Silence & Solitude
Notes
Transcript
Doxology:
This is my Bible. It is God’s Holy Word. It is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path, and I will hide its words within my heart, that I might not sin against God. Amen!
Scripture Reference: Jeremiah 29:13
Context
Context
We have been walking through a series called “Experiencing God”. This series covers certain spiritual disciplines that, if we practice them, will take us into a deeper relationship with our Lord and Savior.
To be honest, it might be one of the most important series that we have ever gone through, because our aim in life as Christians is to get as close to God as we possibly can and then stay there as much as we can.
The closer we are to the Lord:
The better our spiritual perception is. We see things more on a spiritual level.
The more we walk in righteousness and obedience, and the less we sin.
The better we are at witnessing to others. We are able to see the doors that God opens for us and we walk through them more often.
The more we realize how perfect He is and worship Him as He deserves.
The more equipped we are to fight against Satan and the temptations he brings our way.
The less anxious, nervous, depressed, afraid, and worried we are. Our faith is placed in Him and we simply don’t give way to the woes of this life as much.
The brighter we shine in every aspect of our lives.
We have already seen how one grows closer to the Lord by practicing the spiritual disciplines of Bible Intake, Prayer, and Proper Worship. Today, we are going to speak on what I believe to be the most under-utilized, and under-rated spiritual discipline of them all, which is that of Silence & Solitude.
We live in a day today to where everyone is constantly on the go. We have such busy lives. We wake up every morning with our calendars full of appointments or a To-Do List as long as our leg, and we work from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed.
This mentality has been passed down to us from the previous generations. My dad was one of the hardest working men I have ever known. He was up early every morning, and stayed up late every night. There were times in his life that I knowed him to work three different jobs at a time. On top of all that, we lived on a farm with cows, chickens, goats, a big garden, and somewhere between 4-6 acres of tobacco that had to be tended to. We were never idle.
But this work hard mentality goes back farther than that. The generations before them, even less than a hundred years ago; There was no electricity, no running water, no gas heat or HVAC systems, no cars and trucks, nor many of the other fine amenities we enjoy today.
This means that if they wanted meat for a meal, they had to go kill it, clean it, prepare it, and then cook it. Can you imagine how much extra time it took them just to prepare a meal.
They had wood heat, so many hours every year was spent in the woods cutting trees, chopping wood, hauling that wood back to the house, stacking it in a dry place, and then each day the chore was to bring wood inside to fill the wood box.
They had no running water, so several of the children had to take buckets, go to the creek or spring or well, fill them up, and then bring them back to the house. For bath time, they had a washtub on the back porch. Mama would heat water on the top of the wood stove and then fill the washtub, and one by one everyone had to take a bath in that same water. You hoped that you had the privilege of being the first one in.
They had no vehicles, so travelling was indeed a chore. We can go 100 miles in a hundred minutes, but for them, it would have taken hours on horseback. And if they were travelling with many belongings packed in a wagon, maybe even a couple of days.
Listen to me. Those people were hard workers. They were busy from sun-up to sun-down because they didn’t have any other option. They had to work hard to put food on the table, wood in the stove, grow the crops that their families depended on, and so on. They didn’t have a choice. It was work or die.
Today, we have been blessed to have new inventions that bypass a lot of this hard labor. A lot of the work that was required to provide even the essential elements of life now comes by flipping a switch, setting a thermostat, or turning on a faucet.
They worked from dawn to dusk, but they did so to survive. Their time was not spent on idle things, but things necessary for survival.
Can you imagine what life might look like for us today if we adopted that same mentality. If we were to cut out everything we do that isn’t necessary for our survival, how much extra time would we have to spend elsewhere?
I say all of that to say this. If we are not careful to manage our time wisely, this world will take every second away from you. It will steal it right out from in under your noses. The thing is, you already know this to be true.
“The kids grow up too fast.”
“There simply isn’t enough time in the day.”
“I don’t know where the time has gone.”
“Has it really been that long?”
We have all said these things, yet despite our desires to rearrange our schedules and give proper attention to the most important things in life, we continue to fill our calendars and add more to-do’s to our list and before we know it, our time has slipped away.
I say all of that to say this: The busier we are, the more stressed we seem to be. The more we put on our plate, the more pressure we feel to be productive. We have been taught to give all of our time away to others and keep none for ourselves. That’s a big difference from previous generations. They worked just as hard as we do, but most of their time was spent on self-preservation.
To put it simply, we have let ourselves go. We need to recalibrate our way of thinking. We need to readjust our way of life. And if we would just sit and think for a moment, we know this to be true in every other area of life.
The cars we drive require maintenance. Every three months, or every so many miles, you have to take them to get an oil change. Oil is designed to lubricate all of the internal parts of your engine. It has additives put in it to keep all of the parts of that engine from wearing out and breaking. But over a period of time, that oil is exposed to heat and pressure. That heat and pressure slowly breaks down that oil to where it doesn’t quiet lubricate as it once did. So we have to drain out that old used oil and replace it with some fresh oil.
In the same way, you and I require maintenance. But unlike our cars, we can’t run for three months without an oil change. We need maintenance every day.
When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He prayed this:
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
Every day, we are to come in for maintenance. Every day, we are to seek Him. And through this daily maintenance, we keep our engines running good. But when we fail to come in for maintenance as we should, it should be no surprise that things start running a little rough.
13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
Let’s Pray!
Content
Content
Silence and solitude are not one and the same thing, but we often see them utilized together in Scripture.
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life Explanation of Silence and Solitude
The Discipline of silence is the voluntary and temporary abstention from speaking so that certain spiritual goals might be sought.
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life Explanation of Silence and Solitude
Solitude is the Spiritual Discipline of voluntarily and temporarily withdrawing to privacy for spiritual purposes.
Now notice that both of these things are to be done with a spiritual purpose. There are a lot of people who have periods of “alone time” throughout the day, but spiritual solitude is when one withdraws from all the distractions of life for spiritual purposes.
It may be that they withdraw to read and study the Bible, to pray, or some other means of seeking the Lord, but it is defined by the purpose of spiritually seeking the Lord.
Jesus did this quiet often:
23 And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there.
35 Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.
16 So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.
Jesus regularly withdrew from the chaos of life to spend time with the Father. He taught us to do the same:
6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
MMMMMM....the secret place. That is what we are looking for here. The secret place is where we go to commune with the Father. It is a place where the worry, fear, anxiety, stress, and overload of this world melt away. It is a place we go to where our focus is 100% on God. Nothing else is allowed to enter.
1 He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
It is in the secret place that we get recalibrated. It is in the secret place that we find peace.
See when the Bible speaks of something being loud, it isn’t always in terms of noise. Sometimes being loud means it is chaotic, boisterous, attention demanding, etc.
When we spend time with God in the secret place, God brings peace to our souls. He quiets our spirits and brings a calm over us. When we come to God in the secret place, we are mimicking these words:
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties;
24 And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.
Some of you here today struggle with anxiety, and worry, and fear. Listen to me....this is what you have been missing. You need to spend some time in the secret place.
We often talk about how far we would go for the Lord, but let me ask you a question. Are you willing to go so far, that you would sit quietly and alone in a place of solitude for a small amount of time each and every day, and during that time of reclusion, think about nothing else but your relationship with God?
Now some of us have no issues at all with this, but for some, this is a struggle. You have been hurt so badly, or you have so many bad memories that the silence scares you. You embrace the noise because it keeps your mind occupied and keeps you from falling into this dark place inside your own mind.
But friend, listen to me. God often times speaks in a still, quiet voice, and in order to hear this voice, you have to be willing to embrace the quietness. Go there in your mind, but allow God’s light to shine in the midst of your darkness. Dwell not on the evil, the dark, the twisted experiences you have had, but rather on God’s glory.
8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.
Allow the goodness of God to fill your mind in the secret place. Think on nothing else. Think of how He loves you so much that He sent His only Son to earth to live as a man. Think of how Jesus, God in the flesh, endured so much suffering for your sake. Think of how He was beaten, shamed, and ridiculed for our sake. Think of how He bore our sins upon the tree, died in our place, and then arose from the grave still seeking each and every one of us in love. Think of how even after sitting down at the right hand of the Father, He sent the Holy Spirit back to fill our hearts and testify of Him to us. Think of how much He has to love us in order to still come after us the way He does after we did all we did to Him. Think of the promise He has left us with that one day we will be free of all sin and made perfect, made fit for His glorious Kingdom. Think of how He has promised to crown us with crowns of His glory that we were only able to get because of His grace. Think of eternity in heaven with greatest lover of our souls that we have ever known.
This is what the secret place is for. It is to sit and bask in the glory and love of our Heavenly Father for us and then respond in proper worship.
It’s amazing that in order to come to a place of being full, we must first be willing to be empty.
Listen to me, embrace this discipline of silence and solitude and see how it will change your life.
Most of you have read through the Bible. Think about how many people God came to in silence and solitude:
Jacob wrestled with God when he was alone (Gen 32) and his name was changed from Jacob to Israel.
Moses was tending Jethro’s sheep on the backside of the Midian desert alone when God came to him in the burning bush and called him to lead Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 3).
Elijah was sitting in a cave all alone, wondering if there was anyone else in the world who still loved God besides him when God came to him...not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in a still small voice (1 Kings 19).
Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress, hiding out from the Midianites when God came to him and called him to take an army and defeat this enemy that had been oppressing them for seven years (Judges 6).
And John the revelator was exiled to an island called Patmos. He was alone, but he was in the spirit, in the secret place, on the Lord’s Day when God came to him and gave him the visions we know now as the Book of Revelation.
God does some of his most amazing work in our lives when we are willing to meet him in the secret place.
In that secret place, we are spiritually renewed. In that secret place, we are able to regain a spiritual perspective. In that secret place, we seek the will of God for our lives and we learn to walk in obedience. In the secret place, distractions are minimized so that all of us can be focused on all of Him. In the secret place, we are able to express true and proper worship to our Lord. In the secret place, we are developed and formed into men and women that God can and will use for His glory.
Don’t you want that?
Commitment
Commitment
Today, I issue a challenge to each and every one of you. This week, I challenge you to find a certain part of your day. For some, it may be in the morning, for some it may be in the evening, and for others, it may be right in the middle of the day.
But you find a time to go that secret place. Set aside a few minutes, ten or maybe fifteen minutes, of silence and solitude. Separate yourself from everything in this world, seclude yourself into a quiet place, and simply spend time thinking on the Lord and how good He has been to you.
You do that every single day, no matter what happens, and then next week you can tell me how wonderful this week has been!
Matter of fact, I want you to start right now. Right now, we are going to have a time of prayer. There is going to be no music...just quiet time. Some of you may want to come up here to the altar and pray. Some of may want to sit right where you are and pray.
And this is what we are going to pray for. We are going to pray that during the course of this next week, that God will help us to set aside a certain amount of time each day to seek Him, and that He will give us the courage, the drive, and the want to to do so.
Maybe there is someone here this morning that has never been saved. You don’t know what it means to have a relationship with Jesus, but right now you are being convicted that you need that in your life. God is drawing you to be saved and you want to dedicate yourself to Him this morning. You come right on up and I would love to pray with you. Don’t you be afraid, and don’t you be ashamed. I promise you that you are in good company here. This is a judgment free zone. No one here is going to judge you. Matter of fact, everyone here will celebrate with you.
Those who want to come, you come on. Let’s seek the Lord today!
