The following message was delivered at the 2003 Shepherd’s Conference, A ministry of Grace Community Church 818.909.5530. © 2003 All Rights Reserved. A CD, MP3, or tape cassette copy of this session (# 1014) can be obtained by going to www.shepherdsconference.org
Carey Hardy
I don’t think there’s any higher label that could be placed on a person than this (it’s the label that we’re all familiar with): a man after God’s heart. Well, you know where that comes from; it’s I Samuel 13:14, where Samuel is rebuking Saul for his disobedience. After he does that, he says, “The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over His people.” Now, that ended up being David. In fact, Paul quotes this passage, in Acts 13:22, of David: “God raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, ‘I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will.’”
And I know that’s staggering to you to contemplate at times, that David is the one who is called, for all time, the “man after God’s own heart.” I mean, David, of all people? I mean, the one whom God knew that would become an adulterer? God knew he would become a murderer? Yes, David. Even after those great sins, in Acts, scripture still refers to him as “a man after God’s heart.”
Well, obviously this description, then, doesn’t depend on perfection. But, what is it about an individual, what is it about a man that makes him “after God’s heart”? Well, it’s very difficult to boil that down to just one concept or one character trait, but nevertheless I believe we can summarize it in this way: it was because of the desires of David’s heart, the desires of his heart. In other words, this label has to do with longings after God. It has to do a desire for God. It has to do with a deep and abiding and controlling love for God.
David sinned. In fact, he sinned greatly. But, nevertheless, the desires of his heart were manifested even in the depth of his repentance. And we know how he expressed that: once he honestly looked at what he had done, he was overwhelmed with the fact that he had sinned, but he had sinned against God. He had sinned against the one that he longed for, the one that he genuinely loved.
So God knew that at the very deepest level—the thinking and the motives of his heart—David loved God with all of his heart, with all of his soul, with all of his mind. If you want to know what somebody’s really like, if you want to know what you’re really like, you look at the longings of your heart, the desires, the deepest part of you.
Spiritual passion is what we’re talking about and spiritual passion is what summarized David’s life. And I believe that that spiritual passion that summarized David’s life and David’s heart is the very same spiritual passion that God expects from you and God expects from me as well: supreme love to the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is the major distinction between a saved individual and someone who’s lost. A saved person is someone who loves Christ. Now, there are many scriptures that equate the idea of being saved with being a lover of the Lord. You’re familiar with verses like this, John 14:21, “He who loves me shall be loved by my Father and I will love him.” That’s a believer, that’s someone who belongs to God; he loves God and God loves him. On the other hand, there are many warnings in scripture to those who don’t love the Lord. 1 Corinthians 16:22 comes to mind: “If any one does not love the Lord, let him be”—what? “Accursed.” So, I mean, at the basic level, what does it mean to be a believer? You love Christ. You love Christ.
You look around in our world and there are so few who know what it is to love Christ with fervor and to love Christ with passion, who genuinely have these desires in their heart that long after Him. But, you look in the church and you see the same problem. I believe that this is partly what explains the weakness that we see in the contemporary church. It’s what can make even a church leader, a pastor, a deacon, an elder—it’s what makes a church leader end up being a hollow person, hollow spiritually.
I used to be in the retail business. Before I entered the ministry, I was a pharmacist. I owned a small pharmacy in a country town in Texas. So, I understand the retail business. I worked for other pharmaceutical chains—large retail businesses—and I understand this idea of the show window, of putting things in the show window. And my little pharmacy in Texas, I had a show window, and I would put little items in there to advertise for sale gifts and things like that. So, I could express all this in retail terms: I’m talking about a person who has more in the show window than he does in the warehouse.
There are those who exhibit a supposed spiritual passion, but you start looking at it and it’s just this excessive emotionalism. That’s at one extreme; and then you have the other extreme: people who have reacted to that excessive emotionalism—the excessive emotionalism of the TBN world, the wood, hay and straw network—they’ve reacted to that, to superficial revivalism, and they’ve become cold.
Listen, don’t think that all spiritual passion is superficial, that it’s all frivolous just because excesses of some. I like what Jonathan Edwards said on this subject: “Wrong affections do not mean we should have no affections.” See, the fact is, you can be a church leader and your heart can be cold and void of this true, genuine, sincere, love for Christ. Let’s don’t forget the great commandment, Matthew 22:37-40, “You shall love the Lord God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.” I mean, that is the only religion that God expects. He is not pleased with any kind of religion that is flowing out of a heart that is weak, a heart that is dull, a heart that is lifeless toward spiritual things. We are to long for, we are to desire, we are to love God! We have actually been saved for that purpose.
Now what I want to do, first of all, is look at some illustrations of spiritual passion…illustrations of spiritual passion. There are many passages that give us insight into the passion for God that was in David’s heart. For example, even in 1 Kings 15:3, you had this rebuke of Abijah there. 1 Kings 15:3, Abijah is being rebuked, it says, because his heart was not devoted, “wholly devoted, to the Lord his God, like the heart of his father David.”
So there’s that little reference that scripture throws in, “You’re not like your father David. Your heart’s not like his, because his was devoted to the Lord.” But I think overall, if we’re just going to look in scripture for illustrations of personal spiritual passion, especially in the life of David, we would look at the psalms. I mean, the psalms give us this insight into David’s passion for God. They give us this living portrait of his faith. We see there his humble and his fervent and his love to God. And if I could just pick one Psalm, it would be Psalm 63. So, we’re going to spend just a few minutes this morning in Psalm 63.
I think that’s the best place to go to find insight into David’s heart. You may have preached on this—certainly could do a better job than what we will do this morning, what I will do—but, nevertheless, what a Psalm to go back to, to see what God expects! And you know the situation, the situation in many of these psalms: David had been driven from the throne by his son Absalom. So, here he is on the run. He’s lost his throne. His son has rebelled against him, turned against him. Absalom had turned the hearts of the people of the nation against David. He’s headed out across the northern edge of the wilderness of Judea—and that stretches all the way to the very desert and like arid banks of the Dead Sea. (It’s actually one of the most barren regions in the world, in the earth.)
So, here he is, far from sanctuary in Jerusalem, far from what was the center of his life, and he pens psalms. So, we find, here, David longing for a sense of the presence of God. One man compared it to this: it’s like a friend who’s longing for someone from whom he’s been separated for a long time. Or like a lover who loves and longs for his beloved.
Let’s see David’s spiritual desires. We’ll look at it from various angles here. In verse 1 we find, first of all, the object of his desires: “O God, thou art my God; I shall seek thee earnestly.”
David loved—what? David loved God. He loved God Himself. He’s not, in this psalm, expressing, “O God, I love your works; I love creation,” even though I’m sure he did. “I love your gifts, Lord, the blessings that you pour out on my life.” He’s not saying, “Lord, I love a particular doctrinal system that’s just grabbed my heart. I love some theological system, Lord, that you’ve unveiled to me, that I’m loyal to. I love being reformed, I love being dispensational, I love being pre-millennial, I love being conservative, Lord. That’s what I love.” Listen, you can be all those things and yet, somebody still may need to ask you, “Do you love Christ? Do you love the Lord?”
It wasn’t religious activity that he’s expressing love for here. It’s very easy to substitute religious activity and busyness for a genuine love for the Lord. It definitely was not love of self that he’s expressing here—as we’ve been hearing from our pastor, John. No, the object of David’s desires was God—not teaching about God; he says, “I want God Himself.”
One more verse I may just call attention to, briefly, is Psalm 18:1 (also penned by David). There he makes this simple statement, Psalm 18:1: “I love thee, O Lord, my strength.” That was a continual theme from David, a continual expression: that he longed for God. Why? Because David knew that when it comes to satisfying the desires of his heart—satisfying his soul—no one could do that. No one could satisfy that except God.
He says, “O God, thou art my God”; that’s “‘Elohim’ is my ‘El’.” ‘Elohim’ is, we see, God as the Creator. ‘El’ is just the thought of God, even as Creator, and the mighty God, even more intensified. So, in this very simple expression, David is profoundly saying that “God, the One who has created this world—I mean, He speaks the world into existence, he maintains everything; it all hinges on His very word, His very power—that transcendent God is also an imminent God, who even desires to fellowship with some frail, mortal, sinful person like me.”
Remember where David is, when he writes this—in the desert. I know you’ve taught the same thing from this passage, that the desert is even accenting, accentuating what David sees in his own soul! It’s like the setting that God put him in was this illustration of what he felt in his own heart. He says, “I’m in the desert and I’m thirsty, Lord.” But he’s not thirsting for water; at least that’s not what he expresses. He may have been thirsty for water, but he says, “What I really want is God.” I mean, surrounded by enemies—they’re chasing him—he could have longed for that, you know, deliverance. “Lord change my circumstance. If you just change my circumstance, I think I could be closer to you.” He’s not praying to get his throne back. He’s not praying for judgment for his enemies. What he’s simply caring about right now is God.
God was the object of his desires. Let’s see the intensity of these desires though. “I shall seek thee earnestly.” Some translations have the word “early” there. I think “earnestly” is a better rendering; it means “to seek zealously,” or “to seek in a diligent and immediate way.” It’s the way you search for something that you’ve lost. I don’t know about you, but I lose my wallet about once every two weeks and, you know, it’s the kind of mindset you have when something is gone that’s of value and you keep searching for it until you find what you’ve misplaced. It’s that kind of seeking earnestly. The idea of “early”—if your translation has that—is really the same thing: it’s describing a person who’s so anxious to spend time with God, he so longs for God, he’s so earnest in his desire for God that he’d rather rise early than to sleep.
How intense are his desires? “I shall seek thee earnestly; my soul thirsts for thee.” I mean, think about thirst. You’ve seen those old westerns, you know, where a guy is having to go across the desert on his horse. And he starts out that way, and then he’s walking in front of the horse, pulling the horse, you know, and then he shoots the horse because, you know, he’s down to his last little bit of water. And then he takes that last little drop, you know, out of the canteen and throws it and continues to walk. Eventually he collapses and his lips are dry and parched. And some noble person comes along and rescues him, and pours water on his face, on his lips. That is what David is trying to convey. He says, “I thirst like that.” I mean, thirst is something that controls a person because water is essential for life. I mean, when you’re thirsty like that, you don’t reason it away; you don’t try to not think about it. No, it’s intense.
So he says, “I’m in this desert, and what I thirst for is you, God.” He gives parallel terms: “my flesh yearns for thee; my soul thirsts for thee.” “Soul” and “flesh”—he’s just using those terms synonymously. He’s just talking about the whole person. “Everything about me—every thought, every feeling, every desire, every affection that I have—God, is centered in you. I yearn for you, my soul thirsts for thee, my flesh yearns for thee”—that can be translated “faints.” In fact, it’s a word that only occurs here, and again is implying this very high intensity, the highest of fervency, when it comes to desires. And it’s in a dry and weary land where there is no water. What a picture of his condition.
You know, sometimes, God does allow us to be in situations like this. We can call them deserts, if we want—trials. Why? I believe it’s because trials end up, at some point, driving us to God; they drive us closer to him. It’s the weary land, the dry and weary place, and the weary heart that makes the presence of God even more desirable for you, when you realize there’s nothing else you want.
Sometimes, you’re in a situation because of the guilt of your own sin. And it’s the guilt of sin that’s this burden that weighs down upon you—and we need God’s forgiveness! We desperately need that. So, it doesn’t matter what it is. It could be disappointments in your ministry. It could be attacks from other people. It could be a daily reminder of your sinfulness. You know, God allows those things. You can always ask those three questions.
1. Could God have stopped it?
Yes.
2. Did He?
No.
3. Why not? What’s he doing?
I mean, God intends for all these situations to ultimately just accent our thirst for Him, to drive us to Him. So, whatever the desert situation is that we’re in, like David we must seek our fulfillment from God and love Him with all our heart.
That other verse I read, Psalm 18:1, deserves another comment, I think. “I love thee, oh Lord, my strength.” The word “love” there is a very uncommon term for love. It’s a term in Hebrew that expresses this impulsive, emotional love. I mean, it’s the love of the greatest intensity, love of the deepest kind. David, there, and here, then, is saying, “Affectionately do I love thee; fervently do I love thee. I have a burning and boundless affection for you, God.”
Verses 7 and 8 in Psalm 63—just to jump to that—I think sums up all that David is saying here. Some commentators have said that Psalm 63 is the summary of all the Psalms and that, in this summary of all the Psalms, verses 7 and 8 summarize this Psalm. So, in a sense, verses 7 and 8 summarize who David is! “For thou has been my help, and in the shadow of thy wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to thee; thy right hand upholds me.” David’s saying, “God’s my help. I’m like a little chick under the wings of the mother hen and I enjoy His protection, but I cling to Him”—and that’s the same idea of Genesis 2 where the husband and the wife are to “cleave” to one another. It’s “glued”; I’m glued to God. What an illustration of what passion for the Lord looks like! And here’s the standard for you and me. This is what God desires from each of us: that our heart is expressing thoughts like this.
It wasn’t just David; it wasn’t just the Old Testament. We certainly can see this in the New Testament, with Paul and others. You know that great passage in Philippians—several great passages in Philippians—Philippians 1:21 where he says, “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Either way is fine because they both have to do with Christ.
Later on, in Philippians 3:8 and then 10 he says, “I count all things to be loss, in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. That I may know Him,” he says, “in the power of His resurrection, in the fellowship of His sufferings.” Paul too was a person who was inflamed, he was motivated, he was entirely absorbed in a passionate love for Christ! As we look at these illustrations this morning, I think we do need to do some honest soul searching, as church leaders.
What do your desires look like? Do you have this kind of spiritual passion for Christ?
Again, you can be a pastor or deacon and not be consumed with love for Christ. But yet, scripture says this is what God expects of you. If you’re questioning that, and as you search your heart, you’re wondering if your passions are at the level they ought to be, then perhaps it will be helpful that we look, secondly, at some inducements to spiritual passion. Illustrations are clear in scripture…
What’s the inducement to spiritual passion? I mean, what is it that causes this to happen? What is the catalyst for the whole thing?
Well, it’s very simple, really profound but simple, not simplistic but simple: the ultimate ground of true spiritual passion and love for Christ is Christ Himself. It’s the apprehension, the understanding, the recognition, the embracing of all the scripture says of who He is. It’s looking at the loveliness of Christ and being captured by it. It’s a very childlike thing.
Listen, you can go into a Sunday school class at almost any church, of four and five-year-olds, and ask them to raise their hand, “Do you love Christ?” Well, they all love Christ. Who wouldn’t love Christ when you’re a child, and you see the loveliness of His person, His gentleness, His perfections? Because nothing is as sweet as Him. You look at doctrine—there’s no teaching, there’s no kind of teaching that’s as sweet as that. He makes promises to us that are sweet. He loves us with His tender and compassionate love.
It’s sad that we get jaded toward that. You ought to go into a four-year-old Sunday school class sometime and be reminded of the simple, tender and compassionate love that Christ has. And yes, we can delve into it, to a more profound level—his love is infinite, it has no end whatsoever, it’s without comparison, we can’t even comprehend it, it’s beyond comprehension, its everlasting. We look at all that about Christ—this is who He is—we look at ourselves, and we’re reminded of the fact there was absolutely nothing in us that attracted that love from Him to you.
Now, we’re not like that; you and I are not like that. We look for things that attract us. There’s something about that person that we like. It could be their winsomeness, it could be their physical beauty, it could be their position they have, it could be their wit, their intelligence—something has grabbed you. And if there’s a two-way relationship, something about you—you don’t know what it is—but something about you has been appealing to them; they like you for some reason.
But in this relationship, it’s one direction. We look at the loveliness of Christ and we are captured by that. We look at his love for us and yet he looked at you, and found less than nothing, actually: he found deformity. He found things that would repel Him. Things like your anger toward Him, your enmity toward Him. He sees your filthiness and your wickedness—the very things that He hates.
And so, His love ends up being free to you, see? The biggest expression of that is certainly the cross. John 15:13-14: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” And he doesn’t just express His love to you when things are going well. I mean, when you’re in the worst of situations, the worst kind of adversity, the worst kinds of affliction, His love is still there. When you are sinful, Hebrews 4 says, He’s actually touched with your infirmities, the feelings of your infirmities, and He sympathizes with your temptations—and in your sorrows. I mean, what’s the inducement to spiritual passion? There shouldn’t be any other thing to induce that than just looking at Christ Himself: who He is, His person, His perfections, His attributes.
And all the benefits that we have, Ephesians 2:1 makes it clear, that we were, again, born less than neutral. You know, we were born spiritually dead, “dead in our trespasses and sins.” It goes on to say we “walked according to the course of this world.” And so here Christ, who finds nothing in you to attract any kind of relationship—you’re dead in trespasses and sin—and He gives you new life. He forgives the very things that He hates. He gives things that you don’t deserve, like peace, a peace that the world cannot give, and the world can’t take away, the world can’t understand.
And if that’s not enough, I mean, you look ahead and you look at heaven and you think about that. And you think about the inheritance that we have that’s undefiled, unblemished, I mean—I have no earthly inheritance that I’m aware of. I go to family reunions. I check them all out. Every two years we have this reunion; every two years I’m discouraged. There is not aunt, no uncle, no nobody that’s leaving me anything. But you look at heaven and there’s an inheritance that’s imperishable and undefiled that’s there waiting for us. In fact, Philippians 3 even considers us there already; our citizenship is there.
Well, you understand the point with all this: Christ is incomparable. And you consider these things and what should happen is our love to Christ should be like this fire, then, that’s burning within us, the same kind of passion that David was expressing because of the great privilege it is to even know and to love Christ—that He would even allow us to do it, that he would even entertain a relationship with us! What a wonder and what an honor it is! We get all caught up in honors in this world. And we love those degrees—an MDiv and a ThM and a DM or a PhD or a ThD. Listen, ultimately, earthly degrees don’t matter. But, to have this after your name—LOC, lover of Christ—I mean what a label! What an honor!
Let me say something to you as church leaders. I’m convinced of this not because I’ve lived it out; I’m convinced just a much because I’ve failed in it.
This is what makes you attractive to your people. This is what catches the attention of other people. This is what your people are desperately wanting to see in you. We could call it authenticity, spiritual passion, a genuineness, a sincerity. It’s not a business, it’s not a profession, it’s not something that is just our job, our duty. It’s so easy to fall into that! I mean, what the people are desperately wanting—and don’t presume they don’t want it anymore. I don’t care how long you’ve been there, I don’t care how long they’ve been there; what they’re still desperately wanting is this continual reminder from you, as a church leader, that you love Christ with all your heart and your soul and your mind and nothing is going to dissuade you from that—that you have spiritual passions.
So, what should stimulate that? It’s the intrinsic worth of Christ. He’s worthy to be loved just for His own sake. So look at Him, study Him. Go back to the cross—I kept thinking about this last night, in both messages. First message with Eric Alexander, how he was teaching all this, and I had nothing left to say; and then as John focused on the cross. Go back to that! Look! And your heart ought to be captured by that. It ought to be enraptured by Him. If it’s not, something’s wrong. I like what Spurgeon said: “Jesus, like the sun, is the center and soul of all things, the fullness of all good, the lamp that lights us, the fire that warms us, the magnet that guides us.”
So you have to consider the inducements to spiritual passion. Look at the illustrations in scripture of spiritual passion. Consider the inducements to spiritual passion, but you also may need to deal with impediments to spiritual passion.
What are some impediments that keep us from having these kinds of desires, when these kinds of desires are what are natural to us once we are saved? Let’s remember that for a second. Regeneration, that incredible work of the Holy Spirit, is not just a blip on the screen of a person’s life. I mean, that is the problem with easy-believism; that’s another way to look at it.
People don’t understand that regeneration is a major paradigm shift in someone’s life. They were spiritually dead; now they’re spiritually alive. God takes away the heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. It’s a new heart, we have a new position before Him—new creatures—and this new heart is a heart that now naturally has a passionate desire for Christ! That’s who we are. But even though that is who we are, sometimes impediments inhibit our love for him.
Let me list some. There’s ten, just so you’ll know. Some are obvious.
Impediment number one: besetting sin.
It’s the idea of seeking the Lord on one hand, and yet, at the same time, nurturing some sin in your heart—and just nurturing it. You won’t find Him there, see? As one writer said, “It’s because you’re seeking where He is not.” You’re seeking Him where he is not. But yet, you talk about giving up some sin and, if people are honest, that is probably the most frightening thing to them: to let go of some sin that we nurture. It’s a frightening thought, but the bottom line is the love of sin is in- consistent with the love of Christ. Psalm 97:10 spells it out: “Hate evil, you who love the Lord”; pretty black and white there. You can’t nurture some sin. You can’t have something in your heart that is clearly spelled out in scripture as wrong—and nurture it, and feed it and kind of keep it there, so you can go back to it at times—and, at the same time, find, in the sense we’re talking about today, Christ.
Number two: misplaced love.
There’s more than one kind of misplaced love. In other words, you’re loving something, but it’s not Christ. It’s loving something else more than Christ. It could be love of the world—that’s related to besetting sin—but I’m just talking about a general loving the world. Loving the world system, instead of God—that’s a misplaced love. You’ve got this love and you’re channeling it toward the world instead of toward Christ. I John 2:15 says, “If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."
And we know from our experience that when that worldly pleasure is over, we’re left empty, we’re left dissatisfied. Spurgeon once again: “The world is a poor heap of ashes, when Jesus is altogether lovely to us.”
So, it could be the love of the world that’s a misplaced love. It could be expressed this way: it’s a love of temporal things, loving things that are temporary, the things of our earthly existence that are temporary. Because they’re just passing away! And some of these are not necessarily sinful in and of themselves, but they’re temporal.
And, again, we get enamored with what is attractive to us in some way, especially physically attractive. And so many people put so much emphasis on the physical, on the external, on what they look like, and loving the physical attraction sometimes more than what it means to be spiritually attractive. I was thinking about it this week and stumbled upon this quote that was expressing the idea that anything physically attractive can pale over time. I mean, at some point, it can corrode, it can age, it can be damaged.
The body is certainly like that. Thomas Vincent said this (puritan writer): “The most beautiful body in the world is no better than painted clay, dirt, and corruption enclosed in a fair skin, which sickness will cause to look pale and death will even spoil.” Thomas Boston said, “Death makes the greatest beauty so loathsome that it must be buried out of sight.” It goes on to say, “And in a little time the body will become just a feast for worms.”
So let’s keep things in their perspective here: they’re temporal. Scripture says it this way: “Bodily discipline profits little”—ultimately. So, it’s love of the world system, perhaps; loving things that are just temporary; even loving things that God tells us to love, yet loving them too much. See, we’re to love Christ with the highest love. He must have first place in our hearts (Colossians 1), to have first place in everything, the supreme position.
So God give us blessings and we’re grateful for that, but we’re not to love the blessings more than we love the blesser. Ministry? That’s a good thing to love, but you can’t make an idol out of ministry either. You can love ministry more than you love Christ. You can love your family—certainly we ought to love our family, but it can become a misplaced love. We can love our wife, our child, more than we love Christ, and then it’s misplaced love, and that could be keeping us from the supreme love that we’re to be giving to Christ.
We’re to love all inferior things with an inferior love. This quote from Jerome: “If my father were weeping on his knees before me, my mother hanging on my neck behind me, my brother and sisters and kinsfolk howling on every side to retain me in some sinful course, I would fling my mother to the ground, I would run over my father, I would despise all my kindred, and tread them under my feet that I might run unto Christ.” So, misplaced love…
Third: distractions.
We can allow the busyness of life or ministry to crowd out our devotion to Christ. Too much activity—and it chokes our energy, whether it’s physical or mental energy. It’s this life style of bowing to the tyranny of the urgent. You guys have never done that; let me go on to something else… It’s ultimately an issue of wrong priorities in our life, really. We’re letting the most important thing go and devoting ourselves to lesser things.
We like to go to Martha and Mary there as the example (in Luke 10), of course, where we see, clearly, wrong priorities on Martha’s part. Once again, let me quote Spurgeon. Somebody sent me an email with a bunch of quotes from Spurgeon, as you can tell. I thought they were all good so I’m using them. They worked for him; they ought to work for us. He comments on Martha and Mary. First, Martha: “Her problem was not that she was serving. Her fault was that she was worried and bothered about so many things that she forgot Christ and only remembered the things she was doing. She allowed service to override communion. We ought to be Martha and Mary in one. We should do much service and have much communion at the same time—and for this we need great grace, because it’s easier to serve than it is to commune.” It’s easier to be busy than to sit at the feet of Christ.
And distractions include things that rob our time. Distractions like television robs us of time. I own a TV and not at all do I say that it’s an evil thing that we shouldn’t have in our home, but it’s something that can control you, if you’re not careful. About four or five years ago, I decided to convert from becoming an evening person/a night person to a morning person. I got fed up with being a night person. Inside, I wanted to be a morning person. And that was a staggering thought—not that reading in the morning is more holy than reading in the evening, but I had to be honest about something: I was more tempted to not read in the evening. “I mean it’s just the news”—those kinds of things. And I started thinking, “What does it take to convert, I mean, switch my body clock two hours?” Impossible! I thought, “No, it’s not impossible. I fly around the world sometimes. And my body clock, I‘ll change it nine hours.” I went to Russia last year. Going again to Samara, and it’s twelve hours. You can change your body clock if you’re serious about it.
So I did whatever it took. Put my alarm clock across the room—the first one. Set my coffeepot the night before to come on, you know. Went to bed earlier—and made my commitment to the Lord. And I found it the most profitable thing I’ve ever done for my spiritual life because the distractions were not as numerous in the morning as they were in the evening. That was all. It’s not more holy. You can control the distractions—do whatever you have to—to control them, but that ends up being something that robs us of our time for Christ.
I’m not perfect in that; I mean, a season right now, this week—I’m not a real good morning person this week, with all this going on. There are certain seasons like that, where things happen that I get out of my routine, but I’m always ready and willing and desiring to get back into that.
Four, another impediment: unrealistic expectations.
Unrealistic expectations about everything in life… Thinking that life and ministry should only bring fun, fulfillment and comfort. It’s the desire and the need for no conflict in your life at all. That’s an unrealistic expectation and it tends to get people off track in their walk with the Lord. The problem is, life is not like that. And people who have unrealistic expectations, at some point, what forms in their heart is this simmering anger toward God. It just kind of simmers there. They’re upset at God due to his sovereign allowance of a trial in their life or some discomfort in their life or some affliction and now—we say it this way in the human realm—now there’s this wall there.
And, just like in the human realm, when there’s a wall there, we tend to avoid that person and not talk with them and commune with them, sometimes with the misconception that, by doing that—not that husbands ever do this with their wives!—by not talking to them, not communicating with them, not spending time with them—just strictly hypothetical—by not doing that, somehow we’re punishing them and putting them in their place. And when we feel like they’ve suffered enough, then we’ll come out of our shell and we’ll bless them with our communication. I’ve heard about that.
Listen, just like in the human realm, you don’t give yourself to somebody you’re angry at. And it works that way with God too. People need to be honest about that sort of thing. Call it what it is. Stop calling it “having a bad day” or “depressed.” No, they’re angry at God for not giving them something they wanted, for not causing their life to work out the way they thought it should. And that’s an unrealistic view of life, it’s an unrealistic view of family, it’s an unrealistic view of ministry and people. Young couples have children and, thinking that it’s just all going to be fun and fulfillment, you know, when they bring that little cute bundle home from the hospital, and, at some point, they start having problems and challenges and I have to remind them that two sinners got married, now their producing other sinners, and there’s a whole house full of sinners!
Listen, even in ministry, many things will not work out, and many things about ministry will not be fulfilling. The Ecclesiastes principle applies to all things in life, including ministry. I mean, where Solomon deals with this idea that he looks for fulfillment—some of the things he looked for fulfillment in were sinful, but some of them weren’t—but, the thing is, all is vanity at some point. God never meant for this life to fulfill us. He never meant for anything here to be ultimately fulfilling to us. That’s for us in heaven.
Even ministry is frustrating at times. You’ve got those people, you know. I mean ministry would be great wouldn’t it, if it wasn’t for all the people? Just study, and… No! Ministry is about people! And I Peter 1 makes it clear that trials are what distinguishes between what is true and what is false in our life; they actually enhance true spirituality by purifying it and increasing it so that nothing is left but what is real. So, don’t be angry at God because He hasn’t done what you wanted Him to, because you don’t get what you think you deserve.
A related concept here, under this umbrella term “unrealistic expectations,” is jealousy. People start looking around at others and they’re discontent with their life and they’re comparing themselves to others. Could be talents, could be opportunities, could be recognition, could be money. Pastors do that. They compare. They have jealousy. And then, that’s just ingratitude to God for what He has given you. It’s a lack of faith because, if you really needed it, God would give it to you. It’s unbelief. It’s not trusting His attributes. It’s a vicious cycle because, no matter what you want, if you get it, there’s always something else you want. So, we have to trust God and be content with what He’s doing in our life and not have unrealistic expectations, but trust Him for what’s going on.
Five: an unbalanced view of sanctification.
I’ve been talking slow up to this point. I’ve got to speed up—get the tape.
An unbalanced view of sanctification. At one extreme is legalism—you can get the tape of the seminar I did yesterday if you want. Legalism, as one friend has expressed to me, is just a cheap substitute for true spirituality. It’s easier: do’s and don’ts, rules and regulations. You can impress others and you can impress yourself. Our pastor said one time, “Self-righteousness, though, is the hardest sin to repent of.”
One extreme is legalism; the other extreme is laziness—one thing you can call it. This is “let go and let God” mentality. You’re not putting any effort into your responsibility in sanctification; no standards at all. And yet, Philippians 2:12-13 gives us this balance: you’re to “work out your salvation.” I mean, you have to take some steps. You have to put forth some effort to grow and to love Christ—to study Him, to spend time with Him, to read His word. It takes effort, but it’s God who works in you, to will it and to do it.
And sometimes all this, this unbalanced view of sanctification—especially the laziness—is aggravated by what I call a “misapplication of God’s sovereignty” or “overactive Calvinism.” And I hold to those doctrines, but if you misapply them, you know, you can get to this point where you’re saying, “Well, you know, what’s the use of praying anyway? I mean, ‘God’s in control.’ What’s the use of studying? He’s going to do what He wants to do; He’ll ‘complete the work he starts’” (Philippians 1:6). It’s a misapplication of those doctrines! It’s laziness! It’s an unbalanced view of sanctification, and laziness is seen in people, especially, when they’re quitters: during a dry spell, during the desert, they quit. Christ has hid Himself, in some sense, for a purpose: to rouse you out of your spiritual laziness, to cause you to pursue Him. But, lazy people are quitters and they give up. They’re not going to keep pursuing. It’s too much work, so on and so forth.
That’s related—this is all under “an unbalanced view of sanctification”—that’s related to procrastination. A lazy person procrastinates. “You know what, I mean, once this conference is over, I’m going to really take this thing seriously. You know? Once this fall is over, once this winter is over, I can look ahead, you know, I’m really going to start getting serious about spending time with God and growing in my love for Him.” Listen, you keep waiting for that perfect day, perfect situation, to have your perfect quiet time. Everything has to be just right. Five years from now, you’ll be saying, “You know, as soon as this season is over.”
Six: a lack of love for people.
As I said, ministry is about people, but this is an impediment to your devotion to Christ: a lack of love for people. And it is hard to love them sometimes, especially when they fail you, they disappoint you. But Christians love other Christians. Scripture says, “If you don’t love your brother, whom you have seen and you can see, how can you love Christ whom you have not seen?” A pastor, especially, must be known as someone who loves other people. There is no—I’ll say it this way—sorry, there is no such thing as a pastor who is not a people person. What is that? “Well, he’s not a people person”? Whom is he ministering to, then? The books? We don’t minister to books; we minister to people. If you’re not a people person, then become one, with the Lord’s help.
Listen, look at I Thessalonians 2. Paul gives you the example there. I Thessalonians 2, he says clearly, “I didn’t just give you the gospel. I give you my very life.” By secular standards, he didn’t have much—poverty, weakness, disrepute, tribulation. But listen, his followers saw him as something different, they look at Paul and they say, “Boy, no one ever loved us like he loved us.” Is that what your congregation will put on your tombstone? No one ever loved us like he loved us. If you have a servant’s heart, then people will see that love for them. On the other hand, if you’re caught up into professionalism, you’ve lost your servant mind set, that’s going to rob you of your joy of loving Christ, I promise you. It’s an impediment.
Loving others includes loving your spouse (I Peter 3:7). It starts in your home. If you’re not loving your wife, graciously and tenderly nurturing her, don’t you expect to have a vibrant relationship with the Lord. I mean, He said it; I didn’t. Your prayers are hindered. You can’t say, “Well, you know, God and I are doing just fine. It’s that woman, you know, that I can’t”—listen, there’s a relationship there.
Lack of love for people can be seen in unforgiveness sometimes; unforgiveness toward anyone will squelch your love for Christ. And husbands, men, you especially are told this, in Colossians 3:19: “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be embittered against them.”
Seven: fear of man.
Fear of man is an impediment. What is “fear of man” in its base element? You care more about what people think than about what God thinks. It’s being enamored with people more than being enamored with God—caring too much about what they think, about your sermons, your ideas, the things you say in conversation, your decisions you make. Read the book by Ed Welch, I think it is called When People Are Big And God Is Small—just the first three chapters are enough to convict you—When People Are Big And God Is Small. Fear of man is subtle sometimes.
Fear of man is seen even in this excessive need for accountability. That’s a dependence on man. People that are caught up in needing too much accountability in their Christian life—that’s being dependent on man rather than God. And God, at some point, may bring you to this point where there’s no one else to keep you accountable but Him, so what are you going to do?
Eight: an unbalanced view of self.
That’s an impediment to love for Christ, believe it or not. And there’s two extremes in this. At one extreme is presumption—presumption. That’s thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to think, as Romans 12:3 says. You’ve kind of forgotten where you came from. You’ve forgotten what Christ did not see in you. And you’re thinking you’re looking pretty good now. Listen, don’t forget that your very best day is totally enveloped in sin, in some way.
So you become overconfident in your own abilities, your own gifts. What happens when a person is overconfident in their own abilities—as a pastor, as a minister? They don’t pray as much. They’re not enjoying that communion with the Lord because, I don’t know, you’re just good at things—you’ve got natural gifts.
At the other extreme though, is this debilitating focus on failure. At one extreme is presumption, but the other extreme is this debilitating focus on failure. It’s letting your failures incapacitate you. You do have to guard yourself from being overly anxious or too anxious about your faults and your failures and your sins. That’s the other extreme.
And it’s possible that a person’s distress over their sin—at that extreme—it’s very possible that, that too is springing from a root of pride. How? Well, see, what you’re experiencing there is a love of your own worth. To put it bluntly, you’re just hurt now and upset that you’re seeing yourself the way you really are, the way God saw you all the time. You had a better image of yourself. “I’m not like that”—yes, you are. If you have true humility from the Lord, you’ll not be surprised at your faults. You’ll not be shocked at your failures. You’ll grieve but you won’t be shocked. Listen, the more clearly you see your true self, honestly and humbly, the more you’ll abandon yourself to God, because He’s all you have.
Nine: an academic focus in study.
That’s treating Bible study, sermon preparation, as merely an academic exercise. You’re only studying for the facts, and you’ve lost this devotional approach to your Bible study. I tell seminary students this, here at The Master’s Seminary: I don’t care what class you are in, it ought to be devotional to you. I mean, you’re studying something related to ministry, something related to God, something related to scripture. I mean, your sermon preparation can’t just be duty; it has to be something that’s a duty and something that is just generating this passion in your heart for Christ as you study. So don’t just study as if it’s just an academic exercise and that’s all; be devotional in your thinking as you study.
A related thought to this is this out-of-balance doctrinal growth—that’s still under this heading of an academic focus in study. It’s an out-of-balance doctrinal growth that, as you grow in your understanding of the profound doctrines of scripture and justification and propitiation and everything related to regeneration, all the great doctrines of the faith—as you grow in your study of that, it’s real easy to decrease in your appreciation of simple truths. Ultimately, I think that’s pride too, because knowledge puffs up.
So, don’t let that happen. Listen, if hearing the simple message about Christ’s love for you doesn’t warm your heart, something—as I’ve already said—is wrong. Last one.
Ten: mysticism.
That’s seeking some emotional experience—seeking the experience. That’s not the same thing as being in love with Christ. And it will lead to major disappointment because the feelings come and go. So, people who seek some spiritual feeling, they do it through somehow setting the music and the atmosphere—there’re churches who do this. And if you have the atmosphere just right, the lights just right, the music just right, you’ve created worship, somehow, in the atmosphere. And they feel close to God and they go away believing they had this experience with Him. What they had an experience with was just their experience. They love their experience.
True spiritual affections come from an enlightening of the mind to truth. As you have your minds immersed in biblical truth, you know more about Christ. And so, true spiritual passion and true spiritual understanding is different than all those forms of enthusiasm that we see on television or other church services—imagined visions, inward suggestions they’re getting, predictions of future events, immediate revelations from God of secret facts. And people who never have those experiences themselves, they live vicariously through those people. And they’re going to send their money to those people because they are “close to God,” they “got a word from God.” “Look at that! Wow!”
Idiots. I’m serious—the Bible calls them that. That’s foolish because those impressions are just self-generated impressions. They just excite the emotions in people and they delude people. And the person who’s caught up in mysticism may appear to have this vibrant loving relationship with Christ but they can be far, far from Him.
Well, those are 10 impediments; there could be more. Much to say about
them, but I don’t have time for. You look at the illustrations in
scripture of what a spiritual passion looks like—you set that as your
standard. You look at Christ so that that’s an inducement to spiritual
passion. You look at your heart and you seek with the Lord’s help to get
rid of any of the impediments that are there.
Last thing, instructions concerning spiritual passion that I want to leave you with. Maybe you’re in a desert right now. It could be the desert that’s due to your own choices. You’ve made some choices that have resulted in a cooling of your spiritual passion. You’ve had this burning love for Christ in the past, but something’s gone wrong and He’s distant now; you’re cold. Perhaps you’ve let down your watch. You’ve gotten involved in some temptation. It’s as if Satan has his ropes on you, and you’re complying with some kind of lust.
I like the way, you know—there’s more to what Revelation 2:4 means—but nevertheless just the simple reading of it. Revelation 2:4: “You’ve left your first love.” Don’t keep running from the Lord. Or as Thomas Vincent wrote, “Do not provoke the Lord to follow you with a storm as He did Jonah.” Don’t make the Lord create a whale for you. “It may be the Lord has scourged some of you for your faults with the rods of some crosses and disappointments, some outward losses and troubles. It may be that He has put bitterness upon those breasts, which you have been sucking, and mingling gal in the cup of your pleasures, which you have been drinking. And you have begun to think of your evil ways, and seeing what an evil and bitter thing it is to backslide from the Lord.”
You see, it’s so important to examine our hearts, our attitudes to the Lord. Is it sin that we’ve fallen into? Is it the busyness of ministry? We’ve got to return to our first love. God’s allowed you to be in this desert. If you’re not in one now, you may be in one next week. You may go home and have all these wonderful ideas and wonderful motivations for your people in your church, and you go back and they don’t get it—you find yourself in a desert.
Could be some financial need that you’re struggling with, some health problem—the uncertainty of tomorrow. You’re in a desert and not sure what to do. Well, all that’s left is this utter, total surrender to Christ. So, the desert ends up being this place of intimacy with God. It teaches lessons to us about intimacy with God. But regardless of the reason you’re there, you’ve got to take some steps to make it a profitable time for your soul. Putting effort into it—and I don’t mean just having a quiet time that ends up being this space to fill your calendar. You know, I mean, “Here it is on your calendar and you’ve done your duty.” No! It’s something that’s got to be sweet in your heart, because you want to be alone with your best friend.
So, just real quick, bold points about that:
1. Schedule it. I’m not against that at all. In fact, I have found it helpful for me that, not only scheduling things weekly and daily, but every once in a while—about once every two or three months—I’ll just schedule a day away or half a day away. And I’ll go find a park bench, table, and my bible and a note pad and maybe some other book that I’m reading, and I’ll just sit there and I’ll spend time with the Lord and I’ll pour out my heart to the Lord and I’ll pray and I’ll confess and I’ll seek the Lord and I’ll get this adjustment to my perspective. Schedule it. You’ve got to do that.
2. Obviously, let go of sin, love of the world, and any of those impediments. Repent of any bad habits.
3. Read. Just a note about that (to follow up on what Eric Alexander said last night): you need to read. You need to be a person who reads. Obviously, reading scripture is the priority of your life, and meditating on what you read! Immersing yourself into the word! I know there are plenty of church leaders who don’t read the word unless they’re studying for a passage to preach. And that’s all they do. So, I’m talking about the importance of reading the word, but I’m talking about the importance of reading other good material too. Be a reader! I believe that reading may very well possibly be the single most important, impactful thing you can do for your life. It impacts you. Stimulating reading affects your soul—but you have to do it the right way. You have to make some deliberate choices in it.
Here are choices you have to make as you read: keep the right attitude. Be devotional in your reading. In other words, don’t just read for facts, but read with an emphasis of knowing Christ and applying what you read to your life. Yes, when I read scripture or anything, I want to know the facts first: what does it say? I’m not asking questions like, “What does it mean to me?” No, I’m asking questions—“What does it mean?” Period. Whether I lived or not. But, secondly, it’s fair to ask, “How does this apply to me? How does this effect my devotion to God?”
It’s an attitude, so keep the right attitude as you read. It’s devotional reading that includes this willingness to surrender to the Lord, a willingness to change the course of your life and to confess your sin.
Keep the right attitude in your reading—and be balanced in your reading. I mean, when it comes to something other than scripture, be balanced in your books. Read good books. There’s a lot of good books, but there’s even more bad ones. Make sure they’re theologically accurate. But, be balanced, be balanced in reading modern writings and ancient classics; be balanced in there. I mean, a lot of books today are untested. They respond to fads and people mostly buy those kind of books. I hope you’re not mostly buying those kind of books.
John lamented to our staff not too long ago about the desire of so many today to disconnect themselves from the past. It’s a movement—in the church-growth, seeker-friendly movement—a strategic movement to disconnect themselves from anything in the past. Only “fresh words” from the Lord. None of those old stuffy hymns. None of the old ways of growing the church. None of the old doctrine—I don’t want that anymore; I want a “fresh word” from God. People wanting to disconnect themselves from the past… Don’t do that. We need to see what God was doing in the lives of saints in the past, to live out our lives affectively today. If you are going to read a modern book, be sure you’re reading the ones that are taking you back to the age-old timeless principles from scripture.
And be balanced in the sense of critical theological books and commentaries, but also things like good biographies. Listen, you ought to be fellowshipping with those who love Christ. And one way to do that is, not only find people in your church congregation who have simple love for Christ, and be around them, but fellowship with people from the past who have devoted their lives to loving Christ. Read good biographies. “Hang around” with those people. Our pastor regularly reads biographies He’s reading several things all the time—several different kinds of works—and one of them is almost always a biography. And every time he comments on a biography—the biography that he’s reading at the moment—as soon as the staff meeting’s over, we’re like a little herd. And, I mean, we run over there to the book shack, you know, get that biography, and start reading it, because it’s affected his life; I want to it to affect my life. He was reading the biography of William Carey, so we all got the biography of William Carey, and now he’s reading the one on William Tyndale—just got it a couple days ago.
So, read theological, critical commentaries, but read biographies—and read the puritans. Don’t just read the puritans—you’ll be out of balance there—but read the puritans. Spurgeon read the puritans: out of 12,000 books in his library, about 7,000 were puritan books that he went to over and over and over again. Read and be moved by prayers and journals of people of the faith, the classics of faith and devotion. Read Edwards. Read Bunyan.
Just be balanced in all of that. Keep the right attitude. Read devotionally. Be balanced and be persistent in your reading. Be persistent; don’t give up. Serious reading will bring a lot of obstacles. It’ll discourage you. They’ll distract you. It takes concentration to read and to study and to benefit from this.
And again, there’s nothing in our world that helps us with that: the casual flicking of the television with a remote and the flashing messages condition us to not think. And people don’t like to think. But we have to think and we have to stay with it. We have to discipline our minds to get the benefit from it, especially when you’re reading some of the older works. Expand your vocabulary, if that’s what you have to do to understand those works. It’s a shame we have such a limited vocabulary today.
Keep reading, keep persisting, and meditating on it. And, in your persistence, be patient with what the Lord’s going to do. He doesn’t just sprinkle whiffle dust on you and suddenly change you because you’ve read a good chapter in a book. Sanctification is progressive. Be patient in that. Slow down in some of those writings. It’s ok to read volumes, but also do some reading where it’s measured, even if it’s only 10 or 15 minutes, and you read something and you meditate on it and you let it absorb into your heart. See what God is going to do in your life over time.
4. And then, be prayerful as you study, as you read. Pray that God would cause you to love Christ more. Pray that your reading, pray that your meditating would just increase your love to Him. Pray that God would stimulate this love in your heart for Christ, a passion that overwhelms all the other loves. Acknowledge your weakness in this area, maybe even lack in love. Pray the Lord would take you back to that first love experience.
5. Maybe one more thing. I mean, obviously, you know you must obey Christ; “If you love me, keep my commandments,” He says. But, maybe I’ll just say this: not only have the right attitude and all that, read and be prayerful, [but] be transparent. All I mean by that is: be open with your love for Christ. Talk about Christ with other people. People in evangelicalism—church leaders—I think, can go weeks without literally talking about Christ in conversation. Speak about Him. Share your life with others. Talk about your love for Christ. Talk about what you’re learning in the Word. That builds up other people; they need to hear that from you, so talk about it.
I’m out of time. There’s three more things I could say, but I won’t; it’s enough. You examine your own heart. Do you love Christ? Does he have your desires? Are your delights chiefly in Him? It’s so important for the preacher to be authentic. Let’s pray together.
Thomas Doolittle wrote this, “Lord, I shall not account myself to be well,
till I am sick of Love to thee.” Our Father, we pray this morning that we
would take this very seriously, that we would start, first of all, with
searching our own hearts to see what coldness might be there, and Lord, being
honest with you about it—letting go of sin, letting go of misplaced love.
Father, we understand that sometimes, when you take those things out of
our heart, it’s like open heart surgery with no anesthetics. And we fear
it, but God, we desperately want you. We want to be known as men who love
Christ, who have a passion, a spiritual fervor, an ardency for Christ. So
Lord, help us be honest with you, and help us to seek it so that our people
will start to see something different. They’d see a warmth, they’d see a
genuineness, an authenticity, because we’re enraptured by Christ—with Christ.
Lord, help us to be diligent, to schedule times with you if that’s what
it takes, to read and read and read your Word and other books that you have
given to us through gifted men to help us. I pray that, as we read, it would
be something devotional in our hearts that would insight this love for Christ,
as we see more of who He is. Help us to be patient, as we wait on you to
change us, and to be persistent in the dry times—not giving up. Lord,
help us to be transparent with people, so that they can see that we are
contemplating Christ all the time, we’re meditating on Him, we’re thinking
about Him, we’re reading about Him, that we love Him so much that our mouth is
speaking out of the abundance that’s filling our heart. And I pray that
other people, then, will want to follow us and be lovers of Christ also.
We commit ourselves to that glorious endeavor, in your Son’s name, Amen.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "Shepherd's Conference Collection"
by:
Tony Capoccia
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