Training Camp
“Just wait ‘til next year!”
For a lot of football teams, the 2006-2007 season ended last weekend, and in many cases before the final gun sounded to end the game, there was already optimistic talk of next season - “Just wait ‘til next year!”
Imagine if Mike McCarthy, the coach of the Green Bay Packers, called his team into the locker room after their WIN in Chicago last Sunday night, and said something like this:
Good job men! You really worked hard and put together a good close to this season. We didn’t quite make the playoffs, but I’m proud of the effort you all put in. OK - The first game of next season will be in August, I’ll give you a call the week before and make sure you know where and when to show up – have a great off-season! See ya!
Can you imagine a scene like that? Can you imagine the level of performance a team would put in if they only showed up the morning of the first game next fall, put on their pads and uniforms (if they would still fit) and then went out to play the game? No practice through the week, no work, no discipline – just come on Sunday and do your best. Can you imagine the record of a team where the expectation of the team members was that shallow?
And how well do you think that team would do if their training consisted entirely of one hour a week with their coach, giving them a pep talk and maybe going over a play or two, then dismissing them until the next week? Of course, that team would be doomed to failure.
While we would never be satisfied with a football coach who only gave weekly pep talks, and expected nothing more from himself or his players, that’s seemingly exactly what we want, and get, from our churches. Increasingly we have churches that, in the words of Bobby Welch, “promise more and more to attendees wile calling for less and less commitment.” It is tragic when a nation is more passionate about games than reality, but it is infinitely more terrible when the people of God are more concerned with their comfort than with their mission. When a football team loses more games than they win, a coach might lose his job – when the church fails to accomplish its mission, eternal souls are lost – human beings are dragged into a Godless eternity of torment and suffering.
Do you know when teams start preparing for next year? Immediately! It’s true that there are a few months without official team practices – but the individual effort, training and preparation go on. Players get needed surgery and begin treatment for injuries. Head Coaches and General Managers begin to look at contract negotiations, draft possibilities, and shoring up deficient aspects of the team. Players watch film, and go into personal physical training, coaches work on new plays and schemes all through the off season.
The times when the team get together for joint coaching, training and practice are vital, but they would never be enough without disciplined individual attention by each player day after day and moment by moment. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard a coach or analyst talk about how an individual had worked extra hard during the off season on their physical conditioning, or study of the game, and how that individual effort had positively affected the entire team.
Over the course of the upcoming weeks, we are going to talk about personal spiritual development. We’re going to examine a series of Spiritual Disciplines that have been a part of the lifestyle of God-followers since the beginning of time. These personal disciplines have been a part of the church since its earliest days, but in the modern church have been ignored and dismissed, and as a result the church has become as effective as a football team that meats once a week for a pep-talk and then goes out to take on a powerful opponent. As a result, most Christians I know are left feeling defeated, ineffective, and frustrated and more than a little confused about the Christian life – they have this nagging feeling that there is supposed to be more.
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Song [Praise Team]: There Must Be More
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One reason I like that song is that it acknowledges our desire for more of God, and from God, and the truth that what we desire comes from Jesus. The Spiritual Disciplines are a wonderful blend of our desires and yearnings – our faithful commitment, and God’s grace. It’s a call for us to do our part, and God to do His.
Once upon a time, a group of men from Chicago left their jobs in the high-rise office buildings, moved to the prairie, and bought some farmland.
"We're farmers!" They all declared to each other. And all summer long they would go to the field to watch their crop grow up. However, when September rolled in, their fields were filled with goldenrod and all kinds of wildflowers and weeds.
"Where's the corn?" they asked each other. And they wondered what they could have possibly done wrong.
This year marks my 40th year as a believer. I grew up in the church. My dad was not a pastor, but our family was so involved in our church that we drove the 20 miles from our house to our church at least 4 or 5 times a week. Growing up in the church, I have often noticed that so few "long-time church members" experience the significant life-change that they expected and desired as students and followers of Jesus.
Even in my own life, I have felt the confusion and frustration of lack of fruit. I read the words of the Jesus to the church in Sardis, in Revelation chapter 3, where He calls to them, “Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die!” Or the church in Laodicea, where he says, “Because you are lukewarm, neither hot or cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth,” and I feel so lukewarm.
Can you relate? The desire is there, the longing for depth, but like those city boys on the prairie, many of us have purchased the land, but done nothing to cultivate a field in which any significant growth can take place. So what is necessary? What do we do to change?
I believe the answer is also found in Revelation chapter 3. Toward the end of that chapter, in verse 20, Jesus says, in words that may be familiar to some of us, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”
Jesus has the same longing for deep fellowship with us that we feel. He is not distant – He’s waiting for an invitation. The key to spiritual growth is simply opening the door. Now most of us who have heard those words from Jesus have heard them in the context of evangelism – that Jesus is knocking at the door of an unbeliever, waiting for them to allow Him in – which is a great image, and a powerful way to engage an unbeliever – but it is not really an accurate understanding of the text. Jesus said those words to a church – to believers who had grown lukewarm – mediocre in their faith.
This study is an invitation for you to make an intentional effort to cultivate the kind of life in which God can bring change. It’s an invitation for you to open that door, and make room in your life for Jesus to come in. It is an invitation for you to train yourself in the practices for growing in the likeness of Christ. These practices have historically been referred to as the spiritual disciplines.
In The Pursuit of Holiness, Jerry Bridges gives a wonderful illustration of what this series is going to be about. He writes:
A farmer plows his field, sows the seed, and fertilizes and cultivates-all the while knowing that in the final analysis he is utterly dependent upon forces outside of himself. He knows he cannot cause the seed to germinate, nor can he produce the rain and sunshine for growing and harvesting a crop. For a successful harvest, he is dependent on these things from God.
Yet the farmer knows that unless he diligently pursues his responsibilities to plow, plant, fertilize and cultivate, he cannot expect a harvest at the end of the season. In a sense he is in a partnership with God, and he will reap its benefits only when he as fulfilled his own responsibilities.
Farming is a joint venture between God and the farmer. The farmer cannot do what God must do, and God will not do what the farmer should do
The task for us, then is to cultivate our daily lives into fertile ground in which God can bring growth and change. This is what the spiritual disciplines are all about. We are doing what God has determined we must do in order to allow God to do what only he can do.
Dallas Willard defines a discipline as, "any activity within our power that we engage in to enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort." I am not a very good driver – on the golf course. Some of you would testify that I am not the best driver on the highway – but that’s a different illustration! Anyway – all the desire in the world will not make me a better driver. I will only increase my ability as I set aside the time, and practice specific routines designed to help that aspect of my game. Over time, those disciplines will enable me to do then what I cannot do now.
The application to the spiritual life is not too difficult to understand. Dallas Willard continues, "If your life-as-usual has not been fertile ground in which God can bring change, then, life-as-usual must go."
Dr. Phil likes to ask a patient who’s trying to defend their current lifestyle, “How’s that working for you?” Obviously, it’s not working very well at all, or they wouldn’t be talking to a psychiatrist – especially on National Television.
Let me ask you something, “How’s your current spiritual lifestyle working for you?” I think many of us are discontent with it – we long for more. Your practice of spiritual disciplines will provide the opportunity for change – but it will require an alteration of life-as-usual.
In the coming weeks, we will examine twelve specific disciplines that you may make a part of your life. The goal is not to incorporate every discipline into any of our lives – that would be impossible and unnecessary – rather, each of us will individually make the evaluation of which disciplines we need to focus on based on what we are currently neglecting or those things we are doing that are in the way of our growth.
This week, in preparation for this series, I would like you to take some time to ask yourself these two questions:
1) What am I currently not doing that, if I were doing, would open myself up more to God's work of grace in my life?
2) What am I currently doing that, if eliminated, would open myself up more to God's work of grace in my life?
Over this coming week, ponder those two profound questions. They are the earliest steps in preparing the soil of your heart for God’s work in the weeks ahead.
Before we close this morning, I need to warn about one danger of the spiritual disciplines how we avoid that danger.
If we approach them incorrectly, the spiritual disciplines that are meant to bring life and victory may quickly become religious laws that lead to death and further defeat. Legalism has a nasty way of creeping in and turning the means of growth into ends in themselves. Every book I have read on the topic of Spiritual Disciplines warns of this danger, and with good reason. It became the lifestyle and defining characteristic of the Pharisees in Jesus’ time. He quoted Isaiah when He said,
These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men. (Matt 15:8-9)
The Pharisees were all about performance – but had completely forgotten God. We have to guard against the temptation to replace our heart for God with a determination to perform. We can easily begin to practice disciplines for all the wrong reasons – to look good to others, to appease a guilty conscience, or to tally up “brownie points” before God. When Disciplines are done for the wrong reasons, they actually sabotage the transformation we are seeking and make us numb to God and His truth. Paul wrote in Colossians 2:23:
Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
The basic rule of thumb is this: When the disciplines become more about me, than about God – I am in danger.
How do we avoid that danger?
1) Constantly remember the purpose of the spiritual disciplines. Richard Foster says Remember that the disciplines don’t create change – God gives change – the disciplines simply prepare me to receive the growth that only He can give. Only God can change a human heart.
2) Listen to Jesus. Ask God to point out where you have begun to pursue the disciplines rather than Him, and He will make it known to you. The Holy Spirit, as Jesus said, will guide us in all truth.
In the 1990's, Gatorade ran a long series of commercials that sang the jingle, "I want to be like Mike" (referring to the basketball superstar, Michael Jordan). I always liked the jingle, the man and the message. I’ve mentioned it before in other messages, but it bears repeating. We, as followers of Jesus Christ must have his or her own jingle, "I want to be like Jesus." And at their core, that is what spiritual disciplines are all about. Making room for Jesus in your life. Practicing behavior that opens the door for Him to enter in, and fellowship with us in the depths of our soul.
In practicing the disciplines, we watch his life, through study and consideration of His word, and put His life into practice in our own. We listen to his teaching, and apply it in your everyday life. This series is an invitation and opportunity for each of us to experience the thrill of throwing out “life-as-usual” and taking up new paths where God can change our lives from the inside out. Join me there.
Prayer.