Spiritual Formation

Intro Series: We are called by Jesus to be his apprentices, to be with him, to become like him, and to do as he did

Today we are going to dig deeper into this idea by talking about spiritual formation

The problem: we WANT to become more like Jesus, but often we don’t know HOW

Mean, grumpy, greedy, joyless, judgmental…Christians; and no one wants to be any of those things…but that is who they have become, and it may be who some of us have become

I’ve seen it! People who have been in the church for 60, 70 years, and they are emotionally immature, selfish, sometimes clearly racist, sometimes consumed by worry, unable to forgive people who have hurt them, no compassion for the poor, no heart for evangelism, no consistency in their prayer life, no delight in the presence of God, still struggling with the sins and the attitudes that they were decades ago

A lot of people who are Christians have never become apprentices of Jesus, they’ve never intentionally modeled their life and habits and practices upon the person of Jesus

The good news today that I want us to dig into, whether we are months into this life of following Jesus or decades into it, what I want every single one of to hear today is that we can be transformed into who Jesus is calling us to be. But for most of us, this will require more from us than we are used to. And so this process of change is what the tradition calls spiritual formation.

If that’s a new term for you, it’s not that complicated of an idea. Every human being who has ever existed, and every single one of us here, we have a spirit or a heart; that’s the core of who we are. It’s our inner man or inner woman. And spiritual formation is simply how we become who we are. It’s not just a Christian thing—every person is always, constantly in a process of being spiritually formed. We are formed by “the stories we believe, our habits, and our relationships.” (Comer)

Spiritual formation: the process of our heart/spirit being changed

Formed by STORIES we believe, our HABITS, and our RELATIONSHIPS

Christian spiritual formation: the process of our heart/spirit becoming like Jesus

Christian spiritual formation “refers to the Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.” -Dallas Willard

Christian Spiritual Formation: The process of being formed into a person of self-giving love through deepening surrender to and union with the Trinity. -John Mark Comer

So the image the Bible gives us is that of the potter and the clay, we are like that clay and it’s true that God is forming us into a certain shape, but so is the world. We are formed by our circumstances, our family, our gifts, the choices we make, that habits we have, our relationships, the news we watch, the stories we read, the images we look at, everything constantly is forming us and shaping us into a certain shape.

Small example. What do you do when you first wake up? If you are like the majority of Americans, the first thing you do is pick up your smartphone and you are immediately hit with whatever notifications you have, you check email, check news, and already before your out of bed you are overwhelmed by what’s going on. if you do that every single morning and that’s how you start your day, you are allowing the world to have the first word on your day and therefore on your life, and it is forming you to become an anxious person. And we have things like that all throughout our day, forming us into being a certain kind of person.

The question as apprentices of Jesus, is not are we being formed? Its who are we becoming?

I have three sons, as most of you all know, and our third son Charlie was probably the best sleeper. Which was awesome. When he was a baby, he would sleep for hours and hours. But, all of that sleeping on the back of his head, little, by little, made his round baby head, flat. And so our doctor talked to us and we got him into one of these baby helmets, that can correct that. And I didn’t know how these worked, I thought they kind of slowly pressed on it to shape the head. But how these helmets work, is they give the head, which is daily, constantly growing, a certain shape—it starts out lumpy or flat, but the helmet gives structure and form, and as the head grows it slowly but surely conforms to the shape that’s holding it.

And I thought you know, this is kind of what happens to us in our spiritual formation. Our form of life, our habits, our choices, our environment, our spiritual practices or lack thereof, they give a kind of shape to our life, and every single day we are growing to be a certain kind of person, to ahve a certain kind of heart. And so the question is what is the shape of our life, what kind of baby helmet do we have on?

This is what Paul is talking about in Romans 12:2:

Romans 12:2 NIV

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Paul for Everyone, Romans Part 2: Chapters 9–16 The Living Sacrifice (Romans 12:1–5)

What’s more, don’t let yourselves be squeezed into the shape dictated by the present age. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can work out what God’s will is, what is good, acceptable and complete. (NT Wright Translation)

Here’s what I want you to imagine. If you are passive in this world, like if you are just living without any intention about who you are becoming…like if you are going with the flow…if you have not thought about your habits and your time and your heart and your choices and what you watch and what you do when you wake up int he morning and how long you are on social media and who you are following on social media and on. If you are have not really thought about who you are becoming, then this means that you are letting the world be in charge of your spiritual formation. You are letting the world, the flesh, and the devil determine the shape of your heart, and every single day, you are growing not more like Jesus but more like the world. They have fixed the shape of who they want you to be, and you are whether you realize it or not, conforming to the pattern the world has given you.

Conformed OR Transformed (no in between)

-Lazy river (which ends in a waterfall!), or intentionally swimming upstream

There are no accidental saints. -John Mark Comer

Here’s a way to think about this. Tonight is the Superbowl. And whether you like football or not, the NFL players in the superbowl are clearly some of the greatest athletes on earth. Patrick Mahomes, I know y’all don’t like him, but he’s a once in a generation talent. And he clearly is a very gifted athlete—but if Patrick Mahomes took what God had given him, and only played football one hour a week for three decades, he would not be in the Superbowl. He is a product of what he has been given AND of the shape of his life, his dedication and discipline and habits to become the athlete he is. No one becomes an NFL player by accident, it comes from a very intentional form of life, to become a certain kind of person.

It takes training, practicing, a lot of it, and after you practice it, a lot, you become a different person.

And a similar kind of thing is true for our life with Jesus. We have been given this incredible gift from God in Christ, and it is the gift of grace. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life. And so this moment of surrender to Jesus, when we confess him as Lord and Savior, by our words and in our heart, this is an unbelievable gift, its immeasurable. We can’t earn it, we can only receive it.

But this the beginning of our apprenticeship under Jesus, it’s not the end. Too many people have this moment of conversion, this moment of saying yes to Jesus, sometimes this conincides with our baptism, or a powerful moment at a revival or at a camp or a conference, and you have this feeling of euphoria or just total peace, maybe God lets you feel his love for you in a powerful way, and it’s such an awe-inspiring moment. It’s so good. But here’s what God does…he then invites us to work with him, to co-operate with his grace, to enter into a life of practice, of spiritual training to become like Christ.

We do not automatically become like Jesus. It takes time, it takes practice, it takes suffering, it takes failure, it takes a life of trust, and it take a community to help us.

Most of us here, there’s some things Jesus has called us to do that are beyond us. A really good example: Jesus tells us in the sermon on the mount, do not worry, don’t be anxious about tomorrow. And if you are somebody who is a worrier, or struggles with anxiety, you want to follow what Jesus says but you can’t do it yet. But what you can do is adopt the practice of Sabbath; a day out of your week, that trains you in your spirit to slowly but surely become a less anxious person. And if we do that every week for years, we will be changed to be more like Jesus in our heart.

Or maybe we struggle with hearing from God, or believing that God loves us. And we can’t snap our fingers and experience that, but we can have a daily practice of prayer, where we are showing up to God, and inviting God to reveal himself to us. And if we do that on a daily basis, slowly but surely the Holy Spirit will change us, we will be trained to have a deeper faith.

In Romans, Paul spends like 11 chapters talking about the grace of Jesus, and how we have been justified, made right, by faith in him. And in chapter 12 there’s this turn of, okay, how do we respond:

Romans 12:1 NIV

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

This is not a call to a passive spirituality, this is a call to action, to an active life. If we know what we’ve been given, we will very intentionally, very passionately, as a community together, offer our entire life to Jesus, our bodies, as a living sacrifice. And as we do this, as we offer our mind, our thoughts, our habits, our work, our family, our sexuality, our relationships, our creativity, our body, everything to Jesus, we will no longer be conformed to the world, we will be transformed by the Holy Spirit into the shape of Christ.

This is what spiritual formation is, and the rest of this series we’re going to be thinking together and practicing how we can do this, how we can participate in God’s work in our life…

But very basically, it’s a practice of replacement..replacing old stories, habits, and relationships with new ones in Christ.

Basic points about Christian spiritual formation:

The Holy Spirit transforms us as we

believe God’s story (scripture)

imitate Jesus’ habits (spiritual practices)

with other apprentices of Jesus (community/church)

Practical Application:

Do a spiritual formation audit.

Continue daily prayer practice.