OF SINKING BOATS

OF SINKING BOATS

                Our theme for this week is “GOD IS MY HELP” and based on Psalm 40 where David tells us how to walk out of the pit of destruction…out of the miry clay and into the joy of victorious salvation.

                Even among Christians you will find some that are in a perpetual state of “bad luck” and or overwhelming circumstances, troubles and grief. If they were a boat, they would be mostly full of water, sometimes showing on the surface and sometimes below the surface. I know what it is like, because in spite of the fact that I had a wonderful life and the best of opportunities I was plagued by almost constant depression for a number of years..

                Depression is like a fog so that even though the same beautiful landscape is all around you, you can’t see it and so you flounder in a directionless mode of survival. Sometimes the sun shines through and for a little while everything seems to be better, but then something will happen that triggers certain thought patterns that suck you down into a bottomless pit.

                If someone had asked me if I believed in God and believed His Word I would have said “Yes, absolutely.” I had been in church all of my life. I was a professional Christian and very involved in the workings of the church for many years. But in general, the Bible had been for me a reference book of doctrinal proofs and I had never taken its personal solutions to heart. It remained on a theoretical level.

                It was only in music that I could cut through the stern judgmental side of God and to see something for which my heart longed, but outside of music God seemed more like an enemy than a friend. His requirements seemed completely out of reach. Truth seemed like this big and complicated thing over our heads and the last thing I ever wanted to do is to witness to others. I couldn’t explain it myself and on a personal level I had never found it to deliver as promised.

                Every once in a while I would encounter Christians that were overflowing with abundant joy and His praise was continually on their lips. They were Spirit filled and excited, but I had been taught that this was most likely a false spirit, a deceiving spirit because they didn’t hold to our doctrine and so I would be left wondering, “What makes these people so happy?” My heart would ache for the kind of joy and confidence that some Christians seemed to have in the Lord.

                Doctrine is important. We all need to know what we believe. Bible prophecy is also important simply because we are currently plunging into all of the things predicted there for the end of the age.

                But unless God’s Word and His Holy Spirit have become more than information, we are doomed to live in fear and despair. Some people cannot tolerate Bible Prophecy because it engenders fear in them and I suspect that they have not yet learned how to dwell in the secret place of the Most High. They have never taken the promises personally. Everything remains in a theoretical cloud of “Truth” that never quite makes it into the heart… never into the practical realm of deliverance.

                This is why Jesus told us saying (And in saying this He was announcing the New Covenant)

                “But an hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in SPIRIT and in TRUTH for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers.” John 4:23

                The Bible brings us INFORMATION and the Spirit brings us TRANSFORMATION  and if we don’t have the two in proper balance we will go into one ditch or the other.

                Some seek information, but not the Spirit and so they tend to become legalistic. Others seek the Spirit but not the Word and so the Holy Spirit has nothing to work with in their lives but emotions and emotions are not a good foundation. We MUST worship God in both Spirit and Truth. The Word will teach us how to walk in the ways of the Lord and the Holy Spirit will make it a part of our DNA so to speak.

                Jesus stood up and said to the crowd: “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this He spoke of the Spirit whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. John 7:38-39

                If we live as if we are in the Old Covenant and we do not drink in of His Holy Spirit and learn to walk in it in a very tangible way, the Christian life will always remain theoretical and somehow external to us. We will not find the rest that Jesus promised. We will feel like strangers on the outside looking in and we will wonder how some people have the joy for which we hunger.

                Across the broad span of Christianity there are those on the side of Law and there are those on the side of the Spirit… but we are entering into a time like no other in history and the greatest need in any and all Churches today is to walk in both Spirit and in Truth.

                Right down in the center of our lives where the rubber meets the road, we need to learn how to walk in Spirit and in truth. Jesus Himself is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Truth then is no longer a Law on stone, but living water flowing from our innermost being.

                Jesus said in John 14:15, 16: “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper that He may be with you forever.” John 14:15, 16.

                Now those on the side of Law will say that Jesus is here referring to the Ten Commandments, but if so, then Paul is completely wrong.  So we need to understand that Jesus is here giving His disciples a last minute briefing, saying in effect. “If you love Me you will follow My instructions. And shortly before He said this He had given them these instructions saying: “A New Commandment (Instruction) I give you that you love one another even as I have loved you,  that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples if you have love one for another.“  John 14:15-16

                So these were very personal instructions that Jesus was giving His disciples telling them to follow everything that He had been teaching and instructing them to do. And this also plays out in the great Gospel Commission where Jesus said:

                All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I commanded (taught, instructed) you and lo I am with you always even to the end of the age.” Mt. 28:19-20. Here Jesus is telling us to do exactly what He had done in terms of making disciples. Today we tend to make members, but not disciples and so many churches are drifting away from the Bible and preaching a different Gospel. We need to get back to Spirit and Truth as it is in Jesus.

                If we treat Jesus instructions as if He is instating the Ten Commandments as the framework and power of the New Covenant, then we don’t really have a New Covenant do we?  WE will be forced to either side with Paul or with Moses, when in fact, if properly understood Law and grace work together perfectly. The Law ushers us to the foot of the cross, where we die to the Law and begin to live by the indwelling Holy Spirit and thus the Law is fulfilled in us and we enter the true rest that the Old Covenant promised but couldn’t deliver. The Law bears witness to the New Covenant but it cannot produce it. It can only bring us to the foot of the cross and there its work is finished. Gal. 3:17-26

                IF we don’t understand this then the Bible will be at war with itself and we with it. No… Jesus came here to perfectly fulfill the Old Covenant and to bring us an entirely New Covenant in His own blood. But here I am not intending a discussion on the Law as such.  We are talking about how the New Covenant, rather than setting up this big Law on Stone as an external force, the New Covenant has brought to us the very presence of Christ into our lives. His living water can flow from our innermost being as rivers of living water. And wherever a river flows it brings life.

                So if we begin to see God’s Word as a river of life rather than an impersonal set of Commandments, we will begin to look at the Word differently. We will begin to see Spirit and Truth as feeding our own spirit, bringing life, healing, power to overcome, restoration. The Spirit of Christ will begin to produce His fruit in and through us. We will begin to see the Word not so much as a reference book, but as a love letter with promises that really work and power to walk out of the valley of the shadow of death and to live victorious in Christ Jesus. This is practical, not theoretical.

                Our obedience to Jesus is now being manifested in the fruit of the Spirit and as the kind of love described in 1 Cor. 13. We can walk in this love and when we do, the Law is fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Rom. 8:1-4.

                Some see this as a copout, but in truth living in the love of Christ is infinitely more difficult than keeping the minimal rules that keep us from killing each other. The New Covenant requires us to have an infinite “Helper” on the inside of us… One who can make everything that the Word says come true in us and through us. And once we begin to live by Spirit and Truth as it is in Jesus, He will then walk us out of all of our troubles and we will be able to say with David:

                “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock (Jesus) and established my goings.” Ps. 40:1-2

                If you sometimes feel like you are one of those sinking boats that can barely keep your head above water… try claiming the promises of God and then asking the Spirit of God to bring them to pass in your life. Tell God that you want those rivers of living water flowing from your innermost being… believe that He hears and answers your prayers as promised. Begin to walk by faith and talk and act by faith in that which you cannot see. Wait upon the Lord and He will surely bring it to pass. Yield yourself completely to Him. Let go of the bad stuff and all of the worries and place your full faith in Him. After all, Jesus said, “Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything.” Phil 4:6, 7

                Ask yourself if you are actually doing this or if this remains just an unreachable theory to you. What is your first response? To worry?  Or to pray?   Come on now… be honest. I, for instance, tend to worry first and pray later, but I am learning to turn this around. Bonnie and I are both learning this and recently God has given us plenty of opportunity to practice. We are in training… all of us are.

                Life offers us plenty of opportunities to test the Word. If we begin to look away from self and to follow Jesus’ instructions pray instead of worry and to love one another even as He loved us… a completely new life will begin to blossom in us and rivers of living water will begin to flow from our innermost being.