Establishing A True Order For Spiritual Work

Introduction

Today is designated Reformation Sunday. It was on Oct 31st, 1517, at the hour of noon, that the great reformer, Martin Luther, nailed his 95 thesis to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg. This was the beginning of the Reformation. Oct 31st is its birthday.

The Call of the Reformation in its essence was the call for Christians to go back to the fundamentals, i.e. to return to the teachings of the Bible, i.e. Scripture alone - sola Scriptura. The Bible and the Bible alone is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify God and enjoy Him.

As you celebrate your 7th anniversary, I thought it would be good to remind ourselves some of the basic teachings of the Scripture which can help us to remain faithful in the work and ministry to which the Lord has called us to do, even the JB Sunset Gospel Hour. We want to go back to the basics.

The word discipleship and the word discipline have the same idea. It gives us the idea that once a person has become a disciple of Jesus Christ. The question he needs to ask is "What disciplines will help me remain a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ?"

The passage which we have read, we see Jesus Himself giving us a model on establishing a true order for spiritual work. He moves from solitude to small group or community and then on to ministry. That is His order of priorities as you study His life. First, time with God, second, time with His disciples, third, time for ministry among the big crowd.

We tend to reverse the order. We stress so much on doing ministry (outreach) first, less on spending time alone with God in solitude and with our small group. That seems to be the order of priorities for many Christians. But Jesus set the true order for us.

I. First Solitude…

Don't be frightened by this word "solitude". We are not talking about going to monastery and spend our days there in a room staring at a wall. No. Solitude simply means "Being with God and God alone". Jesus spent time in solitude in communion with God.

In Luke verse 12, "And it came to pass in those days, that He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God." Do note the phrase "in those days". The use of the plural here would suggest to us that it was not a one-time, somewhat exceptional occasion, but a regular part of Jesus' devotional pattern.

Yes, Jesus prayed. Was He praying for wisdom to select His apostles? Yes and no. Yes, if he was not exercising His divine attributes of omniscience, hence He needed God to give Him discernment. But no, because Jesus is also God and He knows the heart of men. He doesn't need to pray for wisdom and discernment to select His apostles. The text just simply says Jesus prayed.

What is prayer? Prayer can be divided 3 phases. There is the childhood phase of prayer. We discover that prayer is powerful. This is usually the case early in the Christian. When we pray, things happen. So we like the plaques saying "Prayer changes things, prayer moves mountains" etc. I am not saying that it is wrong.

But the danger arises when prayer is being treated as a powerful tool and it is being seen as an effective technique to make things happen. Prayer then is like a remote control in our human hands. We press some buttons to move God. So we focus our attention on the remote control in our hands. We think that in order for prayers to be more effective, we must improve our techniques. We change postures, from sitting to standing, from raising hands to bowing down. There are some Christians who think that raising the volume of their voice could make things happen. There are also others who have this pre-conceived notion that in prayer you must use certain words and phrases and things will happen.

In the teenage phase of prayer we begin to slowly realize that the remote control does not work as we think it should. It is not simply a matter of pressing some buttons to move heaven and change earth. We learn that God is powerful.

We cannot dictate to Him what we want. He alone determines what to do and when to do it. Sometimes He answers our prayers and at other times, he seems to ignore our prayers. He seems to be in total control. Disgusted and disappointed with the ineffectiveness of the tool of prayer, we throw away the remote control and stop praying as fervently as we should. In this phase, there are Christians who got angry with God and left the church. Because they prayed and nothing seemed to happen, they left.

Then we come to the adult stage. At this stage, we discover the truth that God is love. We have graduated from the childhood and teenage phase of prayer. The adult stage of prayer is the stage when we realize that God is loving and he longs to speak to us through His Word and His Spirit. He longs to speak to us and hear us speak to Him the language of love. Prayer is the language of love, a language of intimacy.

Yes, we can pray because we are driven to God by our needs. But we can also pray because we are drawn by God's beauty, glory and love. To move from treating prayer as a spiritual remote control to seeing prayer as a loving relationship with God is to grow in prayer.

Jesus showed us that prayer is a loving relationship with God. Jesus spent so much time in communion with God because there were other voices tempting Him and seducing Him. He clung on to that fact and the assurance given to Him that He is God's beloved. God loves Him.

Those voices are so strong in this world. Those were the voices Jesus heard right after his baptism. One voice said, "Prove yourself, do something. Change these stones into bread. Prove you are a special person with power, jump from the temple, and you will be known. Don't you want to be known? Isn't that why you came?"

Jesus knows who He is. He doesn't have to prove anything. He knows He is the beloved of God.
If we neglect spending time with God and God alone and be assured by Him before we move out to serve Him. We will be running around begging for affirmation, for praise, for success, for recognition. And we will not be free to serve.

Solitude is where spiritual ministry begins. That is where Jesus spoke and listened to God. That is where we speak and listen to God, through His word and Spirit speaking to our hearts.

Someone said, the Christian life is like a big wagon wheel with many spokes. In the middle is the hub. Often in ministry, it looks like we are running around the rim trying to reach everybody. But God says, "Start in the hub; and live in the hub. Then you will be connected with all the spokes and you won't have to run so fast."

II. To Community…

It is precisely in that hub, in that loving communion with God, that we discover the call to community. It is remarkable that spending time alone with God always leads us to community. In loving communion with God, you realize that you are part of Christ's family, and that you want to lift something together. You want to be a part of God's family and do things together. You don't want to be a lone ranger.

After spending time in solitude with God, Jesus formed a community. Verse 13, "And when it was day, He called unto Him His disciples, and of them he chose twelve and whom also He named Apostles." He spent so much time with this community of apostles, praying for them, caring for them, loving them and equipping them. Jesus spent much time with this community of apostles.

Yes, while community can be defined as a group of people, it can also be defined as a way of living. You gather around you people with whom you want to proclaim the truth and share the truth and encourage one another to live for God, to affirm one another that we are all beloved sons and daughters of God.

With that in mind, my question is this. Why is it so important that solitude comes before community?

But community is not loneliness grabbing onto loneliness: "I'm so lonely. You are so lonely." Please meet my needs, my loneliness. Community is solitude grabbing onto solitude: "I'm the beloved. You are the beloved. Together we can build up one another." Yes sometimes you are close to one another and that is wonderful and sometimes you don't feel much love, and that is hard. But we can be faithful knowing we are loved in Christ and we are one in the bond of love.

When we know that God loves us and we don't expect and demand love from others in the community, we learn to forgive. What is Forgiveness? Forgiveness is to allow the other person not to be God. Forgiveness says, "I know you love me, but you don't have to love me unconditionally because it is not easy for the human being to do that."

We all have wounds. We all are in so much pain. It's precisely this feeling of loneliness which lurks behind all our successes, that feeling of meaninglessness even when people say we are fantastic and praise us. That is what makes us sometimes grab onto people and expect from them an affection and love they cannot give.

To forgive other people for being able to give you only a little love. That is a hard discipline. To keep asking others for forgiveness because you can give only a little love, that is also a hard discipline. It hurts to say to your family members, your friends, loved ones that you cannot give them all that you would like to give.

Not only can we learn to forgive we can celebrate too. If you can forgive that another person cannot give you what only God can give, then you can celebrate that person's gift. Then you can see the love that person is giving you as a reflection of God's unconditional love, though imperfect it may be. We can say "Thank you God for your love show to me through this brother or sister."

Community is not easy. Someone once said, "Community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives."

In Jesus community of twelve apostles, the last name was that of someone who was going to betray him. That person is always in your community somewhere; in the eyes of others, you might be that person. I hope we are not the Judas in the community of believers.

III. Then to Ministry to Others…

All the Disciples of Christ are called to ministry. Ministry first of all is not merely something that you do. Yes, you must do something. Jesus preached. The Disciples preached. Yes.

But I would like to highlight the last part of verse 19, "For power went out from Him and healed them all." Here I would like to bring to your attention that ministry is also something that you have to trust.

Jesus preached. He also cured people. But he cured people not by doing all sorts of complicated things. A power went out from Him and everyone was cured. Everyone who touched him was cured because a power went out from his pure heart. He wanted one thing – to do the will of God. He was completely obedient to God and he was always listening to God practicing God's presence. Out of this listening came an intimacy with God that radiated out to everyone Jesus saw and touched.

Yes, in ministering to others, we must do something, share, preach and teach. There is another aspect of ministry which is invisible. You have to trust that if you are drawing close to God, a certain unction and power will go radiated from you and that people will be ministered to. I am not referring to healing power as in faith healing, but in godly living.

Trust that if you are living closely with God, you will minister to people whether or not you notice it. But you have to be close to God. When you mingle with your classmates living the Christian life and be conscious of God's presence, you will minister to your friends in a very powerful ways. You would create a thirst in their hearts to want to know more about your Saviour Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

From Solitude, to small group/community then to ministry. This is the true order in spiritual work. May God help us to establish our priorities as we serve Him.

Message delivered on JB BPF 7th Anniversary, 28 October 07