"Getting Plugged In" - Nov. 16th, 2008

Date: November 16th, 2008

Speaker: Pastor Kevin

Title: "Getting Plugged In"

Series: Can Turkeys Fly?

I would like to be able to fly if everyone else did, but otherwise it would be kind of conspicuous.

– 12-year-old girl quoted by David Riesman in The Lonely Crowd

Story:

**A Modern Parable* of Kierkegaard’s…**

A certain flock of geese lived together in a barnyard with high walls around it. Because the corn was good and the barnyard was secure, these geese would never take a risk. One day a philosopher goose came among them. He was a very good philosopher and every week they listened quietly and attentively to his learned discourses. 'My fellow travellers on the way of life,' he would say, 'can you seriously imagine that this barnyard, with great high walls around it, is all there is to existence?

'I tell you, there is another and a greater world outside, a world of which we are only dimly aware. Our forefathers knew of this outside world. For did they not stretch their wings and fly across the trackless wastes of desert and ocean, of green valley and wooded hill? But alas, here we remain in this barnyard, our wings folded and tucked into our sides, as we are content to puddle in the mud, never lifting our eyes to the heavens which should be our home.

The geese thought this was very fine lecturing. 'How poetical,' they thought. 'How profoundly existential. What a flawless summary of the mystery of existence.' Often the philosopher spoke of the advantages of flight, calling on the geese to be what they were. After all, they had wings, he pointed out. What were wings for, but to fly with? Often he reflected on the beauty and the wonder of life outside the barnyard, and the freedom of the skies.

And every week the geese were uplifted, inspired, moved by the philosopher's message. They hung on his every word. They devoted hours, weeks, months to a thoroughgoing analysis and critical evaluation of his doctrines. They produced learned treatises on the ethical and spiritual implications of flight. All this they did. But one thing they never did. They did not fly! For the corn was good, and the barnyard was secure!

Can you relate?

Series I’ve entitled “Can Turkeys fly?”

Not very well. They are not aerodynamically lean.

Well, I have sensed that there are many people who feel like turkeys or these geese

They read God’s Word and especially Acts and they see these early Cns soaring.
They look out and they see these eagle-type Cns who just seem to glide in the wind.
But there reality is they are grounded.

I've have heard that if a bunch of farmyard geese see a flock of wild geese flying and honking overheard, they will often run along the ground flapping their wings and honking…feeling that God-given yearning to fly…but never lifting off the ground.

Do you ever wonder, ”Can this turkey fly?”
Can this barnyard goose ever get off the ground?
Can I ever experience in my life what I read in Acts?
Can I ever get off the ground in my Christian life?

Human level – probably not….

But God’s answer is “Yes”

In fact, God sent the Holy Spirit for that precise reason to help “turkey Christians fly.” He came to divinely enable you to live a life with greater joy, greater self-control, greater faithfulness, greater effectiveness….than you ever could on your own.

Question that cries from our hearts is:

HOW?

HOW CAN I GET PLUGGED IN?

And often the answers seem so confusing, so all over .just like our wacky professor’s explanation of electricity. We don’t really get it. We aren’t sure how.

Today, I want to try and explain simply how we can get plugged in and how we as turkeys can find our wings.

1. Make Sure You Want the Right Thing

There is an interesting story in Acts 8: 9 – 25.

It is the story of Simon the Sorcerer.

A man named Simon had been a sorcerer there for many years, amazing the people of Samaria and claiming to be someone great. 10 Everyone, from the least to the greatest, often spoke of him as “the Great One—the Power of God.” 11 They listened closely to him because for a long time he had astounded them with his magic.

12 But now the people believed Philip’s message of Good News concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. As a result, many men and women were baptized. 13 Then Simon himself believed and was baptized. He began following Philip wherever he went, and he was amazed by the signs and great miracles Philip performed.

14 When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that the people of Samaria had accepted God’s message, they sent Peter and John there. 15 As soon as they arrived, they prayed for these new believers to receive the Holy Spirit. 16 The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them, for they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then Peter and John laid their hands upon these believers, and they received the Holy Spirit.

18 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given when the apostles laid their hands on people, he offered them money to buy this power. 19 “Let me have this power, too,” he exclaimed, “so that when I lay my hands on people, they will receive the Holy Spirit!”

20 But Peter replied, “May your money be destroyed with you for thinking God’s gift can be bought! 21 You can have no part in this, for your heart is not right with God. 22 Repent of your wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive your evil thoughts, 23 for I can see that you are full of bitter jealousy and are held captive by sin.”

24 “Pray to the Lord for me,” Simon exclaimed, “that these terrible things you’ve said won’t happen to me!”

What’s the issue here?

Simon wanted the results, the power, not necessarily the person of the H.S.
And we can fall into the same trap. We want to see all the results, all the empowerment, gifts, miracles of God….but do we really want God?
Or like Simon; Is the Holy Spirit just the means to the goal?
Do we want he gifts without really wanting the Giver?

Last week I mentioned that we have a tendency to leak. We get fired up and then over time some of that fire leaks out. We get emotionally fired and then drops off.

Could one of the reasons for that be that we want all the gifts without the giver?

Do we want to have the fruit without being connected to the tree?

i.e. Kids – not with you but just what you give

Many people have gone to altar and asked Holy Spirit into life who have become disillusioned….don’t see anything.

Didn’t have any evidence.

What was your desire? The gifts or the giver?

Luke 11 says the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him….but do we desire the Spirit or just the results.

2. Empty Cup

Let me again come back to our cup illistration from last week. Our cup is filled with something, the question is “What?”

It is either filled with self and its fruit – unforgiveness, anger, lusts, greed, etc

it can be filled with the Holy Spirit

One of the obstacles we have is we want the H.S to fill us, but we want that without first emptying the cup. But, the Holy Spirit. can only fill you to the amount you give him. If we want truly the Holy Spirit life to be experienced and exhibited we need to empty our cup.

What I’ve discovered in my Christian life is that the journey to a Spirit-filled life is through a path of brokenness and self-emptying.

Think of these verses

Jesus – “If anyone would be my disciple he must deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me.”

He must die to himself – self-ambition, self- promotion, self-pride, etc

Galatians 2:20 - “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me and gave himself for me.”

Col. 3: 1 – 5

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

The bottom line is: The Spirit-filled life doesn’t come without emptying our cup….

Reveal survey – 80,000 Christians

Trying to measure spiritual health

Identifying key beliefs, practises, activities of Christians who grow to be Christ-centred believers

In the survey they found one in five (22%) of the 80,000 people described their current spiritual growth as “stalled”

They chose this statement “I have stalled spiritually.” As their choice.

They could have selected 3 others:

“I’m in a state of rapid spiritual growth.”
“I’m in a state of reasonable spiritual growth.”
“I’m content with my spiritual growth.”
But they chose “I have stalled spiritually.”

What was interesting is that they found that those who stalled reported the following as more significant barriers than the unstalled.

The most primary reason for their being stalled is their admission that they do not make spiritual growth a priority. They have lower level of personal spiritual practises than those not stalled.

In other words, what they have allowed is a shift of priorities, other things to usurp Christ’s place, anger, gossip, being judgemental, unforgiveness, bad habits and addictions, inappropriate relationships to accumulate in the cup, or remain there without dealing with them.

And then we pray “Holy Spirit fill me”….And he tries but there is little room.

It’s this simple:

You cannot expect there to be joy, peace, love co-existing and coming out purely when mixed in with unforgiveness, and judgementalism, and anger. Doesn’t work. The more we are emptied , the more the Holy Spirit can fill us.

Note:

I have found that for most of us there tends to be one watershed issue. One intense battleground. We will surrender easily to Christ most areas, but there tends to be one that we want to cling to and leave in the bottom of the cup…. And it leaves us wrestling. There is a war between this issue and the Holy Spirit …..the cup is in tumult….and we can be miserable in that state. Miserable until we surrender it.

2 Examples:

1. Old Testament – Jacob – schemer & conniver.

Ripped off brother of birthright, schemed all his life to further himself often at others expense.

Comes a time when God deals with him and he is coming home. And he is to face his brother. He sends all his gifts, his herds, his family ahead of him hoping to soften the blow he expects to receive from his brother for ripping his birthright off.

And the night before he spends by himself on the other side of the river by himself. And it there that it says (Gen 32: 22ff) that Jacob wrestled with God all night. And God touched the socket of Jacob’s hip and sent him off with a limp….strongest tendon & muscle in the body. He was broken in that encounter.

And Jacob comes out of that wrestling time….unwilling to let go of God until he experienced God’s blessing….a changed man. A new name…a limp (his self-dependence and pride broken)…his spirit changed.

I believed Jacob wrestled that night with his old nature and with God and he surrendered it that night… and he was changed.

2. Rich Young Ruler –

came to Jesus and asking what he must do to have eternal life.
Surrendered to every one of the commandments and yet still not fully at peace, or happy.
Jesus identifies the big issue in his life was money. That was his god. That was what was still in his cup. And Jesus deals a blow to his god when he says, “Go sell everything you have and give it to the poor.”
And the man went away sad because he had great wealth.

There is often a certain thing that we want to leave in the cup. We will give 75%, 80% to God…but want to hang on to that one thing.

And whenever the preacher, or the Word, or the Spirit touches on that topic we wrestle. It creates internal tension.

We can want a spirit-filled life….we can even want the Holy Spirit and not just the results, and still not experience joy, and peace, and Spirit-filled life. We can be stalled in our spiritual lives because we don’t want to put Christ first in our priorities.

We don’t want to give him the time and spend more in personal spiritual practises
We don’t want to let go of unforgiveness and bitter feelings toward someone.
We don’t want to let go of some secret addiction
We don’t want to let go of some anger at someone.

And we stall. We get stuck. We experience this inner war. And the problem is we want both.

And when we stall spiritually we start a path of descent. We are more like a plane than a car. Car stalls it just leaves you stuck in one place….never move on

Plane stalls and you begin to lose altitude. You quit coming to church as much because you don’t feel fed. You feel more conviction and internal turmoil when you go than when you don’t….not fun.

You start avoiding God in your personal walk because you are afraid of what he is going to say or bring up if you get close.
Oh you might keep a ritual of getting into God’s word for a while but you stop it getting into you….close off. Only satisfaction comes from the lack of guilt you feel for not doing it, but doesn’t feed your spirit.
You quit going to small group or taking growth classes because you’ve been there done that…didn’t help….because that’s not central issue and obstacle in your life.

Key question:

What is there that you need to empty out of your cup and surrender to God?

It’s like I often have said about physical death:

“I don’t mind dying, it’s the process I don’t enjoy.”

Dying – doorway , be in heaven….it’s the thought of wasting away with some disease, living in chronic pain, not being able to do things….that is what hurts.

True spiritually. We would all probably like our lives if self , old sinful nature, were crucified; it’s the process of putting it to death we find so hard.

And so folks, if living a Spirit-filled life was without pain or struggle we’d probably see a lot more evidences of it….The path to a spirit-filled life leads thru a cross.

Leads to last word for today:

3. Take Action

Go back to another Kierkegaard story….because at some point we have to take action

Kierkegaard's Duck Story

One Sunday morning in Duckland all the ducks dutifully came to church, waddling through the doors and down the aisles to their pews where they comfortably squatted.

When all were situated and the hymns were sung, the duck minister waddled to his pulpit, opened the Duck Bible and read: "Ducks! Ye have wings, and with wings ye can fly like eagles. Ye canst soar into the sky! Use thy wings!"

It was a marvellous, elevating duck scripture, and thus all the ducks quacked their approval with a hearty A-MEN!

And then they plopped down from their pews and waddled home.

What are you going to do today?

Look longingly at the flying geese, but let it pass …try running and flapping your wings along the ground….or is today going to be a defining moment.
Are you going to decide to not go home the same way you came?
Are you going to make a decision today that will change your tomorrow, next week, your destiny?

Friends, you need to understand that every Sunday I believe can make an eternal difference in a person’s life.

i.e.

Football coach – “I don’t design one yard plays….every play is for a touchdown.’

I believe God doesn’t come with a low expectation of what is going to happen here….we might. We might not really ever come thinking “I am going to encounter God today. My life is not going to be the same at the end of this hour.”

I believe those are our thoughts, not God’s. I think he comes with the same resurrection power every week ready to unleash it any one of our lives if we want him, and ready to empty ourselves to his filling , and prepared to take action.

For some perhaps it is time to quit talking about changing “Just Do it!”

Getting an idea should be like sitting down on a pin; it should make you jump up and do something.

– E. L. Simpson

Personal Example

I am going to be transparent with you this morning.

About 10 weeks ago a young man in our congregation came into my office and said:

Spiritually I’m flat-lined. There’s no life. No vitality. I’m tired of Christianity that is about beliefs, and behaviours, but is so devoid of the presence & power of God.

I look at Acts and see something there that isn’t happening here in me or in us as a church. And I can’t go on like this. I’m stalled and losing altitude. Can you help me cause I’m going to crash.”

He wasn’t looking for a formula to follow for spiritual vitality. Been there, done that. Tried all those and feeling empty.

And as I listened the Spirit was speaking to me and saying “You can relate can’t you? Spiritually, you are plateaued…drifting.”

You’re tired of the same thing.

And I said to him, “You don’t need a formula, you need a companion, a fellow traveller, on the journey. Someone who is as desperate for more of God than what we are experiencing right now.”

And so we covenanted together to seek after God and his Spirit and to not stay the same.
We started to meet every Saturday morning.
Agreed to read 4 chap of Acts 5x week and then get there and share what God was revealing to us.
As we met God started dealing with the items in our lives where we were stalled.

We started confessing all kinds of things.

how we have relied on perspiration rather than inspiration & how tired we were of doing squared wheeled ministry
Confessed how we longed to see a “God-dynamic’ at work in our lives….wanted to see more than just the sum total of our effort
Confessed our fortress, survival mentality and our lack of conviction in Jesus and our basic cowardice. We prayed that god would engage us and give us a winning attitude.
We confessed our “casual’ attitude towards God, his mission, and the unity of his church
We confessed attitudes, and struggles to each other.

And we prayed that we would be filled with the Holy Spirit rather than do the Christian life on “empty’ so to speak.

We decided we weren’t going to quit on Saturday morning until we met with God (like Jacob)

And each week God began to meet us there

We began to experience

- greater sense of the presence of Jesus

began to witness some “God-happenings”
started to feel like we were running out of the overflow rather than out of a vacuum. We had things we were excited about, things we wanted to share, changes in our lives.
God began to change our casual attitudes
Lives started to feel like a full cup rather than an empty one longing to be filled.

As we emptied our cups God began to fill them.

And to make a long story short – I began to experience God’s refilling in my life.

Invitation

And so I want to invite you to a decisive moment and a journey.

A moment when you decide that you will take a journey.
A journey that will change your trajectory.
A journey of emptying your cup and letting god fill it.

Invite you to altar today – deal with God and change direction in life today.

Journey

Info sheet on Life Transformation Groups in bulletin

not a program, no coordinator, no formal structure….informal , on your initiative….no one going to do this for you….what it is will be because you make it that.
2 – 4 people of same gender covenanting together to go after the Spirit-filled life.

Means:

Getting seriously into God’s word

Means committing to meet together regularly

Means committing to being transparent with your struggles with a brother or sister

Not for everyone…different places.

It’s for those who are serious about getting unstalled….and who have tried before on their own and got stuck
It’s for those who are dry and want to experience more of God.
It’s for those who are ready to take responsibility for their spiritual growth and are going to take that seriously and want to begin to put some spiritual practises in their lives.

If today you want to do that….tear off sheet – put it in prayer boxes….

Click here to return to sermons page

Tyndale House Publishers: Holy Bible: New Living Translation. 2nd ed. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House Publishers, 2004, S. Ac 8:9-24

a Some manuscripts our

The Holy Bible: New International Version. electronic ed. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Col 3:1-5