Momentum - What is True Spirituality?, Part 1

I don't know about you, there's been multiple times in my life when I've been stranded with a dead battery feels helpless to turn the key over and over and nothing happened. You know, our faith can get drained just like that bad if you want your chart stay with that's today living on the welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with shipping Living on the Edges and international discipleship ministry featuring the Bible teaching up to vapor and I'm glad you're with her sister clutches a new series he calls momentum nature faith as we go through momentum be exploring several familiar Bible characters and stories bring life to the discipleship profile. What we call Romans 12 if you don't get to hear all of this message. Remember, you can hear chips teaching any time on the chipping roadmap will now with his opening message from Romans chapter 12 Pierce chip. Welcome to the R12 journey to talk about a series where were going to dare to experience true spirituality as we get starting to ask you to kinda reach back in the recesses of your mind, and here's what I want you to want you to think back to either the very first or the most vulnerable spiritual experience you had as a young child when were you most aware that there was a God that there's something more than yourself the sense that God existed, and maybe even that he cared for you, whoever or whatever this is going to be like you got it really trying to think back for that. First, God experience awareness that you know there's more than just the material world for me. I was the eight years old still remember vividly I'm eight years old and I was the altar boy and I'm carrying this cross and the pastors behind me and a bunch other people and I came at our church was a big A-frame and on about 40 feet high was all stained glass of the cross in the middle and unite the little crossover here and he go this way not go this way in and I sat in that particular day light was coming to the stained glass and it hit just the base of the cross. Does this correlate eight-year-old I don't theological training and I don't know anything. But I had thoughts go through my mind that I never had my whole life.

It was like while God's like if he made everything.

I wonder wonder what he wants me to do what how you knowing and and all I can tell you is I had this this warm feeling of love and acceptance vaguely said it has something to do with the cross and all I can you know your eight euro kids.

I know I get done I don't know what pastor said of the kid and I told my mom and dad. I want to be the altar boy every week from now on at 8 o'clock suck lyricist drawling. There was a sense of warmth and love, and it was what it was was God's presence. I never experienced before and I was being I did. Looking back, I was being wooed by the Holy Spirit and experience God's presence and so I wanted it again.

But that's what happens when you really expense God in the bad part was my spiritual experience only lasted less than seven days because I member the next week. I am a parent I do want to get up early unite o'clock and was really cool last week but you know and and so I continued to to go to church in the denomination. I came out of has some very good Bible teaching wonderful people. Mine wasn't one of those and so as I grew up I that was my experience and then I grew up in a place where people it was filled with being irrelevant, hypocritical everyone saying certain things acting certain ways that their walking their talk pulled a completely different message and then I guess I was naïve that when they said stuff I thought at least someone meant it, but there was zero expectation that anything that anyone said on Sunday would have anything to do with how you live, and so I can watch this from a fairly logical guy so by about 16.

I kinda came to this conclusion.

I think church in the whole God stuff is about adults creating religion to keep your kids like in line morally. You know for a few years so you don't get totally whacked out and then you know when you get to be an adult like the rest of us you learn there is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny and know God, but just sort of the sociological thing to keep them from you know doing terrible bad things growing up in control and so I just 16.

Said I don't know where life and purpose is coming from, but it certainly isn't God. Certainly not the church and you know maybe somebody created all this I do not have time for it. Your 16 what you think about and so I kind of went through okay so where's meaning and purpose in life can come from and I grew up in the you know the 60s and then early 70s was hitting adulthood and my dad was a very focused guy. He was a Marine. I used to say he was an ex Marine and after I said that a talking guy came up things that give me O'Mara there's no such thing as an ex-Marine. I said yes sir and and honestly, I learned that when my father was home to be with the Lord. The Marines came and they were part of that service and folded the flag and gave it to me.

He was a Guam Iwo Jima Purple Heart guy, but my dad had this very strong like if he said it just didn't mess with him and so it was like looks on.

Here's how life works. You want to be happy. Yeah, the need to be successful. Okay will be successful you set clear goals, you develop a strategy and you work harder than anyone else.

You got that yes sir and so I mean I was like okay so I was that kid who was shoveling snow off the driveway in the middle of winter. You know you shoot what other people were watching games so eight or nine hours and am playing basketball and I figure it probably has some to do with money and academics.

I work hard in school and if you can become a workaholic at 12 or 13, I figured it out. I had my own lawn business six or seven regular jobs.

One all day job to paper out let my parents $3000 at 6% interest so they can vital piece of land and so and then when I got the high school.

It was just like, you know, lock and load okay you and academically be here got a date. If you cheerleader get a scholarship to college be all this and all that I didn't get it all done but basically when I got to be a senior. You know had all those little checkmarks and in a high school is not a really big fish pond that when you're in it you think is pretty big stuff and so I got my scholarship and did well and had cute little cheerleader never forget the graduation night. It was the I don't know why I can never remember why, but we were in this apartment. It was completely empty.

Didn't have any furniture is 30 or 40 of us sitting in a circle.

This is a 70s okay passing a joint around and reminiscing and I didn't inhale not only actually that's a joke for some of you that remember years back. Actually, I did not only didn't inhale when you're when you're on a basketball scholarship in your my size and a skinny as I am.

You can't put anything in your body.

This can hurt you. You know I'm thinking you know, so I just pass it on and so no religious convictions. I just thought you know what everyone's bigger stronger can jump higher than me I better not mess myself up and so this gal turns to me. That was a good friend you just chip you must be really happy tonight and I said why and she started to peel off his cute little girlfriend and you know you did well in school and got the scholarship and I had this emotion of the most empty feeling.

18 I've ever experienced in my life and and I really someone just shattered my little box. It was one second happiness is by success.

Success as you do this this this this I followed the plan and I just felt this like so this is it. And what's bad as I didn't even celebrate coming. I didn't even recognize that I'd sure hit the goals I had already like some of us do.

Going to the next one I already decided to go to college, a major in political science. I will be a lawyer. I will mirror beautiful wife will have three people kids have an Irish setter, I will have a luxury car.

I will wear. Back then a two or 300 Armani or Brooks Brothers suit was pretty cool. I live in the suburbs and will be a leader in the community.

By the age 32 to 34 and was just like lock and load go do it and then I had this moment like LA second. I did this once I could go do that.

Spend the next 15 years. What if I feel even more empty and I never forget driving home and then later that night, having I'd say it sort of a God talk and my prayer was God. If you exist reveal yourself to me. I don't know if you do or not, but if you do in your powerful. Nothing can reveal yourself to me.

I want to know you and if there's a purpose in life. I like to know what it is. A week later, a coach paid my way to a Fellowship of Christian athletes Campen. It was actually a scary experience.

I walked in I got a T-shirt. This little easy to read Bible and I just thought I'd land in Jesus freak land me. People would say the word Jesus out loud. They would talk about God and their professional athletes and college athletes 700 high school athletes and Tom Landry came so I thought what can't be that bad. You know he's a coach of the Cowboys and but I mean it was like all the homecoming. This is like 1972 in the Jesus movement and I just thought get me outta here.

I can't take this for a week and every morning they give this little Bible and there's like 20 minutes you're supposed to read the Bible before you do calisthenics and eat breakfast.

Now all day was fun. You played sports and got to talk with some guys and so I just thought they're not can indoctrinate me and so I wouldn't open it up and after about the third day was such an authenticity and a reality.

And a lot of these men that I thought you know maybe there's something to this, the fast-forward of the story is. I realize that I'd confuse religion and Christianity with Jesus in a relationship with God, and I had rejected one and rejected the other, not knowing that they're very different and that night for the first time I understood that God cared about me that he sent his son Jesus was fully God and fully man to die upon the cross to pay for my sin that I could turn for my sin and receive a free gift and literally the spirit of God would enter my human body and begin the transformation that's called eternal life, that such on a new course and brings peace and fills that emptiness in your heart and life and I pray to very un-theological note dear God, whatever means for you to come into my life and I'm sorry for stuff I've done it. When the when the pretty prayer, but I really meant it and I knew that I couldn't play games with God. I do want to be a hypocrite and so there's a couple things nonmember that night just thinking for if I go down this road I get I can't play around and I remember asking Christ to come into my life and forgive me and I like to say that then someone followed me and taught me all these things and everything went great.

All I can tell you is I went home I took that little Bible and I stuck it under my pillow as I thought my parents might think. I freaked out. No me. They were religious but we didn't talk about God.

We didn't pray mean they were good moral people and all it contains my desire started changing and there was joy. I found myself singing then and it was like wow. And this is great you know and and and and just desires change and so I went away to college and it was really like some of the really big sensible in their attic here is like wow this is awesome. But then I kinda found some other sins were like one of these don't go away so quickly and and then I started reading I can get enough of the Bible read it night reading morning as I was reading it I'm in this college implant Tabasco team and there's four girls every guy in there sort of a way to live.

It looks like really fun.

The and I'm reading this New Testament.

The saying, this is not God's way and I didn't mind him forgetting my sins with this running my life stuff was. I didn't really site you know how I was living how God wanted me to live like this and this bricklayer came down was train by a group called the navigators and he help me actually start to read the Bible so I could understand it and talk to God, and I was I was having these little God experience is likewise a little kid like every day and then on Thursday nights all these kids get together.

Remember this is a 70s and sit on the floor and playing the guitars and singing in the presence of guy got it again it was like wow wow this is really cool but it was like I grew up thinking like if you like.

7/10 commands is like 70%. Isn't that like passing minutes to see right and ice Reading. It was like you know no store like and so I I developed the schizophrenic Christianity read the Bible maybe through three times a week in the morning and meet with God and Thursday nights were fun and I got in the car before five basketball players every Friday and Saturday night we hit every bar in Wheeling and I felt really bad. Got a really sorry you guys should I know what you should've said this in this commercial we please forgive me, forgive me and get read my Baltimore infected 3 o'clock morning but are you trying to go to church.

It really you know and how, thank you so much and then Johnny. I was like knots.

One sent you something, maybe not to that degree but all the research says nine out of every 10 Christians in America is living a Christian schizophrenic life. They intellectually adhere to. I love Jesus of asking come in my life, my heart, I think these things are really important course, my finances, my future, my relationships, my mouth, my priorities don't show it but I mean grade on the curve right and I've never really met anyone who's really actually and so I think I'm kinda in and so there's this life and it's usually filled with lots of guilt lots of duty, and you're supposed to do more this and less of that then.

So what happens is you try hard and you fail and you really want to be authentic. You try really really hard and you fail again and then you realize you know, forget it. You start just trying hard for not trying so hard and then you think, and you learn a few verses and you smile and you know you know that appraisal or come out in some groups and let something else muddy mouth in a different group that's Christianity in America see what I what I experienced this, I couldn't. I couldn't enjoy God's presence because I had all this guilt and then I knew I was really part of his family because I couldn't enjoy the state anymore because I had all the shame and conviction. Here's the question what is true spirituality.

How do we move beyond religion, church programs, legalism, performance orientation, or in my case a compartmentalized life. I had basketball girls and academics over here and God and a few other things over here.

How do we move beyond that to grace filled authentic relationship with God.

That's what this whole series is about what is true spirituality is three things you have to understand if you are going to experience, and here's what I want to tell you that moment as an eight year old for that moment, they came to your mind when you had a God awareness when it was a sense of warmth and acceptance and love, and there is something outside yourself that maybe there's meaning to life.

God wants you to experience that 24 seven, but it starts already. True spirituality begins with an accurate picture of God. You have to have an accurate picture of God. If you have a warped picture of God, it will send you down bad pathways. If you think God is an angry deity that you are afraid of that. He's always looking to punish you. It'll send you into ritual so you do so many things today you have to do this and you have to do that you have to do that and you hope someday, some way you can appease his anger or for others you think God is a cosmic scorekeeper and he's got this great board you know chopper in the sky. There's a chalk line in the middle. Good deeds and bad deeds in your whole life is about goody goody goody, good boy don't you let me could Abednego release euros looks good girl good girl that will support forms orientation and you never pray long enough, or hard enough or good enough.

You never give enough you never measure up, and so how then you start grading on the curve and you just hope somehow some way that the cosmic scorekeeper that maybe your good deeds will outweigh your bad deeds. Realizing that you totally miss relationship for others you think or been taught or lease the worldviews out there is that he's not an angry deity. He's not even a cosmic scorekeeper.

He is an impersonal force.

God is an invisible, impersonal force. He is in and all all things, and even inside of you in some way and you need to become one with the universe and so there's a formula I'm serious. So the formula is an altered state of consciousness. The formula is techniques and ways to develop oneness with the cosmos on the type God is not an angry deity is not a cosmic scorekeeper and he's far from an impersonal force. He's your heavenly father loves you, but he's a father you matter. He wants a relationship. He wants to in ways that are very visceral and real.

He wants to hug you and hold you and love you and direct you and guide you like any parent give you the very best. The apostle John would write first John 31. How great is the love of the father. He's lavished on us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are the reason the world does not know us is that it does not know him.

Jesus life was a complete contradiction to all the religion of his day's harshest words came to people if they kept all the rules there were squeaky clean. That did all the religious activities and he in their minds broke through all those rules because he was about a relationship with the father and they watched and the thing that showed the intimacy more than anything else is his disciples like they'd listen to him parade and the watch and pray, and it wasn't duty and I wasn't going to listen wasn't to impress people like they saw growing up so they said, Lord, teach us to pray. What does he say your father knows what you need before you ask him. This then is how you should pray our father foreign concept Judaism. The day had the sense of God's majesty and his glory and his transcendence but they had missed the truth of Scripture of his fatherhood of his intimacy of his approachability, and since God is your father.

He has a dream he's got a plan for your life.

How many people, by the way, just are our parents in here kid while awful lot of us.

If you don't know this yet it's only because the real small your kids have a powerful powerful role to play in your life they will be the source of greatest joy you ever experience on this planet and they will be the source of the greatest heartache you will ever have far more than any conflict with your mate this person. That's a part of each of you can break your heart can can break down communication can say things and do things and live in ways that will bring you the deepest, deepest sorrow you ever experience.

And, by contrast, and when your kids want to be around you that.

I mean, is there anyone there little in the lake that he cannot crawl up in your lap. You daddy what I love you right and I will tell you that even as they grow up and get older and have kids of their own. There's few things sweeter and all life and you have a dream for your kids and I have a dream for my kids and when you're young like there like one or two years old, and your young parents like I want to be a astronaut, a nuclear physicist, I want my son to know cure cancer or not want to be the CEO of you have all these lofty what they do and then they get to be like little kids and 89 10 years old you thinking you know I like him to be a nice boy. Nice girl. Then they get to be teenagers. I don't care what they know when I can deliver trash. But if they love God. If they were a person of integrity. If they had character.

If we had a great relationship.

I could care less where they work. Will God give him a good location to put food on the table put them in their guest about God. What I really want see what you're really concerned about the older you get, is not what they do with who they become God's dream for you is about who you become when you understand that he's father God's dream for his children is to make you like his son. He's not a force seat week, we have decided that there's like these invisible rules or principles or duties, and when I violate those old sorry I messed up in the know you broke your father's heart you stepped away from relationship you pulled away from his hug.

He loves you.

He cares for you.

For reasons I don't understand the one that created all that there is has given you the opportunity to either bring him joy or bring him sorrow. You can grieve the Holy Spirit. That's a personal word when I live in ways that are not good for me. It hurts God's heart because he's my father you miss that false religious activity external explicit duality series momentum how to ignite your faith based on Romans 12 momentum flushes out the structure of chips series true spirituality by exploring the lives of some of the most famous men of the Bible from Abraham and Moses to Joseph and Daniel Tripp helps us appreciate how these guys lived out the practicalities of true spirituality in the process. Triple ignite the momentum of your faith journey. Mental was one of those series you're gonna want to keep handy and listen to from time to time, so let me remind you that accessing momentum is easy with the chipping remap which it before you come back and share your application for today's message talk to us for a minute about the series momentum really paints a detailed picture of what it means to be a committed Romans 12 Christian doesn't what really does. Dave and those who know Living on the Edge know that we talk about helping Christians live like Christians and for years I wanted a profile what's that actually look like. And of course Romans 12 totally based on grace that's so relational and it gives us those five relationships of what it looks like to be a faithful follower to be mature and as we were thinking and praying and I've taught that in the past. It just came to me that we wanted to put clothes on. Another words if those principles are core to all of the New Testament to all of what God wants. Certainly that was true in the Old Testament, and so when we look at a surrendered life or you look at Abraham and and when we look like someone who really gets a sober self-assessment will look at Moses then will go on in and talk about someone with courage will look at Daniel will look at Joseph working a look at key I mean foundational Bible characters that will help us know how to literally become Romans 12 Christians, the kind that in a world that we live in turn the world upside down with their love their commitment their surrender in the winsome lives they live to get the most of this series.

Let me encourage you to be with us over the course of the series to learn how a regular person like you can learn to become a great person of faith. Besides listening chips message notes are another great way to get the most out of his teaching to listen or share these messages and take advantage of chips fill in notes. You'll find everything you're looking for on the chipping remap. Okay, let's get to that application. We promised as we closed today's program.

I just have a couple thoughts that if we could have a couple coffee. I would sorta lean back and look at you and I would say, you know, just be careful that you don't get bogged down in all the rituals in your faith.

You know it's so easy to turn the Christian life into something that's performance-based and boy, I certainly have aired on that side of life. In my world. I was you know how long that I pray and how many chapters and I'm reading to the Bible in a year and I didn't get through the right chapters today or you know why I said I would pray for X minutes but I didn't do it and I'm supposed to memorize these passages in all those things are means all those things are important but we need to remember that our relationship with God is about a relationship you know Abraham took big steps of faith, because in his heart of hearts. God became his father. He knew God would provide. He knew God would protect it was a love and loyalty as I just want to encourage you as you as you read your Bible as you do good things. Just be careful that I don't want to over use the cliché, but it can be checking a box I had my quiet time I prayed I did this I want to remind you that God is wild about you that he loves you that he love to meet with you and you cannot just quote do it in the morning or before bedtime, but he'd love to just hear you, talk in your mind or in the car, turn off the radio and to share your life.

Share your heart share your hurt. Share your praise and cultivate that relationship you be really glad you did it all. Great way to stay engaged and connected to chip and Living on the Edge is with the chipping remap will be getting all of these momentum messages, chips, free message notes and much more.

Not only that, but it couldn't be easier to order resources or give us a call right from the app will, I hope you'll join us again next time. When Chip continues her current series momentum how to ignite your faith to live, this is Dave Drury saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge