HOW ARE YOU DOING SPIRITUALLY?

I’d like to talk a little about my retirement.  For over forty-two years, I led Free Methodist churches.  Leading a church is a weighty responsibility.  I entered the ministry as a young zealot who had high passion, creative dreams and little experience.  I quickly ran into adversity and discovered that it would be my constant companion. 

One of the things I did right was to develop disciplines that would help me stay connected to God.  Early on, I decided that it would be a good idea for me to read through the Bible every year.  I also knew that prayer was important and have tried through the years to maintain a vital prayer life with God.  I also decided to try my best to read a book every week.  That helped to keep me growing and gave me an ever-expanding pool of wisdom to draw on when writing messages. 

A final discipline I’ll mention was that of journaling.  I have a number of log books and journals that record my ups and downs through these years.  It was a good way for me to take my own temperature and monitor my spiritual and emotional health.  Reading back through those journals is not a fun exercise;  my level of honesty shocks even me at times.

But, at the end of May that all came to an end.  I no longer had responsibility for a congregation.  I suddenly faced days with no agenda, no meeting, no messages to prepare and no calls to make. Although I had read numerous books to help prepare me for this transition, I still felt like a nomad dropped into the middle of a desert.

 

For a while, I continued my disciplines of prayer and Bible reading.  But gradually, they became infrequent and then nearly non-existent.  Through the summer and fall, my preoccupation was with the many jobs that needed done around our new home in Enon Valley.  I had a yard to put in, a garage to finish, and a lot of landscaping to care for.  My day began with the news and some breakfast and then I went out to work until the sun went down.  I came in, cleaned up, ate supper, and read or watched TV until an early bedtime. 

It was as though the ministry aspect of my life came to an end.  I must admit that it was nice to be free of the burdens that had weighed me down for so long. 

I found myself relishing the privacy of my new life.  I began to shun opportunities to be with other people.  Sundays lost their joy for me.  I began to feel stress when we went to church.  I arranged to arrive exactly on time and leave immediately when the service ended.  I’ve been increasingly isolating myself since Travis' death, and retirement seems to have exacerbated that tendency. 

• When these kind of things happen, what does it take to awaken you to the realities of your situation?  
• How does one wake up?  
• Is there anybody in your life who calls you to accountability?  
• What systems surround you that might help you to make corrections and get back on track?

I think those are good questions. 

For me, my accountability systems – weak though they were – were tied to my role as a pastor.  When I retired, they evaporated.  I began to walk a gradual decline that was leading not to moral depravity, but to ineffectiveness and unfruitfulness.  I was no longer making a difference in my world.  I had reasonably isolated myself and severely limited my sphere of influence. 

I’d say that was a gigantic win for the enemy of my soul. 

Consider Psalm 139 from The Message. 

A David Psalm

139 ^1-6 God, investigate my life;
    get all the facts firsthand.
I’m an open book to you;
    even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
    I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
    before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
    then up ahead and you’re there, too—
    your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
    I can’t take it all in!

^7-12 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
    to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
    If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
    to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
    you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
    At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
    night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.

^13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
    you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
    I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
    you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
    all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
    before I’d even lived one day.

^17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
    God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them—
    any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
    And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
    all the men and women who belittle you, God,
    infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
    see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
    Your enemies are my enemies!

^23-24 Investigate my life, O God,
    find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
    get a clear picture of what I’m about;
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
    then guide me on the road to eternal life.

In this wonderful psalm, David acknowledges the sovereignty of God in a personal way:

·     God’s knowledge of us is complete!

·     God’s presence is inescapable!

·     God created us marvelously and uniquely!

·     God’s thoughts toward us are relentless!

·     God’s enemies are my enemies!

But before he ends his psalm, David adds a significant postscript.  In more familiar words: 

Search me, 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.

David apparently had a sense of false dependency.  He knew how good he was at posing.  At the deepest part of his core, he knew that he needed to open himself to the penetrating view of an all-knowing, all-powerful, omni-present and passionately loving God! 

It must have been said with a good measure of fear and humiliation.  Can you even begin to imagine inviting God to look deeply into your heart and thoughts?  C’mon, we’re all hiding things within that if brought to light would make us look as miserable and defeated as Larry Nassar. 

What really matters is that we’ve fallen short of our own expectations for ourselves – let alone God’s desires for us. 

When I was serving at the New Middletown FMC, I invited my staff members in at least once per year for evaluation discussions.  I tried to challenge each of them to improve and grow.  I modeled a godly life before them and encouraged them to do the same for all the people who worked with them in their departments. 

For my own health, I submitted to my conference superintendent and participated in a small group of pastors who met for accountability, support and training once-a-month. 

But all of these tended to be geared toward performance and growth.  Most of us have few (if any) interventions that are directly related to our spiritual condition. 

I recently wrote a blog article and mentioned a man who, on a few occasions, sought me out when I was a student on the campus of Roberts Wesleyan College and asked me how I was doing spiritually.  I added the comment that no one has asked me that question in years. 

Now, a friend quickly responded on Facebook by asking me how I was doing spiritually.  Of course, it was done in humor.  But in reality, I need someone to ask me this question from time-to-time;  and if you’re honest, so do you.  Not on Facebook, of course, but in a quiet, intimate, genuine setting. 

Listen, the hymn writer captured the essence of our problem when he described us as “Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.”  I don’t know about you, but that’s where I live. I don’t like it;  as a matter of fact, I hate it! 

Years ago I heard Chuck Swindoll talk about being a living sacrifice as described in Romans 12:1,

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy,

to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing

to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.”

Swindoll went on to point out that the problem with a living sacrifice is that it keeps climbing down off the altar!

I propose to you this morning that in order to maintain a high level of consistency and commitment, we need

1.  A frequently renewed commitment to God,

2.  One that is characterized by measurable practices,

3.  And a systematic plan for evaluation executed through submission to a band of brothers (sisters) who love us and have high expectations for us! 

FIRST:

A frequently renewed commitment to God.  What better than engaged involvement in weekly worship?  Not just attendance!  The fact that you put your body in the seat every Sunday doesn’t tell us anything about your relationship to God.  A book was written years ago with the title:  Worship Is A Verb!  My take-away from Sunday worship will be in direct relationship to:

How (or if) I prepared for worship

How I connect with others before, during and after worship

How focused I stay on hearing from God throughout worship

How I respond to God in my heart, soul and spirit.

SECOND,

My measurable practices will be easily evaluated by myself and my band of brothers/sisters.

•       Am I eating His Word daily?  Let’s not get hung up on this.  I’m not talking about consuming chapters or checking boxes.  Use something as simple as “Our Daily Bread”, “The Upper Room” or some website.  Maybe you could listen to CD’s of the Bible on your way to work every morning?  Just find some way of getting a bit of God’s Word into your life daily!

•       Do I have an open and ongoing dialogue with God?  Is the channel open?  Am I talking to Him and listening for Him?  Be creative!  This could be during your daily commute or as you exercise.  It could be in the shower or in a prayer closet.  Don’t laugh.  I recently invited a nephew over to go through my boxes of books.  As we talked, he told me that he has established a prayer closet.   I’m deeply impressed with his commitment to be a godly man, husband, father and worker!

THIRD,

Do I have a band of brothers (sisters)?  Have I given them the right to ask me the hard questions?  Are we committed to hold each other accountable to such a level that we’ll show up at one another’s door if we miss a meeting without notice? I need this, don’t you?  I need someone with flesh on who will pursue me and grill me and stay with me until the work is done!  If you don’t have this – and that’s going to be the case for the majority of us – how can I get one?

Talk to your leadership for guidance about this. 

Take initiative and invite some men (women) to meet and talk about this.

Talk to someone you admire and respect and tell them you’d support them if they started up a group. 

We need interventions!  We need correction.  We need forgiveness.  We need assurance. 

You’ve been given a pretty clear road-map of how to establish your path in a way that will provide these things.  You’re the only one who can make it work! 

By the way, how are you doing spiritually?