Why the Disciplines

I’ve been gone for a bit, so what have we talked about these last two weeks?

The Spiritual disciplines of Bible reading and tithing.

Anything you learned?

What are the spiritual disciplines?

Spiritual disciplines are practices for the individual and groups that are supposed to direct our bodies, hearts, and minds to God.

WHY should we do them?

Beyond just doing them because you have to or because we’re telling you to do them, why should we practice the spiritual disciplines?

Have you ever longed for God?

Like, desperately wanted to be close with God in your life?

Or, have you ever been really close with God and then you feel it start to slip away?

There’s always something in me that tries so hard to hold on to that feeling, but I can’t force it!

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” - Antoine de Saint Exupéry

I think that the disciplines can help us to long for the endless immensity of God. They give us tools and language to allow us to step in to what we really want with our relationship with God.

The spiritual disciplines are supposed to draw us closer to God and push us further away from sin.

Mark 14:32-42.

Sin

Part of the reason for the disciplines is to pull us away from sin.

What is sin?

Why does it matter?

That’s the big problem, isn’t it?

Sin is real, I’m sure most of us understand that, but understanding why it matters is a totally different story.

“Jesus already died for our sins, so what’s the point in sinning again? He’s already forgiven us!”

But our sins actually matter!

Our sins were punished on the cross.

When Jesus went to the cross, it wasn’t simple or easy, we see in the passage that Jesus suffered immensely from the cross.

Our sin deserved massive punishment, and Christ took that punishment on Himself!

So, Jesus suffered for you, for every sin

And every time that we sin, we heap more punishment on Christ!

Two of the songs talked on how we are saved through the blood of Jesus. That isn’t just cute language! Christ bleeding and dying for us is how we live in Him!

Sin isolates us.

Both with God and with others, sin pushes us further and further away from others.

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Sin deserves death. It’s like a cancer, when a cell get’s infected with cancer, it must die. In the same way, without Christ, we are infected completely by sin!

There’s no fixing it, the only solution is no longer existing!

But God sent His Son to die in our place!

Instead of us dying for our own sin as the deserved punishment, God dies for us, and then raises to life so that we can follow Him and experience that same life!

This is where the disciplines enter in for us!

I’m tired of heaping more sin on Christ’s shoulders; and I’m tired of isolating myself from Christ and others because of my sin!

I want to be a follower of Jesus, and in order to do that, my life needs to be different.

I need to start living like how Jesus lived, which is why we practice the disciplines.

Jesus did these things and He called others into these things, and so we practice the disciplines for that purpose.

But, that’s just from the negative. I don’t want to be like this, so we practice the disciplines. But what about the “endless immensity” that we talked about? What about all of the great things we’re called to as Christians?

Relationship with Christ

The disciplines help us to draw closer to God.

Psalm 42:1–2 (ESV)

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?

Have you ever felt like the author of this Psalm?

This is a deep call in your soul for something, and I think there’s something intrinsic in our being for this.

We all have something in us that makes us long for it.

Maybe it’s music, or a TV show, or a book.

When the first Avatar movie came out, there were people who watched the movies and then committed suicide because they couldn’t live in that world.

There’s something deep in us that longs for something more.

But all of that is just us trying to find the thing we’re truly longing for: God.

I have a confession to make

One of my deepest prayers recently has been for God to show me people who love Him so beautifully.

I’m talking about the people who are so close to God you can see it on their faces!

I want to be one of those people.

But we’re never going to get there if we’re not disciplined.

You can’t be in a good relationship if you never work on it.

The disciplines are there for us to work on our relationship with God.

Reading your Bible isn’t there just to learn facts, it’s to know your Father in heaven!

Tithing isn’t just to be smart with your money, it’s to give your first and your best to God!

Prayer isn’t a to-do list, it’s communion with the divine.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to live in the immensity of the ocean. I’m ready to dive in to the depths of God. I’m tired of living my life bound in sin and waiting for something better, I want Christ!

If you’re ready too, let’s do this together.