We come to the fifth and final sermon in our Circuit Lent Sermon Series. It began by asking what the purpose of Lent was and answered by saying it was about reorienting ourselves towards Jesus. It continued in the second week by examining our relationship with God, something I looked at in terms of friendship with Jesus.
But to grow and maintain that relationship requires we adopt virtuous habits – or ‘spiritual disciplines’ – that help us tune into God better. And so over the last two weeks the series has been about inward and outward disciplines. Those are often disciplines (or habits) that we practise on our own. In this final week, we look at habits we exercise together – corporate disciplines.
Today, we are going to explore four corporate disciplines that help us draw closer to God in Christ.
Firstly, guidance:
Are any among you suffering? They should pray. (Verse 13a)
Perhaps we think of guidance as an individual discipline, and it certainly is that as well. If we are serious about following Jesus, we shall want to know his direction for our own lives.
But it is also something we need to do together. Not only are our brother and sister Christians involved in discerning our individual guidance (as we shall see), we also need to seek guidance together for our life as the church. Is that not what this church did under my predecessor’s leadership when you went through the process that Methodism calls Our Church’s Future Story?
And just because this church did that a few years ago doesn’t mean we can now not worry about God’s continued guidance. We always need to be like ancient Israel in the wilderness, who followed God’s presence as seen in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. It is a continuous process.
So what are helpful ways of discerning God’s guidance together? One author described it like this. He spoke of a harbour that was treacherous for boats to navigate safely, due to rocks. However, the harbour authorities had cleverly erected three lights. If the three lights were lined up as seen from a boat, then that boat was on the right course to make harbour safely.
He then suggested that Christian guidance is like that. For major decisions, we need three ‘lights’ to line up. They are the teaching of Scripture, the counsel of wise friends, and circumstances. It is the Enemy who wants us to rush our decisions. In contrast, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is full of grace, mercy, and love, and he is happy for us to test out things to be confident of his guidance.
An old acquaintance of mine used to say that any time she thought God was asking her to do something, she would reply ‘No.’ Why? Because she knew that if it truly were God, he would ask her again.
Let’s be serious about seeking God’s guidance together, but let’s also take the time to line up our harbour lights.
Secondly, worship:
Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. (Verse 13b)
God is always worthy of our songs of praise. (I shall say something separate but related about cheerfulness in the next point.) Whether we are cheerful or sad, we can know his faithfulness in his goodness in creation and his love for us in Jesus. We may have our doubts and our questions, but God continues to be faithful, even when we don’t understand him. We may only understand later, but as an act of faith we continue to praise and worship him.
Worship can also be individual, but it is powerful when we gather together and worship as a corporate body. We bring our differing gifts and use them to worship, because we share in common the truth that God has redeemed us in Christ and his saving death on the Cross.
Therefore, let worship be a commitment and a priority in our lives. Let us not make feeble excuses to avoid assembling together as the Body of Christ in worship. None of that ‘It’s raining so I won’t bother coming to church’ talk. That doesn’t honour God. How much is he worth? What about those in other countries who travel many miles over poor roads and possibly in dilapidated vehicles to come together as God’s people and praise his holy Name?
God is worthy of our worship. It is our sign of allegiance. I am fond of pointing out that the Greek word most commonly translated ‘worship’ in the New Testament is one which literally means, ‘To move towards and kiss.’ But this is not a romantic kiss. It is the kiss of allegiance. Think in our culture of a new Prime Minister or a new bishop being appointed. Each of them has to go and see the King and ‘kiss hands’ as a sign of loyalty to the monarch.
Worship is how we do that, and particularly at the sacraments. Remember that we get that word ‘sacrament’ from the Latin ‘sacramentum’, which was the oath of allegiance that a Roman soldier took to the emperor. At the sacrament this morning, we pledge again our allegiance to Christ. That is what worship is for us, and it is at its most powerful when we do so together.
Thirdly, celebration:
Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.
Those words again, but this time I want to major on the words ‘Are any cheerful?’ Just because we believe in the majesty and the holiness of God, we do not need to excise joy from our common life as the church.
And just because we rightly weep with those who weep, it does not mean we should not also rejoice with those who are rejoicing. And that is what celebration is about.
Is it not wonderful to hear how God is working in our lives? Is it not a cause of great joy to know that God has answered a prayer, that he has provided for a need, that someone has cause to know that he has come near to them?
But do we give opportunity for that? One of my past churches did, in a very specific way. They designated one Sunday a month as ‘Testimony Sunday’, and there was a part of that service on that day where anyone who had a testimony of God having been at work in their lives could come to the front and share that briefly with the congregation. We laughed, clapped, and sang together in response. It built up our sense that God was very much alive and active. Therefore, it built a heightened atmosphere of faith in the church.
Would it not be good to do something like that here? Maybe we too could do it in the morning service. At the very least, let me encourage you to write up accounts of what Jesus has done recently for you and send them in to be published in the church magazine. Perhaps that could be part of the appeal for articles every time we are putting together the next newsletter. Please tell the church family how God has blessed you lately.
Doing things like this encourages people. It lifts a sense of gloom and replaces it with light. It builds up the church. Don’t you think we’ve had enough discouragement in the church in recent years and decades? Don’t you think that God is still in the business of being God and of transforming lives for the better?
Then let us tell our stories. And therefore, let us celebrate together.
Fourthly and finally, confession:
Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. (Verse 16)
You might think that after all the talk of guidance, worship, and celebration, it’s a bit of a downer to conclude with confession. Dave, if you want joy in the church, why do you now end on a note of misery?
But actually, this is not about doom and gloom, even though we are sorrowful for our sins. Look at the context. This confession is in the context of seeking healing. And while I am not for one moment saying that all sickness is caused by sin, what I do see here is that confession removes barriers to blessing. Unconfessed sin gets in the way of God’s work. It is a blockage. We confess our sins at least in part so that God’s grace may flow with less hindrance among us. Living with unconfessed sin is a sure way to block the blessing of God in our lives, so let us confess as a way of removing the blockage.
Here’s another thing, though: I’m listing confession as a corporate discipline. Isn’t that a bit alien for Protestant Christians?
No, not at all. For one thing, it’s by no means accidental that we include the confession of our sins and the assurance of our forgiveness in our corporate acts of worship. Not only will each of us individually have failed Jesus in the seven days since we previously met, we also sin together and therefore jointly need confession and forgiveness.
Moreover, there are biblical examples of God’s people confessing their sins together, not least when they as a body have gone seriously astray from their Lord.
But it is also helpful sometimes for an individual to confess to another Christian. I am not advocating Catholic-style confession, because I have serious reservations about what is prescribed in that form in response to confession. Nor do I think there is something priestly about ordination, because all Christians are priests before God: we all have access to him through Jesus Christ.
Yet it can be healing to say in confidence to someone we trust – and yes, this can be someone who is in a pastoral relationship with us – I have messed up badly, and I need to know the forgiveness of God. Without giving concrete examples that would betray confidentiality, I can assure you that as a minister I have had people come to me and confess the darkest of sins, some of which they have lived with for many decades. To let them know that they are forgiven is to see a burden fall from them and to release them into new freedom in Christ.
Now perhaps I hope you see why I say confession is not in the final analysis about doom and gloom: it leads to the joy of the Gospel.
Conclusion
And the joy of the Gospel is where all these spiritual disciplines lead us. Whether inward or outward, solo or corporate, the cultivation of virtuous habits that enable us to tune in more to Jesus can only lead us to the abundant life he came to bring.
So let us use these time-honoured practices of the church to set our minds on things above and let our lives be shaped by Jesus.
You know the old adage beloved of computer programmes, ‘Garbage in, garbage out.’ Let’s stop feeding our minds with garbage, feed them instead with the goodness of Jesus, and instead live ‘Goodness in, goodness out.’
Big Circumstance 