Don’t you love to watch people who are good at what they do? It doesn’t matter what it is, when you come across someone who is great at what they do, it is awe inspiring. It’s fun to watch.
I’d like to show you a news clip that features my father-in-law. George used to tell the story of how he made a bet with someone. This fellow was skeptical that he could do what you just saw him do. George would toss up 100 pennies one after another and he would give the guy a dollar for every one he missed, but the guy would have to give him a dollar for every one he hit.
Well, after about 30 pennies, George had hit 29 and the guy, a little panicked, said,
“Ok, you’ve proved your point and wrote him a check for $28. George never cashed the check. He kept it on his desk to pull out whenever he had a chance to tell the story.
How does someone do something like that? Was it natural talent? Was it sheer luck? Was it the supernatural help of God? No, it was growing up carrying a 22 wherever he went and practicing with it constantly.
Let’s look at another example of what practice and repetition can do. This is a video of the 2013 world gymnastics championships.
How is he able to do that? Did he just jump up on the rings and do that the first time he tried? Of course not! Was he able to do that because he tried really, really hard? Well certainly he was trying as hard as he could to win the competition, but his effort during those few moments was not the deciding factor. Superhuman effort was not what enabled him to do that.
How did he do it? He trained. He developed his muscles. He developed his skills. He trained his mind and arms and hands. He disciplined himself over and over and over, repeating the basics, repeating his routine until he probably became sick of it. We all know that that’s how he was able to do that.
So ask yourself, “How do Christians become fully devoted followers of Christ?”
When we see someone who knows the Bible like the back of their hand or who is constantly giving of themselves for others or who lives with grace and power and loyalty in a difficult marriage or who endures calamity with hope and grace and patience, we ask ourselves, “How did they get that way?”
Certainly, it’s the grace of God. Certainly, it’s the power of the Spirit. But also, inevitably, it involves training and discipline over time and with much effort.
Our topic today is “Spiritual Disciplines for the new year”. And our text is 1 Timothy 4:6-10 on page 992 in the house Bible.
When the new year comes, it’s a good time to look back and ask, “How has the last year gone?” And it’s good to ask as well, “What do I want for the next year? What do I want to do differently next year?” This morning it is my hope to inspire you to go into training this year. To go deeper into God and experience Him more fully than ever before by engaging in the spiritual disciplines
Lord, help us this morning with a subject that can be easily misunderstood and misapplied. Help us to understand Your ways and how we can grow in godliness and grow closer to you. Make this new year of 2015 different. We don’t want to just remain the same. We want to grow, to change, to honor You more fully, to love You more deeply, to represent you more accurately, so that you might be pleased with us and glorified through us in this world. — Amen.
If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. (1 Timothy 4:6, ESV)
The Greek word “train” means to rear, nurture, to nourish. So we see that, just like raising a child, becoming established in sound doctrine takes development, it takes effort, it takes time.
Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.
That’s an interesting way to describe some of the false teaching that was going around in those days. Evidently, even before the internet there were all kinds of silly myths being circulated.
Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
This second word translated “train” is a different one from the first. It is the Greek word “Gymnazo,” the word that we get gymnasium from. Paul is saying, “Do your exercises. Do your spiritual pushups. Do your God-oriented crunches and curls, so that you can become godly in the spiritual realm.”
Just as the athletes train to become strong and skilled in the physical realm, so must you in the spiritual.
Why? Because godliness is of far, far greater value. Godliness gives rewards not only in this life, but in the next as well. Spiritual training will have eternal consequences.
Then he says:
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.
Evidently it was hard for some folks in Paul’s day to see the value of training in godliness. So Paul underscores what he has just said. Some didn’t want to accept it. So he says that it is trustworthy. It deserves full acceptance.
For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. (1 Timothy 4:7–10, ESV)
Next, Paul brings in his own example and the example of his fellow leaders. He, himself, was toiling and striving for godliness. The word “toil” carries the idea of growing weary and tired. And the word, “strive is agōnizō, which, similar to the word gymnazo, has to do with competing in an athletic contest. It carries the idea of giving your last ounce of energy in a race or other competition.
Now these verses debunk several false ideas that often float around.
1) Just as we are saved by grace alone apart from works, so we become godly by grace alone apart from any works that we do or any effort on our part.
But clearly, Paul’s exhortation here to strive, to toil, to discipline yourself just blows that idea out of the water. Yes, God’s grace and power is needed for godliness, but our efforts are also needed.
2) Spirituality is something that should just come naturally for those who are a new person in Christ.
We’ve been transformed! We’ve been made new! We’ve been born again! We’ve been filled with the Spirit of God! We are new creatures in Christ! So godliness should just flow out of us.
Although these are wonderful truths, and although sometimes we can surprise ourselves when godliness does just seem to flow out, Paul states that attaining godliness still requires training, toil, and striving even with our new nature and position in Christ
3) If I’m making myself do something I don’t wholeheartedly want to do, then I’m being hypocritical.
But is an athlete who disciplines himself to push through the pain and tedium of his training, is he being hypocritical because he isn’t always wholehearted about his training? Surely not. And Paul points to the athlete as an example to us.
4) Godliness can be achieved simply by osmosis.
If I just hang around the right people long enough, their character and values will rub off on me. Now, off course, this is true to some extent, but it evidently isn’t enough, according to Paul.
5) Those who tell me to labor, strive, and train in the things of God are legalistic and repressive.
Boy is this a common one! But Paul was the most grace-oriented Christian leader there ever has been. Yet, in spite of his deep, deep understanding of grace, he knew that discipline was essential for godliness and therefore he himself was laboring and striving and toiling to achieve it and exhorting others to do so. Paul understood that training and discipline and sacrifice done for the right reasons and in the right way were not legalistic, but rather liberating.
He knew that: To become a godly husband and father or a godly wife and mother or a godly friend or an effective evangelist or teacher—to be a cheerful servant or inspiring leader or wise and empathetic counselor, all of these take training.
Certainly some elements of godliness in these roles can come naturally, but to become truly godly, selfless, and Christ like, training is required.
So, what is a spiritual discipline?
A really simple definition is this: Practices and habits that train us to become godly and like Christ.
From this definition, it is clear that there are many, many potential practices and habits that can do this. There is not a set list of spiritual disciplines. However, there are some common disciplines that Christians have found to be helpful.
Donald S. Whitney in his book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life lists the following:
- Bible Intake (He talks about hearing, reading, memorizing, meditating, studying, and applying). Of course, this was much of what Paul had in mind when he talked to Timothy about being nourished on the words of faith and good doctrine.
- Prayer (Of course the Bible encourages us to be devoted to prayer)
- Worship (Focusing on and responding to God, including both public and private worship)
- Evangelism (Telling others the good news)
- Serving (both within and outside the church)
- Stewardship (the disciplined use of time and money)
- Fasting (we can fast from things other than food, but Whitney concentrates on food and gives ten Biblical purposes for fasting)
- Silence and Solitude (abstaining from speaking and withdrawing from others to seek God)
- Journaling (he gives 8 ways that journaling can help us)
- Learning (reading, asking questions, taking a course)
Others could be added, for example:
- Fellowship — Some of us need are so comfortable alone that we can be alone way too much. We need to discipline ourselves to get fellowship
- Honesty and authenticity—deliberately sharing with a trusted friend what’s really going on in your life and heart
- Self-examination and introspection—in a time alone, deliberately opening your heart up to the Spirit of God. Exposing expose whatever needs His correction or encouragement, or perspective.
- Noticing emotions—asking, why am I feeling this way, what am I believing that is making me feel afraid or ashamed or alone or worthless. Noticing emotions can greatly help expose what is happening in our deeper heart that needs to come out before God.
Let’s notice what these disciplines are not:
Firstly, they are not external religious practices that measure our love for God. Rather, they are practices and habit that can help begin to love Him and motivate us to love Him. They are not the goal, but a means to the goal of knowing and loving God,
Secondly, they are not a spiritual to-do list of activities that will make us acceptable to God. God accepts us in Christ and not because of anything we do.
Thirdly, they are not difficult practices that are reserved for spiritually mature believers. They are not just for those who have a master’s degree in theology. They are for all of us—whether we have known the Lord for two hours or twenty years.
What do you think about when you see a list like this? Are you excited? Does it tug at your heart and make you want to get started? Do you want to have a deeper, more intimate walk with the Lord? Do you want to become the awesome person that God so longs for you to be? Or perhaps when you look at this list you feel ashamed. You’ve heard these things before and you are ashamed that you haven’t done all that much about it.
Well, I’ll just say, “Get over it.” None of us can look at a list like this and not be convicted. God holds up a standard that is difficult to reach, a standard that is constantly beyond where we are at. But that doesn’t mean we should lower the standard or stop striving for it.
Pick one and work on it.
Do what my father-in-law suggested. First shoot at a big bucket and when you gain confidence, shoot at something a little harder to hit and then harder yet,and so on.
The reality of training—whether it is in sports or music or spirituality—is that it is incremental. Think about that gymnast. No one could even think of doing that without a lot of development. The same is true with spiritual development.
Don’t be discouraged if you can’t do something well. Pick something that is reasonable for you and go for it and it will expand your abilities to do other harder things.
Now several authors have divided the disciplines into two categories—disciplines of abstinence and disciplines of engagement.
I’d like to talk for a moment about the disciplines of abstinence.
These are the disciplines that are often particularly hard for us because they involve depriving ourselves of something that we really, really enjoy. But I have found the disciplines of abstinence to be particularly powerful in connecting with God and the supernatural.
Notice that I didn’t say enjoyable, at least not at first, but definitely powerful. Why is this?
Andrew Fellows, an instructor at L’Abri fellowship in Switzerland has been intrigued by the number of people who come to L’Abri seeking spiritual reality. Many have been raised in an Evangelical home or have been Christians for quite some time, but are disillusioned because God just doesn’t’ seem real to them.
The absence of God is more normative in their experience, than their experience of His presence. And in a lecture entitled “A Theology of Attachment and Detachment,” Fellows gives his understanding of why this is.
He says that we ought to think there is something wrong when we aren’t experiencing supernatural power in our lives.
We live in a supernatural world filled with a supernatural God and those of us who have been reconciled to Him—We ought to experience His supernatural power to fill and transform our lives. Fellows believes that the breakdown is not in God, but in ourselves. Our problem is that we all have a radical commitment to independence and to self. Our default is to function as a law unto ourselves.
Yet God has created within each one of us powerful desires that can only be fulfilled in Him. Yet because of our commitment to independence, those desires are not met and we turn to other things, idols if you will, in an attempt to meet those desires.
So we get attached to idols. Our desires get nailed down to the things that give us a temporary, but shallow, fix. We become addicted to our idols. Often these idols are things that are good in and of themselves: food, entertainment, friends, family, possessions, money, achievement, sex, power, and so on.
None of these are intrinsically bad, but they are either sought at times or in ways that are outside God’s plan or they are good things that have subtly become ultimate things.
This is where the disciplines of withdrawal can be extremely powerful.
By temporarily abstaining even from good things like food or fellowship, or activity, from entertainment, or sex, or cutting back your standard of living, these types of disciplines can expose our attachments and break their hold on our desires and release our desires for God that have been nailed down to our idols.
The result is that we gain Christ. We experience our Lord and our desires are ultimately satisfied like never before.
We are like the little child that chooses the shiny penny instead of the $100 bill.
Giving up our pennies, at least for a time, releases our passions to pursue the real mother load—to find the God who is there and develop a real and fulfilling relationship with Him.
So, how do we practice the disciplines?
First we use forethought. We decide our goals beforehand. Discipline involves setting a goal while we are in a clearer state of thinking than what we usually are on the spur of the moment. Discipline involves long-term vision and goal setting so that we prioritize the things that really are important. This time of year is a good time to take some time to think about goals and desires and what you want to do differently in 2015.
Secondly, we develop structures, habits and routines that help us stick with our disciplines. Routines are God’s gift to us, because the burden of being spontaneous every moment is an unbearable burden. We make overarching decisions beforehand that give us peace so that we don’t have to second guess or agonize over every minute of life.
You made a decision to sit through this message—it would be unbearable if you had to re-evaluate every ten seconds and decide again whether you want to sit through this message or not. So we develop daily routines, weekly routines, and yearly routines and we schedule those in so that we make sure that the most important things get done.
I have a weekly schedule that helps me to make sure that I’m getting the most important things into my life and helps me determine if my life is in balance or not. I can’t follow it every week, but by and large I do.
I designate times for my work time, rest, time in silence and solitude, exercise and home/family time. In addition, I have an annual schedule that gets worked out, including longer, extended times in solitude and silence, vacation time, family time, etc. So, we practice the disciplines by developing plans, habits, and routines.
Thirdly, we share our plan with others and even practice the disciplines together. Quite a few years ago, the entire church read the one year bible together. And we all wrote some thoughts in a journal every day. In my opinion, it was really powerful. And I’ve read through the entire Bible every year since.
When I get extended times alone, I do so with my fellow pastors who are also spending time in silence and solitude. And my wife and family and co-workers know my schedule and help me to stick to it. They give me encouragement and support.
Lastly, we implement faith and hope—For us to stay with our disciplines, we have to believe that the efforts we are making will result in something good in the future.
Farmers work for months with no pay-off. It’s sometimes back-breaking work. Why do they do it? Because they believe that there is a high likelihood that there will be a harvest. They are looking to the reward. Faith in the coming reward, a real and genuine relationship with God, the experience of His supernatural, transforming power in our lives, the hope that we can please Him and that He will bless us – all of these inspire us to discipline ourselves for godliness.
One final point:
Too often we mistakenly associate the disciplines with a lack of freedom. But in reality training is the source of freedom.
How did the gymnast get the freedom to do what he does? How do musicians get gain the freedom to play as they do? How do engineers get the freedom to build buildings and bridges that don’t collapse? How to surgeons gain the freedom to save people’s lives?
All of them are able to do what they do—often seemingly effortlessly—because they have trained. They have practiced. They have disciplined themselves to become what they otherwise would never be.
Take another look at this list of disciplines. Which do you think should take priority in your life? Maybe it’s something you can have confidence in—like shooting a 5 gallon bucket. Maybe it’s something that’s quite a stretch for you. But I’d like you to choose one. Choose one to concentrate on in 2015. Choose one that will move you toward God, and away from your independence and from your idols.
Lord help us not to be ashamed. Help us to be patient with where we are at, yet, at the same time, desirous of moving forward.
Help us to submit to Your training regime for our lives. Help us not to distort or twist these discipline—to inflate our pride or bog us down in unnecessary burdens. Help us not to compare ourselves to other people. Help each person this morning to choose the next step for themselves, their family, or their small group, so that each of us can grow closer to you and find the true satisfaction of our desires. Help us not just to try harder, but to train ourselves so that when people see our lives they would see You.
Amen.
Have you chosen one yet? I’d encourage you, if and when you do—to share it with someone close to you. Pray about it together. Perhaps you can cooperate and encourage each other as we train ourselves for the purpose of godliness.