Authentic Talk: Inch By Inch Growth

My second talk at 'Authentic' students and 20s group at Kings Church Eastbourne. Not especially eloquent, but gets the job done!

Inch_By_Inch_Growth.pdf

Authentic: Inch By Inch Growth from Sam Arnold on Vimeo.

Richard Foster on the Discipline of Confession

From 'Celebration of Discipline':

"The Bible views salvation as both an event and a process. To converted people Paul says, 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling' (Phil. 2:12) … The Discipline of confession helps the believer to grow into 'mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ' (Eph. 4:13)."
p181

"Confession is a difficult Discipline for us because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin. We cannot bear to reveal our failures and shortcomings to others. We imagine that we are the only ones who have not stepped on to the high road to heaven. Therefore, we hide ourselves from one another and live in veiled lies and hypocrisy."
p181-2

"Bonhoeffer writes: 'A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person. As long as I am by myself in the confession of my sins everything remains in the dark, but in the presence of a brother the sin has to be brought into the light.'"
p184, Original quote: Bonhoeffer, Life Together

"It is the will to be delivered form sin that we seek from God as we prepare to make confession. We must desire to be conquered and ruled by God, or if we do not desire it, to desire to desire it. Such a desire is a gracious gift from God. The seeking of this gift is one of the preliminaries for confessing to a brother or sister."
p189

"These people are found by asking God to reveal them to us. They are also found by observing people to see who evidences a lively faith in God's power to forgive and exhibits the joy of the Lord in his or her heart. The key qualifications are spiritual maturity, wisdom, compassion, good common sense, the ability to keep a confidence, and a wholesome sense of humour."
p190

Observations from Gardening

I feel like God teaches me some practical lessons every time I do a bit of gardening. Hope that doesn't sound too bizarre! It's like a workshop on tending to your soul. Here are my thoughts:

→ If you want to get rid of a weed, you have to uproot it. You have to dig beneath the surface, to it's point of origin which is unseen, and remove it entirely. It's exactly the same with sin. We can try and prune back our external behaviours, but really we must dig down and expose the root. Core beliefs, thought patterns, habits and idols.

→ The reason the weed is removed isn't just because we don't like that particular weed, but it's to create something much more beautiful in it's place. Our pursuit of holiness is tending to our soul like a well pruned garden. Over time, something very beautiful can developed.

→ Choosing not to tend to your garden does not prohibit growth. It just allows the wrong growth. The longer it's left unchecked, the more severe and extensive the weeds become. If our sin is left to develop, it will become more severe over time. We will become a mangled mess of thorns and thistles.

Abiding

"If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you"
John 15:7

That word 'abide' means to dwell within, to consistently live in Christ and have his words living in us. It's a call to consistency, on a daily basis. It's not a fluctuating obedience or discipline, it's total trust in Jesus, in our hearts and minds, and backed up by our actions. It's an unshakeable belief that every word of God is true, right and good. What I believe this verse is saying is that as we enter into this state, our prayers become more inline with God's thoughts. What we ask for, how we ask and why we ask will be more Christ-like, and perhaps our prayers will have a greater degree of success.

The Marks of a True Believer

I was listening to a sermon today that said generous giving was a mark of a true believer. Without it, your salvation could be in question. It was one of those statements that I agreed with to some extent, but couldn't agree in the fullest. I had to pick apart why that was. And here's where I got with my thinking...

While generous giving is certainly a mark of a believer, it is really just one of many, many signs. The real and true mark of a believer is regeneration, which is the bigger, wider picture of what is going on in a believers life. Giving, in this sense, is like one particular branch of a much bigger tree. You would certainly hope that it was there, but it doesn't, in itself, make the tree.

The trouble with gradual sanctification is it takes someone time to grow. Just like a tree, the more it grows, the stronger it gets and the more branches, shoots and fruit it produces. But in the beginning, there's hardly anything to see. It's barely a twig. It might only have one leaf.

So really, generous giving is just one of many marks that you are likely to see in a mature believer. It's a single mark of a much greater evidence: regeneration.

Spurgeon made me laugh...

“There is dust enough on some of your Bibles to write ‘damnation’ with your fingers.”

Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Bible” in Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. 1, 33.

Clinton E. Arnold On Community

From 3 Crucial Questions about Spiritual Warfare:

"Much spiritual vulnerability comes from being detached from the body of Christ."
p128

"The message and the community go hand in hand. When a person becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit not only unites the person to Christ, but also to other Christian. Believers need each other as they grow to maturity.
     There are not many themes in the New Testament about which more is said than community. Yet it appears that there is less community now in the church than at any other time in history."
p128

Try, Try, Try Again

I once read a No Fear poster that said "You miss 100% of the shots you never take". Trouble is, most of us don't set ourselves a goal. We don't know where we're running and we've got nothing to shoot at. It can feel a little unproductive.

A goal has to be clearly defined. You've got to mark it out exactly and play towards it. It pretty much applies to everything in your life that your life that you want to be fruitful in: generous giving, bible reading, daily prayer, dating your wife, health and fitness, leading a life group, earning a living... on and on. You've got to mark out your goal and track your progress.

If you take the picture further, most of the excitement games like football isn't found in the goals themselves. There might only be two or three in 90 minutes. It's in all the action leading up to them: the passing, the tackling, the shots from 40 yards that ricochet off the post. It can all be really exciting. And I guess it's the same in life. You don't always succeed on your first attempt. But it's exciting seeing how close you came. You try, try, try again until that ball is in the back of the net.

Difficult vs Impossible

It occurred to me that when you say a particular task or goal is 'impossible', you effectively remove any obligation to try. I know I often think certain things are impossible when really they are just difficult. There's quite a distinction between the two.

One state of mind requires no effort what-so-ever, while the other you have to try, train, pray, problem-solve and persevere. I know I have to be really careful in mindlessly substituting the latter for the former. In one sense they're similar words, but the distance between them is incredible.

Don't Die

Was listening to Matt Chandler again (I think it was 'The Good Fear', a sermon in the Hebrews series) and he made quite an interesting, almost throwaway comment on sanctification. It's on these lines:

It's written into the universe that when something stops growing it begins to die.

How unbelievably true. When we stop growing, stop learning, stop discovering on our walk with Christ we totally lose our momentum. Our faith begins to dry up, shrivel up. Like a great tree beginning to die, it can have all the outward appearance of strength but none of the inward life. It's only a matter of time before it reveals it's true form.

"...you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God."
Hebrews 5:11-12

Oh for a kick up the backside! How easy it is to become dull over the years and suffer a slow, subtle death. God's given us a big bible, there's a lot to discover. Best not think we know it all!

Pain, Suffering and Sanctification (Part 2)

Very apt and made me laugh:

"Sanctification is a dirt path that lasts until God kills you."

Matt Chandler, 'What Are We Doing Here?', preached 31/10/2010.

Pain, Suffering and Sanctification

Nothing exposes your heart like pain and suffering. When you hit it, your heart is totally exposed. All the things you never realised were there are suddenly revealed. It's a very scary and sobering thing. I would guess that one of the reasons God allows pain and suffering is sanctification. It also forces you in one of two directions: anger against God, or throwing yourself into His arms. I would also guess this is one of the ways he sorts the sheep from the goats, how he brings people to salvation or forces them away.

Pain and suffering are necessary. Nobody looks for a saviour if they don't believe they need saving. Nothing reminds you of your need for salvation like pain, suffering and the presence of evil.

In all of this it's good to remind ourselves that God is totally good, and it's Satan that is evil. Like in the book of Job, God permits suffering, but it's Satan that causes it. And he can only go as far as God allows.

Without Divisions

"Father Abraham," cried Whitefield. "Whom have you in Heaven? Any Episcopalians?"
"No!"
"Any Presbyterians?"
"No!"
"Any Independents or Seceders, New Sides or Old Sides, any Methodists?"
"No! No! No!"
"Whom do you have there, then, Father Abraham?"
"We don't know those names here! All who are here are Christians–believers in Christ, men who have overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of his testimony."
"Oh is this the case?" Then God help me, God help us all, to forget having names and to become Christians in deed and in truth."

George Whitefield and the Great Awakening, John Pollock, p118

The Spiritual Disciplines

Andrew Wilson delivered some brilliant teaching on the Spiritual Disciplines last Sunday. The point was that, like an athlete in training, they are methods and techniques for developing the fruit of the Spirit.

"the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."
Galatians 5:22-4

And thus... we become more like Christ, which is kind of the whole point. I think what was brilliant about it was that I had never heard / thought of some of them. I had also never thought in terms of abstinence and engagement. I have, to this point, subconsciously pursued all the disciplines of engagement while forgetting, neglecting, or not even realising the value of abstinence. Here's the list according to Wilson:

Disciplines of Abstinence
Secrecy
Solitude
Fasting
Silence
Simplicity (Frugality)
Chastity
Sacrifice

Disciplines of Engagement
Study, Memorisation, Meditation
Celebration
Service
Prayer
Fellowship
Submission
Confession

I feel like a whole new set of tools have been place in my hands. This is good.

Trials build strength

Hudson Taylor on young converts and the importance of trials:

"In their spiritual infancy they should be left to grow naturally in the circumstances in which God had placed them, strengthened by the very trials with which they found themselves surrounded."
Biography of James Hudson Taylor, p211

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."
James 1:2-4

If life was easy, free from struggles and frustrations, we would remain weak and our faith never tested. We would never have the opportunity to trust God and wholly rely on Him. We would never grow or mature. As it is, we can count it as joy. That's hard. But that wording 'count it all joy' seems to suggest that it's not necessarily our immediate experience. It's a conscious decision. We step back and realise 'even though it's hard, this is a good thing'.

Hard Cultivation

"The more spiritual the exercise, the sooner we tire in it. The choicest fruits are the hardest to rear: the most heavenly graces are the most difficult to cultivate. Beloved, while we do not neglect external things, which are good enough in themselves, we ought also to see to it that we enjoy living, personal fellowship with Jesus."

Charles H. Spurgeon

Somewhere in the middle

Most of my friends and people I've met over the years haven't been atheists. But you couldn't really describe them as agnostics or theists. They're floating around somewhere in the middle, sort of believing in a God but not really sure.

Antony Flew's book, "There Is A God", which I'm reading through at the moment came up with some very interesting points:

"Anthony Kenny ... suggested that it takes more effort to show that you know something than that you do not (this includes even the claim that the concept of God is not coherent)."
p54

It's so easy not to have a thought-through set of beliefs or at least opinions. It requires effort – a little bit of study and research. Even as a Christian you can be absent from any real convictions. Because convictions require a backbone of knowledge and understanding, and those are formed by gradual growth over time.

But your convictions are surely what makes you useful as a human being.

Interestingly, going back to Flew's book...

"The Thomist philosopher Ralph McInerny reasoned that it is natural for human beings to believe in God because of the order, arrangement, and lawlike character of natural events. So much so, he said, that the idea of God is almost innate, which seems like a prima facie argument against atheism."
p55

No one's born a Christian. And it seems no one's born an atheist or an agnostic. All those things require a system of belief, a formation of opinions, which babies don't have. It seems that floating around somewhere in the middle is the default position. A point from which not everyone progresses.

––––––

Similar blog: It's good to have an opinion, even if you're wrong

Frustrations, time, and spiritual muscle

A lot of life is very hard work. Constant toil and struggles –  you pretty much have to fight to get the time to do anything, and put up with being knackered as a result. But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe God's allowing it all to happen to basically put you through a training regime.

"You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."
Matthew 22:37

This is basically saying 'love God with everything you've got. Inside and out. Engage the whole of yourself in this task'.

When you have to engage your whole body against resistance for sustained periods of time to tend to do two things. You lose a bit of fat and gain a bit of muscle.

Maybe this is what God has got in mind for us on a spiritual level. To actually get time to read your bible and pray each day can take a lot of effort. And it makes us spiritually strong. If it was all too easy we'd become doughnuts.

Temptation, Meditation & Prayer

Spurgeon:

"He was well versed in the three things which, according to Luther, make a minister: temptation, meditation and prayer."
James Douglas, 'The Prince Of Preachers', 1894

I like this quote as it seems to lay out a string of three key areas: resisting temptation, having you're head in the bible and praying. Tie them all together and you could be a sharp tool in the hand of God.

Humility is Masculine (Part 2)

I've been pondering on the whole idea of humility, and how it is a very masculine trait. Instead of making you 'meek and mild' it frees you up for greater and bolder works. It enables you to roll with the punches, absorb jabs, brushing them off unscathed.

To grasp your own insignificance is a good thing. The vastness of the universe is mind blowing*. And to think that God measures the heavens with the span of his hand nearly makes my head explode (see Isaiah 40:12). God is big, we are small.

To be less conscious and worried about self is the opposite of pride (which is the original sin committed by Satan, and seems to be every persons default position). Humility, I think, is when your focus shifts from looking at yourself to looking at God. The less mindful you are about self, the less worried you'll be about the opinions of others. In turn, this frees you up for attempting greater and bolder works.

So what if you fail miserably? So what if you experience a bit of embarrassment or criticism? When you grasp how small you are, the less worried you'll be about it.

Ironically, this could produce the sort of man that the world celebrates: a risk taker, bold acts, unfazed by pain and hardships and the weight of other people's opinions. The difference being that you're not self-assured, but engulfed in the hugeness of God.

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*Interestingly, I recently learnt that the universe is the precise size that it needs to be in order to support carbon-based life forms. Any smaller, and human beings would not exist.