STUDY Qs:
“Indeed if we consider the unblushing promise of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased” --C. S. Lewis (Leadership, Spring ’09, p 55)
Consider the above quote in light of the lesser things you’re choosing now? What do you think God wants to give you to replace your mud pies?
“When Jesus said ‘be holy’ He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder—-in fact it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad” –Lewis (Book IV, Mere Christianity, p 169)
Summarized, the above quote says: “Grow--or go bad/backward.” Which way are you going? Have you thought you could just plateau? What do you believe is the next step God is calling you to take in your spiritual growth?
“It is not possible in the nature of things that a man should be happy who is not holy” –John Wesley (Works, 1985, 2:195).
Be honest, how have you thought of “holiness” before? Did you equate it with happiness? Why or why not? How would your life change if you defined holiness as “wholeness; life as it was meant to be lived”?
I. One of the answers people give most when asked what they want from their church is a place where God shows up; where they experience the presence of God. Ranking right up close to that answer is: “Help me understand the Bible,” followed by: help me understand biblical truth which the church has held onto firmly for 2000 years.
A. One of those truths would be teaching about the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. He’s one of the 8 major areas of theology if you look in any systematic theology textbook.
B. NOTE I say “He.” He is a Person, the third Person of the Trinity; equal with and co-eternal with God the Father and the Son. He is not some impersonal force or will of the wisp. He has personality and distinctive roles apart from the Father and the Son. Never refer to Him as “it.” How would you like that?
C. Because He’s an invisible spirit, because He’s associated with some behaviors that some would consider bizarre in the Christian church like barking, laughing and rolling, and often referred to as the “Holy Ghost” in the KJV, some consider the Holy Spirit a little scary.
D. Mostly our unfamiliarity with Him causes that fear.
II. Who is He in the Word of God? Who does He want to be in your life?
A. Some may want Him for utilitarian purposes only. Give me power to do what I want, or what know I should, or what God wants. Guide me in these uncertain times. Gift me so I can minister powerfully to people. Those are utilitarian motives that are understandable, but not the best motives.
B. The Holy Spirit does all of that and MORE. But what does He want to do MOST in our lives? It’s hard to sort out what He wants to do most from all His roles.
C. His names reveal His roles: Teacher, Spirit of Truth, Exhorter, Encourager, Helper, Comforter, Counselor, One who reminds us we are God’s children (Spirit of adoption), Convicter of sin, judgment and righteousness.
D. But which is the most important? And how important is it to know which is his number one role?
III. May I suggest He’s the one who enables our communion/fellowship with Jesus. So much flows out of that. So much of what I’ve mentioned depends on that constant contact, communion, communication, & fellowship with Jesus.
A. Example (Jn 15:4-5). We’re told to bear fruit over and over again in this passage, eight times. But we’re told 15x to “remain” in Christ. HOW do we do that? Only by the Holy Spirit. He’s the One who gives Life to these mortal bodies; real life as it was meant to be lived (Rom 8:11; Eph 1:18-20). We have Jesus’ power only because we FIRST have His life flowing in and through us by the Holy Spirit in us.
B. The Holy Spirit also arouses in us a hunger for that relationship with Jesus which only He can provide. It’s the Holy Spirit’s work in us that makes us hunger for things we cannot see.
1. CS Lewis came to realize this by reading George Macdonald’s Phantasies, one of his fictional works that involves mythology. Lewis wrote that the deep longings of our hearts which we realize can’t be met in this world, are the best evidence for the presence of another world where our deepest longings WILL be met, the unseen world of the spirit and of Heaven itself.
2. How about you? Have you ever had longings that you knew could not be met in this world; goals you thought that would satisfy your deepest longings? But then after you reached them, there was emptiness, not satisfaction.
3. What Lewis realized in his reading of the great classics in literature, even secular literature, fantasy and fiction (his field of study) was that one of the deepest longings of the human heart was the longing to be holy.
4. You heard me-HOLY.
5. The reason many furl their eyebrows on that is you’ve been exposed to holiness the way I was many years ago. The word associations I would have said with “holiness” would have been “legalism, rules, sour faces, joyless worship, isolation from the world, pride, and severe judgementalism toward all others who saw things differently than you, even good Christians. But, then again, they couldn’t be good if they saw things differently than we who were truly holy.
C. But that’s not the holiness Lewis saw in the classic works of literature or the Bible. That holiness was more like “wholeness,” or how God designed us to live at our best. And this wholeness is only made possible by the indwelling, infilling Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.
IV. Sin is obviously one of the obstacles to this kind of holiness-wholeness. And settling for sin is not getting away with something. It’s not even getting short-term satisfaction now, knowing we’ll sow what we reap later on. Sin means going our own way, being our own boss. But it also means settling for so much less.
A. Lewis used this illustration. (QUO & QUESTION P. 1).
B. John Wesley, our long-ago teacher of biblical holiness, would have loved this illustration.
C. Holiness means SO much more than the 4 Spiritual Laws, so much more than fire insurance by offering Heaven, so much MORE than confession, praying a prayer, and repentance. It means entering into the abundant life Jesus promised us, through His Spirit, right now…and FOREVER!
D. We can’t be satisfied with little forgiveness here and there, a little dabbling in sin, prayer, repentance, and repetition over and over. That’s just pecking away at the sin problem. It’s settling for far too little. What we yearn for is holiness. What God wants is holiness.
1. QUO #2 P. 1
2. The National Spelling bee just finished up crowning Kavya Shivashankar from KS as the new champ, taking home $40K in prizes. She joked how her spelling prowess started by learning how to spell her name. Out of the last 11 winners, 7 have been Indian Americans. The winning word was one Christians ought to know what it means and how to spell it. It’s from (Rev 3:17 READ). The word “Laodicean.” It means people who refuse to grow, lukewarm, content to coast. “At ease in Zion,” Amos (6:1) called them.
3. We grow or go bad (backward). We are moving more toward holiness, wholeness and happiness or toward selfishness, sin and spiraling downward. Wesley said: “It is not possible in the nature of things that a man should be happy who is not holy (Works, 1985, 2:195).
4. We are at any moment either moving toward God or away from Him; we are falling more in love with Him or falling farther away from Him. We are moving toward ever expanding life and vistas or ever-restricting darkness and death.
5. (Colorado mountain-views; Joyce’s and Karen R’s. There are only 3 things you can do in the Rockies, climb, descend or find one of those parking look-out spots. Too many people spiritually want to stay there.). Which is true with you? Spiritual auto-pilot isn’t possible. Coasting is sin. There’s no plateau to park on.
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