Be a disciple: Sensitive to the Holy Spirit

One prophet, two occasions of God’s working. 

Elijah is a gripping character whose life is a history of the incredible working of God.  Elijah was living in a time where the majority of people were indifferent to God and those who were faithful were, for the most part, keeping their faith hidden.  After a three year drought and the subsequent famine, Elijah was called to confront the wicked king Ahab and the prophets of his god Baal.  

You may recall the story.  If not, read I Kings 17-19. In short, there was a contest in which the deity that sent fire from heaven would be declared the true God.  In a drama that was both hysterical and brutal, Baal was proved to be a nobody, The Lord was proved to be God and the leadership of Baal worship was exterminated.  So, with a fantastic demonstration and the death of Baal’s priests, Elijah may have expected a national revival and return to the faith.  What he got was a death threat from a bitter, evil woman.  Frustrated by the whole situation, Elijah runs.  Here he sounds like us.  WE want to see revival and people turning to The Lord.  But we remain frustrated by the indifference and rot of our world.

Elijah ran away and had an unexpected encounter with God.  He was told to stand before the Lord.  “And behold the Lord was passing by!”  There was a tremendous wind, but The Lord was not in the wind.  Next, there was a violent earthquake; He wasn’t there either.  Following the earthquake there was a firestorm.  But still no God.  Then there was, “the sound of a gentle blowing,” literally “a still small voice” perhaps we could say a “fine calm whisper”.  The Lord was in the tiny sound.  Everything was different except for the circumstances, but circumstances don’t matter that much to God.

WE may want great, big, powerful events that can turn people to God-mega churches, stadium events, a landslide election of Christians into office.  We may want those things, but as disciples we need to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  There are several things that keep us from being sensitive to the Holy Spirit, but that is a whole other series of lessons.  For the moment, what we most need is the DESIRE to hear and be sensitive to the Holy Spirit.  If we genuinely want His leading, and if we are willing to respond, He will make Himself known.  So, let’s begin this aspect of being a disciple by wanting and asking for the Holy Spirit to direct our lives.  Once we begin the practice of listening and obeying He will be easier to hear and our obedience can grow.  

Charlie's Challenges 1.15.23

Charlie’s Challenges: Extras from the sermon and links for additional information

Living Like a Disciple in Crazy Times: Where did I come from?

Sex, Marriage and Creation

 

Memory verse: That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Genesis 2:24

 

Have you had a heartfelt conversation with a LBGQT+ person?  If so, what was that like?  If not, why not?

 

What do you think would be the hardest part of having a conversation with an LBGQT+ person?

 

Would a LBGQT+ person have to change before you could become friends with them?

 

There are three steps to brainwashing: dependency, dissonance, and attitude change.  How are these like desensitization, jamming, and conversion?

 

Where can you identify an attempt by the world to reorder your thinking sexually?

 

Love without truth is useless

Truth without love is impotent

Truth with love is Grace

 

Resources:

 

One of the best and most compassionate teachings of how to communicate with trans and gay people use this link

https://youtu.be/XkaPSjxE5AE

 

This is the website of a former lesbian who shares her story with grace:

https://www.rachelgilson.com/

 

For a short description of why homosexuality is so harmful use this link:

https://youtu.be/SJG9CtaBXeM

 

For an overview about Jesus’ position on homosexuality use this link:

https://youtu.be/nWGUW1KBhso

 

An excellent but somewhat lengthy teaching about the educational goals of the homosexual community:

https://youtu.be/WKh5TQKojWY

 

An excellent review of the homosexual manifesto (a.k.a. After the Ball)

https://albertmohler.com/2004/06/03/after-the-ball-why-the-homosexual-movement-has-won

 

Survey representing actual numbers of people who identify as part of the LGBQT+ community

https://news.gallup.com/poll/329708/lgbt-identification-rises-latest-estimate.aspx

Be a disciple, be a self-learner

The person who can read and doesn’t read has no real advantage over the person who can’t read. 

Be a self-learner of God.  Before we go any further, I want to take a moment to define what we mean by being a learner of God or knowing God.  This is not about acquiring massive amounts of data or information.  I have known people who, while living godless lives, have had extensive knowledge of the Bible and theology.  Knowledge or being a learner of God is an interactive relationship.  In the Bible, we hear that a man knew his wife and she became pregnant.  That knowledge is personal, detailed, intimate, and relational.  It was not simply a list of informative facts about his wife.  When we talk about being a self-motivated and self-determined learner of God, this is the kind of knowledge of God we want.   

There are two dangers for every disciple in the area of being a learner. Either of these are devastating for our life as a disciple.  Both of these dangers represent an effective end of being a personal learner, and both are tragically common in many churches and for many Christians.

The first danger is  to allow someone else to be the sole source of learned material.  Think of the person who attends services, but never reads or studies the Bible on their own.  I have had people tell me that they don’t study or read their Bible on their own because they trust me and like what I say.  On the one hand, I am honored by such confidence, but on the other hand I am deeply distressed by what is clearly misplaced trust.  No one should trust any one teacher exclusively.  And no one should trust any teacher more than the Word of God.  The level of Biblical literacy concerning basic information is indicative of how easy it would be to deceive many Chrsitians.  When church people place their trust on their leaders for truth they are not far from being groupees or cult followers.

The second danger is when we rely on what we learned in the past, in some cases, the distant past.  Think of the person who has never added to what they learned in their early years as a Christian.  I have known Christians and even Christian leaders who have not made it a point to study except for occasional teaching in years.  Even preachers are prone to depend on what we learned years ago.  Sometimes we learned the wrong stuff a long time ago and have held that belief for so long we believe it is the absolute truth.  Quick example, according to the blockbuster movie The Ten Commandments Moses was exiled from Egypt by Pharaoh.  No, that is not what happened.  But we learned that years ago and depending on the memory of what we once learned (incorrectly) we think that way.

To never stop being a learner of God is a delightful journey which we will never complete, but will become delightful as the years progress.  Make a commitment to be a self-motivated, self- activated learner of God.  

Charlie's Challenges 1.8.23

 Charlie’s Challenges: Extras from the sermon and links for additional information

Living Like a Disciple in Crazy Times: Where did I come from?

 

Begin to explain in your own mind why a solid foundation is so important to being a disciple.

Where do you see in our society specific examples of the degradation from God's intent in creation to something less wonderful?

 

Has a godless worldview reshaped my understand of origin?

 

Has a godless view of origins impacted the way I live as a follower of Christ and the way I treat creation?

 

Memory Verse: God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.  And there was evening, and there was morning-the sixth day.  _{Genesis 1:31}

Links that will help you go deeper in understanding:

Video that opened our service: 

https://youtu.be/afVN-7vY0KA

Deeply committed Christian scholars some of whom do not believe in a young earth: 

https://crossexamined.org/top-20-apologists/

Deeply committed scholars who do believe in a young earth: 

https://answersingenesis.org/bios/

Dr. Lisle points out some of the logical fallacies of evolution: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBbMKxth3fE

A discussion between young and old earth Christians

https://youtu.be/aNmuB9EF_vk

Whatever we have been doing it hasn’t been working!

The picture of American Christianity is not bright and in some cases it is pretty bleak.  Ask yourself this question, “How easy is it to find a deeply committed disciple of Jesus Christ?”  I am not talking about someone who professes that they believe in Jesus, or someone who wants God’s blessings, or is engaged for an hour, more or less, in a religious service. Rather, think of a person whose life is authentically looking more and more like Jesus.  They have the same joy, love, kindness, and heart that Jesus had. Paul advised to no longer be conformed to this world, but to be transformed.  How frequently do we see that transformation taking place?  By the way, this transformation is much more than simply religious behavior modification.  

We can make excuses, but in our own lives, in our churches and in our homes we often do not reflect the life of a person who is completely committed to know, love, learn from, and imitate Jesus.  When it comes to the decline of the American church we can debate endlessly what happened, when it happened, who is to blame for it happening or why it happened.  I have seen some content producers whose sole effort seems to revolve around listing and complaining about what is wrong.  That is very tempting and it is pretty easy to do.  But it is not especially effective.  If it were effective in making disciples, we might see some progress and improvement.  What we see are people who agree with each other spending more time following and watching each other.  

So, what do we do?  For my part, I am going to focus in the coming year on five key areas in my life, teaching and ministry.  Hopefully, my personal devotions, sermons, leadership, public and private life, conversations will focus on these key areas.  Some directly, some indirectly, but I intend that in everything I do it will come back to one of these five things, things I want to emphasize in my ministry and my personal life.  This should have been the case all along; I have become distracted and I believe without these focuses the way forward is pretty grimm.  

In the weeks ahead, I plan on exploring each of these in greater detail but for the moment we will suffice with a brief overview.

Be a self-learner of God.  There are two dangers for every disciple in the area of being a learner.  One is to allow someone else to be the sole source of learned material.  Think of the person who attends services, but never reads or studies the Bible on their own.  The second danger is when we rely on what we learned in the past, in some cases the distant past.  Think of the person who has never added to what they learned in their early years as a Christian.  I hope the day I stop learning is never.

Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. We have all heard the true cliche, “It is better to have the Holy Spirit in us than Jesus beside us.”  That is true, Jesus Himself said so.  But if we ignore the Holy Spirit, His presence is no advantage for us.  I want to learn to be and to actually be more sensitive to the promptings and leading of God’s Spirit.  This is not unrelated to learning, but also includes things such as silence and active listening/application.  

Holy living.  Holy living is much more than not doing things.  That will simply lead to legalism and endless arguments over details.  While there are some things that should never be in a holy life the objective of a holy life is to be like God.  This covers a whole spectrum of things such as love, joy, creativity to name a few.  Holy living is not just doing, holy living is being and enjoying the company of others, specifically God.

Be a person of prayer.  Prayer is, in my opinion and experience, the most difficult of Chrisitian disciplines.  In part, because we often select one aspect of prayer and act as if it is all there is to prayer.  It is also hard because we want to do stuff and praying feels like we are being inactive.  But beyond asking for stuff and for forgiveness, prayer has a wide variety of expressions.  As the old timers used to say, “Work is prayer”.  We need to broaden our understanding of prayer, but not just talk about it, practice and live it.

Sharing my faith.  Evangelism is at the core of the Good News.  However, we have allowed our desire to help people make decisions, while we have failed to explain that they are deciding to be a disciple, not just a believer.  I (we) need to reorder our thinking so that we call people to follow Jesus, not just let Him save them.  This is perhaps one of the hardest challenges we must face.

I am not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions, but this does seem to be a good time to stop, think and look for better ways, because what we have been doing has not been working.  

Bible Study for the New Year

 Open thoughts:

I have yet to talk with anyone in Christian leadership that doesn’t believe that the church is going to face dramatic and difficult times in the years ahead, even if they may not agree how those hard times will manifest themselves.  One would be a fool to believe hard times are coming and do nothing to prepare.  So, in the year to come we will as a congregation prepare for what may be difficult times to come.

   

As we consider what the church in our nation and in our community might face in terms of persecution it might be helpful to consider that persecution is one word to describe a spectrum of possible actions and reactions.  

Discussion Point

Below is a continuum of persecution.  As an exercise consider five or six ways that persecution might develop and place it on the continuum below.

The Continuum of Persecution

1.  Indifference

Attempts to remove the name of Christ or the church from society

2.  

3.  

4. 
   

5. 
   

 

6. 
   

7.  Hot Persecution

Arrest, Prison, Torture, Death

Reflection: 

There are some badly misguided ways to respond to hardship and persecution.  Most of these responses are in one form or another to take matters into our own hands to solve problems of hardship or suffering.  

In the history of the church, this has happened many times.  In some cases, Christians have formed political parties, attempted to take over political parties and even formed paramilitary groups to resist what they saw as a threat to the faith.  Just as bad, some Christians have compromised the truth in an attempt to appease and get along.

Discussion Point

As a group, discuss occasions in which you think the church has tried to solve spiritual challenges with earthly means?  What actual results do you recall?

Sometimes these efforts are harmless.  But too often they do more harm than good.  People associate the Gospel with these misguided programs and never hear the Good News itself. 

Frequently, these efforts and responses are motivated by fear.  When we act out of fear we generally do not make good decisions.  Perhaps that is why the most common command in the Bible is “Fear Not”.  Even in the face of the most dreadful persecution we do not have anything that we need to fear.   

The earliest Christians not only faced persecution, the church grew under the pressure of persecution.  The books written by Peter, the Revelation of John and the book of Hebrews were written to Christians who were in one way or another facing persecution.

What we must do is restore the New Testament church’s life, witness and service

We can’t do that by hiding in isolation, forming a militia or selling out what we believe. 

 During the difficult early years of the church she grew dramatically.  It is estimated that during the first 40 years of the church’s life she grew annually at a rate of 40%.  That kind of growth is unheard of in any church or fellowship in  the Western world today.  

In the late 20th century the ‘Church Growth Movement’ helped churches experience some numerical growth.  Unfortunately, the growth in numbers did not have attached to it growth in commitment, service, or discipleship.

Discussion Point

Talk about a time you have been part of a rapidly growing church.  What was it like?  If you can, put into words any excitement you felt.

Unlike the church growth movement, the early church had growth in every aspect of their life.  They had this different kind of growth because they had a different spirit/attitude and it is one that we can rekindle.

Bible Study: 2 Timothy 1:6-12

Have someone read these verses and then reread verses 6-7.

Discussion Point

What part can we play in utilizing the gift or gifts that God has given us?  How might we do that? 

Based on the first part of verse 7 why is this needed? 

Note:  In the New Testament Greek there are no capital letters to designate a proper from an improper noun.  In the case of the word “spirit” most interpreters believe that this refers to our attitude or personal disposition.

The word ‘timidity’ in verse 7 would be better translated as ‘Cowardice’.  This is the only time this word is used in the Bible.  In non-Biblical Greek the word is universally negative.  There were few insults in the Greco-Roman culture more offensive than to call someone a coward.  The courageous may die once, but the coward dies every day of their fear-driven life.

In contrast, Paul gives three words that describe the spirit or attitude that we as believers enjoy.  These are three descriptions of one spirit not three.  This spirit is described as a spirit of: 

Power:  "inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature, or which a person or thing exerts and puts forth"

Love: “affection, good-will, love, benevolence: Of the love of men to men; especially of that love of Christians toward Christians which is enjoined and prompted by their religion, whether the love be viewed as in the soul or as expressed.  an affectionate spirit, used of God for man, Christ for man, man for God.

Discipline:  A calling to soundness of mind, to moderation and self-control. Well- balanced from God’s perspective.

Discussion Point

Which of these do you think best describes your personal life as a disciple?

What evidence do you have for that conviction?

Which of these do you think best describe the life of our church?

Which of these would you most like to see develop in your life?  In your church?

Our goal for preparation for the possibility of persecution

The best way to prepare for any hardship in our life as a disciple is to grow in these three areas.  If we make progress in each of these areas and persecution comes, we will be prepared.  If persecution never happens to us we will be better prepared for life as a disciple by being strong in a spirit of power, love and self-control.

Through the centuries the church has taught some simple disciplines that help a disciple grow in their walk, such disciplines as worship, Bible reading/study/memorization, meditation, fasting, prayer, confession, silence.  This is by no means a complete list of all  Chrisitian disciplines.

Discussion Point

Which of these disciplines do you believe is the best way for you to grow in the inherent power you have as a disciple?

Which of these disciplines do you believe is the best way for you to grow in the love you can express as a disciple?

Which of these disciplines do you believe is the best way for you to grow in the self- control you need as a disciple?

In the year to come, what are the two or three things you will do to grow in your life as a disciple?

Making Community a Priority

I am part of a neighborhood social media group.  It is sort of like Facebook except it is geographically based rather than relationally based.  It is a way to meet folks you live near and for the most part it serves as a notice board for community events, lost pets, and yard sales.  However, over the Christmas season there was an uptick in people using this media as a means to “ask”.  

The post typically offered a story of hardships, followed by a request for favors, gifts and/or money, and in one case there was a link to an Amazon wish list from which you could choose a gift to send the asker.  Most disturbing was from a person claiming to be a single mom who posted pictures of her daughter, aged 5-7, to make the appeal more dramatic.  Actually, this person posted several appeals with multiple pictures of the little girl.  In a world of crazy and sick evil people I found these ads especially distressing.  While I do not doubt that people have real needs, nor am I assuming these people were simply digital con artists trying to run a scam, there is a greater truth to be uncovered.  

Ours is a small church but this year working in cooperation with another very small church, made up of Hispanic expatriots, we provided dozens of children with coats, blankets, clothes, and toys for Christmas.  We were determined that all the needs made known to their home church would be met.  So, what is the difference?  In a word “Community”!  While we did not know the children personally we were working in the context of community or a fellowship.  Their church ministered to them and their families, their church leaders reached out to us and asked our church leaders to help.  Our church leaders lead our church members to give.  One part of the body of Christ served another.  Our congregation’s giving was a force multiplier for our sister congregation’s ministry.  We don’t have a lot of people who speak Spanish in our church so trying to minister in that community would be extremely difficult.   But native speakers long in that community, but short on resources now have a stronger platform from which to speak.

As a consumer and materialistic society we have, to a great degree, disconnected sharing and community.  A consumer and materialistic society sees others as a means to get what we really want, not for the people that they are.  We in the church need to take this to heart.  The resources we give need to be connected to or shared in the context of a relationship. When I served as a church consultant I once met with a church that did an annual “back to school” backpack give away.  Every child in a particular grade at the local school got a free backpack filled with school supplies.  Their hearts were in the right place, but I will withhold comment about their brains.   They realized there were problems with their plan, one of which was that a lot of the backpacks were thrown away because children from well off families had better backpacks already.  But they pressed on.  When I asked how many families were part of the church because of this ministry I was told, “We had one family visit once.”  Let’s count this for a moment: 4 years + 500 backpacks = one visit.  Where did this fail?  

Giving without a relationship simply doesn’t work.  So, this year, let’s make a point of growing deeper in community and directing our resources to maximize our community influence.