SPIRITUAL FRESHNESS FOR A NEW MILLENIUM

SPIRITUAL FRESHNESS FOR A NEW MILLENIUM
(Sunday, January 9, 2000)

I've been thinking about some of the plans we have for this year, especially the Jesus Video programme and other things we do to contact people who don't belong to a church. I wondered what will make them interested in joining us at St. Philip's. I thought it will be us, ourselves, who will make the difference between whether people look at us and come back or stay away. Are we what Bill Hybels calls 'contagious Christians'?

Over the Christmas/New Year break I was looking through my collection of devotions and study notes to find something to use for my daily Bible reading time and I pulled out this little book Every Day With Jesus by Selwyn Hughes. He's entitled this particular edition Water for the Soul. I was wondering whether I might use it for the year and read through the first few devotions.

This bit caught my attention………

Day 1. The idea for this theme arose out of a letter I received some time ago which said: "Over the past year or so, my Christian life has become stale - insufferably so. I have lost the freshness and spontaneity I once knew. Can you say something that will help bring back the sparkle into myu christian experience? What is the remedy?"

I wonder - do we have freshness and spontaneity? Are we the kind of Christian that makes people want to have the faith that we have? Does our Christianity 'sparkle'? Or does our faith come across as ordinary, dull, dry, stale? Sometimes I think we all need to put some sparkle into the way we live out our faith.

The Bible gives us some pictures of people who are spiritually fresh: Psalm 1: 3 says they're like trees planted on the bank of a river. Isaiah 58:11 says they're like well watered gardens.

Selwyn Hughes writes in his book:……

Day 2. ,,,,whatever reasons exist for spiritual staleness - it need not be so. Spiritual freshness is available to us all - and on a daily basis ..... no matter how dry and difficult our circumstances, our experience of God can remain fresh and vibrant.

He then proceeds to go through 12 principles for keeping us spiritually fresh. The devotions are meant to take about 2 months to go through. I've skimmed through them in about a week and I'd like to share a very condensed version with you.

Most of these principles are not 'news' to us. But how well do we follow them, I wonder. I know I need reminding - often! None of them are easy. They all require a firm decision on our part and determination to persevere. They take self discipline. I know that's not a popular word, is it? But self discipline or self control is a gift of the Holy Spirit that's available to each one of us, just for the asking. So, we don't have to be self disciplined all on our own. In fact that's the last thing we should try to do. Trying to do it alone is a sure recipe for failure.

I've really condensed these down to three sections….

1. Keep a close relationship with God, :

Have a daily quiet time with God. This is not a 'rule' or a 'law to be obeyed'. When I first heard about this idea, it was presented to me in such a way that it sounded like: "If you don't do this, you're not a good Christian" - as if I'd be some kind of 2^nd class Christian if I didn't religiously, every morning, read my Bible and pray for a set period of time. Well, that's just not true. A quiet time is simply a tool for helping us build our relationship with God. But, it's a very good tool!

          How long would a marriage or a close friendship last if the people involved hardly ever spent time together? Spending
          time alone with God is a way of showing love for him and we are commanded to love God - aren't we? In Matthew 22:
          37, Jesus said Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

The next principle is: keep ourselves daily open to the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our chief source of spiritual freshness. In the Old Testament, the book of Ezekiel, ch. 47, gives us a picture of the Holy Spirit as a river rising as a spring at the Temple and flowing out into the desert, rapidly getting deeper - ankle deep, knee deep, waist deep, above the head, supporting numerous fish and sweetening the water of other rivers that joined it. Verse12 says: Beside the torrent on either bank all trees good for food shall spring up. Their leaves shall not wither, their fruit shall not cease; they shall bear early every month. For their water comes from the sanctuary; their fruit is for food and their foliage for enjoyment.

          Then, Jesus said in John 7, vs 38, 39: 'Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water
          will flow from within him.' By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.
          (That means us!) Although the Holy Spirit is living within each Christian, most of us, most of the time, are not really
          taking much notice of him. And he doesn't impose. He waits for us to ask him to work in us and through us. We need to
          build our spiritual bond with him by talking with him, sharing our thoughts and daily experiences with him, discuss
          things with him, pause now and again to listen for him. We have to make the decision to do it, and we need to practise
          persistently.

The third and very important part of building our relationship with God is getting rid of the things that come between us and God. In Mark 10: 17 - 22 we find the story of the rich man who asked Jesus what he had to do to win eternal life. Here's what Jesus told him: "One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus wasn't saying that it was wrong for the man to be very rich, but that it was wrong for his possessions to be more important to him than eternal life. Jesus wanted him to get his priorities straight.

          Some of the things that come between us and God are things we think of as 'bad'. But so can 'good' things - like work,
          family, sport, even helping others. We need to get rid of the 'bad' habits and make sure our priorities are right with the
          other things in our lives.

Selwyn Hughes has some very practical suggestions for dealing with sins - those bad habits……

Day 13. ...the most effective place to deal with sin is at the 'eye' stage. .... "The best place to kill a cobra", runs an old Indian proverb, "is in its egg."

Most sin follows on from a failure to kill it at teh place of desire - the 'eye'. When an evil thought comes, try blinking your eyes very rapidly adn you will discover that the thought is broken up. It is a voluntary act demanding the attention of teh will, and thus draws attention away from the evil thought. Add to the action the simple prayer that Peter prayed when he was about to sink into the waters of the Sea of Galilee: "Lord, save me."

Another thing you can do when a sinful thought or desire invades your mind is to change whatever you are doing in order to focus your attention elsewhere. An old Welsh miner I knew told me many years ago that when he was a young man, he was out walking one day and was attacked by an evil thought. He deliberately picked up a heavy stone a and carried it back home. The attention necessary to carry the load made him forget the thought. These ideas may not work for everyone, but they have certainly worked for some. Another way to deal with an evil thought or desire when it comes is to focus our attention on a mental picture of Christ on the Cross. It is hard to think of evil and Him at the same time. They are incompatibilities.

2. Maintain our physical, mental and emotional health.

In 1 Corinthians, Ch 3:16 tells us you are God's temple, where the Spirit of God dwells and ch. 6: 19, 20 reminds us that our bodies are shrines of the indwelling Holy Spirit. So, at the very least, out of respect for him, we should keep our bodies in as good order as we can manage.

Selwyn Hughes writes …

Day 24. We must keep our bodies like a fine-tuned violin and then the music of God will come out from every fibre of our being.

          We all know well how to look after ourselves physically, but it does take some discipline (There's that word again!) to
          take care to have proper amounts of good quality food, rest, exercise and recreation - a balance in life. It's also important
          to keep our minds healthy - to take care about what we read, listen to and watch on TV. What goes in is going to come
          out in our talk or behaviour.

The next two principles are to do with getting rid of some negative things in our lives:

Grudges - we should refuse to hold on to them. Ephesians 4: 26, 27 tells us: Do not let anger lead you into sin, do not let sunset find you still nursing it; leave no loop-hole for the devil. And verse 32 tells us to forgive one another as God in Christ forgives you.
Hidden agendas from our past - fears, hurts, negative experiences which can influence negatively our present behaviour.

          How do we deal with these negatives? Much in the same was as we deal with those other things that come between us
          and God: ask the Spirit to make us aware of them, then give them over to God, ask him to deal with them and keep
          watch on ourselves because old habits die hard! We can enlist the help of trusted Christian friends. We can't deal with
          these negatives by ourselves.

          Hebrews 12: 1,2 tells us: "let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us
          run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our
         faith."

         The next two are about becoming positive:
         Firstly, we must learn how to deal with frustration. We all meet up with people and situations that frustrate us - things we
         don't like but can't change - things that prevent us from doing or being what we'd like to.
         Listen to Paul's answer to frustration: (Philippians 4: 12, 13) "……I have learned the secret of being content in any
         and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through
         him who gives me strength.

Selwyn Hughes suggests five things to do about frustrations:

Accept them. We're human. We meet frustration. In John 16:33, Jesus told us we'd have troubles.
Decide to make use of troubles and turn them into something positive.
Expect God to supply you with the strength to turn negatives into positives.
Look for the good things that come out of frustrating situations
Help someone else going through frustrations.

      The other positive: become a creative, outgoing person. We are made to be creative. We are made in God's image and
      he is THE Creator. When we allow God to be active in our lives he makes us more creative in the things we do for him -
      he gives us ideas, enthusiasm and power to achieve - together with him. Enthusiasm refreshes us and others. Sometimes we
      need to make an effort to get out of a rut, to do something different, maybe to take some risks. We need to keep learning -
      keep our brains active.

3. Things which build us as disciples:

We must have regular fellowship with other Christians. True Christian fellowship is more than getting together and enjoying each other's company. It involves learning together, spending regular time together, sharing meals, praying together. In Romans 1: 12, Paul expresses it as "that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith." Christian fellowship must be a three-way relationship. God must be involved.

Take time to share with others what God has shared with us. One of our members told me once that she used to think of her faith as something private - just between her and God. Then one day she thought, "Why keep something this good to myself?" Since then she has shared her faith and tells people what God does for her.If we have a close relationship with God we'll be more aware of his goodness and greatness. We'll be more excited about him. And we'll want to let other people know about him. The natural result is that it has to come out. The Samaritan woman who met Jesus at the well was excited about him and lost no time telling others.

Selwyn Hughes ….

Day 33. An American pastor, an old friend of mine, says: "Christianity is catching, and if people are not catching it from us, then perhaps it is becasue we do not have a sufficiently virulent case of it."

Sharing can be verbal - what we say about our faith - and through our actions - how we put our faith into practice.

We should cultivate the art of scripture meditation. Selwyn Hughes considers this one a top priority. It is not simply Bible Study. Nor is it the kind of meditation where we are told to empty our minds It is ….

Day 49. ... the process by which we take a text, thought or phrase from the Word of God and roll it around in our mind, passing it backward and forward, letting it go out of conscious thought, bringing it back again into consciousness, prodding it, absorbing it, admiring it over and over again until its inherent power pervades our whole personality.

The last principle is to keep our eyes fully focussed on Jesus

Day 57 . Someone put it like this: "If you look too long at yourself, you will become discouraged. If you look long at others, you will be distracted. But if you look long at Christ, you will take on his likeness."

People were attracted to Jesus. When the church is full of people like him, others will want to come and look and stay.
They'll want to be like Jesus too.

Just to finish, here's what the last devotion in the series says about being a spiritually fresh Christian…..

Day 59 . Just think of it - we who are born of the dust are being gradually transformed into the most beautiful image that this planet has ever seen - the image of Christ. What a destiny. The wonder of that transformation can only be explained by one word - "glory". The drabness, the staleness, the dullness of living is replaced by living that has freshness in it. Can we live continuously like that? Yes - in His strength. "Grace" and "glory" are often connected in the New Testament - take the grace and you get the glory. What a way to live. Glory! Glory! Glory!

NOTE: This sermon was far too long for one session, but I had the distinct impression that this was the message God wanted me to bring that day. If I had the opportunity to preach more regularly than the once or twice a year that I do, I'd use this material over a series of Sundays. But, bless their hearts! They sat through it, with the aid of overhead projected summaries, and no-one went to sleep or got up and went home!