"The Disciplines" - Part 1 Solitude, Silence & Fasting

Introduction

So we are in the midst of a series of messages we are simply calling…Disciple.

We’ve covered a lot of ground in this series as I have tried to establish a firm foundation for what we are about to dive into this morning. Quite frankly, this is where most people run into a wall and their life transformation comes to a halt, or really never even gets started. Why is that? Well Quite frankly, it is because we do not understand one key truth.

1. Life transformation will not happen apart from these practices.

And when we convince ourselves that these practices are too difficult, we have missed out on the very BEST part of being a Disciple of Jesus Christ.

Some of you thought it was too hard when I suggested last week that you purposely drive in the slow lane for a month to help cure your hurry sickness. Well, if you have actually started doing that, then I trust you have found it getting a little easier each time you do it. If not yet, keep going, it will.

This is important. Learning and practicing these disciplines will lead you to discover the secret of the easy yoke Jesus has invited us into. Remember His words in Matthew 11:29.

Mat 11:29 ESV - 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

We have read that verse a thousand times but we really do not believe it is true. GK Chesterton recognized this fact when he wrote the following:

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

As I said last week, that word “discipline” carries a heavy and often negative connotation to it that tells us this is going to be hard, difficult and painful. There is almost a universal belief in the immense difficulty of being a REAL Christian. We constantly hear about the grim cost of discipleship. We talked about that earlier in the series.

But we must not let the cost of discipleship stand as the whole truth. In fact, we might be better off to focus on the clear cost of NON discipleship. Jesus words there in Matthew 11:29 offer us an alternative to non-discipleship and the heartache that goes along with it.

We get confirmation that Christ’s yoke is the best of all choices for us in 1 John 5:3.

1John 5:3 ESV - 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

I submit to you this morning beloved that it is through the disciplines and of course obedience to Christ, that we enter the yoke WITH Him so that HE can carry the Lion’s share of the burden.

But here’s the thing. You and I cannot expect that we will obey a single thing He commands us to obey in those moments were we are on the spot, if we are not fully committed to the secret of the easy yoke.

I am going to give it to you now. If you are a note taker, then you will want to write this down. If you miss it, don’t forget that you can go listen to this message later on the Website to get it. Here it is...

The secret to entering the easy yoke is simple. It is the intelligent, informed, unyielding resolve, to live as Jesus lived in all aspects of His life, not just in the moment of specific choice or action. (Again)

And there is not a person in the room this morning that cannot do this. It is not out of anyone’s reach. And it is accomplished by practices or disciplines. The very SAME practices or disciplines that Jesus engaged in while He was here on earth living the same human life that you and I are living now.

The biggest mistake we make is thinking that Jesus did the things He did, and said the things He said so well simply because He was God. Believing that puts His life and His ways completely out of our reach.

As we look at these practices I am going to do my best to keep reminding you that Jesus did these very same things. And That is why, in His human form, He had the power to do the things He did. If you think I have that wrong then let me remind you that Jesus often said He did nothing apart from His Father in Heaven. The same is true for us.

You cannot do as Jesus did just by trying harder or even by behaving in a Christlike manner ONLY when you think it counts or when others are watching.

Let me give you an example. When I was a kid there was only one sport I was pretty good at. Baseball. And the guys I looked to were guys like Micky Mantle, Denny Mclean, Bob Gibson. I had their baseball cards in a shoe box with many others. (Kenny if I had hung onto those I would probably be a wealthy man today.) In those days, any kid playing little league, had their eyes glued to those guys. All we wanted to do was pitch or hit like them. So what we did was, when we were playing in a game, we did all we could do to try and behave like those guys did when we saw them play. If the guy we wanted to play like, held his bat high over His head when he stepped up to hit, that is what we did, no matter how hard our coaches tried to get us to stop doing that!

If the guy we wanted to emulate had a habit of sliding into a base head first, then that is what we would do, again, against our coaches best instructions. We just wanted to be like them. We would use the same glove they used, and the same bat they used and wear the same shoes they wore. And since our parents wouldn’t let us chew red man tobacco, we would load our cheek with the biggest wad of bubble gum you ever saw, or a big chew of black licorice because it made a better spit color.

Now, did all those things make us the all star players that our heroes were? We all know the answer to that question.

If all we ever did was try to be like them in a game, no matter how gifted we were in the sport, we did not succeed. and we all know why. Those baseball greats we were trying to emulate in every way we could, did not achieve their excellence by trying to behave a certain way only during a game. Instead they engaged in an overall life of preparation of mind and body, pouring all those energies into total preparation. It is what we didn’t see them do that made them great players during the games we did see... when it counted.

Now, unlike baseball, spiritual transformation does not require any amount of natural ability or talent. Anyone can experience it. But what spiritual formation DOES have in common with baseball is it won’t happen if all we ever to is pose.

This is where the practices or disciplines come in.

In his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard writes:

“My central claim is that we can become like Christ by doing one thing —by following him in the overall style of life he chose for himself. If we have faith in Christ, we must believe he knew how to live. We can, through faith and Grace, become like Christ, by practicing the types of activities that he engaged in, by arranging our whole lives around the activities he himself practiced in order to remain constantly at home in the fellowship of the Father”

Well what things did Jesus practice? Things like solitude,and silence, prayer, simple and sacrificial living, and intense study and meditation on every Word that came from the mouth of God.

And what does it mean to remain at home? We often use the word “Home” to describe that place for us that is where we belong, a place of safety and security. For Jesus that was not a particular place but it was being in the presence and love of His Father.

And you and I can actually experience that being at home with our heavenly Father by arranging our lives around certain practices.

Remember what we said last week. A discipline or a practice means I am going to arrange my life now around certain activities through which I receive the power to do what I cannot do by direct effort.

And that approach will move us into the easy yoke with Jesus. And we do these things not to show how spiritual we are, but so we can receive power from Him to become the persons that he made us to be. That is the secret of the easy yoke. No more simply trying really hard and then failing and then feeling guilty. Instead, we become disciples of Jesus.

I want to look at three of the practices with you this morning. Before we do that, I want to give you the two different categories that these practices fall into because it can help us figure out which practices to start with.

There are Practices of Abstinence, where I abstain from doing something I would normally do, and then there are Practices of Engagement, where I actually DO things I would not normally do.

Interestingly enough, sin is often placed into two categories. We talk about the sins of commission where I get into trouble for doing things I should not do, like Lie, cheat, or kill, and there are sins of omission where I get into trouble for failing to do the things I should do like , love, forgive, joylessness. These are the ones we do most because we somehow feel like they are not as bad…but they are.

For example. If I struggle with a sin of omission, like joylessness, then an Engagement practices will help because it is my DOING that is lacking. So the practice of celebration can help me with the sin of joylessness. I engage in celebration and I become a more joyful person. Make sense?

On the other hand, if I am wrestling with a sin of Comission, like gossiping, then I want to work on an Abstinence practice, like the practice of silence can help with that. Right?

I want to start this morning with the practices of Abstinence because that is about taking stuff out of your life. We are already doing too many things at too fast a pace, so to add more seems like a recipe for disaster to me. So what practices can help us remove things and “slow the roll” as they say?

Solitude is the first one. What is it? In solitude, we purposely abstain from interaction with other human beings. We deny ourselves companionship and all that comes from our conscious interaction with others.

We close ourselves away; we go to the ocean or the woods, or the desert. Now keep in mind. This practice is not to define your entire existence. It isn’t meant for every day all day. Just for some periods of time on a regular and consistent basis.

It is also not just “rest” or the “refreshment” we get from nature, which can be good. Solitude is choosing to be alone and to dwell on our experience of isolation from other people. Why would I want to seek out being alone?

Solitude frees us. In fact all the practices are about freedom. Because practicing these things gives me the freedom and the power to do what needs to be done in the right way, at the right moment…like Jesus.

By the way. A disciplined person is not the person who practices a lot of disciplines. The disciplined person is the one who is able to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Practices enable you to be that person.

Just like for a musician, practicing the scales gives you the freedom to make remarkable music in the moment.

Solitude frees us from the patterns we fall into when we are around others. Patterns of performance expectations. Patterns of comparing ourselves to others or worrying about what others want from us. Right now I am preaching, but part of what’s going on inside of me is I am wondering how you all think this is going. And I can’t turn that off. But when I am alone, I am free from that sort of thing. That is what solitude does.

Solitude frees me from the expectations of another human being.

Now, lets look at the life of Jesus. Here is when we get into that list of scriptures you have. At the very beginning of Jesus Ministry, right after being baptized, the first thing He does is go into the wilderness alone for 40 days.

Mat 4:1-2 ESV - 1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

And it is here that He is tempted by Satan. Now we often think, “Isn’t it amazing that after 40 days in the wilderness with no food, and in a weakened state, Jesus was able to withstand these temptations”.

Nope! That is wrong. The wilderness was a place of strength. When He had spent 40 days of solitude and prayer and fasting, Jesus was not at a point of His greatest weakness, He was at a point of strength. That is what we often do not understand.

In fact it is amazing to me how often in scripture we see Jesus practicing solitude. Where He would slip away from the crowds and even His own disciples to spend time alone with the Father. He understood His source of power was there.

The night before choosing His 12 we read this...

Luk 6:12-13 ESV - 12 In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles:

In fact in many of these passages we see Jesus go off in solitude and prayer and the something significant happens right after.

Mark 1:35-39 ESV - 35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, 37 and they found him and said to him, "Everyone is looking for you." 38 And he said to them, "Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came." 39 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

All preceded by a season of solitude and prayer.

Mat 14:22-23 ESV - 22 Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,

Again, we see this pattern of solitude and prayer with Jesus.

When Herod beheaded John the Baptist, of all the things Jesus could have done when He heard about it, we read in Matthew 14:13...

Mat 14:13 ESV - 13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.

And in ...

Luk 5:15-16 ESV - 15 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

Over and over again we see Jesus make it a priority to withdraw and practice solitude and prayer. As we just read, the crowds were gathered and waiting for Him to speak, but before He did that it says that he would, as thought it were a regular practice of His, ...he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

So how do you and I go about practicing solitude? First off. Do not to decide to practice solitude the next time you have a free day. Guess when THAT will happen. Nope. You gotta get it on your calendar.

And don’t try to go full in, all at once. You don’t have to start with an entire day of solitude at first. Today, start with some mini moments of solitude and reflect on what that is like. If you are an extrovert, this is gonna seem very strange and maybe unnerving to you at first. And here is another thing. people who are extroverts will be tempted to bring along books, ted talks to listen to and songs to listen to....nope. That is not solitude.

In solitude the idea is to get away from all the external scaffolding of life and spend time alone with the Father.

Now when you first do this it may go something like this. Say you do set aside a whole day and you have a list of things you want to talk to God about. And then you pray through that list in about an hour and then you start trying to figure out what you are going to do next.

Don’t fall into that trap with solitude. It is not about doing something, it is about doing nothing. It is about being alone with God and with your own thoughts. For some people, that is terrifying, I get it. But that is the point. Let your mind wander and notice what thoughts your mind drifts to and then take THAT to God. Your wandering mind will give you all kinds of things to pray about.

If your mind goes to that brother that you would rather slap than hug, good thing to pray about. If your thoughts to to sexual impurity, stop and remind yourself that God is there with you and tell Him your struggle and ask for help in that.

The main thing is not to leave God out of it. To remind yourself that God is there with you and in that quiet solitude you can learn to be at home with Him.

In Matthew 4:1 Jesus gives us some solitude instructions...

Mat 6:6 ESV - 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

So that is solitude. Solitude frees you to be open and honest with God with no outside influence to hinder you. So, today,

1.Start by finding some small moments to be alone.

2.If your mind wanders, talk to God about it. That’s it.

Next, is Silence.

These two of course can go hand in hand but unlike solitude, silence can be practiced while surrounded by others.

Here is the idea of Silence from Dallas Willard.

“In silence, we close off our souls from sounds. Whether those sounds be noise, music, or words. Total silence is rare, and what we call quiet usually only amounts to a little less noise. Many people have never experienced silence and don’t even know what it is.

...In fact, we find complete silence shocking because it leaves the impression that nothing is happening.

In a go-go world such as ours, what could be worse than that!”

Now that idea of silence can be practiced during times of solitude if we choose to go out into the wilderness but even there you will hear the sounds of nature. But there is another idea around this practice of silence that involves not speaking. I think this is the one we should focus on.

It turns out that James, the brother of Jesus has a few things to say about this. in James 1:26 he tells us that those who seem religious but are unable to bridle their tongues are self-deceived. In James chapter 1 and verse 19 we read...

Jas 1:19-20, 26 ESV - 19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. ...

and dropping down to verse 26 he says...

26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.

So why would we want to practice silence?

Practice in not speaking can at least give us enough control over what we say that our tongues don’t go off automatically.

This discipline gives us a certain inner distance that will give us time to consider our words fully and better control over what we say and when we say it.

This practice can help if you struggle with gossip. Or if you struggle with the need to promote yourself all the time, or if you lie often or engage in sarcasm. Or God forbid, if you attempt guys, to do some mansplaining. You know what that is right?

Mansplaining is to explain something to a woman in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate or oversimplified manner, typically to a woman already knowledgeable about the topic: Like the bonehead move of telling a woman how much better you understand female relationships than she does!

This would be a good occasion to practice silence.

James has more to say about this...

Jas 3:2-5 ESV - 2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!

Oh the dangers of talking too much. Silence is definitely one of those practices that can go hand in hand with wisdom. Wisdom is far more exercised through silence than it is when we speak.

I worked in a car dealership once and the sales manager had a sign in his office that read, “Samson slew a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. Every day the same weapon is used to kill the sale of a new car in this dealership.”

Why do we talk so much? Well mostly we run off at the mouth because we are inwardly uneasy about what others think of us. There is an old saying that says “people who love each other can comfortably be silent together.”

But when we get around people that we are less secure with, we use words to attempt to “adjust” our appearance and gain their approval.

We are afraid that if we don’t, our virtues might not be appreciated enough and our shortcomings might not be properly “understood”.

But here’s the deal. In NOT speaking, we resign ourselves to how we appear to God. Dare we say, how we really are?

So silence builds into us a great trust in God to protect our reputations. It helps us let go of what people think of us.

So, how do we do this? Well as I said earlier, Silence and solitude go hand in hand, usually.

But for most of us, our real struggle is to keep silent when there are others around. And most of us live with others, so how can we practice this discipline effectively? Well there are ways.

You could get up in the middle of the night, breaking your night’s sleep in half, in order to experience silence. If you have ever done this, and I have, what you will discover is a rich silence that helps with prayer and study without imposing on anyone else. Now I know that sounds very awful but it actually isn’t. Its weird at first but I have found it to be a very awesome time. For years I got ups at 4 am in order to have this time before anyone else was up. I learned to cherish that time.

But if that sounds impossible for you, then you can still make meaningful progress into silence without solitude, even within a busy family household. We have talked about this already. When you get in the car in the morning to go to work. Leave the radio off and practice some silence.

Maybe you are going to attend a meeting this week at work. Practice resisting the temptation to open your mouth and do any self promotion. Resist the temptation to let everyone in the room know how much you know about something.

When someone is sharing an experience they had, resist the temptation to match their experience with stories about one of your own. See, there are a lot of ways to practice silence.

There aren’t too many people who live with quiet inner confidence, but we all wish we did. But that inward quiet is a grace gift that comes from God when we practice not talking.

You might remember when Jesus was on trial and he knew he needed to go to the Cross so that defending himself or arguing his case would actually keep him from completing his mission. What he did in that great moment was a remarkable act. He was silent and made no attempt to His own defense. I reckon He had practiced silence a lot to be able to be silent when it was needed the most.

The truth is, we find the God who speaks to us in times of silence.

Last one this morning is fasting.

A practice that I have obviously mastered!

What a horrible idea this is! Who would want to or why would they want to fast?

Well, what is it first of all? When we fast, we abstain from food in some significant way and possibly from drink as well.

Fasting teaches us a lot about ourselves pretty quickly.

It humbles us because it reveals how much our peace depends on the pleasure of eating.

It can also teach us how we are using food pleasure to alleviate the discomforts caused in our bodies by faithless and unwise living and attitudes like lack of self worth, meaningless work, purposeless existence or lack of rest or exercise.

If nothing else, fasting will demonstrate how powerful and clever our body is in getting its own way against our strongest resolves.

There are a lot of ways and different degrees of fasting. The desert fathers like St. Anthony went for long periods of time on bread and water. Now their bread was a lot more nutritious than the crap we are buying in the grocery store today so be careful with that one.

Daniel and his buddies decided that they would not eat the way everyone else was eating and decided on vegetables and water. That might be considered a partial fast.

And as we saw earlier Jesus fasted for 40 days. A pretty long fast.

Fasting confirms our utter dependence on God by finding in Him a source of sustainence beyond food. When we fast, we learn by experience that God’s word to us is life substance and that it is not food like bread alone that gives us life.

Mat 4:4 ESV - 4 But he answered, "It is written, "'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

Jesus also spoke to his disciples about having food that they could not see or understand yet.

We need to be careful to know what fasting is NOT.

Fasting is not for weight loss.

Contrary to popular belief, fasting is not to be used to get God’s attention and increase the likelihood that my prayers will get answered. I REALLY want an answer so I will fast to show God how serious I am.

Fasting CAN however give you a clarity of mind to more clearly see God’s will in a certain situation. Jesus instructed us on fasting in...

Mat 6:16 ESV - 16 "And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

This is to miss the point of fasting completely.

Mat 9:14-15 ESV - 14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" 15 And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

The idea is that after His death and ascension, THEN His followers will fast seeking to be with Him.

In a strange way, fasting is feasting.

Fasting allows me to recognize that I do not have to immediately satisfy my appetites to survive. Again this practice brings freedom.

And weirdly enough, fasting has a way of slowing you down. I don’t know how that works, I just know for me, it has that affect.

Now if for whatever reason fasting from food does not work for you, that’s okay. There are plenty of other disciplines you can practice. And, there are other things you can fast from. Like what? Like anything that seems to have unreasonable control over you such that it gets in the way of you being able to connect with God. Like say…oh, I don’t know…social media! Practice a social media fast and see what happens. I can tell you what WONT happen. You won’t die!

Beloved, in the practices you will discover that you can find God in a strange way when you learn it is possible to be free from the human appetites that demand to be fed.

So…Solitude, silence and fasting. Give those a try. You may be surprised at what happens to you and your connection with Jesus as you strive to be His disciple. As you learn to be at Home with the Father who loves you.

Amen Lord’s Supper