Finding The River That Never Runs Dry
In the summer of 2004,
Pastor Larry will presented a four part series on “Finding The River That
Never Runs Dry,” focusing on the first two of our seven
Discipleship Facets:
“Focused on God” and “Fulfilled in Christ.” Below is the text of the sessions:
1. Discovering the River of Living Water
2. How to Stop Digging Broken
Cisterns
3. How to
Start Drinking the Living Water
4.
How to Keep Drinking the Water of Life
1 DISCOVERING THE RIVER OF LIVING WATER
I saw in the Sunday paper a while ago that Fred Durst of Limp Bizket was being interviewed and he said something like this: “I used to think that if I became a rock star I’d have everything and be happy.” He discovered it wasn’t like that. Durst said: “ I still worry about the same old things. I wonder if my girlfriend really loves me.”
It seems that no matter what age we are living in, and no matter what people achieve or attain we still hear the same expressions of a longing for something more, and an experience of being unfulfilled and unsatisfied. The prophet Jeremiah said that one of the appalling tragedies of life is that people turn away from God, the fountain of living water, in order to try to find life somewhere else only to end up continually unsatisfied.
In Jeremiah 2:12 -13 God says: Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror, “ declares the LORD. 13 “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
One of the striking things about the bible is the way it holds out incredible promises of true satisfaction through a relationship with God. A.W. Tozer in His classic book, The Pursuit of God, summed up the teaching of the bible by saying: “God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.
Against the background of the promises of the Bible the question that I want us to think about is this: Is God meeting and overflowing the deepest demands of your total nature? If not, why not? Do you have much in the way of real practical experience of the streams of living water that Jesus spoke about?
There are many ways we can get at the greatness of God’s promises. The Bible tells us that God is “satisfying.” C. S. Lewis says that God in the Psalms is the “all-satisfying Object.”
Psalms 63:4-5 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
Psalms 16:11 You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
The Psalms give testimony that everything we need is found in God.
Psalms 73:25-28 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. 27 Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. 28 But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.
Some of the most powerful language in the Bible concerning these themes is found in the prophets.
Isaiah 55:1-3 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. 2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. 3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.
If you look first at the picture in verse 1: you will notice that God offers us three things to quench the thirst of our soul. He offers us water, wine, and milk. Isaiah 55:1-3 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
Water refreshes and restores life.
Psalm 23:2-3 says, “…He leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul…” When you are thirsty and tired, it’s water that restores you. It is water that you want and need. God invites you right now to quench your thirst and receive refreshment, and restoration.
Milk nourishes us and makes us strong.
1 Peter 2:2 says, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,”. When someone is gasping for life, you give them water, but when you want a little baby to grow day after day you give it milk again and again. God is not just for emergencies. He is for health in the long haul. He invites you not only to come alive with water, but also to grow strong with milk.
Wine is exhilarating and intoxicating.
Psalm 4:7 says, “You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.” No matter how unemotional or laid-back we may seem to others, there is a part to everyone of us that God made for exhilaration—for shouting and singing— for laughing and leaping for joy! There is a kind of high, a kind of intoxication that doesn’t come form drugs or alcohol but from the goodness of God and the richness of life with God.
Verse one says that God wants to quench our thirst for life, keep us nourished and growing strong, and fill our hearts with joy. Notice the quality of what God offers us. The last part of verse 2 says, “Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” The word “good” means that what God offers is healthy and nourishing. The word “richest” means it’s the best quality there is. The water is good for you; it’s best there is. The milk is good for you; it’s the best there is. The wine is good for you; it’s the very best quality there is.
In verse 3 God tells us what the reality is behind all of this imagery. “3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.” In verse 1 he said, “Come to the waters . . . come for wine and milk.” In verse 3 he says; “…come to me...” God Himself is the water that restores our souls, God Himself is the milk that nourishes our heart and makes us strong, and God Himself is the wine of the spirit that brings true joy and gladness.
Verse 3 is even more specific, “3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.” When a person takes God up on his great invitation to come, He makes a covenant with that person. What kind of covenant? The same kind of covenant that He made with King David in 2 Samuel 7, a covenant of “faithful love.”
God binds Himself to you with a promise, an unbreakable covenant to follow you with goodness and mercy all your days right into eternity. When you live in relationship with God, drawing on his resources of faithful love for you it is refreshing, nourishing, and exhilarating. This brings up a very practical question. What must we do to get these benefits? You have to obey the twelve commandments!
If you look carefully you’ll notice that packed into these first three verses of Isaiah 55 are 12 imperatives or commands. The most pleasant, and most inviting 12 commandments you will ever hear.
Isaiah 55:1-3 “Come, all you who are thirsty (#1), come to the waters; (#2) and you who have no money, come, (#3) buy (#4) and eat! (#5) Come, (#6) buy wine and milk without money and without cost. (#7) 2Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, (#8) and eat what is good, (#9) and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. 3 Give ear (#10) and come to me; (#11) hear me, (#12) that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.
What God wants from us is really very simple.
When you reflect on these 12 commandments for a moment they fall into a natural pattern. First there are three commands to listen carefully to what God is saying (one in verse 2 and two in verse 3). Are you listening carefully? Then, in addition to listening carefully, there are three basic things in all these commands that God repeatedly asks us to do: (1). Come, (2.) buy, (3.) and eat.
What God is simply saying is “Come to me, get what you need, and enjoy it.” Come, buy, and eat. Although the word “buy” is used, it’s really a free gift! God says; “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Salvation and relationship with God are not bought or earned by any good works that we do. It cannot be paid for with money, religion, or anything else.
Romans 6:23 says the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ paid for our sins and purchased our salvation. We receive this salvation by faith when we turn to Him and trust in Him. The same is also true to experience the fullness of God in Christ.
John 7:37-38 tells us that Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” The way we come and drink is by trusting, believing, and placing our faith in Him. Come to God just one time through faith in Christ and He enters into that everlasting covenant of faithful love with you. He will never lose you or let you go, but the way you keep the water, milk, and wine of God flowing in your life is by continually coming, eating, and believing over and over again.
We’ve been digging when we could have been drinking.
Isaiah points us to the ongoing issue that keeps many Christians from experiencing this fullness of life with God that is so powerfully pictured here. In verse 2 he asks the question: Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
The reason we don’t experience satisfaction at God’s table is because our hands and hearts are filled with the local cuisine! This is what Isaiah calls that which is not bread, and that which does not satisfy.
This is the same theme that Jeremiah pictures so powerfully in a different way: Jeremiah 2:12-13 Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror, “ declares the LORD. 13 “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
God is the ultimate source of joy, strength, and satisfaction in life. His sufficiency to meet all of our deepest needs and thirsts, and to satisfy us is repeatedly taught in the Bible. He is the unending spring that quenches every thirst.
Our choice in life is between true satisfaction in God or a frustrating and unfulfilling search for satisfaction in other places and from other sources. Our twofold sin is that we tend to repeatedly forsake God, the fountain of living water, and dig for ourselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
How I dug a broken cistern – “The Bizarre Case of the Dispirited Pastor”
Soon after I graduated with my M.A. in New Testament studies I received a call to be the pastor of a church in Topeka, Kansas. I entered into my work and ministry with a great deal of energy, commitment, and enthusiasm. The demands placed upon me by the ministry were intense and the expectations of the people seemed insatiable. What had started out as a hopeful and exciting endeavor was soon turning into a demanding, difficult, stress filled chore. No matter what I did, the people could not be satisfied. I did a lot of visiting, far more than I do now. I was in the homes and the hospital often. I helped repaired the building, counseled with people, taught Sunday School, preached sermons that kept me up late on many nights. Still, I found that some people were critical and demanding.
During this time I struggled continually from overwork and neglecting other things that should have been given priority. During this time I swung between anger and discouragement
One day I was driving down the street, doing visitation, and listening to a tape that I soon found fascinating. I wanted to improve my counseling skills and I had a series of teaching tapes by Jay Adam on Christian Counseling. On this particular day I was listening to an actual case study; it was the recording of a real counseling session.
The case that I was listening to was introduced as “The Case of the Dispirited Pastor”. It began with the pastor telling his story of frustration and discouragement. He told how the needs and demands of his church were insatiable, he was tired from working too many hours, he was neglecting his wife and family, he was spending little quality time with God in prayer and meditation, not to mention the fast that he was underpaid. Not only was this pastor physically exhausted, but he was emotionally drained as well. While the people in his church went on fun filled vacations his wife had to take on a second job to make ends meet. On and on he went. I felt such sympathy for this man because his story mirrored mine in so many ways. I couldn’t wait to hear the encouraging and helpful words that the caring Christian counselor would share with him when he had finished telling his story.
Soon the story of the sad situation of the dispirited pastor came to an end and it was the counselor’s turn to speak. I will never forget the first four words the counselor spoke because they cut me to the heart. He said, “You need to repent.”
I thought to myself, “Wait a minute. This guy doesn’t need to repent. It’s the congregation that needs to repent! This guy needs a break. He deserves a medal!”
But the counselor began to speak and as he did God was speaking to my heart. He was saying something like this, “If you are working yourself to physical and emotional exhaustion, neglecting your family, your time with God, and being wounded by the criticisms of the people you are not serving God and seeking to please Him, you are trying to please the people. If you were committed to pleasing God you would say, ‘Lord what do you want me to do?’ If you were committed to serving God you would set a realistic schedule that was sacrificial, but you would find time to rest and be with your family and your God. If you are unable to do that don’t blame God or the people. It is your own fault. You have become a people pleaser and you are letting it destroy your life. You need to repent for the sin of letting people pleasing overshadow your commitment to serving God.”
That moment in the car was a great moment of clarity for me. It showed me that although I believed in God and wanted to serve Him, the truth was that a large part of me was looking to find life, joy, and peace, in the approval of my congregation. I would be happy if they told me I was a good pastor, but if they didn’t tell me that I would try harder and feel sad and frustrated when I could not satisfy. If my longing for significance, satisfaction, and happiness could be compared to a thirst, I wanted the people in the church and the growth of the church to be my source of water that quenched. This proved to be a broken cistern.
Some of the most important lessons come out of the trials. That’s what happened to me. I believe some of you may be facing a variety of trials in which God is showing you the ways in which you have looked for life in broken cisterns. God calls us to leave our broken cisterns and to find life in the fountain of God.
Remember that the words “broken cisterns” are a metaphor, a symbol, for any thing we turn to instead of God in our search for fulfillment. One of the reasons why Christians today don’t often experience fullness is because they are committing the twin sins of Jeremiah 2:13. They are forsaking God the spring of living water, and digging broken cisterns. A spring is a constant source of water that wells up and overflows. A cistern is a hole dug in the ground that catches the rain. In Jeremiah’s illustration, the cisterns we dig are not only dependant on the circumstances (rain), but they are broken cisterns so that even when the circumstances are good our broken cisterns don’t hold the water very well or very long.
In my testimony my broken cistern was the approval of people. If they told me I was doing a great job I felt good about myself and my life was full. If they were critical and demanding of me the little bit of joy I did receive leaked out of the holes in my broken cistern. I was down in the cistern with my shovel working as hard as I could to catch and hold more of what I needed to fill my cup, but it was frustrating and empty.
To use Isaiah’s picture, I was working hard to buy the expensive bread of human approval and outward success, but it proved to be as unsatisfying as it was expensive.
During that time because my head, my heart, and my hands were so filled with what I thought I needed and with what I hoped would make me happy and fulfilled, I was completely failing to respond to the constant invitation of God: Isaiah 55:1
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
What holes are you digging? There are several things most people look to for fulfillment in life. We depend on these things and like a mirage they shimmer with fulfillment but offer only dust and disappointment to our deepest needs.
Five Broken Cisterns are common:
1. People: Galatians 1:10 Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
2. Possessions: Luke 16:13 “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
3. Positions: Jeremiah 9:23-24 This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD.
4. Protection: Philippians 2:3-4 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5. Pleasures: Ephesians 4:17-19 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.
The defining Truth about broken cisterns:
* They don’t hold water
* They aren’t called broken cisterns for nothing!
* They do not bring satisfaction
Like hungry people trying to ease their hunger by gulping mouthfuls of air.
Like drinking saltwater. The salt content requires more water to flush the salt out of the kidneys. The more you thirst, the more you drink, the more you need, the worse it gets.
* They can distract you
* They can destroy you
The refreshing alternative:
“God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.” A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God p. 42
2 HOW TO STOP DIGGING BROKEN CISTERNS
(REPENTANCE)
Jeremiah 2:12-13 Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror," declares the LORD. 13 "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
A Pastor that I know told about a 16–year-old in one of the churches he had served. Her name was Debbie and she was about 5'10" and less then 100 lbs. She was deeply upset because she wasn't popular. My friend was trying to encourage her, being very gentle and not just throwing pat answers at her. He took time with her and was trying to help her see all that Christ is and can be for people who believe in Him. She clearly professed faith in Christ as her Savior and Lord so he tried to point out all the great things that she had in and through Christ. This list included forgiveness, eternal life, the fact that she belonged to God, the fact that she had a Father in heaven, the fact that God who knew her, cared for her, loved her, gave her guidance and protection, gave her great promises for this life, and also for all of eternity in which she would rule and reign with Christ. He talked to her about all these things and at one point she looked at him and said, “Well, yeah, but what good is all that if you're not popular?”
This pastor commented on that and said, “You know, she’ll probably learn that you don’t say that kind of thing to your pastor, but the truth is there are probably a lot of people that feel like that.” The problem is many people won’t admit it, not even to themselves.
The Bible tells us that God is satisfying. He is able to meet our deepest needs. It also tells us that we often fail to experience the satisfaction that God alone can give us because our hearts are so obsessed with or focused on other things. These other things that we think we need to be happy or fulfilled are the broken cisterns God spoke about when he said, "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. Jeremiah 2:13
How do we stop digging broken cisterns and learn to live out of the fullness of God? One thing that will help us to stop digging broken cisterns is to see them from God’s perspective, and in relationship to God. The last sermon in this series taught us that in relationship to us, these broken cisterns are unsatisfying. In relationship to God two very strong words are used: idolatry and adultery.
The Bible tells us that...
Digging broken cisterns is idolatrous
The first commandment is found in Exodus 20:2-3, It says; "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. "You shall have no other gods before me.
It would be easy to think of false gods or idols as something that only relates to the ancient world, but even in Bible times the Scriptures tell us that idolatry is something that can be inward, in the heart. Ezekiel 14:4-6 says, “…These men have set up idols in their hearts....”.
The New Testament helps us to connects the dots.
Ephesians 5:5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person--such a man is an idolater--has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Colossians 3:5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
1 John 5:21 ...”Keep yourselves from idols...”
It’s very important to see how up-to-date the issue of idolatry is for all of us.
"The relevance of massive chunks of Scripture hangs on our understanding of idolatry. But let me focus the question through a particular verse in the New
Testament... 'Beloved, keep yourselves from idols’ (1 John 5-21). How does that command merit being the final word in a 105-verse treatise on living in vital fellowship with Jesus the Son of God? .... [Keeping oneself from idols sums up what vital fellowship with Jesus is.]...
- - David Powlinson, Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair
"[Each person] acts as if God could not make him happy without the addition of something else. Thus the glutton makes a god of his dainties; the ambitious man of his honor, the incontinent man of his lust, the covetous man his wealth; and consequently esteems them as his chief good, and the most noble end to which he directs his thoughts ... All men worship some golden calf, set up by education, custom, natural inclination and the like.... When a general is taken, the army runs. [Even so] this [the main 'idol'] is the great stream, and other sins but rivulets, which bring supply... this is the strongest chain wherein the devil holds the man, the main fort....
- - Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God
Whenever we chase after broken cisterns we are committing idolatry in our hearts. If we see it that way and call it by it’s proper name, it will help us to repent!
Digging broken cisterns is adulterous
"The principle crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry. For although each individual sin retains its own proper feature, although it is destined to judgment under its own proper name also, yet they all fall under the general heading of idolatry.... [All-murder and adultery, for example are idolatry, for they arise because something is loved more than God--yet in turn, all idolatry is murder for it assaults God, and all idolatry is also adultery for it is unfaithfulness to God.] Thus it comes to pass, that in idolatry all crimes are detected, and in all crimes idolatry. -- Tertullian, On Idolatry Chap 1.
The apostle James shows us the pathology of spiritual adultery and the response of God's jealousy in James 4:1-10.
James 4:1-10 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
James makes four key points
1. If our desires are not submitted to God they will cause conflict and dissatisfaction.
James begins with two rhetorical questions in verse 1, "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?” The answer is, yes they do.
Notice in verse 2 James says. "You want something but don't get it (so) you kill and covet but you can not have what you want. (So) You quarrel and fight... " If something gets in the way of your desires and goals you experience strife, conflict, and a loss of peace and satisfaction.
2. If our desires are not submitted to God they will undercut our prayer life.
The next thing James says is very powerful. You might expect him to say, “You poor troubled people, don't worry. It will all be all right, just pray.” Instead, he says most of the time a person will not pray when peace is lost because of unfulfilled desires, and when they do pray God won't answer because the prayer on their lips is polluted by the adultery of the heart.
3. If our desires are not submitted to God we are committing spiritual adultery.
In the midst of all of these desires that are tearing us apart, what is really going on is spiritual adultery because the desires have taken the place of God! You are no longer putting God first; you no longer love God most.
James says in James 4:2-5, You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?
4. If our desires are not submitted to God, repentance is the only way to make them right.
James tells us what we need to do. He concludes with a call to repentance and a promise of Grace. He says in verses 6-10, But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
What this means in practice is that intimacy with God requires you to deal decisively with anything that that competes with God for your heart. Maybe it's a material possession. It might be the approval of people, the love of one particular person, or a specific change in your circumstances. It may be something that is morally wrong or it may be something that, while legitimate, has become too important to you.
Your desire for that one thing has captured your attention and pushed out of the center your affections, the one who loved you and gave Himself for you on the cross, and the one who still loves you and longs for your love.
What you need to do is realize that God longs with a painful but perfect jealousy for first place in your life and your love. You need to pray and say; “Lord, I am sorry. This is wrong. I've been foolish, faithless, and ungrateful. I know that nothing can fulfill me the way your love can. I want you to have the central place in my life and my love. I want to have no other gods before you.”
No one loves you like God Almighty loves you and no one ever will! No matter how unfaithful you have been toward Him all He wants and requires is for you to come back.
Verse 8 says, “Come near to God and He will come near to you." Verse 6;
“...He gives us more grace. “ That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
God uses very strong expressions in verse 4. Note them: ” You adulterous people”, “hatred toward God”, and “enemy of God”. These are strong expressions. The background for this is that God loves his people so much he uses the most committed, intimate, and emotional of all human relationships to picture his love for His people. God pictures Himself as a loving husband and his people as his bride, His wife.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word. In this picture God is a strong, faithful, loving, gracious, and patient husband, but often God's people are like an unfaithful wife.
(Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea all speak about this....)
God moved his prophets to speak this way because he wants to move His people to consider deeply what their unfaithfulness does to God! Are our hearts so hard that we just don't care? God says that his love is so great that He calls his adulterous people to come back to Him. In coming back to Him they have to come clean about what they have done, and admit to their unfaithfulness. Jeremiah 3:12-13 Go, proclaim this message toward the north: "'Return, faithless Israel,' declares the LORD, 'I will frown on you no longer, for I am merciful,' declares the LORD, 'I will not be angry forever. 13 Only acknowledge your guilt-- you have rebelled against the LORD your God, you have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every spreading tree, and have not obeyed me,'" declares the LORD.
In James, God says we are doing the same thing today. It is the same issue in every age.
Jesus said in Luke 16:13, "No servant can serve two masters.”
In Galatians 1:10 Paul says, If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. There is the same principle with respect to the approval of people. You have to make a radical choice for Christ and be willing to give up the approval of people.
You know what many people try to do they try to say, “I'll love Christ, I'll love money, and I'll love the approval of people.” Christ says it doesn't work that way. In life you will face choices with situations where you will compromise your love for Him in order to get or keep what you think you need, your broken cisterns and idols. It can become so much a part of you that you hardly know how deep the river of compromise is running through the center of your soul.
We need to know where we really stand with God on these issues.
Recognition Precedes Repentance
"...That most basic question which God poses to each human heart: "has something or someone besides Jesus the Christ taken title to your heart's functional trust, preoccupation, loyalty, service, fear and delightQuestions ... bring some of people's idol systems to the surface. 'To who or what do you look for life-sustaining stability, security and acceptance? .... What do you really want and expect [out of life]? What would [really] make you happy? What would make you an acceptable person? Where do you look for power and success?' These questions or similar ones tease out whether we serve God or idols, whether we look for salvation from Christ or from false saviors.
-- David Powlison, "Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair"
Jack Miller was a pastor who had a profound influence on me. I only met him once, but I read many of his books. One of them, titled “Come Back Barbara”, is the story of one of his daughters who lived a seriously and blatantly sinful life. This pastor's daughter ran off and became the girlfriend of a drug kingpin. She was running around in mink stoles and green jaguars and here are this Presbyterian pastor and his wife at home praying about it. The book is powerful because at a certain point Jack and his wife, Rose Marie, sat down and spent some time thinking about who they were in Jesus Christ and who Jesus was to them. It was then that they forgave their daughter Barbara for the incredible humiliation and embarrassment that she was causing them.
Jack Miller used to say one of the problems with the book was that people would come to him and say, “You know this is not a very helpful book to me because you say you saw how bitter and angry you were getting and you forgave your daughter. I'm having the same experience with my child, but I've tried and I cannot forgive my rebellious child for the incredible pain they have caused me. You must just be a more spiritual person than me.” Jack explained they had missed the point. What Jack did that enabled him to forgive his daughter is he recognized that the reason he was bitter and angry was not just because she was doing bad things but because, even though Jack believed in Christ as his Savior, the way he measured himself and tried to measure up was by being a good father and pastor. His reputation had actually begun to function as an idol in his life.
His daughter's rebellion, which was understandably sad, had an effect way beyond sad, it ripped apart the real source of all of his satisfaction and security in life. He realized that in his mind he had been thinking, “You know I'm a pretty good person because I am a good father and pastor. I've raised my children well and look at how many of them have turned out great.” When one of them turned out bad it tore apart what had become the source of his life and happiness. What he had to say in effect was “Lord, I see now that the reason I am so angry at Barbara is because my reputation as a father has become too important to me. It has become an idol in my life. I give that up, and I'm sorry. You are my only true source of life and righteousness.” Only by reaffirming Christ as the source and center of his life was he able to truly forgive his daughter from the heart.
Parents in similar situations who read the book and tried to forgive but couldn't. They didn't understand that the key to the forgiveness was to repent of the idolatrous self righteousness that had been attacked by their child's rebellion, and then to find renewed peace in the righteousness of Christ so that they could forgive from the heart.
Spiritual idolatry and spiritual adultery enslave us. We can only break free to enjoy the life God wants for us as we recognize those idols, repent, and return to Christ.
What might there be in your life that inappropriately controls you because it functions as your righteousness, your means of measuring up in life?
1. Examine your emotions as indicators of deeper issues.
Negative emotions are trouble lights on the dashboard of the car of life. They are not the primary problem, but they indicate that there is a problem.
1.) If you are angry, ask yourself why you are so angry. When you examine yourself push past the answers that focus on outward circumstances and get at the deeper issue. If you’re first answer is to say: “I’m angry because no one is paying attention to me”, ask why do I need people to pay attention to me when I have Christ paying constant caring attention to me? Have I made the attention of people into a broken cistern so that I am forsaking the fountain of living water?
When you ask yourself why you are so angry you may get answers like: “I can’t do anything right, no matter how hard I try it’s never enough, I’m being treated unfairly.” When you get those answers think about what that means and push deeper into your heart and belief system. “Do I believe I have to be able to ‘get things right’ or be ‘treated fairly’ in order to be satisfied and fulfilled in life?” “Do I believe that the presence of Christ, his love, perfection and promises are enough for me only when I also have these other things also? Or is he sufficient no matter what?” “Am I really saying in my heart, ‘What good is all of that (Christ and all he means) if I don’t also have all of this (the issues I’m upset about)?’’ Usually anger comes when we feel that someone or something is blocking something we need.
2.) If you are fearful, anxious, or worried ask yourself why you are so worried. Sure there is a natural concern about things and people that matter to us, but sinful worry comes when there is something we think we must have for life to work and we are afraid we aren’t going to get it. When you examine your fears and worries push past the answers that focus on outward circumstances to get at the deeper issue. Ask yourself if you are really worried because something means too much to you. Have you allowed yourself to feel that you need it when you do not? As a Christian by definition, you have Christ and therefore you can be confident that whatever you are worried about you need not.
3.) If you are depressed ask yourself if you feel that you have already lost something or failed at something you think you must have. Look beneath the surface of the circumstances and let the emotion serve as a signpost to a deeper issue. God is your fountain that never runs dry. Whatever else you may have lost need never plunge you into despair if you have him. He is the fountain of living water and every other source of fulfillment is a broken cistern.
2. Examine your thoughts as indicators of deeper issues.
But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. 13
Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. 14 All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning. 15 If I had said, "I will speak thus," I would have betrayed your children. Psalms 73:2& 13-15 (NIV)
Sometimes we listen to lies all day long in our minds. Monitor you inner thoughts. Are you thinking the truth or does your thinking reveal a nest of broken cisterns?
Listen for the “if only” lies.
“I would be happy if only....”
* I could be secure
* I could be popular
* I could control the situation
* I could find the right person to love me
* I could make sure my kids turn out all right
* I could be healthy
* I could get ahead financially
* I could undo what I did
* I could please my dad
* I could prove myself
* I could change my life
* I could fit in
Every self exists in relation to values perceived as making life worth living... When a finite value has been elevated to centrality and imagined as a final source of meaning, then one has chosen ... a god.... One has a god when a finite value is... viewed as that without which one cannot receive life joyfully.
-- Thomas C. Oden, Notes on the Death of Modernity, Chapter 6
Listen for where you’re saying:
“What good is it....”?
* To serve God if I’m still single
* To follow Christ if i can’t get a job
* Live for Christ if my children don’t turn out all right
* To be a Christian if it doesn’t save my marriage
3. Examine your temptations as indicators of deeper issues.
Temptations work like emotions to indicate deeper issues. Sin is bad fruit on the tree of your life. Learn to look for the roots that feed the bad fruit.
1 Timothy 6:10 says: For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Notice that Timothy says the love of money is a root. What other false loves prove to be the root cause of bad fruit in life? In Luke 3:9 John the Baptist talked about laying the axe at the root of the tree. Ask God to help you identify when a sin in your life is related to a broken cistern in your heart.
An idol is something within creation that is inflated to function as a substitute for God. All sorts of things are potential idols. An idol can be a physical object, a property, a person, an activity, a role, an institution, a hope, an image, an idea, a pleasure, or a hero. If this is so, how do we determine when something is an idol? As soon as our loyalty to anything leads us to disobey God, we are in danger of making it an idol.
--Work, a commandment of God, can become an idol if it is pursued so exclusively that responsibilities to one's family are ignored.
--Family, an institution of God himself, can become an idol if one is so preoccupied with the family that no one outside one’s own family is cared for.
--Being well liked, a legitimate hope, becomes an idol if the attachment to it means one never risks disapproval.
-- Richard Keyes, "The Idol Factory" in No God but God
CONCLUSION
Scripture encourages us to examine our lives and to ask God to help us understand our hearts. Psalm 139:2-24 says, Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. The purpose of understanding your heart is to turn your heart to God and his ways. That is where we find the fountain of living water that never runs dry.
Back in the twelfth century, a Monk named Bernard of Clairvoix wrote a hymn titled: “Jesus Thou Joy Of Loving Hearts”. It is an amazing hymn that has lasted for 8 centuries, and one of the verses in this Hymn does a good job of summing up this evening’s message.
Jesus thou Joy of loving hearts,
True source of life and light of men
From the best bliss that earth imparts
We turn unfilled to thee again
Note: Many of the quotes in this message are taken from Dr. Tim Keller’s unpublished class notes for the course, Preaching The Gospel In A Post-Modern World.
3 “HOW TO START DRINKING THE LIVING WATER”
(FAITH)
A few years ago Jerry Bridges, a major leader and author with the Navigator's ministry organization, spoke to a group of hundreds of Christians. “Imagine”, he said, “drawing a time line of your life. A dot on the extreme left represents your birth; a dot on the extreme right represents your death. Picture a cross in the center. The cross symbolizes the point in time when you received Christ as your Savior. That”, he said, “is the most important point on the line.”
Then he said: “What one word would summarize your greatest need from the day of your birth to the moment of your conversion?” He responded, “The answer would be the gospel, the good news of forgiveness and eternal life through faith in Christ. Before coming to Christ the gospel is what you needed the most.” Then He asked, “What about from the time of your conversion to the end of your life? What is the thing you need most?”
He asked, “How about discipleship?” Most of his hearers agreed with that, but he went on to explain that is what he used to believe. He is now convinced that what we need most from the time of our conversion to faith in Christ until the very last breath we take is still the gospel. Not because being a disciple and a follower of Christ is not important, but because it is only by continually going back to the truths of the gospel, believing them to be true, and taking them to heart that we water the roots of spiritual growth that enable us to be true followers, disciples of Jesus.
I find that many Christians have a hard time believing that they are completely loved, accepted, and forgiven through faith in Christ. They struggle with their understanding of God's love and acceptance of them. The tendency is to base their feeling of God's love and acceptance on their perception of their own performance.
As a result, instead of resting in God's love for them they struggle to gain God's acceptance by their own works or accomplishments. When we base our feelings of acceptance on our spiritual achievements, our joyful confidence in and enjoyment of God's love and acceptance is undercut by the continual awareness of our sins and weaknesses. In our heart of hearts we know that nothing but perfection can satisfy an infinitely perfect God, and we know that we are not perfect. So, if we are going to enjoy the water in the well, if we are going to straighten up into Christ we need to get absolutely clear about the gospel and we need to learn to preach the gospel to ourselves!
Romans 1:7-8 To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.
Romans 1:14-17 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome. 16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith.
Romans 3: 19-24 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. 21 But now righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
(1.) The righteousness we need is entirely a gift of grace that comes through faith alone because of the cross of Christ. It is "imputed righteousness" (Romans 4:3-8).
(2.)
Faith in the gospel sets aside the reality of our sins and our performance, and
focuses what Luther called, "the wholly alien righteousness of Christ".
(3.) Faith in the gospel looks away from our imperfection--sins committed and
righteous works neglected--and fixes its attention on the sinless life and
saving death of Jesus.
"I am accepted"--accepted as though my life displayed the spiritual perfection of the Messiah himself - ought to be the automatic response of our hearts whenever we wake, like the compass needle that always points north. This is a response that is always relevant to our current spiritual condition. We never make such progress in sanctification that we can depend on it for acceptance. And our continuing record of sin and failure never expands beyond the limits of the love of Christ, who has covered our debts for all time, past, present.
-- Richard Lovelace, The Dynamics of Spiritual Renewal
"This truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine... Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually." -- Martin Luther, Preface To Galatians
I am uncertain about the value of "Christian mantras", which attempt to build up spirituality by the repetition of phrases like the Jesus Prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner"). But I do think we can benefit from deeply fixing in our hearts this fourfold description of what we inherit through faith in the Messiah. At the outset of each day we should hear God saying YOU ARE ACCEPTED, because the guilt of sin is covered by the righteousness of Christ; YOU ARE FREE FROM BONDAGE TO SIN through the power of Jesus in your life; YOU ARE NOT ALONE, but accompanied by the Counselor, the Spirit of the Messiah; YOU ARE IN COMMAND, with the freedom to resist and expel the powers of darkness.
-- Richard Lovelace, The Dynamics of Spiritual Renewal
“The faith that ... is able to warm itself at the fire of God's love, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness...”
-- R. Lovelace, The Dynamics of Spiritual Life
Psalms 42:5-6a Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
Colossians 2:6-7 & 13-14 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
John 7:37-39, Romans 1:8, 14-17
Luke 7:36-50 esp. 7:47 “He who has been forgiven little loves little.”
"Just as Christ was crucified between two thieves, so this doctrine of justification is ever crucified between two opposite errors." -- Tertullian
Tertullian meant that there were two basic false ways of thinking, each of which "steals" the power and the distinctiveness of the gospel.
1. The "Truth over Grace" Approach. "Just repent." A very typical approach to personal change among conservative Christians can be called the "moralizing" approach.
 | Basic approach according to this view is: You are doing wrong, so stop it. |
| Primary focus: Behavior. |
| The problem with this view is it doesn’t go deep enough -- Why am I doing wrong? Why do I find I want to do the wrong things? What inordinate desires are drawing me to do so? What are the idols and false beliefs behind them? |
2. The "Grace over Truth" Approach "Just rest"
| Basic approach according to this view is: You don't feel right so cheer up. |
| Primary focus: Feelings. |
| The problem with this view is it doesn’t go deep enough - - Why don't I feel right? Why do I have such strong feelings of despair (or fear, or anger) when this or that happens? To simply tell an unhappy person (or yourself) “God loves you--rejoice!'” is insufficient, because the unhappiness is coming from a belief that says, “Even if God loves you, but you don't have this, then you are still a failure.” |
3. The Third Way of “Grace and Truth”. "Repent and Believe” (Rejoice)
| Basic approach according to this view is: Your problem is that you are looking to something besides Christ for your happiness. Repent and rejoice! This confronts a person with the real sin under the sins, and behind the bad feelings to the real solution to the deeper problem. |
| Primary focus: Behavior and Feelings. |
Remember the story of my experience in my first church. The turn around came when I realized I needed to repent and believe the gospel! Being hard on myself didn't work because it simply told me I could change if I really tried. The fact is I did try but even Bible memory and moral effort brought little change. Going easy on myself didn't work either. If I told myself “We're all sinners anyway. No one's perfect in this life and God loves us unconditionally so why worry about anger, discouragement, etc. What would have happened is I never would have had to recognize the idolatry in my heart that made change and growth so difficult.
The key issue in the whole struggle was repentance and faith. I had to repent of my idolatrous desire for the approval of people and believe in the amazing grace and approval of God, which is more than approval it is delight. Repentance and faith did not bring sinless perfection, but it did bring a life-changing breakthrough.
Straighten up in the presence of God
In her book The Healing Presence Leanne Payne develops an interesting image of repentance and faith that comes from C. S. Lewis
Spiritually and psychologically, to use C.S. Lewis’ telling image of fallen man, man is "bent." The unfallen position was, as it were, a vertical one, one of standing erect, face turned upward to God in a listening speaking relationship. It was a position of receiving continually one's true identity from God. But fallen man is bent toward the creature and trapped in the continual attempt to find his identity in the created rather than in the uncreated. When I pray with someone who is seeking wholeness, one of the first things I do after invoking the Presence of the Lord is look to see in whom or in what this person is attempting to gain his or her identity. From what person or thing (money, status, professional degree, accomplishment, sexual prowess, etc.) is he or she demanding, "Tell me who I am"? We then know what the person's idol is, what "loves" need either renouncing or setting in perspective and right order.
In the absence of finding our identity in God, we fallen ones love selfishly. The drive to dominate, possess, or manipulate persons and things in order to meet our own needs taints (or replaces altogether) the healthy, satisfying relationships we are designed to have and by which we are to be nurtured. The key to healing these bent ones is simple but profound, and the same for all: It consists In renouncing and utterly forsaking the "bent" posture toward the creature, and "straightening up" into Christ (emphasis mine)
There, standing upright in the vertical position, fully focused on God, our bonds from the old bent position fall off. With ears alert to catch His every word, we are brought into the place of becoming. It is the free state of listening-obedience where we find healing, completion, and our true identity.
In this posture, our arms are stretched straight up to the Father, our palms are opened wide to receive all that is good all, in other words, that really is and therefore completes us spiritually, psychologically, and physically.
In Leanne Payne's quote there is a powerful picture of both repentance and faith.
She says: "The key to healing these bent ones is simple but profound, and the same for all: It consists in renouncing and utterly forsaking the "bent" posture toward the creature, (That's repentance) and straightening up into Christ". (That's faith).
One of the problems that people run into at this point is inadequate understanding of the gospel makes it hard to have the faith to really straighten up, with assurance, into Christ. So get clear about the gospel, preach it to yourself, and straighten up into Christ.
A sampling of gospel verses:
Romans 5:1 -2 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Galatians 3:26-27 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "{Abba}, Father."
Colossians 2:6-7 & 13-14 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.
Hebrews 10:14 Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
When we really believe the gospel it will affect not only our joy in God, enabling us to “straighten up into him”, but it also impacts our relationships with people.
If someone picks your pocket of a hundred dollars and you have a billion in the bank it's like a prick of a finger. If you've got 200 dollars to you name and someone steals a hundred dollars it is like a knife in the heart. It's the same crime but one is felt like a prick in the finger and the other like a knife in the heart.
Now imagine two people. They are both Christians and they are both in situations where they are being criticized. As you watch and listen it is clear that one person is able to listen and sort through the criticism, think about it, and admit to what is true while kindly and patiently explaining the areas where maybe the criticism is unfair. You can tell that the criticism he's receiving is no more than a little irritation, a prick in the finger. Why? Because that person, believes in the truth of God and knows how rich he is in the Father's love because of his faith in Jesus Christ.
You see the other person faces the same kind of criticism and they are angry. They hate criticism and so they shift the blame or spiral into a sort of unhealthy self-hatred. It's clear that what they are experiencing is not a prick in the finger but rather a knife in the heart. Why? Because they do not believe the truth about God's love and the riches of grace they have in Him. There is a kind of humility that comes from believing the truth about the overflowing wealth of God's love that is ours through Jesus Christ.
When we believe in the gospel people can still hurt us but they cannot dominate us and we cannot disregard them. When we see and believe how deeply Christ loves us in spite of our many flaws and how fully he can fulfill us, we are liberated not only to get along with others but also to love them in Christ.
A popular saying is “take time to smell the roses”. What does this mean? To enjoy the rose it is necessary to focus on it and bring the rose as fully before our sense and mind as possible. To smell a rose you must get close, and you must linger. When we do so we delight in it. We love it.
This simple illustration contains profound truths. If anyone is to love God and have his or her life filled with that love, God in his glorious reality must be brought before the mind and kept there in such a way that the mind takes root and stays fixed there.
Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, p. 323-324
4 “HOW TO KEEP DRINKING THE WATER OF LIFE”
One morning in my quiet time I read Psalm 46 and noticed something I had never noticed before in verses 4-5. Psalms 46:4-5 says: There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. 5 God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.
The thing that stood out to me was the fact that as far as I knew Jerusalem, the city of God, doesn't have a river that runs through it and it never has!
Jerusalem's water supply has always presented problems. Apart from Bir-Eyyub, a well, there is only the virgin's spring, which is connected by an aqueduct with the pool of Siloam. There are and have been other reservoirs such as Bethesda in NT times and the Mamilla Pool today, but they all depend on the rains or the aqueducts to fill them.
The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Tyndal, Vol. 2 p. 753
So what is the river? Hebrew poetic structure and parallelism gives us the answer in verse 5! God is in her midst. The river is a metaphor for God's life giving presence. God is within Jerusalem. He dwells in her midst and His presence is like life-giving rivers, the streams of which nourishes and satisfy and make glad the people of the city of God.
As I meditated on Psalm 46 those verses really spoke to me. I realized that this was a picture of my life (and yours also of course). God in me is a flowing river of life. Some people might have looked at Jerusalem and failed to see her river. Some of the people of Jerusalem didn't understand or believe in her river of life, but there was a river! God was in her midst and the same is true for us today.
This month we’ve talked about how the presence of Christ, through the gospel, provides a river of life that springs up from within every believer's life and flows through that person as a source of life and of joy.
We’ve discussed:
1. Discovering The River of Living Water.
2. How To Stop Digging Broken Cisterns (Repentance)
3. How To Start Drinking The Living Water (Faith)
4. How To Keep Coming To The One True River For The Water Of Life
We need to learn how to maintain ongoing spiritual renewal.
Practice the presence of Christ
The practice of the Presence is simply the discipline of calling to mind the truth that Christ is with us. When we consistently do this, the gift of seeing by faith is given. We begin to see with the eyes of our hearts.
Ephesians 3:14-19 contains a powerful prayer. For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
At the center of this God inspired prayer is the desire that we know the reality of the presence of Christ in our hearts. In verse 17 He says “I pray that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” The basis for this prayer is the fact that Jesus Christ literally lives in the heart of every believer. This doesn't mean that we treasure His Word, and think fond thoughts of Him. It means that He, being nothing less than God Almighty, having risen from the dead, dwells in the heart of every believer. What Paul is praying for here is that we might be aware of that.
Colossians 1:27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which Is Christ In you, the hope of glory.
What a powerful difference it would make in your life if you knew and believed that Christ is with you all the time!
Deepen your intimacy with God by learning to listen to Him
John 10: 14-15 & 27 "I am the good shepherd, I know my sheep and my sheep know me--15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father--and I lay down my life for the sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
Christ is the good shepherd. He is ready, willing, and able to lead us to good places. The true Christian life is a life led by God. But in order to be led you have to listen to His voice.
On the evening before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples that although he was leaving them physically, he would not abandon them, but that He would come to them. How would He do this? Though the Holy Spirit. In fact Jesus said:
John 16:7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
It was good that he would go so that the Holy Spirit could come and be the means by which he literally indwelled them.
In verses 12-13 he went on to say; "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
What actions words are used in John 16: 12-13? The Holy Spirit will guide, He will speak, and He will tell.
We can be sure that this "coming" of the Son and the Father to the believing heart to be at home there involves conscious communication or conversation. The Spirit that inhabits us is neither unable nor unwilling to speak and communicate with us. Communication is the essence of his indwelling!
He is with us and he speaks with us, and we with him. He speaks with us in our heart, which burns from the characteristic impact of his word. His presence with us is, of course, much greater than his words to us. But this presence is turned into companionship only by the actual communications between him and us, which frequently are confirmed by external events as life moves along. This companionship with Jesus is the form that Christian spirituality takes as practiced through the ages. Spiritual persons are not those who engage in certain "spiritual practices," but those who draw their life from a conversational relationship with God.
-- Dallas Willard, In Search Of Guidance pp. 450 & 239
It is important that we get still to wait on God and it is best that we get alone, preferably with our Bible outspread before us. Then if we will, we may draw near to God and begin to hear Him speak to us in our hearts. I believe that much of our religious unbelief is due to a wrong conception of and a wrong feeling for the Scriptures of Truth. A silent God suddenly began to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever. Now we read the book as a record of what God said when He was for a brief time in a speaking mood. With notions like that in our heads how can we believe? -- A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God pp 81-82
Be Spiritually Receptive
For many years my fear of being, or even seeming foolish, gullible, and emotional kept me from drinking from God's fountain of living water. During that time I thought that people who said God spoke to them were flakey, dangerous, or both. As far as I was concerned we had the written word of God the Bible. We could study and cherish the words of Jesus and the other Bible writers, the apostles and the prophets and we had a comprehensive manual for living life and that was all we needed.
I talked about a personal relationship with Christ but for the life of me I don't know what I thought was personal or relational about it. I was treasuring the words of the Bible and trying to live according to it, but if I was sitting in a worship service and sensed my heart opening up to God and real feelings of joy, or adoration, or conviction of sin I would have thought I was getting emotional. I would not have thought that I was having a true spiritual encounter with the Christ of my heart and the Spirit of God!
No wonder the presence of Christ wasn't much comfort to me. Whenever I sensed what I might have experienced as the presence of Christ I shook it off as an emotional experience of little real value. No wonder my hungry soul had to find comfort in people and achievements. Christ was manifesting his presence in my heart, speaking, guiding, reassuring, and I was so busy talking to myself I couldn't even hear the voice of God and when I heard His still small voice I dismissed it as the unreliable murmurings of my own imagination!
In His excellent book In Search Of Guidance, Dallas Willard writes about the very problem I had.
God's spiritual invasions into human life seem, by their very gentleness, almost to invite us to explain them away.... Progress toward becoming a spiritually competent person finds its greatest hindrance in the ease with which the movements of God toward us can be explained away. The movements go meekly, without much protest.
God wants to be wanted and to be sufficiently wanted that we are ready, predisposed, to find him present with us. And if, by contrast, we are ready and set to find ways of explaining away his gentle presence, he will rarely respond with fire from heaven. More likely, he will simply leave us alone. We shall have our self-satisfaction that we were not so "gullible" as to respond to his soft call.
The test of character that lies in the gentleness of God's approach is especially dangerous for those formed by ideas that dominate our modern world. We live in a culture that has for centuries cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than the one who believes. No matter that you can be almost as stupid as a cabbage and still doubt. The fashion of the age has identified mental sharpness with a pose, not with genuine intellectual method and character.
Thus, only a very hardy individualist or social rebel, or one desperate for another life, stands any chance of discovering the substantiality of the spiritual. Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though because of powerful intellectual propaganda they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright. Partly as a result of this social force toward skepticism, which remains very powerful when we step into Christian congregations and schools for ministers, very few people ever develop competence in the life of prayer....
Nearly all areas of life in which we could become spiritually competent-including divine guidance confront us with the same type of challenge.
These areas all require of us a choice to be a spiritual person, to live a spiritual life.
-- Dallas Willard In Search Of Guidance, pp 235-236
Christ can offer you very little real sense of his love and presence because if He speaks to you or moves in you, you simply do not believe it is Him, or real, or of value.
If we do not turn from the sterility of skepticism and open our heart up to the influences of the Spirit of God we will not be able to draw water from the river of life.
Live a lifestyle of repentance and faith.
One day I was feeling alone, right or wrong that was how I was feeling, sort of alone, discouraged and unhappy. And God used the familiar words of Isaiah 53 to show me that in my feelings of loneliness' and sadness I was really sinning against my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What God showed me was that if I believed what I said believed to be true that Christ was with me and in me then I must count His presence in my heart and life of very small value, I must hold Him in very-low esteem to feel the way I felt.
In Isaiah 53 there is a description of how the people in Jesus day responded to Christ. I had never read those verses as a description of how, in spite of all I claimed to believe, I was treating the presence of Christ within me.
Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Isaiah 53:2 says of Christ.... He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
The brutal truth was I was acting as if there was no beauty or majesty in my view of Christ to attract me to Him or to create any desire for Him. Verse 3 said; He was despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not.
I realized that it was as if I had my best friend right by my side and I so despised and rejected the strength and comfort and encouragement of His friendship that it was as if he meant nothing to me. I esteemed him not.
I was not that different than the people in Jesus’ day that treated Him with contempt. I was acting as if, in terms of any real joy, strength, comfort, and encouragement, it meant next to nothing to my true state of mind that Christ lived in me and was closer than my own heartbeat! It was for me one of those moments when you realize that you have been a fool and there is nothing to do but repent of your sinful foolishness.
There is a powerful passage in John chapter 6;35 where Jesus says; Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. Then in verse 6; But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.
That statement comes after chapter after chapter telling the story of how Christ came as God in human flesh, a gift of God’s love for the redemption of the world, and yet mankind as a whole loved darkness rather than light and treated God incarnate with contempt.
All of this leads up to Jesus saying in John 6:35, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” The next verse emphasizes the sad response that he received: But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. They had seen but refused to believe in spite of the very presence of the Son of God.
Do you see the point? When Christ is not enough with us, when our peace and joy and love and strength is not found in Christ but in the circumstances of life we are proving that our hearts are filled with unbelief that despises the true value of the priceless gift of the presence of Jesus Christ in our hearts by the amazing grace of God. We despise Him and esteem him not. We do not believe that he is the bread of life! That He who comes to Christ will never go hungry, and he who believes in Christ will never be thirsty.
We need to repent and believe - believe the truth of the presence of Christ in our hearts as the spring of living water and the bread of life. You can tell when you really believe because you feel enriched and it affects your relationships with people and your reactions to circumstances.
If someone picks your pocket of a hundred dollars and you have a billion in the bank it's like a prick of a finger. If you've got 200 dollars to you name and someone steals a hundred dollars it is like a knife in the heart. It's the same crime but one is felt like a prick in the finger and the other like a knife in the heart.
Now imagine two people. They are both Christians and they are both in situations where they are being criticized. As you watch and listen is clear that one person is able to listen and sort through the criticism, think about it, and admit to what is true and kindly and patiently explain the areas where maybe the criticism is unfair. You can tell that the criticism he's receiving is no more than a little irritation, a prick in the finger. Why? Because that person believing in the truth of God knows how rich he is in the Father's love because of his faith in Jesus Christ.
You see another person faces the same kind of criticism and they are angry. They hate criticism and so they shift the blame or spiral into a sort of unhealthy self-hatred. It's clear that what they are experiencing is not a prick in the finger it is like a knife in the heart. Why? Because they do not believe the truth about God's love and the riches of grace they have in Him. There is a kind of humility that comes from believing the truth about the overflowing wealth of God's love that is ours through Jesus Christ.
When we believe in the gospel people can still hurt us, but they cannot dominate us and we cannot disregard them. When we see and believe how deeply Christ loves us in spite of our many flaws and how fully he can fulfill us we are liberated not only to get along with others, but also to love them in Christ. A lot of people know all the right answers but it's not real to them. A lot of us are like that. That's why we need to repent all over again and believe the gospel as it relates to every area of life.
There are two ways to believe something. I heard a story a man told about a friend he was visiting. They were driving somewhere and this friend wasn't wearing his seat belt. So the man mentioned this to his friend. He said, “Uh, you know the statistics don't you, you really should drive with a seat belt.” His friend just shrugged him off. About a year later they got together again and he noticed that his friend put his seat belt on when he got in the car. So he said something like this: “Wow, now you're wearing your seat belt, how come?” His friend said: “well, I visited a man I know who was in a car accident. He didn't have his seat belt on. He went right through the windshield and had about a hundred and twelve stitches in his face and now I always wear my seat belt.” So the man who was telling the story says to his friend: “Are you saying you didn't really believe in seat belts before?” And the man said something very interesting and very human. “Well I did believe it but I didn't believe it. I believed it but I wasn't effected by it. I didn't get any new information when I saw my friend all stitched up in the hospital, but all the information became sort of new to me.
You see it's one thing to believe that Jesus Christ completed the work of your redemption and salvation on the cross and because of his unfailing love he really is the water and the bread of life for you but it's another thing to really believe it in a way that it affects you and transforms you.
Do you believe?
John 7:38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.