Colossians 3:16-17 Luke 6: 43-49 Disciplines of the Word

Col 3:16-17  Luk 6: 43-49   Disciplines of the Word

Put your hand up if you brought a Bible to Church with you this morning.  Put your hand up if you read something from the Bible at least once in the last three or four days.  We all know the Bible is important to Christians. Jesus took it for granted that God's word - what we call the Bible - was there in the background, and had a particular authority. Time and time again, when engaged in a discussion he would say, "it is written..."  I'm not going to go into the questions today about "Why we believe the Bible is so important." If you want to discuss that we can talk about it over a cup of tea after the service.  But having accepted that the bible is important, what are we meant to do with it?  Let's look at the Disciplines of the Word. Jesus gives us two verbs.  "Hear" and "Do"....

Hearing the Word 
I keep hearing Home Groups referred to as Bible Study Groups.  Some of you immediately are feeling at a disadvantage: you think, "study is what you do at School and I didn't get on too well at School!"    Let's start by opening this up to all the people in Church this morning who struggle with reading and study - even if that is a challenge for all of us to think again about how we approach the Bible...

Replica of early printing press

Jesus talks to people who "Hear" his words... Reading the Bible is not a bad thing: I recommend reading the Bible. Jesus read it; he knew "it is written". But "Bible Readign"  is a comparatively modern thing for every ordinary  Christian.  Remember that Johannes Gutenberg's Bible was printed in 1455.  That was the first printed Bible. Among other things the development of the modern printing press changed the way people read - for the first time silent reading became the norm (before it was normal to read out loud).  But printing changed the whole way culture works and created the modern world.  Remember the Bible wasn't written in a modern, reading culture. The bible has its roots in an aural culture, one of hearing not reading. Therefore to be true to the Bible, we need to recognise that is where it belongs and not assume it is all about a literary culture. (By the way, the development of computers, laptops, smartphones etc has partnered and fostered the development of something else - what we sometimes call the post-modern world: no longer just a reading culture but an immersive culture.)

So to insist only on "Reading the Word"  is to jam the Bible in the world of 1455-1985.  That means when we insist on treating the Bible as a text for reading, we are neither in our own culture nor in the culture of the Bible itself. That's good news for those who struggle with reading and academic study. Our first call is to hear it.

There are huge issues around how we "hear" the bible today.  By reading it we can let God's voice speak to us.  Buy one, and read it, if you can read.  But buy one that fits with your natural culture.  Consider the Message; the Street bible, the CEV... And if you're not a reader, you're going to have to spend a bit more money: try to get hold of a decent quality Bible on CD, and hear it.


Studying the Word
Hearing God's Word, like all hearing, involves making sure we understand what we hear. Finding out, in other words, not only what it says but what it means.  John 5:39  "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me."  We need to "Search"; to study (in whatever way our abilities and gifts will allow us to) so as to expand our knowledge.  We need to know the truth. (John 8:32)

That process involves looking two ways. We use the microscope and the telescope.

We need to listen carefully, to the words themselves: what do they mean? What story is being told? Who is speaking? Who is writing it down? What's the context? What other things were happening at the same time? Does that context affect what it means? It's like using a microscope to look closely at the words and sentences.

But we need to listen in another way.  How does the meaning fit into a bigger picture of all God wants us to know?  (What we would call "God's revelation to us") Does it give us a piece of the jigsaw of what we believe? Does it help us know of what God is like? Does it help build a picture of what it means to be filled with the Spirit? To be a disciple of Jesus?

That's all part of the hearing process.  The discipline of hearing in its own culture, of stepping outside of our written culture to enter the Bible's world.  And the discipline of bringing something back with us to "our world. It's like time travel.

Absorbing the Word.
Jesus speaks in verses 43-45 about what is going on in our hearts. Hearing also involves letting God's word touch you at a deep level. That means not just thinking what it means but "letting the word of God dwell in you" (Col 3:16) letting it permeate your mind and heart and emotions.  It means holding it in your heart and meditating upon it.  That, gazing, is the key to transformation.  (2 Cor 3. 18)  The ancient monks called this way of reading "Divine Reading."

There are four stages to this process. They have been likened to "Feasting on the Word"...

1. Bite.  Listening to or reading God's Word.  Read it more than once, slowly, carefully.  Or have it read out clearly, maybe at different paces.  Make a (mental or written) note of any words or ideas that impact you as the word is read.
2. Chew.  Think, prayerfully asking the Holy Spirit for his light, about what you have read.  Turn it over in your mind.  What is God saying to you through his Word?
3. Savour.  Pray the word you have read into your life.  Pray the world you have read, over the difficult things you are experiencing.
4. Digest. Simply to let the Word of God you have read/heard, become part of who you are.  Like digesting our food, this stage is one of rest.  You are simply letting God's word do its work within you.


Doing the Word.
That's the last discipline of the word.  Putting it into practise. Col 3. 17 says "whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."  Jesus says that the well-built house with the good foundation isn't just the one based on hearing the word.  It's the one based on doing the word.  In fact it is perfectly possible to be hearing the word, listening to it, studying it, thinking about it, meditating on it, praying about it... and still building your house on the sand.

Hearing God's word - including studying it and meditating on it - doesn't give you a strong foundation.  It's doing the word that gives you a good foundation.  Jesus hints that hearing the word is all too easy. Even Bible Study is all too easy.  No matter how hard you have studied, how carefully you have researched, how deeply you have contemplated, if you haven't dug the word in to the hard rock of your life, you're building on sand.  We are so used to the idea of Bible Study. I want to encourage us to call our small groups something else.  Maybe "bible doing" groups.

Jesus wants us to be producing good, pleasing fruit not rotten fruit. It's about the actual flavour and shape of our everyday lives...  Jesus wants us to be producing pleasant, noble, morally good actions (verses 43f) and useful, pleasant, upright speech (verse 45).  There is a discipline involved in living out, day by day, what we are discovering in God's word.

© Gilmour Lilly February 2011

The discipline of prayer. Luke 11. 1-13

(Preached 13th February 2011)

Stick your hand up if you think you're really good at "prayer."   I have a sneaky feeling most of us have to admit we're not... And can we expect that there will be certain people who will be better than others at this?  Am I any better than you?    But how do you define "good at prayer"?  Is it about being good with words, so that you can put it right?  Well, I don't think God is going to be impressed with the way we put the words together.  So is it about being organised so you remember to pray for all the people you promised to pray for?

I am not bothered about the external disciplines of prayer.    When or where we pray or how often to pray: whether to pray first thing in the morning or three times a day.  I am not too excited either about the structure of our prayers - whether we use set prayers like the Lord's Prayer; or whether we use a pattern like ACTS - Adoring God, Confessing our sins, Thanking God and Stating our need.

These are not disciplines. They are patterns and they may help.  The real disciplines are inside us, though.  Of course you won't have the inner disciplines if you don't make it a regular part of your life to pray.  But it's the inner things that stretch us and make us grow.  In response to this request for teaching on "how to pray" Jesus calls those who follow him to the inner disciplines of prayer.  There are two:-

Special relationship - "Father"
What makes prayer difficult?  Maybe it's the feeling that there is a special skill you need. Maybe it is concentration. Maybe it is the kind of sense of strangeness about it.  Suddenly you have to sit down and talk to someone you can't see.  If you are by nature an introvert when you have been introduced to someone new you may not have a lot to say.  How do you start a conversation with God?

It is right that we should feel a certain sense of "strangeness" at this business of prayer. We are after all being invited to enter an unfamiliar environment when we pray.  We are communicating with a being who is totally "other" - who lives outside and beyond the goldfish bowl of our physical world.  We are getting in touch with a different kind of reality when we pray.  We are getting in touch with God. We are talking to the person whose words called the universe into existence.  That's the discipline of prayer. It is the discipline - first of all the mental discipline - to realise what it is we are doing.

This God, what is he like? He's powerful.  He has the resources to do what we need him to do.  And he's pure. He is holy. He isn't just a fallible being who makes mistakes... he is sinless and good.  He is personal.  We are not pushing buttons on a celestial chocolate machine.  When I was at College in London in the seventies (long time ago) I had hair; I had placements and preaching assignments in London Churches and travelled a lot by tube; and I could eat chocolate and was very partial to Cadbury's fruit and nut. There were these chocolate machines on tube platforms. You put in 10p, pulled the drawer of your choice and if you were lucky got your Fruit and nut bar (though I all too often lost my 10p. Getting your chocolate was random and impersonal. There was nobody to shout at on King's Cross Victoria line platform at 9pm on a Sunday.    God is personal. This isn't religion; it's a relationship.

The teaching Jesus gives emphasises this relationship:  Jesus disciples want to know how to pray: "John taught his disciples. Give us our pattern for prayer, Jesus."  The new and distinctive thing about Christian prayer was the new, simple and intimate form of address, "Father" which is actually "abba" - "Daddy" that Jesus gives his disciples. The shorter version of the Lord's Prayer emphasise four key things to pray about and they are all rooted in relationship...
1. Longing for the action of God in setting up his Kingdom. Hallowed be is passive which suggests a seeking for the action of God so that men will revere him. Kingdom suggests the blessings that come when men acknowledge God as King.
2. Dependency on God as Father for daily needs. Keep giving us our daily food.
3. Reconciliation to God and fellow men.
4. Need for power to preserve in temptation. "Cause us not to succumb to temptation". It's no good asking to have no temptation. And there is no shame to experience temptation. We do ask for the power not to give in.

Jesus then speaks very directly (in the words "which of you") to two specifc groups: friends (v. 5) and fathers (v. 11). So the first discipline of prayer is this inner discipline of pressing in, beyond the natural world, beyond sight, beyond the parameters of what we already have experienced, to develop this relationship with God Himself.  The outer structures of having a set time, of silence of reflecting on the Word, and so forth, are simply ways of giving time to develop the relationship, just as we need time to develop all our relationships. It is out of that relationship, out of intimacy with our heavenly Father, that the next bit flows...

Shameless request  - "Faith"
In this very direct little parable of the "Friend at midnight" Jesus makes a contrast between the "Friend's" character and God's character. In that situation, "Which of you..." implies that "Nobody can imagine a friend refusing an inconvenient request."  People can picture the situation.  It could happen like that in the ancient world of Palestine where people would often start a journey late in the afternoon and journey on until well after dark. When they arrived at a village, no matter how late, they would call on a friend or relative. And the relative would feel he had to give food and lodgings. If he couldn't he would get  a neighbour to help out. That sort of help was what was expected of friends...

The difficulty that the parable addresses is a real and practical one: "men wonder whether it is worth praying to God because they do not get their prayers answered."  Is God too busy? Are our prayers too insignificant? In the Jim Carrey film Bruce Almighty, Bruce sets up his PC to deal with all incoming prayers like emails; otherwise he would be overwhelmed.  Is answering our prayers hugely inconvenient to God, like the friend who has already settled down for the night and is cross to be wakened?  Is my request just too outrageous?

The shameless nature of the one in need, asking for what he needs, is a model for us in our approach to God.  We are encouraged, invited to come, and to ask, shamelessly.  We are encouraged to express that shameless request, over and over until answers come, not because God needs to be persuaded, but to "Go on praying because God responds graciously to the needs of His children."

Ask, Seek, Knock, (verse 9-10) are three different pictures of prayer.  Verse 9 means,  "You have to ask for God to give; you have to seek in order to find; you have to knock to get the door opened."  There is one way of guaranteeing, with rock solid predictable certainty, results in this business of prayer. If you don't pray, god won't answer. If you want life totally predictable, then don't pray.  God expects us to ask, seek, and knock. And Verse10 is about God's willingness to respond. It's not a general observation about life: too often when we seek we don't find (certainly if you're like me looking for my keys or mobile phone among the papers and things on my desk!) It's about how God delights to give.

Lastly, Jesus speaks directly to dads.  "Which of you fathers, if your kid asked for a fish, would give him a snake? Or if your kid asked for an egg would give him a scorpion?"  It just wouldn't happen, Jesus is saying.  It's all about relationship, but that relationship leads to confident faith. What father would refuse to give; would deceive the receiver; would give something dangerous instead?  (Matthew talks about bread versus stones and fish versus snakes; in Luke both the substitutes are dangerous.)  We can come to this heavenly father, and we can ask, and seek, and knock, because he delights to give good things.

God gives good gifts - especially the Holy Spirit - to those who ask.

Perhaps that's a good place to start.

© Gilmour Lilly February 2011

Isaiah 40:31 The discipline of waiting

(Preached 6th February 2011)
A couple of weeks ago, Pam and I took Murphy to Lochore Meadows for a long walk round the Loch. There was still some ice on the paths and on the Loch itself.  We were having a great time until Murphy saw some moorhens and decided to chase them He likes a swim, so he charged over the iced, jumped into the water after the birds.  When they flew away, Murphy decided to come back to land - but he couldn't get back because of the ice.  He couldn't climb up on top of it.  He couldn't break it.  We had a few very anxious minutes, with me standing thigh deep in very cold water shouting at him to get him to come to me. He needed to do the "counterintuitive" thing, turn around, and instead of trying to struggle to the shore, to back away from the ice and swim to where I was standing in the water, so I could lift him over the ice.

Sometimes we get worn out, trying to do something that is just too hard; but to do the anything else is "counterintuitive."   So we feel like God is all about hard work.

There's working to get to heaven.  Can I be good enough for God?
Maybe if I can avoid doing really bad stuff like robbery or murder or rape.  But Jesus says that if you get angry with someone then you're as good as a murderer, (Mt 5. 22) and if you look at a woman impurely you're as good as an adulterer (Mt 5. 27 - bad news guys!).
How about if I can do a good deed every day? But the Bible says all our righteousness is like filthy rags. (Is 64. 6)  If I can pray enough to say sorry for the bad stuff I do.  The Jewish faith was built on sacrifices to pay for sin, but all the blood of bulls and goats could not sort it out.  God sent Jesus to die for sins, and offers us the free gift of eternal life.  We need simply to receive it.

There's working to be a better Christian.  Now we need to make the effort.  Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling...

There's whole lot of things Christians have learned we are supposed to do.
There's giving. We were talking about that last week.
There's having what people sometimes call your quiet time - when you pray to God and read the Bible on your own.
There's coming to church - that can be hard work, eh?
There's going to house group, leading a Sunday school class, playing in the band...
There's evangelism!  Telling other people about Jesus. Who thinks that's hard work?
There's being filled with the Spirit. Being a Christian can be hard work.  . We need to give, to pray, to be with other Christians, to share our faith. But it's not all effort.  We need God to be at work in us.

Evangelicals (the Bible believing tribe of Christians) according to David Bebbington, are marked by activism. We're busy, busy, busy.  "Work makes you free" might be the slogan of the Protestant work ethic... But do you know where those words come from?  How about if I tell you they are translated from the German "Arbeit macht frei". It was in fact the slogan of concentration camps including Auschwitz. A life of effort isn't only exhausting. It is from the enemy and is the opposite of what God wants for us.

Isaiah chapters 1-19 are all pretty gloomy. They are all about the coming of a time when the Jews would be marched into a foreign land called Babylon.  But in chapter 40 there's a different song: "Comfort my people," says the Lord.  "Her hard labour is indeed..."

Trying to work your way to God is pretty hard. Sometimes we are busy, busy because we feel that it all depends on us.  But if it all depends on us, where does that leave God?  Either he's the big bully who expects us to run errands for him and give him our lunch money. Or else we have to do thing s for him because he's not really very powerful.  Isaiah asks Did any of you measure the ocean by yourself or stretch out the sky with your own hands? Did you put the soil of the earth in a bucket or weigh the hills and mountains on balance scales? (Isa 40:12)  Then he has a good laugh at idols, false gods made of gold, or for a poor man, wood. "Make sure it's got a good solid base so it doesn't fall down".  That would never do.  But a "god" that needs to be propped up isn't much good.  If that's what your god is like, no wonder you're exhausted and depressed.  Our God isn't like that. He is the everlasting God.

Have you ever watched an eagle?  You will see an eagle, or around here a buzzard, doing one of two things.  One is soaring.  The other is sitting on a fence or the branch of a tree, waiting...

Eagles are big.  They need to eat meat, so they need to catch meat. So they need to fly high and drop fast on their prey. Canaries eat seeds.  They can fly from tree to tree. They flap-flap-flap.  That lifestyle is unsustainable for the eagle.  If it tried to flap it wouldn't survive.  It needs to soar.  How?

Thermals. Currents of warm air. The eagle is solar powered.    We need to be solar powered. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to carry us as we try to serve God.  We need the Holy Spirit in prayer, in evangelism, in ministry.  That doesn't mean we don't pay the cost; it doesn't mean we don't make the effort. The eagle has to do more than just sunbathe. It takes practise to become a good musician or dancer

And in order to get the thermals, the other thing the eagle does is wait.  Waiting means not that we just sit back and let the Holy Spirit do everything. But it means we allow him to be in control. We learn to recognise a current of warm air that can carry us up.

Instead of Bible reading being a chore we do because we have to,  you read in a way that involves letting God speak. You know what I mean by Bible reading being a chore? you begin at Matthew 1 verse 1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.  Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, then you say, "what was that all about?".  There's a better way, as you let God reveal truth to you.

Instead of a prayer meeting being a time when we sit down and decide what we are gong to make God do, it becomes a time when we wait for God to show us what he wants to do. So we pray the way Jesus would pray.  Instead of us deciding "I'm going to tell my Mums she's a sinner and needs Jesus" we wait until God opens up an opportunity to witness.  We minister the way Jesus is ministering.  It's a discipline.  

Like Murphy in the frozen lake, what we need to do is counter-intuitive. It goes against our instincts. Paul talked (Hebrews 4. 11) about "striving to enter God's rest". But it's what we need to do, to survive, to eat well, and to go places.
Isa 40:31



© Gilmour Lilly February 2011