as “the quiet place.” The Greek word for this is eremos, it’s the quiet place is the wilderness, the solitary place, the desolate place, where some measure of formation of the inner of their lives happens.

This is the word that is used when Jesus goes into the wilderness to be tempted after His baptism. This is the word that is used when Jesus invites His disciples to a quiet place in Mark 6:31, which we just read. This is likely the broader category for which Paul just experienced in Arabia.

It’s the quiet, silent if you will, space with God, alone, on purpose, — where we learn about Him and ourselves.

This is not the equation we typically get. Our typical equation is the more we put in, the more we get out. The harder I work, the more I get paid. In the economy of the Kingdom of God, life with Jesus, we busier we are and the more distracted our lives are, the less we get with Him.

But the actual truth is the less we do intentionally, the more we get of Him.

And I don’t think any of us would say that we want less of Jesus… I think we’d all agree we want more of Him.

There have been seasons where solitude has been such a gift to me.

One time I received a sentence for the Lord that really changed a season of my life. I was literally fishing by myself at about 6 in the morning on a little dock and I audibly heard from the Lord. I picked that moment to set aside and be with Him.

Solitude has been the place where I have been the most in-tune with what the sound of His voice is like, what 1 Kings 19 calls, “the still small voice.”

But as I said, solitude can be painful — there has also been a time in which it exposed some of my unhealthiest parts.

When COVID hit I went into a hyper work mode, I probably worked without a day off for 4-5 months straight, and we had just gotten an opportunity to get away for a week at a friend’s cabin in Northern Minnesota and the first day we got there I spotted a hammock on their property and decided I had earned myself a nap.

I set aside that time to be with God and when I woke up, over 4 hours later, I had the most startling realization that I was not okay, I was terribly sick and burned out and I didn’t know how I was going to come out of it and the pandemic didn’t look like it was going to end any time soon.

One of the enemies of solitude is that solitude will uncover things that you’ve been hiding. Maybe you’ve not grieved a lost, or taken a break, or made amends, or you’ve got anxieties and worries that you haven’t dealt with — and every time you’re quiet they come rushing forth. That’s real and that’s exactly why we fear being alone and we fear not being distracted — because we’re going to have to deal with the real parts of us.

It’s probably the most used phrase I’ve heard at funerals in the last decade. Someone will inevitably say, “I just need to distract myself.”

Solitude can be painful. We have to know that going in… but we know we need it. This is what the Psalmist says in Psalm 62:5

Psalm 62:5 (NIV)

Yes, my soul, find rest in God;

This, I think, is a required perspective for solitude: just because I’m alone, doesn’t mean I’m lonely. In fact, I think that when we get used to solitude, it’s the place where we’ll best discern God’s presence. Martin Luther wrote, “I do not know it and do not understand it, but sounding from above ringing in my ears I hear what is beyond the thought of Man.”

And I’ve found that when I choose stillness w

Martin Luther is describing a peace that He’s struggling to find words for.

There’s an ancient path, called solitude, that can help you find that peace, where you can hear God’s voice, where you will get healed, where you will get shaped and formed, if you’re just tired of being all of the time and are in need of some rest — you can find Jesus there, He’s tucked away, waiting for you. Go get Him! What do you have to lose?

I want to help you do that this morning. I’m going to give you a simple plan for how to be alone with God.

You need a PLACE and a PLAN

C.S. Lewis once said that God always seemed less real to him in a motel room.

Scholar Stephen Eyre writes that Your place to meet with God needs to be SPECIAL, PROTECTED, and FAMILIAR.

You need a SPECIAL PLACE to grow spiritually. If you use your desk for work, your couch for lounging, and your table for eating — then don’t meet with God at any of those places.

Pick a place. A chair, a seat, a spot in the backyard, the park, wherever — but let that be the regular meeting place between you and God.

I asked my friend Lin, who lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota to send me a picture of her special, protected, and familiar place where she meets with God. It’s in a study in her home, and this is the place where she is fully attentive to God.

SHOW PICTURE

You need a PROTECTED PLACE to meet with God.

I have three boys, two dogs, and a neighborhood full of children — not to mention a smartphone and email with constant distractions, I know interruptions are going to happen.

This place should be where, and maybe a time, where you know the phone isn’t going to vibrate, the doorbell isn’t going to ring, and you’re not going to be interrupted.

You need a FAMILIAR PLACE because familiar places carry a sense that God has met us there before. It’s Pavlov’s dog — make it the space where you’ve encountered deep worship before.

Once you have your place, you need a PLAN.

The plan I’m going to give you is very simple. I even made it all S’s for you to remember:

SILENCE

SCRIPTURE

SPECULATION

PRAYERS

This is very simple.

Spend 30 seconds in silence.

Read a scripture, start with only a Psalm.

Spent some time speculating on where God might be speaking to you, and consider what word or phrase stuck out to you.

And then talk with God about that thing that stood out to you that just read, and what God is doing with it in your heart and life.