“Spiritual Growth, Part 19” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy21vd6jSps
We are continuing in our Series, Spiritual Growth. This is our Nineteenth Installment. Tonight, we are going to pick up where we left off last week in reviewing and examining Prayer as a component of our Spiritual Growth, and the resulting blessings that we experience when the two are combined.
Prayer is an integral part of Spiritual Growth in this manner: When we pray, when we are in contact with God, we share with Him the concerns, the hopes, and the deeply personal issues that perhaps are between us and God alone... shared with no one else.
As Jesus said in Matthew 12:34: “...out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Here, more than at any other time, as we boldly approach the Throne of Grace, the contents of our hearts are given utterance. As we hear ourselves, His Word is called to mind: Our desires, our priorities, our willingness to forgive, our need for patience... it is all laid bare.
We read in Philippians 4:6-7: “Be careful (anxious) for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
The Life Application Bible tells us: "Imagine never worrying about anything! It seems like an impossibility; we all have worries on the job, in our homes, at school. But Paul’s advice is to turn our worries into prayers. Do you want to worry less? Then pray more! Whenever you start to worry, stop and pray. God’s peace is different from the world’s peace (see John 14:27).
True peace is not found in positive thinking, in absence of conflict, or in good feelings. It comes from knowing that God is in control. Our citizenship in Christ’s Kingdom is sure, our destiny is set, and we can have victory over sin. Let God’s peace guard your heart against anxiety."
Of this, the Preacher's Homiletical add top this: “Philippians 4:6-7: CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES: Be careful for nothing.—R.V. “in nothing be anxious.” The word suggests the idea of a poor distraught mind on which concerns have fastened themselves, which drag, one in one direction, another in the opposite. Well says Bengel, “Care and prayer are more opposed than water and fire.” In all things, prayer—in nothing, care.
By prayer.—The general idea of an expression of dependence.
Supplication.—The specific request—the word hinting too at the attitude of the petitioner, e.g. clasping the feet of the person from whom the favour is asked.
With thanksgiving.—The preservative against any possible defiance which might otherwise find its way into the tone of the prayer, or on the other hand against a despair which creeps over those who think God “bears long” and forgets to answer.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.—If we say the peace of God is so profound that the human mind cannot comprehend it, no doubt that is an admissible interpretation of these words; but it seems better far to say, the peace of God excels all that the mere reason of man can do. The νοῦς, the highest faculty of man as such, intended to be the guide of life, oftener brings anxiety than a calm heart.
Shall keep your hearts.—As a watchman keeps a city. Lightfoot says we have a verbal paradox, for “to keep” is a warrior’s duty; God’s peace shall stand sentry, shall keep guard over your hearts. And minds.—R.V. much better, “and thoughts,” for it is not the mind which thinks, but the products of thinking which the word indicates. The sentry questions all suspicious characters (cf. Proverbs 4:23, and Matthew 15:19).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. — The Cure of Care. I. That all anxious care is needless.—“Be careful for nothing” (Philippians 4:6). It is not forethought that is here condemned, but anxious, distracting care. Care is a kill-joy, and is the great enemy of Christian peace. The future is not ours; why be anxious about it? The past is done with, and regrets about it are unavailing.
The future is provided for, for God, the great Provider, is ahead of every step we take towards that future. The ancient custom of distracting a criminal by tying him to the wheels of two chariots which were then driven in opposite directions well illustrates how cares may be allowed to distract the mind. We put ourselves on the rack when we ought to cast our care on God, not in part, nor occasionally, but in all things and at all times.
Care depreciates the value of all our past blessings, and dims our vision of the blessings we now actually possess. After the great military victories of Marlborough in 1704, he one day said: “I have for these last ten days been so troubled by the many disappointments I have had, that I think if it were possible to vex me so for a fortnight longer, it would make an end of me. In short, I am weary of my life.”
II. That all anxious care should be taken to God in thankful prayer.—“But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6). The best system of heathen philosophy regarded equability of mind, undisturbed alike by the troubles and allurements of the world, as the most perfect state of the soul; but it did not provide any adequate motive for attaining this desirable equipoise.
It could only state the theory and insist on its importance; but refractory human nature had its own way, in spite of philosophy. The apostle supplies in these words a nobler and more workable philosophy. He not only exhorts us to tranquillity of mind, but shows us how it may be attained and kept. In all kinds of anxieties, and especially in the struggles of religious doubt, prayer is the truest philosophy. Our difficulties vanish when we take them to God.
We should cast our care on God because He is our Father. A father’s office is to provide for his family. It is out of place for a child to be anxiously making provision for emergencies—asking where to-morrow’s food and clothing are to come from, and how the bills are to be paid.
We should rebuke such precocity, and send the child to school or to play, and leave all such matters to the ordained caretaker. The birds of the air are taken care of; so shall we be, even though our faith is small. “Our prayers run along one road, and God’s answers by another, and by-and-by they meet. God answers all true prayer, either in kind or in kindness” (Judson).
III. That the peace of God in the heart will effectually banish all care.—“And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). The enemies of peace are: melancholy, to which the apostle opposed joy in the Lord (Philippians 4:4); want of self-restraint or intemperance of feeling or conduct, to which he opposes moderation (Philippians 4:5);
care and anxiety, or unthankfulness and unbelief, to which he opposes grateful and earnest prayer (Philippians 4:6); the final result is peace (Philippians 4:7). The peace that God gives “passeth understanding”; it is deep, precious, immeasurable. God alone fully understands the grandeur of His own gift. It is an impenetrable shield to the believing soul; it guards the fortress in peace though the shafts of care are constantly hurled against it.”
Spiritual Growth includes our setting aside sin. On Monday of this week, I was reading John MacArthur's Daily Devotional called,
“Drawing Near.” In it I read the following, “When the psalmist said, “I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep thy word” (Psalms 119:101), he was acknowledging a key principle of spiritual growth : you must set aside sin if you expect to benefit from God's word.
Peter expressed the same thought when he said, “Putting aside all malice and all guile, and hypocrisy, and envy and all slander, like newborn babes long for the milk of the word that by it you may grow in respect to salvation (1 Peter 2:1-2). Likewise, James admonished us to put off sin and to receive the word in James 1:21.
Peter and James were not addressing unbelievers because without Christ people have no capacity to set aside sin or receive God's word. But we, as Christians, are characterized by our ability to do both, and we must continually purify our lives through confession of sin, repentance, and right choices. That's why Paul said, just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and some lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now presents your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification (Romans 6:19).”
The Greek word translated “putting aside” in James 1:21, originally meant taking off dirty, soiled clothes. “Filthiness” translates a Greek word that was used of moral vice as well as dirty clothes. Similarly, sin impedes reception of the word. Wickedness speaks of any evil intent or desire.
Together these words stress the importance of setting aside all evil actions and intentions. Simply stated, you should never presume on God's grace by approaching his word with unconfessed sin. David prayed, keep back thy servant from presumptuous (or, deliberate); let them not rule over me; then I shall be blameless (Psalm 19:13). He wanted to be pure before the Lord. Pray that you share his desire and will always receive the word in purity.”
Setting aside sin is also a focus immediately following Hebrews 11, referred to by scholars as “The Faith Chapter,” which lists many of the “Heroes of Faith” from the Old Testament, We read, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2).
Of this, Alexander MacLaren writes, “THE CHRISTIAN LIFE A RACE: THE previous clauses of this verse bring before us the runner’s position as ‘compassed about with a cloud of witnesses,’ and his preparation as ‘laying aside every weight and.., sin.’ The text carries us a stage further in the metaphor, and shows us the company of runners standing ready, stripped, and straining at the starting-post, with the long course stretching before them.
The metaphor of the Christian life as a race is threadbare, so far as our knowledge is concerned, but it may be questioned if it has sunk deeply enough into the practice of any of us. It is a very noble one, and contains an ideal of the Christian life which it would do us all good to hold up by the side of our realisation of it. It might stimulate and it would shame us.
What is the special note of that metaphor? Compare with the ‘kindred one, equally well-worn and threadbare, of a journey or a pilgrimage. The two have much in common. They both represent life as changeful, continuous, progressive, tending to an end; but the metaphor of the race underscores, as it were, another idea, that of effort.
The traveller may go at his Leisure, he may fling himself down to rest under a tree, he may diverge from the road, but the runner must not look askance, must not he afraid of dust or sweat, must tax muscle and lungs to the utmost, if, panting, he is to reach the goal and win the prize,
So, very significantly, our writer here puts forward only one characteristic of the race.
It is to be ‘run with patience,’ by which great word the New Testament means, not merely passive endurance, noble and difficult as that may be, but active perseverance which presses on unmoved, ay, and unhindered, to its goal in the teeth of all opposition.
But, whilst that is the special characteristic of the metaphor, as distinguished from others kindred to it, and of the ideal which it sets forth, I desire in this sermon to take a little wider sweep, and to try to bring out the whole of the elements which lie in this well-worn figure. I see in it four things: a definite aim, clearly apprehended and eagerly embraced; a God- appointed path; a steady advance; and a strenuous effort. Now let us ask ourselves the question, Do they correspond to anything in my professing Christian life?
We have here, then I. A definite aim, clearly apprehended and eagerly embraced. Most men have aims, definite enough, in regard lower things, and if you ask the average man out of the ruck what he is living for, he will generally be able to answer curtly and clearly, or at any rate his life will show, even if he cannot put it into words. But all these are means rather than ends; ‘I am living to make a big business.’ ‘I am living to make a fortune.’ ‘I am living to found a family.’ ‘I am living to learn a science, an art, a profession.’ ‘I am living for enjoy-merit,’ etc., etc.
Yes, and then suppose somebody perks up with the exceedingly inconvenient further question, ‘Well, and what then?’ Then, all that fabric of life-aims rushes down into destruction, and is manifest for what it is-altogether disproportionate to the man that is pursuing it.
Such shabby, immediate’ aims’ are not worth calling so. But my text sets forth far beyond, and far above them, the one only goal which it is becoming, which it is natural which it is anything else than ludicrous, if it were not so tragical, that any man should be pursuing.
And what is that mark? You can put it in a hundred different ways. Evangelical Christian people generally say salvation, and a great many so-called Evangelical Christian people have a very low, inadequate, and selfish idea of what they mean by the word. Let us put it in another form.
The only aim that it is worthy of a man to live for, as his supreme and dominant one, is that he shall be completely moulded in character, disposition, nature, heart, and will into the likeness of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God, and that he shall pass into no Nirvana of unconsciousness, but into that blessed union with the divine nature, which is not absorption into it, or the weakening of the individual, but the making a man tenfold more himself because he lives in God...
And that aim it becomes every one of us professing Christians clearly to apprehend, and keep ever in view as the thing to which we are not merely tending, but to which we are striving. What we want most is a Christianity which, recognising that great, supreme purpose, follows it persistently and doggedly through all nearer and lesser pursuits...
Further, this supreme aim is supremely blessed, because it will shine ever before us. There is a blessedness in having an object of pursuit which we never reach. It is better to steer straight to the pole-star, though we never get there, than to creep like the old mariners, from headland to headland, and leave behind us sinking on the backward horizon, purpose after purpose, hope after hope, aim after aim. Better to have it shining ahead. Let me point out the second idea contained in this metaphor, that of
II. A God-appointed path. The race is ‘ set before us.’ Set before us by whom? The course is staked out and determined by the Judge of the games. And that may well be applied in two directions. My duties are appointed by God, and if only we realise that, and bring the thought of His will continually into connection with the smallest of the sets which circumstance, relationships, occupations and the like constitute our duties, how different they all become!
We want with the clear vision of the aim the equally clear and abiding persuasion that God has appointed the path. A modern thinker said that religion was morality touched by emotion. No, religion is morality transfigured into obedience to the law of God.
Bring your duties into connection with His appointment, and they will all be easy; and when the path stretches gloomy before you, and it seems that you are called upon to do some hard thing, say: ‘Created unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.’
Then there is the other thought that, as the duties are appointed by Him, so the circumstances are appointed, too. You know what they call an obstacle-race, in which the intention is to accumulate as many difficulties in the course as can be crowded into it; I fancy that is a good deal like the race that is set before all of us, by God’s wisdom.
There are many fences to be climbed, many barriers to be crept under, many deep ditches to be waded through, many bad bits of road studded with sharp points, through which we have to pick our way. We say as to ourselves, and as to our friends, ‘What does it all mean?’ And the answer is, ‘He has set the race before for our profit that we might be partakers of His holiness.’
Again, we have here the notion of III. A steady progress. Continual advance is the very salt of the Christian life, and unless there be such progress there is something fatally wrong with the Christianity. An unprogressive Christianity is very apt to become a moribund {or, stagnant} and then a dead Christianity.
Our nature, quite as much as the divine nature towards which we tend, demands this continuous progress, for the human spirit is capable of an indefinite expansion, and the seed of the life kindred to God which is lodged in every believing soul, though it be at the beginning ‘less than the least of all,’ must grow into a great tree.
Ah, brethren! what a sad contrast to this unbroken progress our lives present to our own consciousness! How many Christian people there are who have almost lost sight of the notion, and have certainly ceased from the practice of an unbroken advance in either of the directions of which I have been speaking, likeness to God or communion with Him!
Ask yourselves the question, ‘Am I further on than I was this day last year, this day ten years, this day twenty years?’ The Japanese gardeners pride themselves on having the secret of dwarfing forest trees, and they will put an oak into a flower-pot; and there it is, only a few inches high, in age a patriarch, in height a seedling. And that is what a great many of you Christian people are doing, dwarfing the tree; even if you are not distorting it.
And now the last thing that I point out here is IV. The strenuous effort, I have already said a word or two about that as being the differentia, the special characteristic, of this metaphor. And I may just refer for one moment to the fact that the word rendered here ‘race,’ and quite rightly so rendered, literally means a contest - ‘Let us run the contest that is set before us.’
What does that say? Why, just this, that every foot of advance has to be fought; it is not merely ‘running,’ it is conflict as well. And then, pointing in the same direction, comes the selection in the text, which I have already touched upon, of the one qualification that is necessary - patient endurance, which suggests antagonism. Opposition - where does the opposition come from? The Apostle asked the Galatians that once. ‘Ye did run well; what did hinder you?’
And the answers are diverse: flowers by the roadside, golden apples flung across the course, siren voices tempting us, the force of gravity holding us back, the pressure of the wind on our faces. Yes, and my own self most of all That is what hinders, and that is what has to be fought against by myself. Effort, effort, effort is the secret of all noble life, in all departments, and it is the secret of advancing Christian life.
Now, let us understand aright the relations between the faith of which the New Testament makes so much and the effort of which this metaphor makes so much. A great many Christian people seem to fancy that faith supersedes effort. Not so! It stimulates and strengthens effort. If I trust, I receive the power to run, but whether I shall really run or not depends on myself. God gives the ability in Jesus Christ, and then we have to use the ability, and to turn it into an actuality.
They have invented a movable platform at the Paris Exhibition, they tell me, on which a man steps, and having stepped upon it is lazily carried to his destination in the building without lifting a foot or moving a muscle. And some people seem to think that Christianity is a platform of that sort, a ‘living way,’ on which, if once they get, they may be as idle as they like, and they will reach their journey’s end. Not so! Not so!
By faith we enter on the race; through faith we receive the power that will make us able to run and not be weary, and to walk and not faint. But unless we run we shall not advance, and unless we advance we shall not attain. Understand, then, that faith is the basis of effort, and effort is the crown of faith.
If we will thus trust ourselves to that Lord, and draw from Him the power which He is infinitely willing to give, then the great vision of the prophet will be fulfilled in our case, and we shall find stretching across the low, swampy levels of this world ‘a highway,’ and it shall be ‘a way of holiness, and no ravenous beast shall come up therein, but the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.’”
WEIGHTS AND SINS: ‘Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us; and let us run with patience the race that is set before us - looking unto Jesus.’ That is to say, If we would run well, we must run light; if we would run light, we must look to Christ. The central injunction is, ‘Let us run with patience’; the only way of doing that is the ‘laying aside all weights and sin’; and the only way of laying aside the weights and sins is, ‘looking unto Jesus.’
Of course the Apostle does not mean some one special kind of transgression when he says, ‘the sin which doth so easily beset us.’ He is speaking about sin generically - all manner of transgression. It is not, as we sometimes hear the words misquoted, ‘that sin which doth most easily beset us.’ All sin is, according to this passage, a besetting sin.
It is the characteristic of every kind of transgression, that it circles us round about, that it is always lying in wait and lurking for us. The whole of it, therefore, in all its species, is to be cast aside if we would run with patience this appointed race. But then, besides that, there is something else to be put aside as well as sin. There is ‘every weight’ as well as every transgression- two distinct things, meant’ to be distinguished.
The putting away of both of them is equally needful for the race. The figure is plain enough. We as racers must throw aside the garment that wraps us round - that is to say, ‘the sin that easily besets us’; and then, besides that, we must lay aside everything else which weights us for the race - that is to say, certain habits or tendencies within us.
We have, then, to consider these three points ; - First, There are hindrances which are not sins. Secondly, If we would run, we must put aside these. And lastly, If we would put them aside, we must look to Christ. Sin is sin in whatever degree it is done; but weights may be weights when they are in excess, and helps, not hindrances, when they are in moderation. The one is a legitimate thing turned to a false use; the other is always, and everywhere, and by whomsoever performed, a transgression of God’s law.
Because of that conflict, it follows that if ever there is to be a positive progress in the Christian race, it must be accompanied, and made possible, by the negative process of casting away and losing much that interferes with it. Yes! that race is not merely the easy and natural unfolding of what is within us. The way by which we come to ‘the measure of the stature of perfect men’ in Christ, is not the way by which these material bodies of ours grow up into their perfectness. They have but to be nourished, and they grow.
That law of growth is used by our Lord as a description, but only as a partial description, of the way by which the kingdom of Christ advances in the heart. The kingdom advances by warfare as well as by growth. It would be easy if it were but a matter of getting more and more; but it is not that only. Every step of the road you have to cut your way through opposing foes. Every step of the road has to be marked with the blood that comes from wounded feet. Every step of the road is won by a tussle and a strife.
There is no spiritual life without dying, there is no spiritual growth without putting off ‘the old man with his affections and lusts.’ The hands cannot move freely until the bonds be broken. The new life that is in us cannot run with patience the race that is set before it, until the old life that is in us is put down and subdued.
And if we fancy that we are to get to heaven by a process of persistent growth, without painful self-sacrifice and martyrdom, we know nothing about it. That is not the law. For every new step that we win in the Christian course there must have been the laying aside of something. For every progress in knowledge, there must have been a sacrifice and martyrdom of our own indolence {or, laziness}, of our own pride, of our own blindness of heart, of our own perverseness of will.
But for all besides these, anything which I know has become a snare to me - unless it be something in the course of my simple duty, or unless it be some one of those relations of life which I cannot got rid of - I must have done with it! It may be sweet, it may he very dear, it may be very near thy heart, it may be a part of thy very being : - never mind, put it away!
And now, in the last place: This laying aside of every weight is only possible by looking to Christ. That self-denial of which I have been speaking has in it no merit, no worthiness. The man that practises it is not a bit better than the man that does not, except in so far as it is a preparation for greater reception of the spiritual life.
My brother, if you would ‘run with patience the race that is set before you,’ you must ‘lay aside, every weight.’ If you would lay aside every weight, you must look to Christ, and let His love flow into thy soul. Then, self-denial will not be self-denial. It will be blessing and joy, sweet and easy.
You will find that whatever you give up for Christ you get back from Christ, better, more beautiful, more blessed, hallowed to its inmost core, a joy and a possession for ever. For He will not suffer that any gift laid upon His altar shall not be given back to us. ‘There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.
Let us, then, turn away our eyes from all beside, and look to Christ. He is the Reward as well as the Rewarder of our faith. As we look to Him we shall gain power for the fight, and victory and the crown. The gladiators in the arena lowered their swords to the emperor, before they fought, with the grim greeting ‘Hail, Caesar! the dying salute thee.’ So, in happier fashion, our Lord, who has Himself fought in the lists where we now strive.
Then we shall have strength for the conflict, and when the conflict is drawing to its end and all else swims before our sight, and the din grows faint in our ears, we shall close our eyes in peace; and when we open them again, lo! the bloody field, and the broken sword, and the battered helm, have all disappeared, and we sit, crowned, and palm-bearing, at His side, hailed as victors, and lapped in sweetest rest for ever more!”
There is much more to share with you regarding Spiritual Growth, and, God Willing, I will review and examine that “more” with you next week at this same time and place. I invite all of you who are hearing my voice or reading my words to join me as we continue in our Series, “Spiritual Growth.”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, "Spiritual Growth, Part 19.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on May 31th, 2023.
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