A few weeks ago we started this brand new series, “Back to Life,” getting your life back when your future is uncertain, when your relationships are hurting, when finances are challenging and today when you feel like you are spiritually stuck. And throughout these last few weeks, we’ve opened the Word of God and we have found truths, truths that can help us figure out what we can do when we don’t know what to do. And I know, everywhere in this room, there are people who are watching by television, listening by radio, those in Dan River Church this morning, that are sitting here and they are thinking, that’s me. I don’t know what to do. I’m stuck. I’m lost. I don’t feel like I’m growing. I don’t feel like I’m moving. I don’t feel like I’m becoming what God wants me to become. What do I do now?
That’s why we’ve been so encouraged and so challenged over these last few weeks in hearing from Joni Eareckson Tada and from Tim Clinton and last week from Dave Ramsey. And, John Ortberg who will be speaking for us in just a few moments. All of these great men and women of God have spoken truths into our lives to help us figure out what to do when we need to get Back to Life.
We use this verse, John 10:10. This verse is a powerful verse. “The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.”
We’ve read this verse for the last three weeks. We read it again today and we see the truths that are there, that Satan is coming to steal and to kill and to destroy, but Christ, He has come that we might have life. Now everybody in this room, we all have life, don’t we? Is anybody in here not breathing? Just raise your hand. We all have life and we are all alive. And, man, we march through life and we walk through life and sometimes it feels like it’s just so mundane and just so continuing just doing the same thing over and over and over again. And we feel like we’re not going anywhere. Oh, but we read this passage in John 10:10. Christ didn’t come to give us life alone; He came to give us life “and that they may have it more abundantly.”
What we’ve been talking about over these last few weeks is what we can do to get to that one word “abundantly”. What can we do in our lives that can bring us to the point of getting out, of being stuck, of being lost in the mud, lost in our pain, lost in our sorrow, lost in our tears, lost in our grief? How can we get beyond that to abundant life? To life that is incredible, that’s exciting, that is awesome, that is filled with joy and filled with comfort, and filled with peace? How do we get there? I would submit to you today, the only way to get there is to listen to God, to seek the answers that we need directly from Him.
Man, the world has lots of answers. The world would try to tell you what you need to do, and the books that you need to read, and the seminars that you need to go to, and the classes that you need to take, and all of these things. The world’s got lots of answers. And those answers that we listen to, those answers that we get, all they do is seem to increase the chaos in our lives, to increase the problems that we face. It’s like we get in that wheel and we just continue to run, over and over and over again and not getting anywhere. And that, my friends, is not abundant life. That, my friends, is not what Christ intended for each of us.
Today we talk about what to do when you are spiritually stuck, when it feels like literally in our spiritual lives and our spiritual growth and our discipleship that we are stuck in the mud and we can’t seem to move any further. We can’t seem to get anywhere and sometimes it seems as if God is not there with us.
A couple weeks ago I sat down with John Ortberg, who’s an author. He’s written some wonderful books on this very topic, on discipleship and the church, and spiritual growth and figuring out what to do to get where God wants us to be. Today I want to share that with you and when this video is over I want to share a couple passages of Scripture briefly that I believe firmly is where God gives us the answer to that question, of what to do when I am spiritually stuck.
Q: Well today we are talking about what it means to be a spiritually healthy disciple and you know, John, we live in a world that’s in a hurry. We’re 24 hours a day, 7 days a week we’re running constantly. How important is it for us to have balance in our lives?
A: Years ago I had moved out to Chicago and was involved in a church and there was just lots of stuff going on, so I called one of the wisest people I know about spiritual life issues and kind of described our life situation and asked him, “What do I need to do to be healthy spiritually?” There was a long pause and then he said, “ “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” And there was another long pause and I asked him, “Well, what else do you have because I don’t have a lot of time and I’d like to get as much wisdom as I possibly can.” And he said, “There is nothing else.” He said, “Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.”
It is very interesting. He said, “There’s a difference between being busy and being hurried.” Being busy is kind of an outward condition of our bodies. I have a lot of things to do. And we are all wired up differently so we have different capacities for, you know, the pace of life. But hurry is an inner condition of the soul. And when I’m hurried I’m not able to actually experience the presence of God in this moment and I’m so pre-occupied with everything that’s going on, I’m not able to be with another person, you know, to actually listen or to give love. And my friend said, “Jesus, although he was often busy, was never hurried.” And hurry will keep anybody from actually living in the reality of the Kingdom. Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.
Q: We obviously live in a world today where so many of our marriages are failing, not just in the secular world, but also in the church. How important is that type of maturity, that type of being a spiritually healthy disciple of Christ? How important is it to our marriages and to our families and to our churches?
A: Very sobering statistics that indicate that the rate of divorce is about as high from people who are inside the church, or who are professing Christians, as folks who are outside. And I think one of the great temptations in life is we want to find a system for marriage or for nations or for economics. We want to find a system that is so perfect that I don’t have to be good. And the reality is there is no system in the world that can plow around the need for sound character.
So when it comes to marriage, the single most important dimension that we bring to marriage is the character that I bring to it. Because that really is my capacity to be able to love my wife, to be able to be honest with her, to be able to serve, and to the extent that that character is not formed in me, the marriage is going to be in trouble. And the big illusion in our day when it comes to marriage is there is some right person out there and if I just find the right person, then the power of the emotion from that will automatically confer a great marriage on us. And it just doesn’t work that way, no matter how powerful the emotional the attraction. That’s a good thing but it does not fill the gap that’s created by a badly formed character.
Q: So tell us then what are some of the habits that a spiritually healthy person needs to have in order to keep that balance in their lives?
A: You know a fundamental dynamic here is everybody is wired up differently. Some people are introverts. Some people are extroverts. People learn in different ways, so a real important thing for everybody to come to realize is the habits that you are gonna need to flourish spiritually are going to be somewhat different than the habits that I need to flourish spiritually.
I’m more on the introverted side. My wife is more on the extroverted side so for me solitude is kind of the easy thing. I’ll often do solitude recreationally. For Nance, solitude would be okay if she could just bring a few people into it with her. So the first thing in talking about spiritual habits is to give people freedom to say don’t compare yourself with anybody else. Don’t think that you’re supposed to be doing exactly the same thing that other folks are supposed to be doing.
But, you know, after centuries, it is really clear that there are certain activities that everybody is going to be receiving life from God in. We all need to be in relationships with folks where we’re not just making small talk, but where I have somebody where I can confess my deep struggles, temptations, sins with and be with them on a soul level where there is no hiddenness. Our minds need to be filled with great thoughts. And here there is nothing like the Bible. So to have our minds immersed in Scripture, not just for the information that we get but so that we are actually thinking, as Paul says, “whatever is noble and admirable and true.”
And, of course, we can find those thoughts from other places as well. To have some time alone, especially for those people who live under a lot of pressure, where I can get free from wondering, you know, I wonder how this conversation is going. Wonder if I’m saying the right stuff? I wonder if people will think that I’m doing well? Well, when I go to be alone with God, then I’m freed from all those pressures and I can remember again, who I am is based just on what God thinks of me.
And so, really it’s finding those practices like you know studying the Scriptures, like confession, like being alone with God, like worshiping together with other people, like serving, through which I receive the freedom to actually be the person that God wants me to be.
Q: You brought up the word “pressure” and obviously that takes us into the next idea of stress. And this is something that so many people today are dealing with and battling and fighting with constantly. It’s this ever-increasing level of stress in our lives. What kind of impact does stress have on a spiritually healthy life?
A: Well stress is a huge killer. They did a study years ago. I don’t know who thought this up, but they took a bunch of mice. And when they put mice on amphetamines, bad things happened. Mice eventually died fairly quickly. But they took a group of mice that they had put on amphetamines and then put mice that were not on amphetamines in the middle of them and pretty soon those mice were as hopped up as the rest of them and actually ended up dying as well.
There is something about this kind of frantic stressful way of living that is actually contagious. And you know we live in a culture where it’s just all over the place and it really is lethal. I think a lot of people who would otherwise…well, put it this way; one of the consequences of stress is, it makes sin look really good because if I’m living with this sense of burden or pressure, I want to feel good. Nobody can live for very long without soul satisfaction and if I’m not getting soul satisfaction from God and the right kind of life, then I will look for it from the wrong kind of places. But I will look for it. That’s why people, who may be in churches, who might even be involved in ministry, end up going in the ditches because they have been living with this weight, burden and stress and they have been living in the absence of soul satisfaction. And stress causes me to be preoccupied with myself and chokes off my ability to be receiving life from God. So stress is a huge killer of spiritual vitality.
Q: We know stress is inevitable. In some point in life, we’re going to have and be under stress. What is God’s plan for Christians and how to deal with stress?
A: Yes. Well, people who do research in that area will say that not all stress is bad. There is actually a kind of stress, it’s called ”You-stress,” and it may involve changes, a promotion, getting married. That’s wonderful, it’s quite pleasant, but it still creates change. And anytime there’s change the body has to adapt to it and in that adaptation process there is always stress.
And God has wonderful things to say about this and the primary one is that because God is God and because He is immensely good and immensely competent, I don’t have to live with the burden of outcomes. And if I can be free from the burden of outcomes, because mostly what we get stressed about are issues that are beyond our control. I worry about money. I worry about my kids. I worry about my health.
Well none of those are things that I can control and it’s a real good thing that I can’t and so Jesus’ offer to us is, you don’t have to be afraid. You don’t have to worry because there is a heavenly Father and He is looking out for the birds and He is looking out for you. And it really comes down to this, if I can focus on this moment, I can make my number one focus, “How can I be aware of and living in and leaning on the presence of God right here?” Then everything else has a way of taking care of itself. Not that it all turns out the way that I want it to but when my primary focus is on being with God right here and kind of saying to the world, “You can’t get in the way of this connection with a God who loves me as the single most powerful antidote to stress that I know.” And as soon as I lose that connection, then whatever it is that I’m getting preoccupied with has the power to stress me out.
Q: Let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about a different type of pressure, a different type of stress. We live in a plugged in society. IPhones, Blackberries, computers, the Internet, all of those things that we are constantly on. You know, it used to be that we would do those types of things at work and then we would come home and we would leave them at the office. But now because of the mobile connectivity we have, we are always connected, always plugged in. What are some of the dangers of being so plugged in? The dangers to our families? To our own spiritual vitality? To our churches? To our children? What are some of the dangers there that we need to be watching for?
A: Well, it’s a very interesting thing. You know we’ll talk about boredom in our day a fair amount. In the Bible, in ancient Greek there is no word for boredom. Boredom, with its current usage, actually didn’t come into currency until a little over a century ago. Now we look back at the ancient world and think, man there was no TV, there were no computers. There were no IPods. They must have been just bored all the time. Actually they weren’t bored. Because they had learned how to use their mind in ways that would create moments of gratitude, thoughtfulness wonder, joy.
What’s happened to us is we have become so dependent on external stimulation to keep our minds occupied that when it’s not available, we get bored. It’s kind of like there are muscles in our minds that have gotten so weak because we don’t have to exercise our minds in a way that people thousands of years ago just had to do all the time.
And we have gotten very dependent on external stimulation. And, so I think one of the primary dangers of living in a plugged in society is that if my mind doesn’t have something from the outside propping it up all the time, I become anxious, afraid, bored. It’s become very difficult for people simply to be alone and to be quiet in our day. And if you’re with somebody who cannot be still, you get uncomfortable real fast because they are needing to get something from you all the time. And, of course, spiritually the Psalmist will say things like, “Be still and know that I am God.” Well I think the first thing that gets lost in a plugged in society is the capacity for stillness.
Q: What is the one thing that you would say to an individual out there who has gotten to the point that they are so stressed out? The pressure has become too much and they feel like quitting. They feel like giving up. They feel like walking away, maybe from a job, maybe from a marriage, maybe from life. What’s the one thing that you would say to them that they could do to begin to get a grip again? To begin to come back to wholeness? To come back to a spiritually healthy life?
A: It’s kind of counter-intuitive. What I would say is “wake up fully to the pain that you are in.” I think one of the great dangers in life is we have so many ways to try to medicate ourselves from pain. It can be TV. It can be alcohol. It can actually be pre-occupation with work. And what happens is we find ways, they may be overtly sinful, they may not, but to mask the dissatisfaction in our lives.
I think the first step is for people to realize, you know what, I was not intended to live with this level of stress, with this level of pressure. And to actually realize how far, what the gap is between my life, the way that I’m living it right now, and that life that God is calling me to of love and joy. So that I recognize that pain and then I can become motivated to say, “this is not okay.” What happens for so many people is we just drift into the state of a kind of spiritual emotional relational mediocrity but we are used to it. And we say, “Well, I can probably endure another 20 or 30 or 40 years of it.” To actually get to the point of saying, “God did not intend me to live a life of spiritual mediocrity and I want to recognize the gap that is between that and what God is calling me to so that I am really hungry for this.
Spiritual growth generally begins with a vision. It is a vision for what a good God, God is and what a good thing it is for me to be alive with Him and to be His child and His friend in this world. And it is when people begin to want that more than they want anything else that then it becomes possible to rearrange my life so that that actually does become the thing that I am pursuing above all else.
“The thing that I’m doing to pursue above all else the relationship with God.” Did you catch the statement that John made just a moment ago that it a powerful statement and I want you to get this statement. He said that God did not intend for me to live a life of spiritual mediocrity. There are a lot of people today that are living lives of spiritual mediocrity. What do we do to get beyond that? What do we do to get beyond the statement that Christ has come to give us life, yes, but to give it to us abundantly. How do we get past mediocrity and get to that statement of greatness?
My dad had a statement that he made many times. You probably heard him say it if you were around here any length of time and he said this, “The difference between mediocrity and greatness is vision.” Is vision. John said it there a moment ago. In the end of the video he said a vision of how great our God is. The answers to what we do to get out of a spiritually stuck life, a life that is not moving forward with God is we figure out that God’s got the answers.
We heard it said there in the video, Psalm 46:10, that incredible statement, “Be still and know that I am God.” Basically the same thought, those four words that are on the back wall of this church, “Not I, but Christ.” You see in life so many times we try to figure out the answers on our own, don’t we? We try to figure out what it is that we need to do in order to get where we need to go and what we want to do and what we want to accomplish and we think we’ve got all the answers and we lay out the plan. We lay out the steps and what happens is that the stuff of life begins to beat down on us to the point that we never fully get there. It’s because we’ve been trying to do things in our power rather than depend on God. Be still and know that I am God. God didn’t intend for us to live a life of spiritual mediocrity but the reason that we get lost in that mediocrity so often is because of the things that start surrounding us. The chaos that ensues. The problems and the challenges that begin to fill our life where we don’t know what to do next and we don’t know where to go.
There’s a story in I Kings in chapter 19 that tells us very quickly what we do in a situation like that. This is the story of Elijah. You’ve heard this story. I Kings 18, you remember that Elijah was up against the prophets of Baal and you’ll remember what happened. The 450 prophets of Baal, they couldn’t do anything. They couldn’t get power. They couldn’t get that altar to be consumed with fire. But then Elijah steps up and calls on Almighty God. The altar is consumed and everyone is amazed that Elijah is able to call on God and that God would give that power and use that power to consume. And it says, the Scripture, in I Kings 18, that not only was the altar consumed but the water that they had doused it with. The trenches around it all were consumed with fire and what happened immediately after that is that Elijah chased after those prophets of Baal and he killed every single one of them.
But then in I Kings 19 we see that Elijah was faced with a problem. In I Kings 19, verse 8 and following it said, “But the Lord said to him, what are you doing here, Elijah?” God said that to Elijah because after what happened with the prophets of Baal, the kings and the rulers decided that they were going to kill Elijah. They told him, “Before the sun goes down tomorrow, you will be dead.“ So Elijah takes off running. He takes off and he is in hiding, hiding for his very life. Hiding in a cave in the mountains and God comes to him. Why are you here? What are you doing here, Elijah? Elijah replied, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty but the people of Israel, they’ve broken their covenant with you. Torn down your altars and killed every one of your prophets. I alone am left and now they are trying to kill me too.”
In other words, what Elijah is saying is, “God, I’ve done everything you wanted me to do. God, I’ve served you. God, I’ve zealously served you. I’ve done everything that you wanted me to do and now everything is going wrong. And everything is in chaos. Everything is in turmoil and I don’t know what to do. They are trying to kill me, God. That’s why I’m here.”
But listen to the answer that the Lord gives. In verse 11 he says, “Go out and stand before me on the mountain, the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. “ Listen to this, “After the fire, there was the sound of a gentle whisper.” In the midst of the chaos as Elijah stood there on that mountainside, as the wind began to blow so fiercely, so intensely, rocks were actually coming down. The earth began to shake underneath his feet. Can you imagine the fear that he was feeling? The wind is blowing, the earth is shaking, and then if that wasn’t enough, a fire began to consume all that was around him. Elijah is standing there and saying, “God, I just told you I don’t know what to do. Why are you doing this to me? “ You can imagine what was going through his mind.
But then Elijah heard a still small voice, a gentle whisper. The voice of Almighty God in the midst of the chaos. And listen, there are great truths in this passage. You know, one of the great truths in this passage is the fact that as Elijah stood there and as the wind began to blow, and the earth began to shake and as the fire began to consume, it says in this passage that God was not in them. But do you know what it tells us? It tells us this. That even in all of those things, God controls them. In our lives many times, in a metaphorical sense, the winds are blowing. So much so that the rocks are falling down around our lives. Sometimes the earth shakes in our hearts and our lives and our souls where we feel like everything is falling apart and the fire begins to consume us and we don’t know what to do. This passage tells us, you know what? Even in all of that, God is still in control. But then, in a gentle whisper, in a still small voice God speaks to Elijah.
Notice what it says as we continue reading. As we continue reading in verse 13, when Elijah heard it, when he heard the voice of God, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave and again, again he said, “What are you doing here Elijah?” Elijah replied again, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars and killed every one of your prophets and I alone am left and now, now God, they are trying to kill me too.” Exact same words that Elijah said before. The exact same words, “They’re trying to do it to me too. God I don’t know what to do. I’m spiritually stuck.”
But then God gave him a great statement. In verse 15, “Then the Lord told him go back the way you came.”
Today as we sit here there are lots of us, many of us who are stuck. Spiritually we don’t know what to do. We don’t know where to turn. We don’t know how to get to greatness spiritually. We are stuck in mediocrity and we don’t know what to do. God knew that Elijah was in that situation. God knew that Elijah was living in fear. God knew that Elijah didn’t know what the next steps were and it literally drove him to the point of hiding in a cave from the world because he was afraid of life.
And what was God’s answer? Go back the way you came. Get back to life. The way that Elijah came, if you will remember, was through the power of Almighty God. Realizing that He is God. That He is God. He’s God in the midst of the wind. He’s God in the midst of the fire. He’s God in the midst of the earthquakes. He’s God in the midst of the divorce. He’s God in the midst of the job loss. He’s God in the midst of the health crisis. He’s God in the midst of cancer. He’s God in the midst of a heart attack. He’s God in the midst of everything that breaks our hearts and rips us apart and tears us to the point that we feel like we’ve got nothing left. He is God.
Be still and know that I am God and I love you. He loves us. He loves us. He cares about us. He cares about us. And He came that we might have life and that they may have it, that I might have it, that you might have it more abundantly.
Today, my friends, situations, many times we are like Elijah. Things that send us running for the hills and we are hiding there. God, where are you? God, why have you left me? God, why are you doing this to me? God, why am I going through this? God, why am I faced with this cancer? God, why am I facing this divorce? God, why am I facing all of this stuff that rips me apart? God, where are you?
Be still, because the gentle whisper, the still small voice of God is where we find the abundant life that God wants to give. And today as you are sitting in this room I would tell you God didn’t intend for you to live a life of spiritual mediocrity. God intends for you to have life and to have it more abundantly. Listen, listen to that still small voice.
Lord, today we are so grateful for your Word. We are so grateful for the promises that you give us. The truths that you share with us. The incredible wisdom that guides us each and every day because we are listening to you, seeking you, pursuing you with everything that we have. But it is the most important thing that we do, God. God, we are so grateful that you are there. In the midst of our earthquakes. In the midst of our fires. In the midst of our wind, God you are there. God, help us today to not get so caught up in the chaos. To not get distracted by the turmoil. To not get side tracked by the pain. But today, God, to sit back and to be still and know that you are God. To know that you are God and that you are everything that we need.
With our heads bowed and our eyes closed this morning, listen I know there are people in this room right now, and you are so stuck and today the things that we have talked about, it resonates with you because you don’t know what to do. You’ve tried everything. You’ve read the books. You’ve gone to the seminars. You’ve done all the things that you’re supposed to do but yet you are stuck. Today, these passages that we’ve read, the Scriptures that we’ve shared, listen these are for you. And they are not from me. They are directly from the heart of God. That still small voice. That gentle whisper from the Word of God today. And today you just need to sit back and in the midst of the chaos. And in the midst of the turmoil. In the midst of the earthquake and the fire and the wind. In the midst of everything that is going on in your life right now that is keeping you from a life of greatness, abundant life. You just need to sit back and let God settle your heart. To settle your heart.
In a moment we are going to do something a little bit differently than we normally do. We are going to open the altar as we always do and we want you to come and to kneel at this altar and say, “God I need to hear from you. God, I need you. I’m desperate for you, God.” And if you are here today and you have never met God. A moment ago we talked about how God loves you. He loves you so much He sent His son to die for you. That Jesus came and died for your sins, and was buried and rose again for you. And that if we realize that we are a sinner and that He is a Savior that He wants to take that price that we should have paid and that He has paid that penalty and that He will save you today. Make you into a new creation. All that old stuff, that baggage, it’s all gone. It’s thrown away. It’s because of Christ that we’ve been made new.
In a moment I’m going to ask you if you want to meet Christ today to come to this altar. Our pastors will be here and they’ll share with you the incredible message of the Gospel. If you want to join our church, or come for baptism, all of that. But listen today this altar is open because we all need to ask God to settle us, to calm us to hear that still small voice of God. And this morning what we are going to do is, I’m going to have Charles sing a song. Charles, I want you to sing “Settle Me Now.”
A song that I don’t want you to sing along. I just want you to listen. I want you to hear the words. I want you to hear the words because in these words again we find the truth that when everything is going wrong, when we are spiritually stuck, basically this, God, settle me now. Settle me now.
So with our heads bowed and as we all stand in this place today with no one moving around unless you are coming to this altar. With every head bowed and every eye closed, I want you to listen to these words and I don’t want anything else to distract you. I want you to focus on these words. Because in these words we find the answer. How do you get back to life? God. God, settle me. Settle me now. Let Him speak to you. Come to this altar and meet God today.
Lord, today we stand here in your presence and we are in awe. We are humbled. Humbled that you love us so much. That you care about every single thing that we go through. The broken hearts. The pain, the suffering, the challenges. God, you care about everything. You love us so much. You are with us every step of the way. God, today I pray that you would be with those who are kneeling at this altar. Those who are in our prayer room today. That right now in their lives, and I don’t know what the situation is, but, God, they are seeking you right now. They are pursuing you right now in this place. God, I thank you that you’re there for them. And I thank you that you are there for all of us. I know there are those who are standing in this place today and today you have spoken to their hearts. Today they know that they need to run after you. To follow after you. To chase after you, God. To pursue you with all of their hearts. And God, I pray that you would, as we leave this place that you would put that burning passion in their hearts and in their lives to make everything about you. God, as we have heard today, you didn’t create us, you didn’t intend for us to live a life of spiritual mediocrity. You intended for us to live a life of spiritual greatness. So God I pray that you would draw us to that place. Lead us to that place. And use us to reach out to this world that is hurting, that is dying, that is lost, that is looking for hope. That God that you would use us to share with them that hope that is found only in you. God, for that we will give you the praise. We will give you the glory for all that you are going to do.
With our heads bowed, the music is going to continue to play. There are people who are still coming. Still kneeling. We are going to end this service and I would ask that you just respectfully quietly exit today as people are dealing with issues with God.
God bless you. Have a great day.