The Spiritual Disciplines Practical Tools for Personal Transformation

1
The Spiritual Disciplines Practical Tools for
Personal Transformation

• Source Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the
  Disciplines Understanding How God Changes
  Lives, Harper and Row, 1988

2
What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

• Going to heaven when we die?
• Your sins are forgiven?
• Once youre in, you can never get kicked out?

3
No!
The Gospel is bigger!

• Life in the kingdom of heaven is available now
  (and forever) through trust in Jesus Christ.
• Trust Following

4
The Thesis

• True transformation is possible in our lives
• We can experience an eternal (kind of) life
  while living here on earth

• If you live according to the flesh, you will
  die but if, by the Spirit, you put to death the
  deeds of the body, you will live.
• Romans 813

5
How?
Mimicking Jesus' activities
6
What did Jesus do?

• He arranged his life around certain activities
  and practices
• Such as ? (list)

7
What did these activities bring?

• 1. Detachment.
• These activities kept him separated from the grip
  of agendas people would superimpose on him.

8
What did these activities do?

• 2. Engagement.
• They enabled him to commune with God and the
  agenda of the Kingdom.

9
The Spiritual Disciplines

• Disciplines of Abstinence enable detachment from
  the worlds entanglements on us
• Disciplines of Engagement enable us to connect
  with the Kingdom realm

• Rearranging my life around the activities around
  which Jesus lived his gives me the opportunity to
  experience true transformation

10
Disciplines of Abstinence

• Solitude
• Silence
• Fasting
• Frugality
• Sacrifice
• Chastity
• Secrecy

• To refrain voluntarily and temporarily from
  normal human needs so as to disentangle ourselves
  from their claims on us.

11
Solitude

• To refrain for our normal need for conversation
  and human interaction so as to make room for
  relationship with God
• Foundational to practice of all spiritual
  disciplines
• Goal to do nothing

12
Silence

• To refrain from our normal need for conversation
• Getting away from most non-human noise
• Frees us from the constant attempt to manipulate
  our world through our words

13
Fasting

• To do without food (in some way) in order to
  feast on God
• Occasional and routine
• Historically and biblically demonstrates to God
  and ourselves how intent we are about something

14
Frugality and Sacrifice

• To do with less of or none of what we normally
  want or need
• Frees us from bondage to pleasure, luxury, and
  appearances

15
Chastity

• To refrain from human union in order to
  experience heightened intimacy with God
• Within marriage, partners need times when they
  are valued for non-sexual reasons
• Outside of marriage, to demonstrate that our
  primary union is with God

16
Secrecy

• To refrain from letting our good deeds be known
  to others
• Disentangles us from the needs for getting credit
  and recognition
• Matthew 6
• prayer, alms, fasting

17
Disciplines of Engagement

• Study
• Worship
• Celebration
• Fellowship
• Service
• Prayer
• Confession
• Submission

• The practices which enable our now-disentangled
  souls to participate in the life and activities
  of the Kingdom of heaven.

18
Study

• Submission of your mind to the truth and being of
  God
• The Word, history, people, ideas, etc.
• Done via absorption and memorization

19
Worship and Celebration

• We ascribe worth to God as the standard by
  which all is measured
• Remembering and recognizing
• Worship what God has done for us
• Celebration what God has done for me

20
Fellowship

• Connecting with God by imitating the Trinitarian
  community
• Finding our complements in the gifts found in the
  body of Christ

21
Service

• Laying down the burden of preserving ourselves
• Not putting yourself down but pulling another up
• A means of exaltation through humility
• Philippians 2

22
Prayer

• Focused moments in our ongoing conversation with
  God
• Acknowledging Gods presence to me and being
  present to God
• Speaking must be accompanied by listening
• Solitude, silence, etc. heighten

23
Confession and Submission

• Making ourselves accountable for growth via the
  faith community
• Considering others as better than ourselves
• Log and speck, blind spot
• Bearing one anothers burdens
• Galatians 62

24
Dangers of the Disciplines

• Pride!
• Can be works-righteous
• Can cause us to neglect appropriate
  responsibilities and disdain normal needs

25
But

• Faith is bodily
• Grace is opposed to works, not effort
• We can cooperate (or not) with God
• Power steering
• Rocket leaving pad

26
Where to begin ...
Elijah Disciplines
Brief, playful experiments
Solitude and Silence
27
A Starting Place

• One discipline of abstinence with which I could
  experiment
• Aspiring to one discipline of engagement
• What might these look like one afternoon?
• How can we help each other practice these in our
  household?

28
Starting Points .

• Solitude
• Silence
• Fasting
• Frugality
• Sacrifice
• Chastity
• Secrecy

• Study
• Worship
• Celebration
• Fellowship
• Service
• Prayer
• Confession
• Submission

29
The Spiritual Disciplines Practical Tools for
Personal Transformation

• Dr. John P. Chandler
• Courageous Churches,
• Virginia Baptist Mission Board
• Copy Right John P. Chandler, 2003