Rob Salvato and Ted Leavenworth are joined by Richard Cimino (Metro Calvary) to candidly talk about our experiences with healthy and unhealthy ministry workloads and the effects they could have on our family health and relationships.

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Metro Calvary — metrocalvary.org

“Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” For sin is the sting that results in death… But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:54-56, NLT).

We all live in and observe the same world. We all see and experience the same basic things. The world isn’t as it should be. It’s broken. In the words of Bob Dylan, “Everything’s Broken.” Bad things happen to good people. People who should love each other hurt each other. The spiritual, moral, emotional, physical, and environmental landscape of this world is horribly broken.

Though we all live in and observe the same world, we interpret the data differently. There are countless explanations and interpretations for what’s broken, why it’s broken, and how it can all ultimately be fixed. But even the brightest optimist, the person with the best life imaginable, has to come to grips with the one thing that inescapably says that something’s horribly wrong: death!

In this fallen world the majority of men and women think of death in a very small, personalized way. They think of it as an event.

Death is something that happens to someone who’s living. “They died.” They think of it as an inescapable outcome of existence. You have a birth certificate and a death certificate. The first records your entrance into the world, and the second records your exit. Everyone gets both of those certificates.

Everyone welcomes birth. When a baby is born, cigars and “congrats” are handed out. Colorful helium-filled balloons abound saying, “It’s a____!” We celebrate the date of our birth. Loved ones gather and celebrate the day their loved one was born. We have a name for it: “birth-day party.”

People don’t celebrate when a loved one dies. No cigars, no “congrats,” no balloons. There’s no such thing as a death-day party. People grieve and ache and have to find a way to deal with the gaping hole that someone’s death has left in their world.

Others view death as the termination of life. There was life, and then it was terminated. Death looms as the great terminator of everything they don’t want to end, the loss of everything they worked so hard to gain and don’t want to lose.

Death is surely not less than those things. But death is far greater than than all of that. Death is a “something” that came into a world that only knew life! The world didn’t always look like the News at 10 AM or on our web browser.

The Bible tells us that when God finished creating the world, preparing it for man, and then creating man, God said it was “very good!” Man lived in a perfect world. It was environmentally perfect. Everything was organic! Nothing needed to be labeled as “sustainably grown.” It was socially perfect.

No need for marital counseling. No need for police. It was biologically perfect. There was no need for health insurance because there was no such thing as sickness. There was no such thing as life insurance because there was no such thing as death.

So where did death come from? What is the ultimate “cause of death?” What happened to usher in this inexorable power which now holds sway over what was once a world of life? The Bible informs us that death entered into that perfect world by way of sin.

“For sin is the sting that results in death…” (1 Corinthians 15:56).

“When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone” (Romans 5:12).

God had warned our first parents that sin would do that (Genesis 2:17). The New Testament tells us that sin has an outcome: “the wages of sin,” is “death” (Romans 6:23).

While fallen man processes the problem of death on one dimension, the Bible informs us that this thing we call “death” exerts its power on three levels. There’s spiritual death, there’s physical death, and there’s eternal death. To help us understand the nature and workings of death, and what it is we’re celebrating on Easter, let’s start with the one dimension of death that fallen man does understand: physical death.

Physical Death

First — The power of death does something to the body. A dead body can’t stick together. It’s falling apart. Death causes someone who was once beautiful to look ugly. When someone is dying of an aggressive form of cancer, you see death at work while they’re still alive. The complexities of anatomy lose all sense of integration. The body falls apart — and the person begin to waste away. When we bury someone, the corpse begins to dis-integrate. There’s no such thing as a beautiful corpse. Death makes once beautiful things ugly.

Second — A dead body can’t respond to stimuli. We have five senses. Those five senses make us fully aware of what’s going on outside of us. I’m aware of what’s outside of me through my eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and skin. I’m aware. I can see, smell, hear, taste, and touch. Death brings an end to the senses. It doesn’t respond to visual, olfactory, auditory, gustatory, or somatosensory stimulation. No more senses. No sensation. It doesn’t respond to stimuli.

Finally — A dead body can’t exert itself. It’s powerless — it can’t move.

A dead body doesn’t possess the desire to move, or the power to move.

Such is the power of death, the grip of death.

Man has no remedy for it.

He’s powerless to overcome physical death.

Spiritual Death

The Bible *informs us* that physical death was preceded by, and *followed from, *spiritual death. Before death impacts a person’s body, death impacts man in his relationship with God. God told Adam and Eve that if they disobeyed Him, they would die. They disobeyed, yet they didn’t immediately experience biological death. They did immediately experience spiritual death. Sin brought death into the realm of their relationship with God. Even though our first parents were physically alive, they were spiritually dead. They were the original “Walking Dead.”

First — The wages of sin makes us spiritually ugly because we’re no longer fully integrated. God, who is triune, said, “Let us make man in our image.” God made man body, soul, and spirit. Fully integrated. The body and intellect/emotions were designed to be subordinate to, and influenced by, man’s fellowship with God.

Death touched the part of us where we are able to know God — to derive life from God! The outcome was *dis-*integration. Separated from the life of God, fallen man is governed by his fallen emotions, fallen intellect, fallen passions.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world….among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Spiritual death makes us ugly. It makes us turn even good things into bad things by making them ultimate things! When good things become ultimate things, they become ugly: sex is perverted, wealth is perverted, and power is perverted. That truth changes the way we explain and interpret the world around us. That truth changes the diagnosis and the treatment of what’s broken!

Spiritual death (that makes us ugly on the vertical axis of our life, causing us to be dis-integrated in our relationship with God) makes us ugly on the horizontal axis of our lives, causing our human relationships to dis-integrate. We no longer image God well. Instead of bearing the image of the giving, servant heart of God, our first impulse is SELF: self-gain, self-serving, self-promotion, self-preservation. No sooner did sin destroy man’s relationship with God than we have the record of the first murder. It was premeditated murder driven by self-concern. Cain was envious and jealous of his brother, Abel.

Second — Spiritual death destroys the capacity to respond to stimuli. When you’re spiritually dead, it means you can’t see beyond the realm of the physical. Everything else is more interesting than God, His Word, and His Wisdom.

For example, how many people in your neighborhood, school, and workplace want to take a couple of hours on Sunday to gather with others to acknowledge God, worship God, and learn of God? For the *vast *majority of them, the newspaper is more interesting than the Bible; playing a round of golf is more desirable than praising God; being in the stands at a football game (or on the couch watching one with friends) is more interesting than being in a room full of people worshipping Jesus.

That’s because spiritual death makes us incapable of perceiving the reality of the love of God, the cross of Jesus, heaven and hell. You’re as aware of the reality of those things as a corpse is aware of the people at his funeral. Your saved spouse talks about the joy of the Lord, and you aren’t touched by it. Your Christian friend tells you how “blessed” they were reading the Bible, and you’re dead to that reality.

THIS IS HUGE — If you see the world wrong, you live wrong. If you see life as all about your story and your glory, you get wrong all of your responses to life.

Finally — Spiritual death has left us powerless — without the power to do anything about our condition. The following verses explain how spiritual death has left us powerless.

“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6).

“When we were utterly helpless” (Romans 5:6).

“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7-8).

Spiritual death leaves us powerless, utterly helpless, in the realm of motive and in the realm of ability. In the physical realm, I have to want to pick up a Bible. That desire has to be connected by way of my nervous system to my muscles, so I can do what I want to do. Spiritual death leaves us without the power to want God and powerless to reach out and grab Him.

Many might say — and I surely used to say and think this — I might not love God as much as I should, I might not have faith in God like I should, but I’m not dead. I have some moral sensation, and I have some moral strength. I’m not dead. You and I might define that as life, but God doesn’t! That’s not life as God defines it. That’s not the life God intended for us to experience. (Think of the TV series “Walking Dead.” Think of how “alive” the “walkers” are compared to real humans). The Bible says that we’re not just sick because of our sins. The Bible says we’re *dead.*

The World’s Diagnosis & Remedy

The world at large has a different diagnosis: man’s not dead, just sick. The world at large has a different prognosis. Give man enough time and he’s going to get better. The world at large offers countless remedies that are the inventions of dead men. Those things are the basis of hope for broken men and women in this broken world. But here’s the problem:

Hope is only real hope if that hope can fix what’s broken.

Think about this: Mankind is obsessed with eliminating the causes of physical death. There are great campaigns against cancer, AIDS, and other diseases. Billions of dollars are spent on medical research and educational campaigns. There are great campaigns against poverty and starvation, substance abuse, drunk driving, and the latest, against guns. (By the way, while countless billions of dollars are funding these campaigns that war against various “causes of death,” a good chunk of a billion dollars is spent by our government every year to KILL nearly 4,000 babies per day. THAT is how ugly and blind sin has made us!)

Every one of those campaigns are against the “causes of death.” But have you noticed that no one has ever just come out and said, “Let’s have a global campaign against dying”? You see, all of those campaigns to cure the various causes of death only prolong the inevitable. One out of every one person born will die.

The Bible’s Diagnosis & Remedy

The Bible has a very different diagnosis: *Ephesians 2 *is the death certificate. Apart from Jesus, we’re all in the morgue. It’s only a matter of time — the body will eventually catch up with us. We NEED to be SAVED.

But the Bible offers real hope. The Bible tells us that God did something to fix the problem of death on every level! God launched a great campaign against death. His great campaign against death began with a campaign against *the *Cause of Death: SIN!

As John Lennox explains, “sin entered the world to wreak endless havoc. So serious is that moral infection that the business of restoring men and women to fellowship with their Creator will involve something much bigger than creation itself: nothing less than the Creator becoming human, dying at the hands of his creatures and rising again in triumph over sin and death.”

Jesus Came to Destroy Sin & Death

The Bible tells us that something happened in history that we can’t ignore. Something happened that changes everything!

In The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis writes, “Once upon a time in our world, in a little stable, there was something that was bigger than the whole world.”

The Bible says that 2,000 years ago there was something inside a stable that was bigger than the world. 2,000 years ago, God came in human flesh. Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem. That’s what we celebrate on Christmas!

Death was not inescapable for Jesus. Jesus said, “No one takes my life — I lay it down…” Jesus said that He came to “give His life for a ransom.” Jesus is God come in human flesh for the sole purpose of destroying sin and death. On Good Friday, we gather to remember how Jesus was brutally beaten and then nailed to a Roman cross. 700 years before Jesus died on the cross, the prophet Isaiah told why all of that happened:

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4-6).

Jesus Put Death to Death

Jesus would save us from our great enemies sin and death by His death on the cross in our place for our sin. There on the cross, when the Father laid the sins of the world on Jesus, Jesus experienced separation from God the Father. There on the cross, Jesus experienced biological death. Before He breathed His last, He shouted in victory, “It Is Finished!” Divine justice was satisfied. Our forgiveness was paid for in full. They took Jesus down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb.

Tim Chaddick puts it like this: “The empty cross is not good news without the empty tomb!”

Three days after Jesus died, He rose from the grave — PROVING that on the cross He had truly conquered our great enemies sin and death! The resurrection of Jesus Christ guarantees the final defeat of sin and death.

The Bible calls it a living hope (1 Peter 1:3). It’s a living hope because Jesus is alive! The Christian alone has real hope because their hope — JESUS — fixed what was broken! Jesus put death to death.

“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades (Revelation 1:17-18).

We were hopelessly dead to God. We were powerless to overcome the power of that death. But when we were dead to God, God did what we couldn’t do.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:4-5).

Spiritual death made us spiritually ugly. The glorious resurrection power of Jesus is at work to make something beautiful of my life. Day by day the resurrection power of Jesus takes what was made ugly because of sin and causes my mind, desires, and passions to integrate with the heart and wisdom of God. The things that I once made ultimate ends for my gratification or glory (time, talents, and treasures) I now, by the resurrection power of God, use for His pleasure and His glory. I now have the life and love of God working in me, causing me to look more like Jesus: loving others and serving others, for His glory and my joy!

Spiritual death made me incapable of seeing beyond the physical. But the resurrection power of God enables me to be stimulated by the things of the Spirit, and helps me hunger for the Word and desire to pray. Spiritual death left me powerless. But the same power that raised Jesus from the grave is now working in me to want and do that which pleases God.

“For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

Eternal Death

The question remains — “If Jesus put death to death, why do I have to die physically?” Again, when we look at death’s entrance into the world in Genesis 3, we see that the power of death first touched man’s relationship with God. Physical death was secondary. The victory of Jesus over death begins where death began — by restoring our relationship with God, who is our life. The final stage of the destruction of death is over the grave.

This is huge. Physical death for the unbeliever is actually the last act in a progression toward eternal death — separation from God for eternity!

But because of the resurrection of Jesus, physical death for a Christian is the last and final act in a progression completely away from death.

I’ll tell a story that illustrates this: There was a Christian man who was dying of cancer. Whenever he was asked, “Do you believe God will heal you?” he said, “Oh, absolutely. I know God will heal me; I’m just not sure if He’s going to do it before I die or after.” In his case, it was after. But what he also used to say is, “If He heals me before, it’s just a temporary thing until He actually heals me after.”

Because Jesus conquered the grave, physical death is the door into a life forever in the presence of God. Death actually has no power over you. None at all. Physical death is actually going to be the last gasp of death in your life.

“Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” For sin is the sting that results in death…But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54-56).

I heard someone describe it like this: “Jesus conquered sin and death so you wouldn’t be defeated by them. Jesus walked out of His tomb so you could walk into life eternal. The resurrection of Jesus Christ means you’ll be invited to the one funeral you’ll want to attend: the funeral of death.”

Victory!

THAT’S why Jesus isn’t an option; Jesus isn’t a choice among many choices.

Religion can’t conquer death.

Moralism can’t conquer death.

ONLY JESUS CAN!

Conclusion

You can’t rejoice in the empty tomb if you haven’t been to the cross. Repent of — turn your back on — the lie of lies and trust in the cross and resurrection of Jesus to save you from your great enemies sin and death. Faith means that you’re so convinced that Jesus loved you and died for you that you’ll live for Him. You’ll trust, worship, serve, and obey Him.

If you’re alive — you get to be the agent of His life in a dead world! You get to communicate the life of Jesus by the way you live and by the words you say. You’re strategically placed in this world to use all that you are — all that you do — as ambassadors of the One who conquered death!

In our last installment of Ecclesiology 101, we began to look at how the local church lives and breathes in relationship to prayer.

We laid the foundation by noting that prayer in its essence is man talking with God. It is using words to express to God what we sense and feel. It is using words to express our needs to God. It’s the use of words in responding to who God is, what God is doing or what God has done.

If that is what prayer is, then the book of Psalms is God’s textbook on prayer. Though the psalms have much to say about God — each author prays (talks to God) in response to what they know about God. That is the prerequisite of prayer. What we know about God is the soil in which prayer grows.

The prayers of David are a great example of this.

“Psalm 3 A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.

O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked. Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people!” (Psalm 3:1-8).

“Psalm 34 Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.

I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together! I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! (Psalm 34:1-8).

“Psalm 51 A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.”

They held back nothing from their intense, personal, in the moment prayers. They even made sure to write down the wrong attitudes and flawed passions that they spoke openly to God for us to see.

We ended by noting that what they PRAYED ALONE was also intended to be PRAYED TOGETHER.

David clearly intended Psalm 3 to be read and prayed in community:

“I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people! Selah” (Psalm 3:4).

David intended Psalm 34 to be prayed in community:

“Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good?” (Psalm 34:9-12).

David intended that radical, intensely personal and brutally honest prayer of Psalm 51 to be sung in community. The full title of Psalm 51 is “To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.”

The book of Psalms became the prayer book of Israel. These prayers were prayed collectively when they gathered in the synagogue. They prayed these psalms as a community — knowing the needs of individuals in the synagogue — knowing who those prayers hit home with and knowing how those prayers resonated with the heart and spiritual state of the community as a whole.

Many of these prayers were put to music so they could be committed to memory. The Book of Psalms was the prayer book of Jesus — the Song Book of Jesus.

This “gathered” form of prayer continued in the newborn church.

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).

“Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour” (Acts 3:1).

Peter and John were on their way to seek God in prayer with other believers. They did this together on a regular basis — at a regular time.

AGAIN — For a community of believers to live and breathe in connection with prayer presumes the individuals that comprise that community pray.

Prayer is an incredibly personal and privileged vertical conversation between an individual child of God and his or her heavenly Father. Prayer does have a necessary private context. Jesus modeled this in His own prayer life. He would get up before it was light and find a deserted place to be alone in prayer with His Father. He would come forth from those times of prayer with marching orders (“No, I can’t stay and preach to the crowds in Capernaum; I have to go to the unwalled towns and villages” — He chose the 12 after spending the night alone with His Father in prayer.)

Jesus taught about praying privately.

In Matthew 6:6, He taught about going into your own room and shutting the door behind you to pray. But the main point was not to encourage isolated prayer. That instruction was a warning against the temptation to pray publicly for the wrong reasons.

YES — prayer often begins when we’re alone. We pray our guilt, our pain, our joy. We pray on our bed at night (as the psalmist did). We even pray privately when surrounded by unbelievers in our neighborhood, or at work, or in the classroom. But we can never be with others non-stop. And by the way — we should never be with others non-stop. But we should always be aware of the fact that we are always with God.

God wants His children to have personal conversations with Him. Sometimes He demands them, right? But He also wants to have family conversations with His children. He wants us to call our friends into prayer. He knows that our prayers and our prayer life mature when they are integrated with the community of believers God has placed us in.

I really like how Eugene Peterson puts it: “By ourselves, we are not ourselves.” There is a very real way in which we are not fully ourselves until we are a part of a community of believers.

There is something extraordinary that happens when we pray with others who have prayed. There is something amazing when we put our knees on the ground together with others — we have the sense that we are on the same ground — our knees are level with their knees. By the way, It’s okay to get on our knees when we worship and pray together. I become more fully me when my hands are raised with your hands in praise and adoration, when my voice joins with your voices in praise and prayer, rejoicing or weeping. The point of worshiping and praying with all of you is not to express myself — but to become the person God saved me to be. By myself, I’m not really myself. By myself, I am not really myself — I am not the man Jesus redeemed me to be!

We are NOT naturally good at this.

It goes against the individualism of culture. It goes against the grain of how we are so very self-conscious about what others think or feel about us. It goes against the grain of how we would rather not be known. We would not have the psalms if that were the case. The psalms were self-disclosing! Those prayers made known the deepest needs, greatest failures and personal fears of the writer to the community of God’s people.

And as they were prayed in community, people owned those same needs, those same failures and those same fears as their own. As individuals, we are wonderfully and beyond comprehension of the objects of God’s grace and love. But when we pray in community — grace and love suddenly have objects outside of ourselves. And as we pray with others — praying about our needs and failures and fears — we also become the object of God’s grace and love through His other children.

We do pray in song today. Sometimes we sing the lyrics of the psalms.

When we sing the psalms, are we singing them as OURS?

DO we sing the words as OUR prayers? Are we self-disclosing? When we do, we experience community! When we do, we actually become more of who Jesus saved us to be.

This is why I struggle so much with so much of what is called worship today. It is more about musicality — more about performance — more about vibe and production than praying together.

“We call our worship ‘dynamic’ or ‘exciting’ or ‘engaging.’ The unintended message is that worship is not for God — but really for the worshiper. Which raises the question – who are we worshiping?” –Jared C. Wilson, Prodigal Church

“Between 1995 and 2000 I’d traveled to a host of worship-driven churches — On the good occasions, the worship experience was transporting… Too many times, I came away with an unnamed, uneasy feeling. Something was not quite right. The worship felt disconnected from real life. Then there were the services when the pathology… came right over the platform and hit me in the face. It was unabashed self-absorption, a worship culture that screamed, ‘It’s all about us…'”– Sally Morgenthaler

If prayer is an integral part of how the local church lives and breathes, how do we get past our natural inclination toward individualism and self-consciousness?

I believe it’s crucial to remember why we find ourselves in a specific gathering of believers.

God saved you — quarried you out to be a building block — a living stone built on the foundation of Jesus — related to the cornerstone and fitted alongside other living stones. All that you are in Jesus, all that He is desiring to do in and through you is inextricably tied to the fact that He places us next to a very specific collection of other living stones.

You will never be the living stone Jesus saved you to be until you do life with the other living stones around you — and a huge part of that life means that you move from PRAYING ALONE to PRAYING TOGETHER with and for these other living stones.

In this installment of Ecclesiology 101, we’re going to look at how the local church lives and breathes in relationship to prayer.*

Let’s start with this: I feel a great sense of lack in my own life when it comes to prayer. Not so much in regard to spontaneous, on the spot prayer, but in the realm of intentional, dedicated times of prayer. I am also coming to see that I have had an underdeveloped view of how important prayer is in the way Metro (and every local church) should live and breathe as a community. I’d like to ask you to raise your hand if you can identify with me on either of those two points.

Prayer in its essence is man talking with God. We find that prayer — men and women talking to God — occupies a huge chunk of real estate in the landscape of the Bible. We find the first conversation between man and God in the Book of Beginnings — Genesis (Genesis 3). The last words of the last book of the Bible are a prayer.

Cover to cover, the Bible is filled with different people, male and female, young and old, in different historical contexts, in different cultural contexts, in different personal contexts (rich, poor, sick, afraid, heartbroken, joyful, defeated, victorious, doubting, hopeful) talking to God. Scripture records prayer across the spectrum of history, and life tells us the place prayer should occupy in the spectrum of the individual believer’s life. But prayer isn’t intended to stop there. We have been saved from our kingdom of one — and saved to ekklesia. Prayer birthed in personal conversation with God should also connect us with the community of believers God has placed us in.

It’s my prayer that we will at least scratch the surface on what this can look like. But before we get to how we pray together, we need to start with how we pray alone.

PRAYING ALONE

Let’s start with what prayer is — Eugene Peterson made the observation that prayer is the use of human language to talk to God. It is using words to express to God what we sense and feel. It is using words to express our needs to God. It’s the use of words in responding to who God is, what God is doing, or what God has done.

If that is what prayer is, then the book of Psalms is God’s textbook on prayer.

Though the Psalms have much to say about God — each author prays (talks to God) in response to what they know about God. That is the prerequisite of prayer. What we know about God is the soil in which prayer grows.

The prayers recorded in the psalms begin with God. IN that same work, Peterson stated that the prayers of the psalms were not prayed by people trying to understand themselves or trying to diagnose and solve their predicament. Their human conditions might have provoked their prayers — but they were praying to the God who had revealed Himself to them in Scripture! They knew that God had invaded history — specifically the history of Israel. THAT was the soil in which their prayers and their prayer life were birthed and grew. For them, Peterson says:

“Prayer was not an upward wishing. They had a doctrine of God that prayer was rooted in. Though there was much they didn’t know about God (and there is much we don’t know about God) they knew with tremendous clarity some things about God that were absolutely true. Creation, Abrahamic Covenant, Exodus, salvation, the Mosaic commands. They knew that ‘God was not arbitrary or indifferent. They knew God couldn’t be manipulated.'”

When we read the psalms, we can’t miss the fact that those who penned their prayers and put them to song had taken the time to learn what God had revealed about Himself and then responded (prayed) in light of that revelation. Their circumstances were messy; their future was uncertain from their perspective, and quite often their heads and their hearts were murky waters. Most importantly, the soil of their prayer was not what they felt about God — it was what God had revealed about Himself.

“They went to their knees in a pool of light — an illuminating word, two words, maybe even a few sentences that revealed God to them, and by which they courageously decided to live by faith.”– Eugene Peterson

Guys — we have the canon of Scripture!

The psalms are the response of the human heart to the personal revelation of God in the face of every possible circumstance of life in a world that’s in the dark about God. THAT is what the psalms are. THAT is what prayer is. Their prayers were shaped and informed by God’s word, not their moods or their opinions about God.

How does the book of Psalms help us to pray alone?

“We are, in a sense, to put them inside our own prayers, or perhaps to put our prayers inside them, and approach God in that way. In doing this the psalms involve the speaker directly in new attitudes, commitments, promises, and even emotions. When, for example, we do not merely read Psalm 139:23–24—’search me . . . test me . . . see if there is any offensive way in me’—but pray it, we invite God to test our motives and we give active assent to the way of life called for by the Bible”– Timothy Keller¹

“We don’t make up original prayers that suit our private spiritual genius. Prayer is not an original language, but a received language…. A millennium’s experience of grace and judgment, creation and chaos, guilt and salvation, rebellion and obedience shapes the prayers that are the Psalms. When we pray the Psalms and are trained in prayer by them, we enter into this centuries-long experience of being a people of God.”– Eugene Peterson²

FROM PRAYING ALONE TO PRAYING TOGETHER

In the psalms, we find personal prayers, born in specific, personal circumstances. They are the written form of the deepest, most personal communications with God.

The prayers of David are a great example of this.

“Psalm 3 A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.

O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, ‘There is no salvation for him in God.’ Selah. But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked. Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people!” (Psalm 3).

“Psalm 34 of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech so that he drove him out, and he went away.

I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together! I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” (Psalm 34:1-8).

“Psalm 51, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba.”

They held back nothing from in those intense, personal moments of prayer. By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they recorded what they spoke to God and how they spoke to God, wrong attitudes, flawed passions and all.

But what they PRAYED ALONE was also intended to be PRAYED TOGETHER

David clearly intended Psalm 3 to be read and prayed in community.

“I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah. Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people! Selah” (Psalm 3:4).

David intended Psalm 34 to be prayed in community.

“Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good?” (Psalm 3:9-12)

David intended that radical, intensely personal and brutally honest prayer of Psalm 51 to be sung in community. The full title of Psalm 51 is “To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba.”

In our next installment, we’ll examine what that looks like in the community of 21st century Christians.

* Enjoy the complete series on Ecclesiology 101!

_Notes:

_{¹ Timothy Keller and Kathy Keller. The Songs of Jesus: a Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms. New York: Viking, 2015.}

_{² Eugene H. Peterson. Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991.}

On this side of heaven, it’s not a matter of if we are going to fail in hearing the Holy Spirit or being led by the Holy Spirit; it’s a matter of when are we going to fail. I say that not to condone sin. We will fail in our Christian life. We will fail when it comes to hearing the Spirit and being led by the Spirit — and we need to come to grips with that. Jesus saved us knowing that we would. We need to come to grips with the reality that others around us are going to fail — and their failure can result in us getting hurt, just as our failure can result in them getting hurt. _{(Part 1 available here)}

There will — not might — be times when you and I get the leading of the Holy Spirit wrong.

My failure to get the leading of the Holy Spirit right is going to affect you. Your failure to get the leading of the Holy Spirit right is going to affect us. Please don’t misunderstand me when I say this. I’m not saying that to lay some heavy trip on you. I’m saying these things because there is a sense in which we need to give each other permission to fail in regards to being led by the Holy Spirit. In fact, part of learning to be led by the Holy Spirit happens when we fail to rightly discern His leading.

Can you think of a time when you were sure that the Holy Spirit was leading you in a particular way, in a particular course of action — then you stepped out in that thing, and then you found yourself thinking… Uhhh, this is not the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Hopefully, in that moment of failing to get the leading of the Holy Spirit right, we learn what the leading of the Holy Spirit does not sound like, doesn’t look like. That begins to refine our sensitivity to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Please remember — Being led by the Holy Spirit is a lifelong process. We will get it wrong. And because of that, we need to give each other room to fail, cover each other’s failures with love, and by God’s grace, help one another to see how we missed it, got it wrong. THAT is how a community of believers live and breathe!

Here’s another discipline we want to foster in our lives to better hear, know and be led by the Holy Spirit — It’s rooted in the fact that God wants to speak to us in the normal course of daily life.

Living ready for God to speak to you.

Our friend Britt Merrick was talking to one of the ladies at Reality Santa Barbara. She’s a woman used radically by God in the realm of intercessory prayer. Because Britt has such deep respect for her, he wanted to know if she had any insight on the way the Holy Spirit can speak to us in the course of a normal day.

She said, “Yeah, I have an example. Last Sunday I was walking to church, and I walked by a piece of trash. I just felt the Holy Spirit tell me to go back and pick it up.”

Britt was thinking, Okay, then what happened? Did the heavens open and a giant sheet come down with all sorts of trash and pollution that needed to be picked up, directing her and challenging her to care for creation? So he pressed her and said, “Then what?”

She said, “Well, I went back, and I just picked it up.”

Britt said, “So what was the point of the Spirit telling you to do that? Did He want you to pick up trash?”

She said, “No. That’s the way that the Holy Spirit trains me to hear His voice. He will give me what appears to be meaningless, small, suggestions throughout the day, and then I’m always presented with the opportunity to ignore or obey.”

Then she said, “You will not be entrusted with more until you’re faithful with the little things.”

Fallen culture conditions us to respect and expect the spectacular.

That influences the church in a very real way. We are conditioned to confuse the spectacular with the supernatural. The Bible says this:

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin” (Zechariah 4:10).

So the Holy Spirit will speak to us in the littlest things to train us to discern His voice and to be obedient. You never know when the habit of the seemingly small acts of obedience will have a life-changing outcome.

You might not think the Holy Spirit is leading you. You might not think He is speaking to you. Listen — If you are a son or a daughter of God, He is leading you. So many times it’s at that moment when you think about someone, and you think, I should pray for them. It is in those moments when we stop and pray that we find our spiritual ears getting fine-tuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

HERE’S ANOTHER DISCIPLINE involved in being led by the Holy Spirit:

Wait on the Lord, wait for more clarity.

The weightier or bigger the course of action, the more clarity you want to have before you act. As we wait on the Lord for clarity, it’s all right to ask good questions. Let’s define what we mean by “good questions.” The question Why? is generally not a good question. It’s not a good question because there’s hardly ever an answer to that question that will satisfy a human being. Let me ask you a question — When someone you love dies, and you ask that question, will any answer God gives to you change the sense of loss, erase the pain? So we need to ask good questions like, God, what are you doing here? What do you want to show me? How should this thing roll out?

Those kinds of questions are great because many times what we see of the Lord’s leading is not always what it appears to be. Most of you know the story of how the Lord spoke to me about ministry in England. Clear as clear could be: Richard, you are going to minister in England. I took that to mean Valerie and I needed to sell our car and pack our bags because we were moving to England. So we began to make plans to move to England. NEVER happened. But Valerie and I’ve been to England nearly 70 times since then. We have seen thousands of high school kids profess faith in Jesus. We have life-long friends in England that we love and count as family.

Back to what I said earlier — There are inherent dangers and messes in this business of hearing from the Holy Spirit and being led by the Holy Spirit. Here’s how it gets messy. Not everyone around us will always agree with what we believe to be the leading of the Holy Spirit! Amen?

It’s very rare that a legit Christian will say, “I know this isn’t God’s will, but I’m doing this anyway.” Most of the time brothers and sisters will say that as best as they can discern the voice of the leading of the Spirit, they believe they are being led by the Spirit, and they are going to move prayerfully and carefully in that direction. The first is for sure a mess. The second has the potential to be messy.

Here’s where it gets messiest (is that a word?)! It gets really messy when a brother or sister, or you or I, pull the “God told me” card! Has anybody ever done that to you? You hear the person out, and in love you say, I’m not sure that’s the Lord. Then they throw down the trump card — “God told me.” There are going to be a lot of times when that is exactly the case.

And here’s how it gets so incredibly messy. When you or I or anyone else use the “God told me card” — what we’re really saying is this: “In no uncertain terms — you may not question me. You may not say anything that opposes my action.” There are times when the “God told me” card negates everything that God has wonderfully designed and put into place to help us truly be led by the Holy Spirit. The “God told me” card can be used to lock out pastoral care — avoid spiritual authority in your life and disengage the purpose of God in community to love us and protect us from ourselves and from the deceitfulness of sin.

What are we to do when faced with that kind of messiness?

The over-riding issue of discerning the leading of the Holy Spirit is the issue of accountability. The spiritual authority and leadership within the local church, the community of men and women within the local church, are God’s divine economy to provide Christ-centered, grace-driven accountability. We are accountable to one another for FIVE things.

. Motives
. Direction
. Fruit
. Faithfulness to Scripture
. Authentic Community

1. MOTIVES

The moment you and I claim to have heard the Holy Spirit speak, claim that we are being led by the Holy Spirit, we can expect to be accountable for our motives. Don’t miss this — In any decision, there is always the issue of motives: pride, power, a position, financial gain or the currency of self-gratification. That is so true that James says this concerning our motives in prayer.

“You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3).

Decisions are worship-driven. Remember that sin blinds and then blinds us to our blindness. It is possible for us to be pursuing an idol while claiming to be led by the Holy Spirit. When we are being led by the Holy Spirit, we are driven by the exaltation of Jesus, growth in holiness and the mission of Jesus! It is so important that we be open and accountable for our motives!

In Acts 10, Peter is a great example of this — Peter said, “The Spirit told me…” and then you look at the way he conducted himself, and you see that everything fully lined up with the passion of the Holy Spirit for mission and for the exaltation of Jesus in the saving of souls. It wasn’t driven by ego or self-preservation or self-promotion.

2. DIRECTION

This follows from the first. By DIRECTION I mean “the way of the cross.”

“But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.’ Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:23-25).

HERE’S THE DEAL — If we claim that we are being led by the Holy Spirit — and especially if we pull the “God told me” card — we should expect someone to objectively look at the trajectory of your decisions. Are you in the way of the cross — is there a denial of self, or is it the way of self?

When you are truly being led by the Holy Spirit, it is going to look like Matthew 16:23-25. The Holy Spirit can and will lead us into places that will cost us. You can’t hold on to your own life, your title, your position and ambitions and claim to be led by the Holy Spirit. That’s why we always need to be asking ourselves the question, and be willing for others to ask us the question: Who is this about, and am I willing to go the way of the cross?

3. FRUIT

Pastors and brothers and sisters in a community of believers have the right to be fruit inspectors. We need our spouse, our kids, our pastors, our brothers and sisters — not to be sin sniffers, but fruit inspectors! That is by God’s design.

When we claim to be led by the Holy Spirit, we should look for evidence, look for fruit, fruit that is glorifying Jesus. Kind of like the famous line in the movie Jerry Maguire — “Show me the fruit!” Fruit that brings glory to Jesus proves the leading of the Holy Spirit because that is the passion of the Holy Spirit. (See how important it was for us to start with the Holy Spirit and what He’s passionate about!) And, by the way, sometimes we see that fruit more clearly in hindsight.

4. FAITHFUL TO SCRIPTURE

When we claim something is from God, we are accountable to scripture, always. The Spirit will never lead us in a way that’s contrary to scripture. Listen, millions of Mormons are on their way to hell because they claim to be led into the Mormon church by a feeling. You should expect to be held accountable by your spouse, your family, your brothers and sisters in Christ, and your pastors to be faithful to scripture.

5. AUTHENTIC

You have been living out your Christian life in a community of believers. You have relational currency. You’re a known commodity in the church. You are relationally connected to the people asking you about what you believe the Lord is leading you to do. They know your falls and failures — and your restoration. They know that you love Jesus; you’re living on mission with Jesus and for Jesus. They know you love the church that was blood-bought by Jesus.

Are you connected? When someone comes into Metro and refuses to be connected with leadership — pick and choose who they will know and what they will let people know about them — that’s not just zero relational currency, that’s red ink on the ledger.

IN CLOSING

It is possible for us to truly hear from and be led by the Spirit — and the people that are most important to us can say, “I don’t see it.” What are we to do?”

Here’s what a lot of people do — and this causes messes. When they do this, there is almost always blood splattered on the wall. They go and begin to lobby others to support them, back their claim. That will always involve putting those who don’t support them in a bad light.

We’re told in the book of James that the wisdom from above is pure and peaceable and willing to yield (James 3:17). When a thing is truly Spirit-led, you can trust the Holy Spirit to show all parties involved. That requires time — which requires patience — or as the KJV says,” suffering long!” But the evidence of being led by the Spirit is humility, never haughtiness. That means there will be mutual submission because all parties will recognize that God’s on the throne. Because GOD is on the throne, you can wait. Because GOD is on the throne, you don’t have to build your case — build a consensus by maligning others. Instead, you pray something like: Holy Spirit, can you show my brothers and sisters? Can you show my pastors (which implies that you actually own them as pastors)? Can you show me?

“If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy (don’t miss this) and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness” (James 3:13-18).

Who is the man or woman truly led by the Holy Spirit? The one who looks most like Jesus! The one who, like Jesus, is gentle, peace-loving, always willing to surrender self for the glory of God.

In the previous article, we learned how the life of each and every believer will be a reflection and expression of the things the Holy Spirit is passionate about.

The scripture makes it very clear that the Holy Spirit is passionate about three things: Jesus — Holiness — and Mission.

The Holy Spirit is passionate about Jesus.

He is always looking to reveal Jesus to us, exalt Jesus in our hearts, in our lives and in our world. And in that, we discover that the Holy Spirit is humble, always pointing away from Himself to Jesus, always deferring to the Father and the Son.

Because the Holy Spirit is pure and undefiled, the Holy Spirit is passionate about holiness in our lives. He is the one who convicts us of sin, frees us from sin, leads us in sanctification, conforms us to the image of the Son.

The Holy Spirit is passionate about mission.

He is active and compassionate when it comes to the world. He cares about the plight of the world and the people in the world — He’s active in the world. The Book of Acts is the story of the Holy Spirit on mission in the world through the church.

The Holy Spirit is always going to work in the life of the individual Christian to reveal and exalt Jesus, create personal holiness, and direct, empower and equip him or her for mission — the proclaiming of the gospel to all the nations.

The local church is the collective expression of the Holy Spirit’s passions. It’s a divine collection of individuals who together will live and breathe in response to the Holy Spirit’s passions.

A community of believers will live and breathe in a way that puts the beauty, grace, mercy and love of Jesus on display.

In other words, the local church will live and breathe mission! It will be lit up by the fire of the Holy Spirit’s passion to make Jesus known to every man and woman in the world, beginning with the people that are in our world (where we live, where we work, where we go to school, where we shop, where we hang out, where we work out). But God’s mission doesn’t end there. He desires to make Jesus known everywhere, to everyone!

I want us to ask a few questions:

Have we been drawn into His passions? What has the Holy Spirit done in a tangible, measurable, experiential way in our own hearts in regard to the exaltation of Christ, personal holiness and movement into mission?

Can we say that within our sphere of influence the Holy Spirit has caused us to exalt Christ, pursue holiness and engage in mission?

Are we, as a community of believers, lit up by the fire of the Holy Spirit’s passions? Do we live and breathe in a way that is an outlet for His passion for Jesus, holiness and mission?

In the last article, we also zeroed in on 1 Thessalonians 5:20: “Do not despise prophecies.” We learned that one of the most needful and common forms of prophecy in a community of believers is TELLING FORTH the mind of the Lord. We should value and be open to that person in the church who says, “I believe the Lord has spoken to my heart. He’s led me to share it with you.” We should value and be open to the Lord speaking to us — leading us to share a word with someone or with the church.

I want to build on the idea of hearing from the Holy Spirit and being led by the Holy Spirit.

I want to hear from and be led by the Holy Spirit. My wife and I want our marriage and family to hear from and be led by the Holy Spirit. The pastoral leadership at Metro desires to hear from and be led by the Holy Spirit. All of us collectively should want to hear from and be led by the Holy Spirit.

BUT HERE’S THE DEAL — There are inherent challenges and messes that we face when a collection of men and women, none of whom are infallible, are endeavoring to hear from the Holy Spirit and be led by the Holy Spirit. There is no formula for this. There’s no Step 1, Step 2, Step 3.

We learn to hear the Spirit and be led by the Spirit. It’s a life-long process in which we come to know His voice more clearly and discern His ways and His promptings more clearly. And along the way, no one gets it right all the time! All of us are going to make mistakes — and I believe that when we look at the Scriptures, we see that the local church is the context in which we experience the Holy Spirit’s design for accountability.

Being led by the Holy Spirit requires humility and creates humility!

We need to be very intentional to hear and be led by the Holy Spirit. There are a few essential spiritual disciplines we need to foster.

Are you intentional, purposeful, disciplined about giving yourself to spiritual practices? By experience, everyone here knows the general rule: If we don’t schedule something — it’s not going to happen. The things that we don’t prioritize never seem to materialize!

The truth is that we do prioritize our lives. We can be very intentional about working out — the reality of having to wait for an open treadmill or a certain piece of exercise equipment proves the point that people prioritize taking care of their bodies. And by the way — that isn’t inherently a bad thing. We can be very intentional about hanging out — all you have to do is go to any of the local coffee shops and you find tons of people that planned to meet and hang out there. And that isn’t inherently a bad thing.

Let’s ask ourselves this question: Are we that intentional about prayer — about reading the Word, going to Bible study? We are disciples of Jesus Christ. We are followers of Jesus Christ! Getting to know Jesus, putting ourselves in the place of hearing from the Holy Spirit — should be THE priority of our lives. Most Christians pray, read, go to Bible studies when they’re in a crisis! That’s not a bad thing to do when you’re in a crisis. It’s the right thing to do when you’re in a crisis. But our relationship with Jesus is not a crisis-driven thing.

Crisis should not be the tone and tenor of the Christian life.

The tone and the tenor of the Christian life is set by this: We are radically, incomprehensibly, loved by Jesus! Because Jesus first loved us, we love Jesus. We haven’t been saved to religion; we’ve been saved to a loving, life-changing, personal relationship with Jesus. I get to turn to Jesus in the moment of crisis. But that doesn’t define the way I relate to Him. I want to meet with Jesus, draw near to Jesus, so I can know Him and love Him because that is what Jesus died for me to have!

Think back to God’s intention in creating man. God walked with man in the cool of the day. It was an appointment, an appointed time. The eternal, infinite, omnipotent creator of heaven and earth prioritized time to be alone with man!

It is from the place of intimacy with Jesus that all the rest of the Christian life flows. It’s from the place of personal intimacy with Jesus that mission flows, ministry flows, faithfulness flows, fruitfulness flows. That radically informs the point of meeting like this.

We need to see corporate gatherings as a time when a bunch of redeemed rebels come to be intimate with Jesus. That radically informs the point of our times of personal prayer and reading.

Having the grace to forgive, the grace to humbly confess our sins and be forgiven, the grace to love, the grace to receive love is how a community of believers is supposed to live and breathe! That IS real community! THAT is how a community of believers is supposed to live and breathe!

A community of believers that lives and breathes like that doesn’t just happen by merely hanging out! If a community of believers is lacking in the grace to forgive, the grace to humbly confess our sins and be forgiven, the grace to love, the grace to receive love — it’s owing to the absence of intentional, prioritized time to be with Jesus in the individual lives within the community of believers.

On this side of heaven, it’s not a matter of if we are going to fail in hearing the Holy Spirit or being led by the Holy Spirit; it’s a matter of when are we going to fail. I say that not to condone sin. We will fail in our Christian life. We will fail when it comes to hearing the Spirit and being led by the Spirit — and we need to come to grips with that. Jesus saved us knowing that we would. We need to come to grips with the reality that others around us are going to fail — and their failure can result in us getting hurt, just as our failure can result in them getting hurt

There will (not might) be times when you and I get the leading of the Holy Spirit wrong. My failure to get the leading of the Holy Spirit right is going to affect you. Your failure to get the leading of the Holy Spirit right is going to affect the community of believers you’re a part of. Please don’t misunderstand me when I say this. I’m not saying that to lay some heavy trip on you. I’m saying these things because there is a sense in which we need to give each other permission to fail in regards to being led by the Holy Spirit. In fact, part of learning to be led by the Holy Spirit happens when we fail to rightly discern His leading.

Can you think of a time when you were sure that the Holy Spirit was leading you in a particular way, in a particular course of action — then you stepped out in that thing and then you found yourself thinking… Uhhh, this is not the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Hopefully, in that moment of failing to get the leading of the Holy Spirit right, we learn what the leading of the Holy Spirit does not sound like, doesn’t look like. That begins to refine our sensitivity to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Please remember — Being led by the Holy Spirit is a lifelong process. We will get it wrong. And because of that, we need to give each other room to fail, cover each other’s failures with love, and by God’s grace help one another to see how we missed it, got it wrong. THAT is how a community of believer lives and breathes!

Here’s another discipline we want to foster in our lives to better hear, know and be led by the Holy Spirit — It’s rooted in the fact that God wants to speak to us in the normal course of daily life.

Living ready for God to speak to you.

Fallen culture conditions us to respect and expect the spectacular. That influences the church in a very real way. We are conditioned to confuse the spectacular with the supernatural. The Bible says this:

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin” (Zechariah 4:10).

So the Holy Spirit will speak to us in the littlest things to train us to discern His voice and to be obedient. You never know when the habit of the seemingly small acts of obedience will have a life-changing outcome.

You might not think the Holy Spirit is leading you. You might not think He is speaking to you.

Listen — If you are a son or a daughter of God, He is leading you. So many times it’s in that moment when you think about someone and you think, “I should pray for them.” It is in those moments when we stop and pray that we find our spiritual ears getting fine-tuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28, Paul closes this amazing letter by addressing the community of believers at large. In these verses, the Holy Spirit gives a clear picture of a living, breathing community of believers. (Read the first installment of this series!)

In Verses 16-22, we have what one commentator called, “the standing orders of the Christian Church,” a series of short exhortations that show how the individuals in the community of believers should live.

“Rejoice always”

He reminded these believers in the very beginning of this letter that Jesus delivered us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). He’s reminded them that Jesus is going to come and catch them away so that they might forever be with Him; that they will be reunited with their loved ones who have preceded them into the presence of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4). ALL of that is the glorious hope of every Christian!

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble” (Psalm 107:1-2).

THAT should be the way we live and breathe as individual believers. But that seems to go out the window when the line at In-N-Out is long or slow! There’s a part of each of us that is prone to complain rather than rejoice! If we believe HALF the things we say we believe — we actually have NOTHING to complain about — but plenty to rejoice about!

THIS is so challenging to me — because it is my LIFE’S WORK to study and teach these very truths. I of all people have the weakest excuses for not rejoicing.

DON’T MISS THE IMMEDIATE CONTEXT

Rejoice always — follows verse 15 — “See that no one repays anyone evil for evil.”

You might have slanderous reports about you being spread in the community of believers, or have someone in the community of believers accusing you of things you would never even dream of doing. You might be cut to the heart by the disloyalty or ingratitude of those in the community of believers who ought to have been your friends BUT — Paul said, “rejoice always.”

“There is no limit to the exhortation. It is ever in season. Through fire and through water, through life and through death, ‘rejoice evermore.’”– Charles Spurgeon

That does not mean that you should be phony! David was filled with the Holy Spirit when he wrote — “Why are you cast down O, my soul?” It would appear that you can be filled with the Spirit and depressed. It doesn’t say that we DON’T go through hard times or DON’T shed tears. It does say that joy and rejoicing should be a part of our lives. Because JOY is not rooted in happenings — HAPPINESS is rooted in happenings. Joy is rooted in Jesus!

“Pray without ceasing.”

C.H. Spurgeon preached a sermon from this text. He opened by setting the context:

“The position of our text is very suggestive. Observe what it follows. It comes immediately after the precept, ‘Rejoice evermore;’ as if that command had somewhat staggered the reader, and made him ask ‘How can I always rejoice?’ and, therefore, the apostle appended as answer, ‘Always pray.’ The more praying the more rejoicing. Prayer gives a channel to the pent-up sorrows of the soul, they flow away, and in their stead streams of sacred delight pour into the heart. At the same time the more rejoicing the more praying…Holy joy and prayer act and react upon each other.”

Besides inserting the quote from Spurgeon’s sermon, “pray without ceasing” means that prayer should be a RECURRENT and REGULAR part of your life. And there can be no devotions without DEVOTION! Devotion is NOT something that happens for 15 minutes in the morning. PRAY WITHOUT CEASING — means that we pray at any time or any place.

Lord, what do you want me to do here? Lord, what do I say?

Our heavenly Father has His door OPEN ALL the time! Prayer should be one of the most notable EVIDENCES of the New Birth. It should be the most natural thing in the world for one of God’s children to do, like breathing. Prayer is like breathing in the sense that an oxygen-deprived life is a marginalized life. The human brain deprived of oxygen is marginalized. Prayer is like breathing in the sense that you can do it while you do other things: talking to God, listening to God. When I am in this mode, the Holy Spirit continually prompts me to pray for people and situations.

PRAYER assumes the Lord’s presence — not His absence! He is ALWAYS present — ALWAYS present to speak — ALWAYS present to listen.

Let’s revisit the concept that praying without ceasing carries that idea of RECURRING prayer. It isn’t necessarily wrong to be asking God for something over and over again throughout a day — or a week — or a year — or over years. The prophet Daniel is a great example of this. In Daniel 10 we’re told that Daniel was praying for 21 days asking for insight before Gabriel appeared with the answer.

“The little estimate we put on prayer is evident from the little time we give to it.”– E. M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

“Praise the Lord! Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.”– Psalm 106:1

NOTE — It does NOT say “FOR EVERYTHING” give thanks. It does say — IN everything – every circumstance. When Valerie got word from the pathologist that she had breast cancer — we did not thank God FOR her cancer. But we were able to thank Him for his nearness to us. We were able to thank God for the string of tender mercies He wrapped us in (Our two oldest children were in town on the very day we got the news). I was able to thank God for how my son — having just heard the news in my office — was carried along by God and went out and led Metro in the worship of Jesus. I RARELY have guests on a Monday night when I am in town. But I was able to thank God that our dear friends Michael and Pam Rozell were at Metro THAT night, and I was able to go straight home to be with Valerie after opening the evening in prayer — and they loved on Ashley and brought her home after the service.

“For this is the will of God concerning you in Christ Jesus.”

FIRST — Isn’t it great that God WANTS us to know His will? He is the God who speaks — The opening chapter of the first book of the Bible we find 10 times — “God said….”

SECOND — THIS IS the clearly revealed will of God for you and me as individual believers — and for the community of believers as a whole. We all find ourselves wondering — Is it the will of the Lord for me to _________?

But this is ONE area of our lives where we should NEVER be scratching our heads asking — I wonder what the will of God is for me? THIS is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus! The idea here isn’t so much “this is God’s will, so you must do it.” The thought is rather “this is God’s will, so you can do it.”

It isn’t easy to rejoice always, pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks — but we CAN do it because it is God’s will for you and me as individual believers — and for the community of believers as a whole. We can do it because He is the one at work in us to WILL and to DO HIS good pleasure. With His commands come His enabling.

“Do not quench the Spirit”

THIS IS SO HUGE — The Christian life is not a matter of forgiven sinners doing the best they can within the scope of their natural abilities to follow Jesus and live on mission with Jesus. The whole of the Christian life is something supernatural. It begins with the Holy Spirit. It is carried along by the indwelling presence and power of the Holy Spirit. It is led, directed and empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is carried out by the various gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are actually the various ways the Holy Spirit manifests Himself. Those spiritual gifts are the means whereby man is enabled by the Holy Spirit to do those things which are not humanly possible.

How do we quench the Spirit?

First, this is not a free pass for people to be weird when the community gathers to worship and study God’s Word. There are some spirits that NEED quenching. There are those people who act in extremely bizarre ways and when you try to address them they say — Don’t quench the Spirit brother. Or — The Lord told me to do that!

Paul said to not let the fire of the Holy Spirit be put out. If you want to put out the fire of the Holy Spirit in a community of believers, here is how you can do it: Don’t love one another. Don’t be at peace with one another. Don’t warn the unruly. Don’t comfort the small-souled person. Don’t lay hold of the weak. Repay evil for evil. Stop rejoicing. Stop praying. Stop giving thanks.

THAT will quench the Spirit.

If there is anything we truly do need, it is the fire of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives! WHAT does that look like?

“An early Church Father speaking of the power of the Holy Spirit in service — The power of the Holy Spirit was present to melt the heart of the most hardened sinner with the love of Jesus Christ!”

“Do not despise prophecies”

“For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10).

PROPHECY is not merely predictive in nature. The word “prophecies” is from a compound Greek word:

Prefix pró = before or forth
Suffix+ phemí = tell

It has the literal meaning of speaking forth.

“Though much of the Old Testament prophecy was purely predictive — prophecy is not necessarily, nor even primarily, foretelling. It is the declaration of that which cannot be known by natural means.” – Vine

They were not to despise or hold in contempt someone coming to them and saying, “I think that the Lord is putting this on my heart for you.”

Think of the context. If you are going to warn or exhort or comfort someone, surely the ministry of the Spirit and the testimony of Jesus is going to be a part of it. So, if someone comes up to you and says, “I think you should pray about THIS,” you DON’T START by despising them or their word. You start with the next words of Paul:

“Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.”

Despise: “treat prophecy as if it’s worthless”

“but test everything; hold fast what is good.”

“Examine” carefully implies a working knowledge of the Word of God.

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

The “prophecy” is first tested against the standard of God’s Word — and then we hold fast to what is good.

We never want to confuse the New Testament GIFT of prophecy with the Old Testament OFFICE of the prophet. The New Testament gift of prophecy is different from Old Testament office of prophet. Time and again we read the Old Testament prophets saying, “Thus says the Lord.” The Old Testament prophets spoke the very words of God. In that, they had absolute authority in what they said. In the Old Testament, to disobey a prophet of God was to disobey God.

The New Testament gift of prophecy is not reporting the very words of God, which must be obeyed in their nuance and in their minutiae. Rather, the New Testament gift of prophecy is reporting in merely human words what God has brought to mind. When a Christian exercises the gift of prophecy, that utterance is not to be judged on the basis of “I like the sound of that” or, “That sounds so exciting — so spiritual!” By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul said that a prophetic message was to be carefully evaluated

“Let the others weigh what is said” (1 Corinthians 14:29).

Paul’s command presupposes the message may contain a mixture of the valuable and the worthless.¹ AGAIN — that sets apart the New Testament GIFT of prophecy from the Old Testament OFFICE of the prophet.

Here’s the deal — The evaluation of the prophecy doesn’t rest with the one giving the prophecy. Those hearing the prophecy are to judge as to whether or not it agrees with what the Holy Spirit has said in the pages of Scripture. It is the responsibility of those hearing it in a corporate gathering, to approve it and receive it. Here’s why it’s so important to be involved in a community of men and women who are living out their lives in Jesus together. Those on the receiving end may not bear witness to it — they might discern that what the person said were their own thoughts and their own inclinations — they were voicing their own desires and claiming that it was a revelation from God!

If you believe the Lord is using you in the gift of prophecy, I think it’s crucial that you’re doing life with people — and that you have developed trust and reputation.

For example, the sister who came up to me and handed me an old weekly bulletin — said that she kept the Sunday bulletins for the “Parson to Person” and to keep track of what we’ve studied. She handed me this bulletin that was dated 1993, and she said: “You wrote this for us. I believe that God has told me that it’s for YOU!” I had no reason to doubt her integrity. She wasn’t one running around claiming she had the gift of prophecy.

Finally, if the prophecy is foretelling something yet future, if it is divine in origin, then it WILL come to pass.

Again, a prophecy might sound weird. It might even come from someone who looks weird. But that does not mean it is not the Lord. That is why we are not to DESPISE prophecy or hold it in contempt, instead, we’re to be open, weigh it out, put it to the test of Scripture — hold fast to what is good.

One of the most needful and common forms of prophecy in a community of believers is TELLING FORTH the mind of the Lord.

Valerie and I had just gotten some disturbing news and medical advice from her doctor. A dear friend of ours, clueless as to what had happened in our day, came to our house just as we arrived home. He said, “The Lord told me to come and give you this verse. I have no idea what it’s about, but here I am and here’s the word.”

“Simon, Satan has desired to have you that he might sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith might not fail” (Luke 22:31).

We are so glad that:

1. He spent time in the Word of God that day.

“The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught” (Isaiah 50:4, ESV).

2. We were a part of a community of believers who were at home talking about their relationship with the Lord, what they were learning from the Lord and what God was doing in their lives. It’s how we lived and breathed.

3. We are so glad that he obeyed the Lord and stepped out in faith and shared it with us in humility and love.

It’s important to know that it’s possible to be used by the Holy Spirit in a prophetic way without knowing it. You’re just sharing what the Lord has been doing in your life, or what you’ve been reading, and the Holy Spirit uses your words to reveal the mind of the Lord to the person you’re talking to.

Valerie and I were in the process of seeking the Lord as to whether or not He was sending us to Grass Valley. The church was not only in spiritual disarray — the facility was really small, really old, smelled old and musty. It was NOTHING like the campus of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. I kept thinking, “Why would I leave CCCM to go to THAT!” One morning, I was sitting with our friend John Wickham in his old, blue Mazda, and he was just telling me how he had read that morning in the book of Haggai — chapter 2 — where it says that after they had finished rebuilding the Temple, it was nothing close to the magnificent temple Solomon had built. But the Lord said, “The future glory of this Temple will be greater than its past glory, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. And in this place, I will bring peace” (Haggai 2:9, NLT).

John had no idea how that revealed to me the mind of the Lord about the work that HE was going to do in that not so magnificent building. What John was sharing made it clear that God was moving us to Grass Valley, and ultimately, to Roseville.

“Do not despise prophecies.” It is understandable why some people treat prophecy as if it’s worthless. Valerie and I took a lot of our baby steps as Christians in the Catholic Charismatic movement. We “cut our teeth” so-to-speak in an environment where people exercised the gift of prophecy, the word of knowledge, the gift of tongues, etc. As a result, we are probably more comfortable around such things than those who have never been exposed to such things. But that same background has also provided us with a fairly keen sense of what is contrived

Some of you might have a low view of prophecy — or the exercise of spiritual gifts — because you have seen the abuses and contrivances of the gifts in certain nationally known “ministries.” Perhaps you grew up in a church culture that was a microcosm of those ministries. Perhaps you grew up in a church where everyone had a “word from the Lord” for you — and as a result, you have a LOW view of prophecy. But the Holy Spirit instructs us here to NOT despise such utterances.

The flip side of this, some people say, “Why are there no spiritual gifts in operation at Metro?” Well, on one level, I would differ with them. Week after week, the gift of prophecy is in operation. Week after week, the mind of God for individual men and women is made known during worship and in the teaching of the Word.

We are so conditioned by the course of this world to measure the supernatural in terms of the SPECTACULAR. This is not at all a broad stroke dismissal of the SPECTACULAR in God’s ability. But we must not confuse the spectacular with the supernatural. God can use any of us to foretell or tell forth the mind of the Lord. That said, I desire ALL of what the Holy Spirit would want to do in the realm of prophecy and spiritual gifts

“Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy” (1 Corinthians 14:1).

“Abstain from every form of evil.”

“refuse to do anything which is evil,” or “refuse to act in any way which even seems bad.”

THE WAY to abstain from every form of evil is to HOLD FAST to that which is good.

Paul has given to them a picture of the living, breathing community of believers. The local church as it ought to be, as it is waiting for the coming of the Lord. But Paul understood the utter futility of his instructions if the Thessalonians were left to themselves to live them out! The church is not a bunch of good people trying to do good things for Jesus. In fact, the unaided human efforts to live the Christian life are worse than futile.

The Christian life is not a matter of forgiven sinners doing the best they can within the scope of their natural abilities to follow Jesus and live on mission with Jesus. The whole of the Christian life is something supernatural. Spiritual gifts are the means whereby man is enabled by the Holy Spirit to do those things which are not humanly possible.

We can never forget that life in the Kingdom of God, and the work of the Kingdom of God is outside of mere human capacity. Because the work of the Kingdom of God is eternal in scope and consequence, it is a work that can only be accomplished in and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

For a community of believers to live and breathe as it should, engaging in the mission of Jesus is a supernatural thing! It is no less supernatural today than it was in the Book of Acts. God alone can convict a person of sin, turn them from serving idols to serving the true and living God, forgive their sin, cause them to be born again, make them love holiness and cause them to live for Jesus and His glory! The birth of the church and the advance of the Gospel in the Book of Acts was a work utterly outside mere human capacity

The death of the last apostle and the completion of the Canon of Scripture hasn’t changed any of that! Nearly 2,000 years later, it is still a mission that is divine in nature, eternal in scope and consequence. To attempt to do the work of the Kingdom of God WITHOUT spiritual gifts is pointless and ultimately fruitless.

By the way, the fact that spiritual gifts are not tied to man’s ability means that any Christian can effectively serve God. Spiritual gifts mean that God can use normal old ME. Knowing the supernatural nature of the Christian life, he instinctively turned to the Lord in prayer for them.

“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.”

He asked God to completely set their lives aside for Himself and for His purposes. We should not fight against that work of God. When you and I were in the world — the god of this world set you and me apart completely for his purposes. Before we were saved we served a different master. SIN was our master. NOW — we have a NEW master! NOW we have the RIGHT master. Sensual pleasure was a cruel taskmaster. Money was a cruel taskmaster (Money’s a great servant but a cruel master). NOW we have the RIGHT master! The ultimate pursuit of life is to find the RIGHT master!

And Jesus is THAT master! Jesus is the master who hung on a cross in our place and poured His own blood into the ground so that we could be set free from the taskmasters who never loved us, always lied to us and always failed us. Why would you NOT want to have as your master the King of the universe who died to save the traitors in His universe? And isn’t it GREAT to be used by Jesus? There is NOTHING in the universe that can touch the joys of being set aside for the master’s use.

“And may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The ONLY way to be kept blameless is to be IN Christ and WASHED by His blood.

“Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1:4).

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 24).

“Your whole spirit and soul and body.”

“Paul’s theology of the human being is definitely as a trichotomy.”– F.F. Bruce

We have been created in the image of the Triune God. You are a spirit. You live in this body. You possess a consciousness — your soul — that relates to this world through your body.

When Adam sinned, he died spiritually. He was alive physically. His consciousness was still alive. But he was no longer in fellowship with God who was his life. Before being born again — the body and the soul are alive, but because we are spiritually dead, we are incapable of fellowship with God who is spirit.

THAT is why, prior to being born again, we are driven by our bodies and our emotions.

“Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:3).

THAT is why Jesus said — You must be born again.

Born again is not a cliché — It is a reality in which you are spiritually made alive to God, thus enabling you to participate in the very life — the very power — the very peace of God. And as a result, you are no longer driven by the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind…. like the rest of mankind.

“He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.”

It really is ALL ABOUT JESUS!

“Brothers, pray for us. Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”

Notes:

¹ Carson, D. A. (1987). Showing the Spirit: a theological exposition of 1 Corinthians 12–14 (p. 119–120). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.