Spiritual Disciplines

Vcfss 1/30/00

Heb 12:4-11

I. Introduction

A. Making disciples

1. This is the issue for most of you

2. Becoming a better disciple is always the journey

3. Three strand cord of discipleship

Eccles. 4:12

Though one may be overpowered,

two can defend themselves.

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

a. Intimacy

b. God’s word

c. Obedience

4. The Word is to seed as prayer is to fertilizer

B. Discipline Heb 12:4-11

1. The word discipline has negative connotations

a. Punishment

b. Distasteful

c. Hard

2. Positive side of discipline

a. An athlete that is undisciplined doesn’t go far

b. Training of the body, mind etc.

c. Playing an instrument with excellence demands discipline

3. Parents discipline their children

a. To become productive members of society we must learn that the world consists of others

b. Horrible to encounter an undisciplined child

c. Worse to encounter an undisciplined adult.

d. John Bradshaw says, “We raise undisciplined children because we as adults are undisciplined.”

4. The opposite of discipline

a. Disorganized

b. Disorder

c. Confusion

5. Military

a. Discipline helps the troops respond in a crisis

b. Provides safety when the going gets tough

c. POW, certain practices they did so they wouldn’t lose their mind.

6. Discipline of discipleship

a. Change of lifestyle

b. Forming new habits

c. Embracing new practices that enable me to follow Jesus.

II. Purpose of the Spiritual Disciplines

A. The search for authentic people

1. Life on the surface

a. Are you tired of living life on the surface?

b. Pretending to be somebody you are not

c. To be authentic people we must go deeper

d. Do you ever get tired talking about the routine things of life?

e. Snorkeling in Puerto Rico

f. Too many of us remain on the surface because it is safer

2. Who are they for

a. The other people

1) The mystics

2) The monks

3) The spiritual giants

b. Ordinary people

1) Work everyday

2) Parents who care for children

3) Washing dishes

4) Playing ball

5) For new disciples

c. Richard Foster

“The Disciplines are best exercised in the midst of our normal daily activities. If they are to have any transforming effect, the effect must be found in the ordinary junctures of human life: in our relationships with our husband or wife, our brothers and sisters, our friends and neighbors.”

3. The requirement

a. A deep longing for God

Psalm 42:1-2

As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, O God.

2My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God?

1) The progression of the writer

a) For God

b) The living God

c) Meet with God

2) This Psalm is a prayer for deliverance when being oppressed.

a) 1) Where do you turn?

b) Who will deliver you?

c) Will you look for a quick fix?

3) Isn’t their something in you that cries out for more, something deeper?

4) Aren’t you tired of superficial answers?

b. Fear that it will be dull

1) The practice of the disciplines will free us from our selves

2) Break the hold of fear

3) Liberate me from enslavement to myself

B. Breaking the power of sinful habits

1. Typical approach

a. Control it

1) Col. 2:20-23

2) Willpower will never deal with the ingrained habits of sin

3) Emmet Fox writes, “As soon as you resist mentally any undesirable or unwanted circumstance, you thereby endow it with more power ¾power which it will use against you, and you will have depleted your own resources to that exact extent.”

4) Heini Arnold, “As long as we think we can save ourselves by our own will power, we will only make the evil in us stronger than ever.”

5) Our attempts to control

a) 1) Work harder

b) Put your mind to it

b. Paul in Col. Says it amounts to self worship.

1) Vs. 25 “self-imposed worship

2) This may give us an outward show of success for a time

3) It won't help us through the demands of life.

c. We need a deep foundation to build our lives upon

2. Freedom

a. The simple act of typing is difficult until one has mastered the keys.

b. Discipline to learn a skill will always bring freedom of expression. Musician learns the scales.

c. The spiritual disciplines instead of being dull and boring bring freedom to enjoy the Christian life.

C. Spiritual power

1. The free gift of righteousness

a. When we have given up all our own efforts to be righteous than we are open to receive Christ’s righteousness.

b. A free but very costly gift.

Rom 5:17

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

c. If we can’t do anything and Christ does it all then we can just sit back, right?

2. Sowing seed

Gal 6:8

The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

a. Farmer plants the seed but is incapable of making it grow

b. Farmer prepares the ground to receive the seed.

c. The spiritual disciplines are a way of sowing to the Spirit

1) The disciplines get us into the ground

2) Then the natural forces of God’s Spirit take over and up comes the grain

d. The disciplines become the means of grace

1) Grace and righteousness are free

2) Discipline is what we do to place ourselves in the position to receive

e. Receive the gift

1) God has taken over and transformed our ingrained habits of sin

2) The change is internal, we find that we exhibit a loving response

3) That hateful, bitter spirit is gone and we respond with compassion.

4) There is a spontaneous flow of the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Gal 5:22-23

5) We don’t have to hide who we really are. Instead of working hard not to insult our brother we find that we have to work hard to insult them.

III. The danger of the spiritual disciplines

A. Turning them into law

B. Imposing them upon others

C. Using them to control others

D. Becoming like the Pharisees

E. They become external instead of internal

1. We use them to judge how others are doing

2. We use them to control and manipulate others

3. Instead of trying to control people we are free to let them be who they are.

V. Application

A. Enable us to become authentic people

B. Bring freedom in our walk with Jesus

C. Have no power in and of themselves