Illumination: Guided by God

David Stockton
Series: 2020 Fasting Season

Good morning. Big time playoff game today. That’s why you came to early service. No, just kidding.

I feel like the Lord’s definitely wanting to give us what we need for the journey. I don’t know what 2020 holds, but I think there will be some battling going on. I think there will be some challenges. But I think there is going to be a lot of ground that the Lord is going to ask us to take for him in 2020. It’s really important that we get filled with what he wants to fill us, because you’re going to battle either way, right? So you might as well have what the Lord wants you to go into battle with.—otherwise, you’ve got to battle without it. He’ll be with you.

We’re trying to get filled up. The Spirit is important. This morning we’re going to continue to talk about our spiritual formation: forming habits that form us. We’re going to be talking about illumination and what that ultimately means. How we can be guided by God. It’s such a radical, strange thing.

But first, we have big news for you. It was about four years ago we made a transition and as we assessed what Living Streams was and where it was at, we had a good church family. Never, never not had a good church family. I’ve been here for almost twenty years now. See all that gray coming in? Watch out!

It’s been almost twenty years and this is a good church family. We also had a good staff and we had a good house, this house that we’re in right now. And yet, we had about 570 adults coming on a Sunday morning. And we just felt like there was more room for others. We felt like as we looked at the house, it’s like we’ve got two bedrooms full and there are four bedrooms sitting there empty. 

So we really prayed. We said, “Lord, we know that there are a lot of people out there who don’t know you and who don’t have a good church family.” And we really want to see this thing grow, this thing be maximized and used in that way. So we set a kind of vision statement for ourselves. We wanted to go from about 570 adults to 1,000 on a Sunday morning by 2020. And back then, we were like, “That sounds crazy. That’s almost doubling.” Last week we had over 1,000 adults on a Sunday morning. 

It was awesome. I didn’t even care if we got to 1,000. I just thought it was a good goal to shoot for. But that was really neat. Just so you know, I’ve said it a million times before. That number really isn’t important. It’s just a means to an end. The end is that the people who are joining us would actually knit their lives together with us. We know Sunday morning is good, but there’s so much more that can take place. There’s so much deeper, richer fellowship that can take place in groups where you can be known and you can know people.

I’m just asking. Obviously there are more of you coming than there used to be. And those of you who are newer to the church and are not plugged in in some other way, even if it’s at another church, I don’t care. Get into smaller communities because it’s so good. But we have some great opportunities here. We have Life Groups. We’re about to launch some new ones. We have mission trips that are coming up. We have an internship coming up. Next Sunday, for all the newer people who want to figure out what Living Streams is all about, we have a Starting Point Lunch after third service, which will then let you know about Explore Group—which is a nine-week track we want people to go through as they’re trying to get plugged into the church. All kinds of opportunities coming up. So please, if you enjoy what the Lord’s doing here enough to come on Sunday mornings, I would encourage you to take that next step and really get to know people in a deeper way.

And we have Wednesday night prayer night coming up. The next two Wednesdays we have Wednesday night fasting and prayer night. You can see information in the bulletin about that. Last Wednesday was awesome. The Lord always shows up. He spoke to me about a lot of things. Some of it’s even going to come out today.

All right. Christian Spiritual Formation. Let’s go through our slides to review, in case there are new people. also, it’s good for us to remember. Christian Spiritual Formation is defined simply as the process of moving from less Christi-like to more Christ-like. That is the goal of Christianity. God loves you the way you are. He died for you the way you were. He comes and wants to fill you with the Spirit the way you are, so that you will not stay the way you are. He wants to grow you, mature you, and make you more into the image of Christ. That’s the Spiritual Formation of which we are all a part.

Less Christ-like we described as the broken heart—the fallen, deceitful, restless, unwanted longing heart that needs to be refined. It needs to be healed and all of that. We talked about that a few weeks ago in a sermon. You can check that out.

The beautiful heart. We did a whole sermon series on it last November. Talking about the heart of Christ, the beautiful heart and what it looks like. You can check that out later.

We also have been talking in this series, the stages of the journey. We’re not the first ones to follow Christ. Did you know that? This is not the first generation. We’re not the only church that loves Jesus. It’s not an. American thing. (gasp) What? Yeah! This has been going on a long time. As we’ve gleaned from church fathers, church mothers that have come before us, obviously we have the scriptures. But people have been trying to apply the scriptures in all different aspects of culture, of society, for a lot of years. They’ve come up with some things that are helpful for us.

They say there are about five stages of the journey. These are our words. They’re stolen words, but we’ve put them together this way. So you’ll find different versions of this. But basically, all people at first are walking in darkness. They don’t have the light of Christ and they are walking in darkness. John 1 talks about that. At some point, God interrupts the darkness with light. That’s a moment of awakening. 

We go through seasons of darkness before we know Christ, but even after we walk with Christ we still kind of go through seasons where we feel like we’re in the dark again. Then a new form, a new aspect of the light of Christ begins to move on us. But it happens for those who are new to Christ, the first time around, Then what also happens is we keep going around in this formation cycle.

Darkness, awakening, and that moves us into seasons of purgation. Purgation is a horrible, fun word. Basically it’s just horrible and not fun at all when you’re living through it. It’s that process where God is now trying to refine your heart, refine your soul—to burn out the love of the world, to burn out the fleshly desires so that he can establish a heart for the things that are beautiful, the things that are right, the things that are good.

And we go through these seasons that are hard. But it’s all God trying to form us into his image.

Then, after that, there are seasons in our walk with the Lord that are illumination. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. You can pop up the illumination slide.

Here’s a scripture. We did a scripture with each one of these stages. This is the one we’re going to be talking about today.

Illumination - Jesus was teaching his disciples. This was right before he went to the cross in John 16:13

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the 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.

Jesus was teaching his disciples. The disciples were people that walked in darkness. They fished in darkness. They tax-collected in darkness. They did all those type of things. Then, at one point, Jesus, the light of the world, literally the exact replication of God Himself in flesh, walked up to their table or their boat and said, “Hey, come follow me.” He interrupted their darkness. And they, for whatever reason, were compelled to follow him.

As they followed him, they walked with him for three years, they had the actual light of God there, next to them. And then, Jesus was always saying certain things about how he was going to have to leave. That he was going to die and he was going to go away, and where he was going they could not come. And they kind of never really understood it. 

But this is where he’s unpacking all of this. He said, “Don’t worry. When I go there is One that will come.” And he calls him the Spirit of Truth. “And he will guide you into all the truth. And he won’t speak on his own. He will speak what he hears the Father telling him. And he will tell you about things that have not yet come. Or things that are coming to pass.”

And Jesus began to introduce, and you can read about it in John 14, 15, 16, a little bit in 17, Jesus was kind of teaching about this new relationship with God that his followers were going to have. It wasn’t a flesh to flesh relationship like they had with Jesus. But it was going to become a spirit to spirit relationship. That they who were flesh for sure also had a spirit. And that spirit inside of them was longing and restless until it could connect with God,who is spirit. And Jesus was actually saying that this Holy Spirit would come.

Then, sure enough, Jesus ascended into heaven. And the disciples were all sitting, not just the eleven, but also the community of people that had followed Jesus—his mother, the other Mary, and all of a sudden, as they’re waiting on God, it said that the room began to shake. There was a sound of rushing wind and in came—it’s got to be one of the strangest things of all time. Gonna watch the DVD in heaven, or YouTube it. But it says there were things like cloven tongues of fire that came and rested on their heads. Illumination.

They began to speak in tongues that they didn’t understand. But they were tongues that other people could understand—other languages. As there was this moment of confusion, excitement, whatever it was, some people started asking questions about it. And yet, the disciples who had not experienced this prior, but had the instructions of Christ and the scriptures, enough to say, “I think this is what was talked bout in the Old Testament in the book of Joel, where God is pouring out his Spirit upon us.”

So there it was! This new relationship. This new phase of Christianity. This new covenant promise, where the Spirit now came and illuminated things and then began to guide the disciples. They were actually living in very precarious times. One false move and they could be killed. And yet, the Spirit was guiding them and began to guide them in the way that they would walk and the way that they would lead the Church.

They were shocked because, all of a sudden, they would go to a different place where they weren’t people who knew Jesus. But then they would pray for them and the Spirit would come upon them. And then, what was crazy was they even went to people who weren’t Jews and the Spirit came upon them. They were like, “What is going on around here?”

From then on, people who were following Christ were trying to figure out what it means to receive the Spirit of God, to be baptized or filled with the Spirit of God and to be guided by the Spirit of God. Illumination.

Because I love stories so much, I want to go back to the life of Moses as we begin to unpack this. We’ve talked about how Moses is a good example of these stages. Moses was in darkness, for sure. He didn’t even know who he was or where he came from. He was raised in Egypt, but he was a Hebrew. Then an awakening began in him. The way it was expressed was he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, when he began to realize who he was. He was going through an awakening. But that awakening wasn’t that one moment. It was lots of moments that ultimately led to a burning bush. 

This burning bush moment wasn’t the first time he had this uncertainty, or this tremor going on inside. But this is the first time he actually encountered the presence of God. God was speaking to him about what was already inside of him, and connecting the dots and making it make sense that God had put all of that in there, to lead him to this moment.

Then, the very first thing God does now that Moses is saying, “Okay. I believe you are God. What do you want me to do?”

God says, “I want you to go back to Egypt where it’s going to be hard for you.”

He leads him right back into the most difficult, challenging thing possible. Purgation. You guys tracking with me? That’s what we talked about last week. Now we’re going to talk about this stage of illumination. I want you to pick up in Exodus 4:18-3. This is right after the burning bush:

18 Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Let me return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive.”

Jethro said, “Go, and I wish you well.”

19 Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead.” 20 So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.

21 The Lord said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’”

So Moses is getting all these instructions. We who know the story know the way it all plays out. But this what the Lord is telling Moses, and it’s all vague for Moses at this point. But there’s a connection between the firstborn son. 

24 At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him.

What? 

25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. 26 So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said “bridegroom of blood,” referring to circumcision.)

27 The Lord said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So he met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. 28 Then Moses told Aaron everything the Lord had sent him to say, and also about all the signs he had commanded him to perform.

29 Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, 30 and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, 31 and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.

The Lord is speaking to Moses. So he’s left the burning bush. Now, somehow the Lord is continuing to speak to Moses with the burning bush. I want you to catch the significance of that. As Moses is moving into this new mobile relationship with this burning bush God. In the process of doing that, God is telling Moses a little bit more detail. He’s talking about how he’s going to go and he’s supposed to say these things to Pharaoh. But Pharaoh is going to refuse to let the people go. But then God is basically going to convince Pharaoh. And Moses is supposed to say, “And if you don’t, God is going to kill your firstborn son.”

The very next thing that happens, Moses gathers up his family. He’s got his son Gershom, we talked about that last Sunday. He’s got his firstborn son and they are getting ready to go to Egypt. Then out of nowhere it says that the Lord was standing and was going to kill Moses. But Zipporah—not Moses—somehow figured out, “The Lord is going to kill Moses if I don’t circumcise our son.”

How? I have no idea. But maybe there had been talk. I mean, you can imagine Moses was probably circumcised. And Zipporah knew about it. And there was probably a debate in their household. Moses was probably saying, “You know, I wonder if I should. I don’t know.” 

There was a covenant established with Moses’ people. God said, “This is the covenant I’m establishing with you.” 

The covenant was established with Moses, but Moses’ son had not entered into that covenant. And yet, God was serious about it. In some way there is a connection to the firstborn son of Pharaoh. It’s almost as if God is saying to Moses, “If we’re going to go do this thing, we’ve got to get your house in order first.”

But the thing that is so amazing to me is that Zipporah figured it out. God helped. Zipporah figure it out. God spoke to Zipporah. How? Again, I don’t know exactly. But it’s an amazing thing. She doesn’t quite understand all of this, but she calls him a blood husband because she doesn’t understand who this God is—why he would require this. Moses might not fully understand all of this stuff. And yet, Moses was saved from God because God communicated to his wife about this thing. So God can speak to us. God can communicate to us. 

Let’s continue. They go into this time, and you guys know the story. They go into Egypt. Moses talks to Pharaoh. They go back and forth. Ten plagues. God is showing his power over all of the gods of Egypt. At the end of it, the last plague was death of the firstborn sons of Egypt. Yet all of the Israelites were saved, not only from that, but all of the other plagues, which is fascinating.

Finally, Pharaoh says, “Okay. Fine. Go.” And Moses leads all of the people out triumphantly. They go out there, but all of a sudden Pharaoh’s army is coming after them, because he’s having second thoughts. Red Sea parts. All of that. Red Sea falls on the Egyptians. And basically, the people are delivered forever.

Now they’re in the wilderness and they’re heading this way. God had guided Moses through all of that. Moses didn’t have to go find that same burning bush every time he wanted to hear from God. Somehow God has continued to communicate with Moses on the fly as he’s moving in and out, even in Egypt, now in the wilderness. So Moses is beginning to understand this relationship with God. 

In Exodus 33, I want to pick up. This is now when they’re in the wilderness. This is how it describes the relationship between Moses and God. 

7 Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” 

He doesn’t need a burning bush anymore. He just needs a tent.

Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. 8 And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. 9 As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. 

Kind of representing God’s presence. There was a cloud by day and fire by night. It would come and rest on the tent. 

10 Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent. 11 The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.

Here’s this description. Whoever is writing this—it could be Moses, it could be somebody else—they’re describing what it was like when Moses would meet with God. 

I want to read a few other descriptions of this same thing. Numbers 12:8 (NASB):

With him I speak mouth to mouth,
Even openly, and not in dark sayings,
And he beholds the form of the Lord.

We’re talking about something very significant. Something very strange, especially in that day and age. The gods of Egypt were not gods that were kind and nice. They were gods who needed to be appeased, otherwise they would bring great judgment. That was basically the religions of all the nations around and tribes around there. It was basically, you did whatever you could to appease the gods so they’d send some rain. And anytime there was no rain, it means the gods were mad at you.

Here’s this new kind of different thing emerging in this part of the world, where God is speaking to this person, Moses, face to face, mouth to mouth. In Psalm 119:104 and 105, there’s another way that David describes this same kind of illumination stage:

I gain understanding from your precepts [words];
    therefore I hate every wrong path.
Your word is a lamp for my feet,
    a light on my path.

Talking about how God illuminates the directions that he’s supposed to go. Isaiah 30:

20 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. 21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” 

Then in the New Testament—2 Corinthians 3:

13 We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. 14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. 15 Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. … 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

He’s alluding back to this—Moses had this relationship with God, and yet, there was still something lacking because Moses would have to go and meet in the tent and would have to do these type of things. But he’s saying that, now, in this new covenant, ever since Christ has come, there is no veil between us at all. There is no need for a holy of holies. We are always in the presence of God. We have constant access to the fullness of the Spirit to behold his face, to hear his voice. 

For some of you, you’re saying, “Yeah, that’s where I’m at.” Where you actually begin to have confidence that you can hear from the Lord. When you go to pray, you actually are praying and thinking, “I’m going to get something out of this.” 

And there’s definitely, even though I’ve walked with the Lord for a long time, and many people have walked with the Lord long enough, you’ll go through times where you don’t feel like the Lord is so accessible, or it’s harder to hear from him. Because you’re going through those other things. 

But there are those seasons of our lives where we finally arrive at this place where we really do feel known by God. We can feel like he hears our voice and knows our hearts.

It’s described this way in another place:

Illumination refers to a process of continually and increasingly becoming aware of the presence and care of God.

That’s illumination.

It’s the idea of perfect love casting out fear. Apart from God I’m driven by fear. 

As God comes in, I increasingly become driven by love.

Illumination.

When the love quotient in my life becomes greater than the fear quotient, purgation moves to illumination.

When you realize that God loves you so much whether you’re getting it right or wrong that day, and you can come boldly into his throne, instead of being so afraid that he’s going to condemn you or judge you in some way. 

When the love quotient increases and is greater than the fear quotient, it’s illumination.

t’s the place where my ego, my choices, my sin and my guilt no longer create distance between me and God.

There’s no distance anymore. And not only can you say that theologically, but you actually experience that, the closeness of God. And it is true that sometimes it comes and goes. But once you’ve been there enough, you realize it’s not because God is actually far. It’s because he’s taking me through another season of refinement. So that ultimately we can be even closer.

I want so badly to talk about union. But that’s next week. It’s going to be so good. I picked Moses, not for these other ones, but union, in Moses’ life—oh, it’s going to be so good. But illumination, that’s what he’s talking about. 

As we close, I was trying to think of how the Lord has spoken to me most in my life. Like Zipporah, somehow she knew this strange thing. Moses, it said, “And the Lord said to Moses.” Zipporah—it seemed like every chapter started with, “And the Lord God spoke to Moses,” and there you have a chapter. God’s just constantly talking to Moses. We know he goes to the tent of meeting. We know he talked with the burning bush. We know he stood still and saw the salvation of the Lord. We know he goes up on the mountain to talk to God. 

But it’s like God was communicating to Moses and we have the whole Torah, the first five books of the Bible—the Pentateuch. The Bible is story after story of God interrupting into a person’s life, speaking to someone and then them walking in obedience—or not. Right? But how is God speaking to me? That’s a vague thing to say to someone: “God wants to speak to you.”

I wrote these things down. I’m going to focus on one of them:

He guides us with the commandments and scripture. 

No doubt about it. If you want to hear from God, read the Bible. For two reasons: one is this really is God’s word spoken to you to guide you. But then, also, the more you get to know this, the easier it is to pick up when the voice of God is speaking to you outside of this. Because you learn about his nature. “Oh, that sounds like something God would say.” “That does not sound like something God would say.” That’s why this book is so important. Not only can it teach you God’s word, but it can make you familiar with God’s voice. So he guides us with his commandments and scripture.

He guides us with the community of saints. 

This whole thing that we’re unpacking is not in the scriptures, per se. It’s supported by the scriptures. But it’s language and stuff that’s helping us unpack our walk with God outside of just what the scriptures have. So church history is helpful. But also the community that we have. That’s why you’ve got to get into a small group. We have curriculum. Every one of these messages, we create a little curriculum that goes out to all the Life Group leaders. You go to a Life Group, then you’re going to be able to unpack this stuff a little further and deeper. Because some of this, hopefully, you question. You’ll say, “He didn’t say that quite right.” And you might be right. 

But you can start to unpack it in a smaller group of people who also want to know the word of God. And it can flower and get bolder and broader and it can get more precise. So the community of saints is so important how the Lord speaks to us. Other believers have spoken into my life and guided me so much. Sometimes they knew what they were doing. Sometimes they had no idea.

This last one is huge:

He guides us with the convictions of his Spirit. 

Conviction is a horrible sounding word. On Wednesday night, Ryan actually talked a little bit about it, how we should be praying for conviction. Because conviction is actually a beautiful thing. It means you have a Father who loves you and doesn’t want you to go off a cliff or end up in a ditch. So he comes with his conviction. But conviction does not feel nice. It feels horrible. 

I was thinking back towards the end of 2019, these times when I was at a crossroads and I didn’t know what to do. I was like, “Okay, Lord, I want to do this.” In particular, before I moved down here in 2001. I was in Oregon. I loved Oregon. I really started following the Lord in Oregon. It’s Jesus’ country. They’ve got rivers. They’ve got big fish. Not these little tiny fish. All my friends were there. All my Christian friends, literally, were there. 

And yet, Mark Buckley, the founding pastor of Living Streams, he’s kind of been our family pastor forever. He knew that I had done some ministry. He said, “Why don’t you come work with our high schoolers at Living Streams.” And I was like, “Oh, that’s funny.” I didn’t want to do it. And yet, in Oregon, it was like everything was drying up. You know, like the picture of the cloud would every once a while lift up and go and that meant the people were supposed to go. Slowly but surely, it felt like the glory was departing. And yet, I didn’t know that. I just thought, “Oh, I just haven’t got the job I want yet.” 

But Mark kept saying, “Why don’t you come down here?” And so he said, “Well, we’ll just fly you out. You could just come check it out.”  Which was not a good decision, because I flew in and checked it out. Then I said, “Now I will never go down there!” Literally. That’s what I thought. I thought, “No! No! No!” 

But I remember my soul had no peace in Oregon. I was at my mom’s house. There was just no explanation. I couldn’t sleep at night. I started to feel depression start to settle in. No peace. No peace. No peace. I remember waking up one day and I said, “Maybe I should go to Arizona.”

It was so amazing. It was like a flood of joy and peace kind of just hit me all of a sudden. I thought, “No. I still don’t want to do it.” I wrestled with it. I kept fighting it. Sorry. I’m not great at a this. But it was a wrestling match of conviction. It was like God was guiding me. Even though he wasn’t speaking to me, inside I just knew. No peace—stay here. Twinge of peace and excitement there. So, ultimately, I went for it. 

I can’t tell you the depth of layers of the goodness of the Lord that’s been revealed to me in this place. And he was the one that guided me. And I have lots of other stories like that.

I hate it when the peace goes away. It’s miserable. But I’m so grateful that the Lord leads us in that way. 

Illumination.

Let’s pray:

Jesus, I ask that you would guide us. Lord, we’re so desperate for your guidance. We’ve got politicians that don’t know what’s up or down. We’ve got media shouting and screaming at us what we need, what we don’t need, who’s cool, what’s not. We’ve got our own hearts that are so confusing and restless, and they want this thing today and they don’t tomorrow. They want that thing that’s not good for us. Oh, we’re so lost. But I thank you so much that you know the way. 

And, Lord, I do pray that you would convict America. I pray for a great wave of conviction to wash over us—rich, poor, Democrat, Republican, Christian, non-Christian. Just let a great wave of conviction wash over us. Take away all of our peace in all the places that we’re headed in the wrong way. And give us peace in the right direction.

Your word says we should go out with joy and be led with peace. I pray that we would be a people like that. That we would trust you, trust that still, small voice, trust your fatherly guidance. 

Right now, Lord, if there are some people in this room who are saying, “Aw, man, why did he have to say that?” Because they know you have been convicting them about a relationship, or a job, or something they are doing in their life, whether it’s sin or not. Lord, I pray that you would give them the courage to trust you. And that, as they step toward where you are leading them, your peace would flood them, and they would sleep so good, and they would have joy fill their hearts.

Thank you, Lord.

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Purgation: Seasons of Testing

David Stockton
Series: 2020 Fasting Season

Darkness:

John 1:4 - In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

We’ve been talking about spiritual formation, which is the process of moving from being less Christ-like to more Christ-like. We’ve talked about more Christ-like is expressed in the beautiful heart. We did a whole sermon series on it. You can go back and check it out. We described the beautiful heart—what it means to be formed into the image of Christ, which is the goal of Christianity.

Last week we talked about what our starting point is. Being less Christ-like is having the broken heart: the heart that is fallen. The heart that is restless. The heart that is deceitful. The heart that has all these unwanted longings that we battle with. That’s our starting point.

Jesus has taken it upon himself to take our hearts and form them, if we’ll allow him to, to form them into the beautiful heart. To form them into the heart that’s just like his. Primarily we are made more like Christ by being with Christ. Spending time with him is the best way.

We also talked about how, over church history, there have been people who have basically tried to help us have a roadmap for the journey of spiritual formation. The process. What are some of the things that are consistent for all people, all places, all time in this process of spiritual formation. 

And so they describe these times of darkness. Now, obviously, before you know Christ you are someone who is walking in darkness. So that’s the first phase that people, before you know Christ, you are in darkness. But there are also other times in our Christian walk where we find ourself all of a sudden back in this place where we say, “I kind of feel like I’m in darkness again.” But this is part of the refining process, part of the journey, that God has you on. 

There are certain things you can practice in each of these stages that will be helpful. Some you can practice and they will be helpful in all the stages, some are specific for those stages. But in darkness, something that is required is a lot of honesty about where you’re at. The Lord can handle your honesty. He’s okay with that. 

Then there’s the next phase you can move into: Awakening. Ephesians 5 describes this:

For you were once darkness…

Not that you were in darkness, hey, buddy, you are the darkness.

…but now you are light…

Which is cool. Because now you’re not just in the light, but you have become the light in Christ.

…in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.

What’s so beautiful—Alec and Colleen are not just people who are in the light who are going into the darkness. They are people who are the light. Wherever they show up there is going to be light, even if the go to darkness.

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

As we walk in darkness, as we experience these times of darkness, whether it be our life before Christ or whether it even be part of our walk with Christ, God can interrupt that darkness at any moment with his light and cause an awakening to happen. An awakening in our soul. An awakening in our spirit. An awakening in our mind. Whatever it might be. And we move into a stage, not so much a stage, but an awakening season. 

And an awakening season gives way to a next season called purgation. Uh-oh. That’s a horrible word. Yeah. It describes a season that is not a lot of fun. It’s not purgatory. We’re not Catholic. We’re not talking about afterlife. We’re talking about while you’re still breathing. 

Purgation. There are these seasons that Jesus described in Luke 9, where he said:

Then he told all of them, “If anyone wants to come with me, he must deny himself, pick up his cross every day, and follow me continuously, because whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

Hebrews describes a similar thing in chapter 12. He says

My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.

Here you have a description of seasons of our lives, of purgation. It’s hard. In those seasons you are trying to figure out, “Did I do something wrong?” “Is God not everything I thought he was?” “I feel lost.” “I feel confused.” “I feel tested.” “I feel refined.” “I feel a burning.” “I feel pain.”

And sometimes this is the Lord saying, “Hey, I need you to go through a season that’s going to test your faith. That’s gong to test your strength. That’s gong to refine your faith.” 

And if you can make it through, if you can continue to go through, you’ll come out on the other side better. It’s hard to believe that when you’re in it. But you’ll come out on the other side and your faith will be more pure. Your roots will be deeper. You’ll even see that, maybe you’re stronger than you thought you were. Or you’ll have more strength for the next time you go through a time of testing or challenge. Because you can look back and see God was faithful.

I love that song we sang today about the faithfulness of God. How he carries us through. Your promise still stands. Great is your faithfulness. You can’t say that if you haven’t been through purgation. I mean, you can say it, but it means nothing to you. But t hose of you in this room who have been purgation, and many, many times of purgation, and some of them a lot longer seasons than you thought, you can now stand and say, “Your promise still stands. Great is your faithfulness. Because I’ve tried it. I’ve tested it. It’s shown up when I’ve needed it.” Times of purgation. Seasons of testing. 

The next stages that we’re going to get to in the next couple of weeks are illumination and union. We described them a little bit last week. We’ll get into those in more depth. But I want to stop here and I want to go to a story. Stories are great.

Turn with me to Exodus 2. We’ll start in verse 11. We’re going to look at the life of Moses over the next three weeks. We’re going to get a story form of this same spiritual journey that we’re all on. In Exodus 2, we have the birth of a guy named Moses. Many of you are familiar with this story and what he was born into. Let’s jump in and take a look at what’s going on here:

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”

The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”

When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.

When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”

They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. 

Interesting, right? He’s called an Egyptian.

He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

“And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.”

Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”

So, a very familiar story. Moses as born in Egypt to a Hebrew mother and father. The Hebrews at that time were slaves in Egypt. They were oppressed. There had been a command from Pharaoh to kill all of the Hebrew boys that were born, because he was starting to be afraid of their numbers, that they could revolt. So Moses’ mom, experiencing a major time of challenge, decides instead of allowing the Egyptians to kill her baby, she hides him. She puts him in a basket and sends him down a river. And, by the grace of God, he’s found by one of Pharaoh’s daughters or something (I can’t remember - someone in Pharaoh’s family). And she takes him and raises him.

He’s raised an Egyptian boy; but, at some point as he grows up, maybe because of genetics, maybe because his mother told him, but at some point he comes to the understanding that he’s not Egyptian, he’s not one of Pharaoh’s family, but he’s actually a Hebrew. It’s this moment of awakening to his own reality.

He goes to look—in this part of the story—at what’s happening with his people, with the people that he’s come from. We don’t know anything about the details of what’s transpiring inside of his own soul, but we know he’s interested in what’s going on there. But he sees an Egyptian abuses a man and he kills the Egyptian. So he has this moment of passion and rage, and he does this horrible thing. 

The next day he comes out again and sees two Hebrews fighting, and you know the story goes on. And all of a sudden, Pharaoh’s after him, and he realizes he’s done a horrible thing. So he flees. He runs to Midian, which is out in the desert, outside of everything he’s known, away from everyone he’s known.

And he’s there by a well and sees some ladies and he helps them out, and ends up staying now with this Midian priest. And he’s got this uncertainty of who he is. They think he’s an Egyptian, probably because of the way he was dressed, more than anything—maybe the way he spoke.

And this is his situation. And he names his own son “I’m a foreigner living in a foreign land.” He’s lost. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I am.” This is Moses’ situation.

Then, in Exodus 3:

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

The burning bush story is very familiar. In this situation, Moses was totally distraught within his own soul. We know he’s somewhere between 40 and 80. And he’s out caring for his father-in-law’s sheep, and he’s taken them to a far part of the wilderness. All of a sudden he notices there’s a bush that’s burning. It’s not just that it’s burning—it’s burning and it doesn’t burn up. So there’s a time lapse. It could be an hour, it could be a couple of hours, it could be a couple of days. But it’s long enough to where he actually sees, “This bush has been on fire for way too long. This makes no sense that this bush could still be burning.”

So he decides to go check out what’s happening with this bush. You guys know the story. The bush speaks to him and says, “Take your shoes off for this is holy ground.” And the bush starts talking to him about the Hebrew people—the very thing that Moses was interested in before. And he starts talking about the oppression of the Hebrew people—the very thing that Moses experienced, and saw, and killed a man because of it. 

He just starts speaking about this. And somehow in this conversation Moses becomes totally intrigued by this bush, this bush God. That’s all he knew at that point. He knew the gods of Egypt, but this was a bush God. And the bush God and he were having a conversation. 

I want to pick up what’s happening in Chapter 4 Verse 10: 

Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses…

I didn’t read the whole conversation to you, but basically, Moses is saying, “I don’t want to go back to Egypt. I don’t want to deal with what I’ve done. I’ve been kind of putting all of that aside, putting all of that behind me. I haven’t been dealing with that. I’ve got a new life here in Midian. I’ve got a wife. I’ve got a Gersham. I’ve got sheep. I’ve got a flock. Just leave me alone.”

And God keeps kind of breaking in. Because what God is trying to do is awakening, right? God enters into the darkness in order to bring his light. He’s disrupting. He’s coming. It’s very annoying. It’s very disruptive. 

God doesn’t come into our lives and just say, “Oh, let me just put a blessing on everything you’ve been doing.” God comes into our lives and he starts to do work—the work that will ultimately make us more into the image of Christ. 

As Jude says,

To him who is able to… to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy…

The minute we start encountering Jesus Christ, his goal is to take us and make us beautiful so that when we stand before God forevermore, there is great joy. This is what Jesus wants. 

And God is now breaking into the life of Moses to say, “Moses, I want to talk to you about all that stuff that’s deep in your soul, that kind of burst out at one point long ago, but it’s all still there. I want to talk to you about that. I want to teach you about that.” And, what’s beautiful is God’s work in Moses’ individual life actually brought the freedom of a whole nation. 

So don’t ever discount what God can do in your life. And if you’re saying, “No, I don’t want God to come and disrupt my life. I don’t want God to awaken me. I don’t want God to have to deal with all of that stuff that I’ve been a part of before.”

Really, what you’re doing is limiting what God can do with everybody else, as well. Right now there are some of you who would, if you were honest, say that you are in darkness. And you feel God interrupting, and knocking, and being annoying a little bit. And you keep trying to keep him at bay. You keep trying to push him off. Because you are afraid. 

And I will tell you that your fear is not unfounded, because, once you awaken to who God is, he really does take you into seasons of purgation. So I’m not telling you, “Don’t be afraid.” I’m telling you to trust him. 

And that’s what God was trying to cultivate in Moses. So we get to the end. The Lord’s anger is burning at Moses. He’s given him signs of, like, staffs turning into snakes and then turning back into a staff. He put his hand in his coat, took it out there was leprosy. Put it back in, took it out it was better. God’s doing all these things. He said, “I”ll help you. I’ll send your brother Aaron. He can be your mouthpiece because you don’t like the way you talk. Whatever.” He’s working with him and working with him, and now his anger burns at him.  I don’t know what that meant. The bush got a little brighter or whatever. 

But in this conversation, Moses eventually says, “Okay. Fine. I’ll go.” And we know the rest of the story. We know all the good that’s happened. But I just want to stop in this moment and h help us see that, when Moses awakened to what God was doing, when he finally surrendered to God, God led him straight back into the thing he was most afraid of: Pharaoh. Egypt. The Hebrew oppression. Slavery. His past. 

God said, “Come and follow me.” And Moses was like, “Well, this is interesting. You’re a burning bush…”
God said, “Follow me.”

Moses said, “I’m not going over there! No way! Let’s just keep burning out here.” Or whatever.
But God took him back there. And do you know why God took him back there? God took him back there so he could overcome every single one of those things. So God could put his fingerprints on all of the pain of his past, all of the confusion of his past, and now, all of those things were no longer ruling over him or causing any kind of disturbance in his soul.

That’s why God wants to lead you back into those things. That’s why God wants to take you through seasons of purgation and testing. So that he can prove to you his strength and faithfulness and the love. But you’ve got to trust him.

All of the stages require humility and surrender. But in the darkness stage you need honesty. In the awakening stage you need repentance and surrender. In the purgation stage you need courage. 

It’s funny. Jay asked me, “How are we going to conclude the message this time so we know what song to pick and how to go about the end of the service.”

I started writing, “We’re going to be talking about seasons of testing, so we’re probably going to want to minister a lot comfort.” And I was just about to send it and I thought, “Hold on. That’s just not right.” When we’re talking about times of testing, talking about seasons of purgation, what God wants to minister to you is not comfort. What you need is courage.  

The hope is that this message will help you have courage when you go into these times of testing. You see, it’s true that, when we surrender to Jesus and take his hand, he leads us into scary things. He knows what is best for us in the world. He knows we need seasons of purgation, seasons of testing, trying and challenge.

As the Psalmist says, “He leads me through the valley of the shadow of death.” He does not do this to be cruel. He does this so you will know how close he is and how powerful he is, and that we can trust him more. As we go through this, the fear that we have will give way to the freedom that comes from faith in God. 

Once you’ve been through a few valleys of the shadow of death, you’re just not afraid like you used to be. I love that Alec and Colleen are going to step out into something unknown and scary because God is leading them. And the truth is, they are going to go through times of testing. There are going to be some hard things, but they are not afraid of that because they know God is with them. 

Jesus said to Peter one time, “Satan desires to sift you like wheat.” What that means is, basically, you take a little filter and you take all of the stuff you’ve gathered, and you put it on there and shake it and only the good stuff remains. All the bad stuff falls through the filter. And Jesus looked at Peter and said, “Satan is wanting to shake you.” And God says, “I’m going to allow it. Because Satan’s purpose is to shake you and try to break you. But I’m allowing it because I know that when he shakes you, you’re going to lose all of that impure faith. And what will be left is something pure.”

The way Peter describes it is that your faith can be refined like pure gold, better than pure gold.  What Jesus says to him is, “Satan desires to sift you like wheat. But take courage because I’m praying for you. After you have come through, strengthen the brethren.”

Jesus isn’t going to keep you from purgation. He’s going to pray for you, and he promises you can make it through, because he has plans for you after you’ve made it through to go and help those who are about to go into a season of purgation.

So my message is, if you feel like you’re in a season of purgation, it’s a time to face your fears, to take God’s hand and say, “Okay, let’s do this.” 

To go through the refiner’s fire. You’ll come out better on the other side. As the pope says (Pap Francesco), he says, “We need to ask Jesus what he wants us to do and then we need to be brave.”

Let’s pray:

Jesus, we do thank you so much that you are praying for us. It’s kind of a strange thing to think about, but you’re interceding for us. And that means a couple of things. First, it means that you are paying attention to us. But it also means that you are allowing what we’re going through to be there because you know it’s doing a good work in us. Lord, I pray for everyone in this room, that you’d give them courage this morning. That they would really be able to trust you and your promises, and that, after they go through these seasons of testing, Lord, that their fears would melt away, and they would experience more freedom and a stronger faith in you.

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©️2020 Living Streams Church
7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Spiritual Formation

David Stockton
Series: 2020 Fasting Season

(Sermon starts at 11:00 minutes)

As we face this new year, this has been a scripture that has kind of got me stirred up a little bit, particularly the last part. It says this:

But dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you in the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires. There are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. But you, dear friends [Living Streams] by building yourself up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Be merciful to those who doubt. Save others by snatching them from the fire. And to others show mercy mixed with fear, hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy to the only God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, power and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord before all ages, now and forever. Amen.

What we’re going to do this year is we’re going to introduce this concept of Christian spiritual formation, discipleship. We’re introducing it—not that we’ve created it. But we’re introducing it as a kind of guidance for our church this year and what we feel the Lord wants to do. Last year we focused on the family as far as our household and the work that needs to be done there, as well as our church as a family and the work that the Lord’s doing there. And this year we’re going to talk about how we can be formed into the image of Christ. The state of our soul. The state of our being. Where it is and where it could be, or where God wants to lead it to be. 

I love this verse. It is so important for us to remember as we start to try to move forward in our relationship with Christ is that God is able to present us spotless and with great joy before his glorious presence. It’s not that we just grit it out and summon all of our strength and we just try and try. Resolutions are fine. That’s great. But anything that we are trying to do in our own effort alone falls short. Many of you are trying to diet or get in better shape. Many of you are trying to do this or that, read more books or… How’s that working for you? Is it working good. You’re getting everything you want done. No. We struggle with following through.

But I love what the scriptures say. The promise we’re given here is that God is able. We should rejoice and be glad and worship and praise and rest—that God is able. Listen to what he says:

To present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy…

How fun will it be to stand before the throne of God and your name is called. “Come before the throne, David. Job. Bartholomew.” Whatever your name is. And you walk up there and you’re going before the very presence of God. And in this moment you feel spotless. You feel great joy. That’s God’s plan for your life. That’s the work that Jesus Christ in the power of His Spirit wants to do in you, no matter where your starting point is.

First of all, let’s know that it’s God who wants to do it. It’s God who makes is possible. It’s God who fuels it, funds it and gives us all the energy to do it. It’s all him. But what we’re going to learn is what we can do in this dance with the Lord as he’s trying to get us to this point.

Spiritual Formation. We’re going to define some things.

Christian spiritual formation is the process of moving from less Christ-like to more Christ-like. It’s not complicated. It’s pretty simple. I mean, the process is not simple, but the idea of what God’s trying to do. When we give our life to Christ, what he’s trying to do is to take us from being less Christ-like and causing us to become more Christ-like.

We define being Christ-like as the beautiful heart. We did a whole sermon series on it. You can go back and listen to it on podcast, watch it on video, whatever you want to do. We define the beautiful heart, the heart of Christ, as the humble heart, the helpful heart, the grateful heart and the generous heart. That’s a good vision for 2020. To grow in those things. To help our kids understand the beauty of this versus all the other things they think are beautiful. A humble heart. A helpful heart. A grateful heart. A generous heart.

So we’re going to talk a little bit more about the broken heart. That’s our starting point. That’s what it means to be less like Christ — to have a heart that’s broken, that God can form into a beautiful heart.

The stages of the journey. We’re talking about spiritual formation. It’s a journey. It takes days and decades for us to follow Christ and to experience the formation of Christ. And, hopefully, many of you today are saying, “Well, I’m not where I should be, but I’m not where I was.” And that’s a wonderful thing to be able to say at the end of the year, or the end of a season of your life. That’s what God is trying to do. He’s working it out. He’s working it out. He’s working it out.

There are stages of the journey. This is not something we have come up with. This is over two thousand years of church history in addition to thousands of years before that of a Judaistic approach to the One God. This is unpacking a lot of that. People have put different terms to it. But they understand that there seem to be phases. It’s not necessarily linear phases, even though sometimes it goes that way. But sometimes it’s like cyclical phases of refining what we go through. 

But these are some of the phases: We are walking in darkness. That’s where we usually begin. We’re aware that we are in the dark, but that usually is because we’re starting to understand and we have an awakening to the light of God, to the presence of God, to something that God is bringing into our life, which, if we surrender to that, it brings us into a stage of purgation. Now, that’s a fun word, right? No. It’s horrible. But I love it because it describes that process where God is starting to unpack the world in us. In unpacking the world, the flesh and the brokenness, he’s starting to pull those things out and put in something of his nature, something of his love, something of his kingdom. It’s a process. It’s a refining process. It’s challenging. It’s purification.

Then there’s a season of illumination, where, all of a sudden, now, I feel like I’m now able to hear the Lord and know the Lord; and I’m able to see the difference between what is me and flesh, and what is the Lord and his Spirit. it’s this process of illumination that we get to.

Ultimately, the end result, the goal of it all is this super-intimidating word for me: union. When I first heard this, it shocked me. Because I think it’s such a better word than all the words I’d ever come up with. Union with Christ. United with Christ. It’s the goal of all Christian spiritual formation. 

Jesus prayed in John 17:

Father, I pray that they would be one with me even as I am one with you.

Which seems like an audacious, ridiculous prayer But that is God’s goal for you and you and you, individually. He wants to be united with you. Now, some of the super-holy people that wrote about all this stuff, talked about it as spiritual marriage. I’m not going to talk about that. It throws me off. But being united with Christ is the goal.

Here’s the beauty of it. I keep thinking that, if we’re really following Christ, we’ll be producing, we’ll be serving, we’ll be sacrificing. We’ll be doing all these things. But no, the goal of God in your life is that you’ll be united with Christ. Jesus says stuff like this in John 15:

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will bear much fruit.

So the goal is not bearing much fruit. The bearing much fruit is the by-product of our union with Christ. This is so un-American. It’s so much more Eastern or something. It’s so hard for us because we are constantly trying to measure up with our accomplishments and achievements. In the kingdom of heaven, God says, “Phhh. Whatever.” Union with Christ—being united with Christ. 

We’re gong to spend the next three weeks looking at the book of Exodus and the life of Moses to try to give pictures of this. This type of philosophical terminology doesn’t do much for me. I need pictures, like a little kid. So we’re going to do that.

This is a diagram that we’ve come up with to help us understand the cyclical formation of this process. Spiritual deformation. Spiritual formation. Right now you are being formed in one direction or another by what you take in through your ears, through your eyes, through your experiences. You are being formed one way or another. You are either leading to Christian spiritual formation or deformation. 

All of us, before we came to Christ, were in this cycle of indulgence, which leads to idolatry, which leads to disintegration. Disintegration being our heart loves many other things, other than what it was created to love. So it doesn’t work quite right. It’s confused, restless, broken. This is the process of disintegration. 

You can see this in America. Indulgence. Idolatry. Disintegration. We’re on this constant cycle. And I’m praying for election year revival. I really think we’re at this point where it’s going to turn one way or another in some ways. But there is no way that America can’t turn back. We can have our own spiritual awakening as a nation. You don’t believe it. I’m struggling too. But let’s keep praying for it.

Somewhere in that process, many of us here have been interrupted, disrupted by something outside of ourselves, even outside of creation. Something of God has broken in to our scene. The light, the love of Christ has come in. The voice of God has spoken. For some of us, there are lots of little moments of awakening that lead to this big surrender. 

Remember Saul on the road to Damascus, there was this big, abrupt smack in the face. Bam. The light of God showed up and he surrendered to Christ to go into the process of spiritual formation.

For Joel, it’s funny. I know Joel. I don’t think he’s in here anymore. He’s my cousin, so I grew up with him. He describes his conversion to Christ, or his moment of awakening as a moment of surrender. He had lots of moments of awakening, where God was coming and calling to him, drawing him and calling to him. But he was like, “That’s not fun. That’s not cool. I want to go this way.” And he just kept going fake id to fake id to fake id. That’s kind of what he was doing. But his big moment of truth was when he took his fake id and tore it up. He was like, “Okay, God. I’m going to go your way.” And he started following Christ and going through the process.

Surrender is a big part of that awakening. But that moment of awakening leads to this formation of purgation and illumination, which ultimately leads to union. We’ll describe more of that as we go on. You tracking with me? You want to sign this contract? I’m trying to sell you something right now.

Spiritual practices. So people who have been paying attention to all these years of church history, paying attention to what the Bible teaches, paying attention their own lives and have written and discovered there are certain things: spiritual disciplines, spiritual practices. There are certain things that we can do as believers that will helps us progress down the road of spiritual formation.

These are not “rub the genie get what you want.” There is no guarantee you are going to do one of these things and—aha!—you get what you want. God doesn’t work like that. But there are practices that have been proven to be helpful. What’s interesting is that you might find some of these things are helpful for you and some are not. Whereas for your spouse, maybe some of them are helpful for her and some are not. So you’ve got to try to find what are the spiritual practices in your own life with your personality, with your job, with your family, with your illness or whatever it might be—what are some spiritual practices that will help you.

What we’re going to do as a church is to dive into this and begin to discover these things. In the month of January, we’re going to practice some of these things specifically. Our hope is that maybe you’ll grab a couple of these and find out, “Wow. When I do these things, I seem to progress. I seem to strengthen. I seem to hear God’s voice a little better, a little clearer.”

So then, when you go through the seasons of your life, where maybe your marriage is struggling, or one of your kids is totally crazy, or you’re having a hard time or dark night of the soul, or something happens—you’ll have a couple of these practices that you can run to and say, “God I’m going do this. Meet me here again.” It’s helpful in those times to have those. Journaling is a huge part of my walk with Christ. It’s so embarrassing because I sound like a girl. I’m writing in my diary all the time. But it’s true. I’m not a girl, but I journal all the time.

Spiritual practices that can help. We’re going to visit some quick examples. We’ll fill these lists out. The last life or slow life. We need to cultivate this. This is abstaining from food, from television, from social media, from music in your car, whatever it might be for seasons of your life so you can draw closer to the Lord. 

The grounded life or grow. Start a Bible reading program. Memorize scripture. Read a Christian book about spiritual formation. Schedule appointments with a spiritual mentor or Christian therapist, something like that so that you can grow.

The giving, generous life. Serve someone in need. Give gifts to people in need. Share your faith. Or just take your family and move to Manfredonia for a year. Ways to say, “I’m going to just give out, and in doing that, I’m going to hope the Lord will respond with drawing us closer, filling our tank.” That’s what Joel’s been able to share, even though they’re going through tough times.

So those are practices for January specifically. I’m a pastor. I might be your pastor. You can call me whatever you want. You can call me “That guy up there.” But I’m asking you, summoning all the authority I can in saying, “Please participate with us on this:” 

In January, we want you to join us on Sundays. You’re already doing great. Great job everybody. And in your Life Groups. If you don’t have a Life Group, we’ll be launching some more in February, so hold up for that. 

Then, on Wednesdays, we want you to fast from food: breakfast and lunch and snacks. Then join us at 7:00 pm for a full on prayer meeting, where you’re going to pray out loud in front of other people. We’re going to pray. It’s not going to be church like this. It’s going to be a prayer service. We are going to provide soup at 6:00 for anyone who needs to eat before they pray, because they’re too angry to pray. And for families and all of that. It just work out conveniently so we could have a little fellowship, too. But the main thing is, no food on Wednesdays. Three Wednesdays, that’s all we’re asking for. Then at 7:00 we’re all going to pray together in here, super hungry or soupy, whatever it might be. We’re going to pray and seek the Lord for 2020 and for each other and all of that. You ready? Are you with that?

The last thing is we want everyone to commit to one thing in each of those categories for twenty-one days. It’s just twenty-one days starting next Sunday. We gave you a little handout. So you can choose one of these, or you can write something in if you have better ideas than us. We’re totally comfortable with that..

Serve (choose one)

• Spend time with someone in need

• Serve someone in need

• Give gifts to people in need

• Share your faith

• ______________________

But for twenty-one days we want to try to set ourselves differently, as we’re going into this year with the hope that God will speak, God will guide, God will fill our tanks so that we can go through 2020 in all of that. We’re probably going to need to reset a couple of times throughout the year. But we want to start out that way, as well.

So, can you please join us, even though you’re like, “Well, you know, I’m really busy.” That’s fine. But just maybe for three Wednesdays, can you join us? I mean, our house is supposed to be a house of prayer. That’s what Jesus taught us. To some extent, I think, we’re going to be measured more on our prayer time attendance than we are in anything else, of whether we’re doing a good job. It’s important for us to gather together and pray together as a family.

If you were here Christmas Eve at the first service, there were a thousand people, and about a hundred of you, I’m so sorry, I know it was miserable for you. But this is fasting and prayer time, so if there’s a thousand people in here and we’re all miserable, it’s better. We’ll do whatever we’ve got to do Wednesday, January 15. That’s the first one. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be good.

Now I want to focus in really quick as we bring this message a little more to us. I want to focus on the broken heart. That’s our starting point. That’s where we’re beginning. For those of us who are honest, even if we had a great 2019, we’re still starting this year with a broken heart, a heart that we can’t quite understand, a heart that goes places we don’t want it to go, a heart that isn’t there when we need it to be there in love and strength.

We define the broken heart with a few words. It’s a fallen heart. What I mean by that is what the Bible teaches. Psalm 51:5 (NASB)

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me.

Before you ever did anything, the Bible teaches that your heart was fallen. It was broken. It was bent toward sin. You didn’t teach your kids how to sin, did you? If you did, that’s horrible. You didn’t teach your kids to say the word,  “Mine,” did you? But they all figured it out. Mine. Mine. Mine! “Where did that come from, man? I’m going to change my bedtime stories.” You didn’t teach them. You didn’t teach them, but it’s there. They were born that way, with a broken heart. 

Ecclesiastes 7:20 (NASB)

Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.

So, if you thought that was you, sorry to burst your bubble this morning. And women, you are included in there, okay? It says men, but women are in there too.

Isaiah 64:6 (NASB)

For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;

Even if we try really hard to get our act cleaned up, even if we’re trying to do good things, even for God, potentially, the truth is, they are all filthy garments. That was one of the things that God had so much trouble with the people of Israel. They were doing so many good things, but out of dirty hearts, which made it all dirty.

Then in 1 John 1:8 (NASB)

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

A little bit of honesty time as we begin 2020. The truth is we have a fallen heart. We have a heart that is bent toward things away from God. All of us do. Not only do we have a fallen heart, but we have a deceitful heart. Just like 1 John says, our heart likes to deceive us and trick us.

Jeremiah 17:9-10 (MSG) goes a little bit heavier. He says:

The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
not as they pretend to be.

Because we have this awareness of our deceitful heart, of our fallen heart, we spend all of our lives trying to dress it up. We come up with all kinds of facades, all kinds of disguises, all kinds of fronts that we project because we don’t want anyone to really know the true state of our heart. That’s true for all of us. It’s true for me. 

If you guys knew the stuff that goes through my heart and my mind, you would go to another church. And I would join you somehow. But then you’d have to go to different church again. But then I would too. Maybe we would end up at the same one and then we’d have to go. But maybe you’d get lucky and you’d go somewhere where I wasn’t there. But then, if I knew stuff in your heart, then it would… See what I’m saying? Honest. Honest. Honest. This deceiful, fallen heart.

Augustine, this guy who wrote in about the 300th, 400th century after Christ, was a great Christian thinker.  He’s been really formative, even today, for a lot of Christian philosophy and theology. He wrote something called the Confessions. In it, he describes the restless heart. He described his heart. At one point his heart was so restless because he didn’t know who he was, where he came from, or what he was supposed to do. You might be coming into 2020 feeling that. “I don’t really know who I am or what I’m supposed to do.” It’s an anxiety, a restlessness that stirs up within you.

He talks about another aspect of the restless heart. Once you say, “Okay, I feel like I know who I am. I know what I want. I know what I’m hoping for.” And then you get that. And it’s like, “Yes!” You know? It’s like a week of “Yes!” And then there’s like another four days of “Yes!” And there’s like, “Oh, no. The restlessness is coming again!” That ache. That restlessness begins to surface again. And you’re like, “No! The very thing I thought would answer this.” The job. The new house. The girl. Whatever it might be. It hasn’t actually hasn’t done anything. It’s kind of scratched the itch, but now it’s even stronger. 

And that’s a real challenge. That’s America right there. Keep scratching the itch. Never stop scratching the itch. Instead of seeing that, maybe there’s an itch that can’t be scratched by the things in this life and in this world.

The last restlessness he talks about is the the restlessness of the Christian, in the process of spiritual formation. This restlessness comes from the fact that you know who you are. You know where you are going. But you know there are a lot of miles between here and there. And you are okay with that, and you understand that, but it’s still a restlessness because you long to be at that point where you’re with Christ, united with Christ. When our faith becomes sight and our union becomes easy. There isn’t a gravity of this world pulling us out of that union all the time, that we’re resisting. We are just united with Christ.

That’s our longing. Yet we know that we are not there. We are in this process, on the way there. But we know we can’t control when we get there. That lies in the hands of God the Father, who will send his Son at the time appointed to bring times of refreshing. So there’s this restlessness that comes from that. But that’s a restlessness that the peace of Christ satisfies. A restlessness that’s also filled with hope. And a restlessness that makes us do like the Fritzes and say, “Hey, I want to find the people who restless in those other categories and share with them the love and hope of Christ so they can move out of that into a restlessness that actually has peace mingled with it.” That’s our hope.

Lastly, the heart that is broken, fallen, deceitful and restless, it has these unwanted longings. Unwanted desires. Where we know there is infiltration coming from outside, but what is so bizarre is that, every once in a while, your own heart within you will start to want something that you know is out of line. Yet, for some reason, you can’t just stop it from wanting it. It’s because we have broken hearts.

What awakening does is it brings us to a point where we can be awake in Christ. We can receive the life of Christ. What the Bible teaches is that, when that happens, when we surrender our broken heart to God, he fixes it. And the way that he fixes it is interesting. He puts a new heart within. And this is where it’s tricky. The way the Bible describes it is it’s almost like we have both hearts now.

I heard someone say it’s like a kidney transplant. In a kidney transplant, they leave the old kidney in there and they put a new one in there. They wire it all up, but they don’t bother to take the old kidney out. It’s crazy. And that’s a little bit like what goes on with us. The Lord puts this new heart in us, but we still have the old heart. So there’s this battle going on within us. And the Bible talks about the spirit vs. the flesh. You know, when I’m talking with the kids,I’m usually like, “the good dog and the bad dog.” If you feed the good dog it gets stronger. If you feed the bad dog it gets stronger. You don’t feed the bad dog it gets weaker. You feed the good dog and it gets stronger and—hey—you’re doing better. 

It’s a little bit of what spiritual formation is and spiritual practices. It’s trying to form and grow and strengthen the spirit within us—that new heart that God has given us, so that you can become strong, healthy and vibrant. That’s what spiritual formation is all about. That’s what we’re going to be participating in. That’s what you have to figure out on your own, but we’re collectively going to try to figure it out together, so that you can figure out on your own. But we all start with this broken heart.

I love this. I just want to wrap up with this. This is so comforting to me, when I think through the challenge of all of these things. There are two things I want to read to you as we wrap up. The first is something from a lady named Celia Corey, who’s writing about St. John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila. Some of you are going to love this and some of you are going to be like, “I never want to hear that again.” Because it’s very wordy.

A major conceptual dynamic in all religious traditions is the need for purification and transformation of an individual in order to affect integration and maturation of the personality in the divine. 

It’s just fancy ways of saying what we just said.

Although the means by which this purification takes place differs according to cultural and religious configurations of any given tradition, nevertheless a reoccurring image of that of an inner and outer odyssey is necessary. A major example is the threefold path of John of the cross…

Which is what we have: purgation, illumination and union.

…which represents a psycho spiritual journey by which divine osmosis can be realized, passing through the dark night of the soul and culminating in spiritual marriage. Although not accepted by many theoreticians or practitioners of mysticism, nevertheless the value of the San Juan schemata still holds sway in contemporary society.

Do you guys feel better? Let me say a lot of that in a scripture way. This is 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 :

But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. [between them and God] Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

The way Paul was writing, that someone later tried to sum up in a kind of psychological way, is the process of how we are formed, it isn’t about human effort. It’s not about all these challenges. It’s not about getting things right here and there. It’s simply about contemplating the face of Jesus. It’s trying to find a way to quiet the noise around us. To quiet our minds within us. You know, the world is full of noise, with our phones dinging, with the tv on, with the stuff on the radio, with other people. There is constant noise. It’s neither good nor bad. I’m not making a judgment on that. It’s just so full of noise. We’ve got to find times of quiet to hear the still, small voice of God. 

Not only that, but our own minds. We in America have really started to believe that we can work as hard as we want for as long as we want and then just shut it off and sleep any time we want. And when that doesn’t work for us, we still work just as hard and just as long and then we take a little medicine or a little wine to try to quiet our minds to sleep. And that might work for a little while, but once that stops working, we never go back to the amount of work and the way that we’re using our minds in a way that is beyond what it was supposed to be meant for. Trying to ever scratch the itch and gain more wealth and position and whatever.  We run right through Sabbath—whatever it might be. And we can’t figure out why our mind won’t shut off when we need it to shut off. Because we’ve spun it out of control. 

So we not only have to quiet the world around us, but we need to figure out how to quiet our own minds, to find a rhythm and a pace of life that changes depending on how old or young you might be, so that our minds can actually be healthy enough to once again rest and hear the still, small voice of the Lord.

And then our hearts are crazy, too. But we have to find a way to kind of get into a place where we can actually sit and contemplate the face of Jesus. Jesus did the work to remove the veil. He died on a cross. He paid the price for our sins so that the veil between us and God could be torn forevermore. So now there is nothing that separates us from the very presence and freedom and light and beauty of Christ’s presence. Yet, for some reason, when we get there our minds are so spun out, our worlds are so busy that we still can’t really receive what he has for us.

So the first step is to acknowledge our broken heart and to acknowledge the busyness around us, and to realize that the whole goal of Christian formation is to be more like Christ. The only way we’re going to be more like Christ is if we can spend time contemplating the face of Christ. 

So that’s what we’re going for. That’s a good starting point. And then, as always, as Jude taught us, remember that it’s the work of God to make us spotless and full of joy before his presence. So don’t feel some sort of legalistic burden laid on you right now. Feel the hope that, if you’ll find time to carve out time to contemplate the face of Jesus—he’s torn the veil through his blood and sacrifice on the cross. He’s the one that’s taken on the responsibility to make sure when you show up he’s got guidance for you. All you’ve got to do is figure out how to show up, and not show up so burned out, fried, busy and loud, but you can actually receive his still, small voice. That’s what we’re going for.

Let’s pray right now. This is a good place. The space between heaven and earth feels a little thin in here most of the time. I hope you feel that. Let’s just bow our heads and quiet our hearts.

God, I ask that you would help quiet our minds—even us that our minds spin and run and have a hard time being still. I pray that, by your Spirit, by the power of your Spirit, Lord, you would bring a holy silence, a holy stillness in this place. We just want you, Jesus. 

And in this place, really, I just want you to think about your heart and if any of those descriptions of the broken heart really resonated, if you’re being honest. If you’re able, if you’re willing, just in a whisper you can say, “God, I want to give you my heart. As we start this year of 2020, and you’ve still got breath in my lungs, I just want to give you my broken heart, that you might begin to form it in a way that you see fit.”

I think about my kids. When something they care about breaks, they don’t try to fix it. They run to me and they put it in my hands. I think this is a good moment to run to your Father in heaven and put your heart in his hand, because he’ll take it and he really knows how to fix it. He’s the one who made it in the first place. 

Lord, we do give you our hearts this morning. We pray that you would take and form them. Transform them, Lord. Help us learn how to quiet ourselves before you in a very loud world. I pray all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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