Renewed for Mission

Thank you so much for those kind words of introduction. It is good to be here with you. When Emmett (Emmett V. Johnson) first contacted me about speaking to you, he commented that “We’ve got to begin with personal spiritual renewal.” I knew right then that I had met a kindred soul. I want to take the minutes I have this evening to tell you in as simple and straight-forward a way as possible what I believe is the key to constant, personal, spiritual renewal.

I will come to it in a slightly round-about way. But it can’t be very ’round-about’, because travelling all day plus a big meal require rest as the next step, not a long discourse. So, I shall speak as directly as I know how, just stating my convictions. And if I speak in tones which do not exactly seem to encourage doubt, I hope you’ll just pass that off as a concession to the need to be brief.

Spiritual Renewal

How can we live in constant personal spiritual renewal? This is the crucial issue for our times, the most important issue facing Christians and the world in our age. For it has to do with being a disciple of Jesus Christ and bringing others to be disciples along with us. There is no other solution to the massive problems the church and the world face, whether you take these problems from the individual point of view or from the social.

Thinking of individuals, we see the distress, the dislocation, the constant dis-ease of human beings, that often breaks over into physical disease. If we could remove from the health-care system even a sizeable portion of those who are sick because they live lives filled with fear and anger, we would solve Hillary Clinton’s problem with financing that system overnight.

Riding to the airport today I read USA Today’s report about the current dislocations of people from their professions.¹ Hundreds of thousands of people have recently had to say “goodbye” to their professions at 45 or 55 years of age, or even younger. They will never be able to recover their careers, and the effects of that on their families, communities, and of course on themselves, are devastating. Only constant spiritual renewal can help individuals live well in such circumstances.

When we look from this to the larger, social and international scale of things, to places like Bosnia and Somalia, and to all of the endless problems of culture confronting culture across the earth today, a blanket of hopelessness descends. And there is no solution to such problems except mass discipleship to Jesus Christ, as that is explained in the New Testament, and then leading others to become his disciples or students in the same way.

If you have read the fact sheet² that Emmett has made available—and I’ve been told that you do have it—you will see the scriptural basis of renewal stated on Page 4. 2 Corinthians 4:16 is the great keynote verse for the Renovaré program which Richard Foster will be discussing with you later on in these meetings. There the apostle says: “So we do not lose heart, for even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day, while we look not at the things which are seen, for the things that are seen are temporary, but at the things that are not seen, for the things not seen are eternal.”

What is Spiritual Renewal?

The renewal of spirit is first of all and finally an inner one, one of the mind, will and soul³.

Thus Ephesians 4:23, “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” And let’s read a verse on each side of that one verse listed in the fact sheet: “In reference to your former manner of life lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with misleading desire, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on your new self which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness, holiness and truth.”

The fact sheet also cites Colossians 3:10 “...And clothe yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.” And in Romans 12: 1-2 we have the great exhortation: “I beseech you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And don’t be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of the mind.”

So, we see the great emphasis placed in Paul’s letters on renewal, and how it is a transformation of the inner self. But what is it that we are looking for when we are looking for renewal? Another way of putting that question is just to say: “How would we know when someone is renewed?”

I know that philosophers tend to be picky, and there was always the saying that if you laid the world’s leading philosophers end to end, they still would not reach a conclusion. (When I’m talking to economists, I say “economists” instead of “philosophers.”) But it is important that we learn to be fairly precise with our language. So I’ll just give you my view of how we would know when someone has been renewed, and renewed along the lines that these New Testament passages indicate.

The Elements of Spiritual Renewal

The first thing we would find in a person who had been renewed would be that they simply and naturally do what is right. Ordinary holiness is a mark of renewal. We have to begin there, and never omit it. To be renewed in righteousness and holiness—those big words I translate simply as: you do what is right. We don’t mislead people, we don’t talk down to or despise people, we’re not angry in a harmful way with people, and we are considerate and helpful to them.

People often say to me, “Is it a sin to be angry?” And I usually tell them, “No, it is not necessarily a sin. And it is not a sin to have a headache either, but I couldn’t recommend it.” The level of anger in people apart from God is always very high and ready to break out into violence and wrongdoing. That is why we have the biblical description of people as “vessels of wrath” (Romans 9:22 KJV).

Anger and wrath, stealing and lying, are eliminated through spiritual renewal. If the Christians who were employed in the institutions involved in the savings and loan scandal in this country had simply stood up and done what was right, there wouldn’t have been a savings and loan scandal in this country. If the Christians alone had done it. When we talk about renewal, we are talking first of all about renewal in ordinary holiness—we simply do what is right. This alone will transform our nation and deeply effect the entire world.

Then secondly, we are renewed in the inward spirit of our life. Instead of living a life of turmoil, of confusion, of sadness, we live a life in the vision of God the heavenly Father. We live in peace and in joy. We have strength that goes far beyond our outer actions, and the inner self is transformed into one of a vision of a loving God in whose presence we stand and live, for we can trust Him as Jesus trusted Him.

Jesus said: “Look at the birds, and see how they are cared for by the Father. Sometimes they sell for two or three for a penny, and sometimes for even less. They are worth almost nothing.” Then He turned to the people around him and asked: “How many birds are you worth? Don’t you think God is going to take care of you?” I don’t know if you have ever tried to price anyone in terms of birds. Jesus had a way of getting right to the point of how precious human beings are and how God will care for them.

We live within the provision of a heavenly Father who is right here. Not far away. For when we pray, “Our Father who art in heaven,” we aren’t praying to our Father who art beyond Neptune. The way the Bible uses the word “heaven” it means that

our Father is present with us: immediately and directly present to us.

Jesus said of the little children: “Their Angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 18:10) He knew what happens to children in this world. And he himself believed, and wanted us to know, that no matter what happens God abundantly cares for them and sees to it that their lives are secure and blessed in Him.

We can come to live in a constant inner vision of this. We then live free of fear, and we live in peace, and we live in love—as our inward self is transformed by the presence there of Jesus and his faith. That’s what makes the “ordinary holiness” described come so naturally and so easily, as it did for him.

Sin, as defined by the great love commandments and specified by the Ten Commandments, isn’t just nice stuff which God happens to be down on. We tend to think that it is not really bad, but that God, unfortunately, “has a thing about it.” So if we aren’t careful we’ll get cross-wise of God. But it isn’t like that at all.

When I’m doing public lectures, and especially on college campuses, I’ll have people ask: “Could God sin?” My answer is always: “Of course!” Their next thought and question is: “Well, why doesn’t He?” And my answer is always: “That’s simple! He’s far too smart.” God doesn’t have to have some metaphysical necessity holding him back from sinning. He knows what sin is. We’re the ones who have the problem with sinning and need something to restrain us.

You see, the natural, ordinary holiness referred to comes from a self that is renewed in a vision of faith in a God who loves us so much that we can never express it. A God who is so good that we can never believe it. What He calls “sin” is what is really harmful to us, and His commands are a gift of grace.

It may seem to many as though God were running around in exasperation, trying to control a universe too big for Him. Some think He must be pretty mean, because people in control have to be pretty mean, don’t they? We’ve all been raised in so much well-intentioned meanness by people who feel responsible and want us to be responsible. When it comes to Jesus perhaps, we think he’s even going to be meaner, because he’s really responsible.

But God doesn’t have to do anything to run the universe except be God. That is quite enough. He doesn’t need to be mean. Things take care of themselves because He is God. When we have internalized Jesus’s vision of the greatness of his Father, we know this to be true. We trust ourselves to him in renewal of the inward vision of God.

Then thirdly, renewal is a matter of power: a power, beyond anything that lies in ourselves, to accomplish the will of God upon the earth. You see, the mark of the Spirit’s presence in anyone’s life is always the incommensurability of the results of their action with their natural ability. The results show that God is acting with them. This type of extra-natural effect is constant with biblical figures: Abraham, Samson, David; Jesus, Peter, Paul.

The Spirit of Renewal

In the renewed person there is always the same thing—a ‘wind’ of spirit moving in and around us. I love the story where David is in battle with the Philistines, and he asks God: “Shall I go up against them?” And God replies: “No, go around back of them and wait by the mulberry trees. When you hear the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry tree, then go into action, for then shall the Lord go out before you, to strike the hosts of the Philistines.” (II Samuel 5:24)

That’s renewal—it isn’t just renewal in ordinary holiness, or even in the inward spirit of Christlikeness, as magnificent as these are. It is renewal to rise above our merely natural powers, in a level of abandonment to God that shows we are now living from another world, as citizens of heaven.

We are called to be a people of destiny. If you do not believe that you are going to be a people of destiny for these times, I hope you’ll go alone this evening and open yourself to God’s vision of what you can do, for that is what he is calling you to. God calls us to heroism in the kingdom of God, where we are perfectly safe to venture beyond all humanly reasonable limits in the following of Christ our Lord. That’s renewal: ordinary holiness, inward transformation, power beyond anything that we can expect in normal humanity. That’s what we are looking for when we look for renewal.

What’s Missing?

Now I want to list a few things that I think, especially in our times, may account for the fact that we are so often lacking in these things that I have just listed. What especially creates the need for renewal in our times? One is the disappearance of Christ as teacher from our Christian culture and from our churches. If you will make a survey, simply asking people what is Christ teaching them week by week, and how much has He taught them, you will find, I believe, that for most people—even professing Christians—Christ does not play a substantial role as teacher in their lives.

If we had time this evening, we could trace out how this has come to be. It came about through a period of some decades—more than a century now—where one segment of the church said Christ was only a teacher. “Teacher” became a kind of code word, which really meant that they were dismissing him as the divine Son of God, as the unique Son of God with supernatural mastery over his church and human history.

In fact, that particular segment of the church didn’t really take him as their teacher either, because they thought He was wrong about so many things. They tried to reserve for him only the role of ethical teacher, not a teacher about life and reality generally. This can be shown in the writings of leading scholars in the 19th century, well-known people such as David Strauss and others you may recognize. Basically, they just dismissed Him as a serious guide to life.

At the other extreme, a large segment of the church reacted against that, and would speak of Christ only as the sacrificial lamb for the forgiveness of our sins. If you tried to treat him as teacher, they thought you were automatically dismissing him as Savior. So, this group, too, removed him from his position as teacher, and so robbed the role of disciple of its content. For where there is no teacher there can be no disciples.

The New Testament gospels then effectively disappeared as teaching material for the Christian. If you go into many of our churches and examine the Bible in the preacher’s hand, you will see that the pages which wear out first are from Romans 1 onward. If you go to some other churches, they wear out first at Acts 2 and I Corinthians 12. In still others they don’t wear out anywhere, for ‘scholarship’ has undermined any authoritative use of the Bible in life. What has happened is that Christ as our teacher for life has effectively disappeared.

Jesus Christ as Teacher

By contrast, the Sermon on the Mount, for example, was clearly intended to be taught to us, to guide us in life. In Sunday school we even have our children sing: “The wise man built his house upon rock...., and the foolish man built his house upon sand.” The wise man was the one who heard and did what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. (Matt. 7:24-27)

But we have even pictured Christ’s teachings here and elsewhere as so difficult that we cannot learn how to do them. We have books about the “hard sayings” of Jesus. I would like to see a book about the hard sayings of the devil. Do you think he’s got some hard sayings? I’ll tell you he’s got a lot of them. And the ones that we live by from the world and the devil are much harder than anything Jesus ever taught.

Jesus says go the second mile, bless those who curse you, pray for those who despise you. When you understand that you can trust him, and when you learn from him how to do his teachings, they become easy—and in any case much easier than their opposites, which tell us to curse the ones who curse us and so forth. Someone ought to write a book called The Devil’s Hard Sayings. It would tell us to curse and hate those who dislike us, to do unto others before they do unto us, and all of the rest of the supposedly easier “wisdom” that is actually practiced in our sick and sorrowing world.

Let’s put Jesus’ teaching in the right perspective. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a great book called The Cost of Discipleship, but we need one called The Cost of Non-Discipleship. You can never measure the cost of discipleship unless you have measured the cost of non-discipleship. You don’t know how much a new car is going to cost you until you also count up how much it will cost you not to buy it. We need the good “life arithmetic” which Jesus as teacher alone can provide. We must return him to his role as teacher in our churches, and that will be a sure foundation for spiritual renewal.

The Bible as Knowledge

Secondly, along with Christ as teacher, the

Bible as a source of knowledge of God and the human self has disappeared from the intellectual horizons of our culture. “Epistemological”—there’s one of those big words. The past president at my university used to say, “I hate that word.” But epistemology has to do with knowing. It attempts to clarify the conditions under which we can know the things we need to know.

We are now in the midst of a great epistemological crisis in every one of our professions. We have lost the knowledge base for the practice of the professions. A part of our health care problem today is that nobody knows what health is. They know what sickness is or at least they think they can identify it. But when is a person healthy, and hence not in real need of treatment?

Again, what is the basis of law today? Is it some sort of truth that is above public opinion? Or is it just another expression of political and social pressure or power?

And what is an educated person? One of the reasons why our educational system is in such disarray is because we cannot agree on that. If you go back and look at older educational systems and compare them, you will see that something has badly gone wrong.

The Disappearance of Knowledge

We are in deep trouble today because we have rejected the traditional sources of knowledge about God and the human self. Those of you who have spent time studying literature will know that the human self has become so problematic in that area of culture today that many people deny its existence.

Now if there is no such thing as a self, I don’t know about you, but I’m worried, because I’m wondering where that leaves me? I still have to live my life. I still have to choose. I still have to repent sometimes. I collect my paychecks and pay my bills, and that’s me.

But if there is no self that can be known and—it hardly needs to be said—there is no God that can be known, then there is no standard by which our lives can be effectively guided. We are in serious ethical trouble in this society because of that. We are in trouble with race relations, for example, on our campuses and elsewhere because, instead of teaching to love your neighbor as yourself, to be a loving and kind and considerate person, we merely teach non-discrimination.

Those who love their neighbor do not treat people differently because of race, sex and the like, because they love them, because they know they are dealing with a human being. They know they are dealing with a beloved creation of God. But we no longer have that basis for action and attitude when the self and God are lost. We divide into groups that are determining their righteousness by how they relate to one another as special groups, and not by how they relate to one another as children of God. Now we can hate everyone so long as we do not discriminate. Just hate everyone equally.

The universities, now the center of intellectual authority in our culture, have not been able to teach virtue or character, since they severed their intellectual ties with religion. They do not have a conceptual foundation for it. I am not pleading for any kind of bigoted, fundamentalist return to the Bible. I am simply appealing to the reality of the time-tested truths about life and God that are set forth in the Bible and are there available to guide us into the kind of life that we will all respect and know and love.

The third thing that has happened now is that we (the churches and its leaders) have lost our position of authority in this culture. This is related to the two points previously mentioned. Now the universities are the authority system in our culture. That is their function. We have lost our authority as Christian leaders in large measure by default, not because it has been taken from us.

In my own lifetime and the lifetime of many of you, there were nationally known Christian leaders who spoke with authority, as Christians, to the nation. It is very difficult to identify any such person now, though national rituals often involve a religious dignitary offering a prayer.

These, then, are three factors which affect us all very deeply, and make it difficult for us to live in a condition of constant spiritual renewal. They have the effect of cutting us off from the sources of truth and practice that could open up the realm of the spirit as a place from which to live, “in the world, but not of the world.”

Return to Renewal

But all is not lost, and I want, finally, to tell you how we can find what we need, even today, to live in constant spiritual renewal. We can and must return to the wisdom of the church through the ages and resume its established practices of the spiritual life in Christ. Particularly, we should return to the teachings of Jesus Christ, set down plainly in the Gospels, and simply become His disciples.

I don’t know what you think of when you hear the word “disciple.” But all of you in this room know that the commission of the church is, first of all, to create disciples. Matthew 28 records Jesus’ words: “Go to all kinds of peoples and make disciples, baptize them into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and teach them to do everything I have commanded you.”

That’s quite a prescription. “Teach them to do everything that I have commanded you.” You may be assured that this will effectively deal with the problems of the world, individual and social, in this or any age.

You see, a disciple is a student of Jesus. My own primary identity is as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Everything I do fits under that heading. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ means simply, I am learning from Him. I am learning from Him how to live my life as He would live my life if He were I.

You notice that I didn’t say: “learning to be like Him.” I am, certainly, “learning to be like him.” But if we say only that, we miss the proper emphasis. The proper emphasis is: every human being’s own life counts before God. By discipleship to Christ, we’re not trading our own life in for something else. We are still and inescapably living our life. No matter what our lives may be, we are learning to live our lives in the kingdom of heaven as Jesus would live our lives if He were we.

Often, when I’m speaking to faculty people in colleges or universities, I will ask them: “How do you think Jesus would teach your introductory course in economics or the like?” The usual, initial response is: “He wouldn’t be caught dead teaching that course!” But you see He would be caught dead, as well as alive, teaching it, if it is a good thing for anyone to be doing. He was a carpenter. Most of his life on earth He was not a “clergyperson.” He was a carpenter. He was a blue-collar worker. An “independent contractor,” we might call him today. Everything He learned and taught later, in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere, He knew and practiced while He was a carpenter.

He wants to make his life available to everyone. To become his disciple is to be with him to learn how to be like him and to live in the kingdom of the heavens as he would if he were we. But how are we to be with him? We simply follow Him into His practices. We don’t just listen to what Jesus says. We watch what He did, and we follow Him into His practices. We become his apprentices. If you try to be a great athlete or musician you can’t do that by just going out on the stage and trying to do what the great ones do. If you tried to just walk out on stage and play a violin like Isaac Stern, it wouldn’t be a lovely concert. If you are going to excel in any complex behavior, you have to adopt an overall pattern of life.

The Secret of Discipleship

So, I can give you in one sentence the secret to constant, personal and corporate spiritual renewal: FOLLOW JESUS CHRIST INTO HIS PRACTICES. In so doing you will receive from the Father—“my Father, and your Father; my God and your God” (Jn. 20:17)—the training and spiritual resources to do from the heart “all things, whatsoever I have commanded you.”

What were those practices? Open the gospels and see how much time He spent alone with God. See how much time He was in silence and in secrecy. See how much time He was in prayer. Follow Him into His practices.

Today we have a name for these practices. We call them the “disciplines for the spiritual life.” If you haven’t already read Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, it will give you an overview and introduction to them. Of course, we need some disciplines that Jesus didn’t. But the “standard list” largely coincides with the practices which he himself used.

The indispensable advantage of discipline is this: When we engage in a discipline, we are doing something that will enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort alone.

You cannot live in the spirit by direct effort, by choosing ‘at the moment’ to do so. And I have to tell you that spiritual power will not be infused into you at the moment of need, nor will it descend upon you in the form of information. But it will come to you as you engage the kingdom of heavens by following the commandments of Jesus Christ. (Jn 14:15-16)

And, when you fail in your efforts to live in the commands of Jesus, you can learn how to succeed by backing up into His practices and learning from him how to live from God. If you have a problem with telling the truth, for example, or with loving someone who is unlovable, there are ways of doing it. You learn by following Christ into His practices. You learn to stand in the truth regardless of who is saying what to whom, regardless of the circumstances. You learn to live independently of the smiles and frowns of other people, and you become a person who is solidly founded in the renewed life of Christ in you.

Do you know what I have found? Regular church attendance won’t do it. There just isn’t enough time in church to do it. If you look at the length of time in the day and week, you will recognize that our problem is too serious to be dealt with by a few hours in church services. Much time of intensive focus on Christ is required.

Historically we have mainly tried to live by what I call “gospels of sin management.” This type of gospel says that if you do certain ritual things, involving very little time then, God will take care of you. There is a ‘liberal’ version of “sin management,” where the big issue is righteousness and justice and love in society. And that is fine in itself. God is in favor of justice and love in society. Jesus is in favor of it. The prophets were in favor of it, and we ought to be on fire for it. The contrasting version of “sin management” gospel holds the real business to be making sure you ‘make the cut’ when die. If you just get over that line to those who are “in,” you can breathe easy, for you will have a future with God. But if you don’t make it over that line....

When I was young, I began preaching and witnessing on the streets and in the jails down in Tennessee. I was trained to do that, and some days I still think I would like to take off and do that and nothing else, because it is such an uncomplicated and really good way to spend one’s time. They used to teach us to witness to someone by asking them: “If you died tonight, would you go to heaven?” And that is an important question, isn’t it? One so important that many churches are dying just because they can no longer deal effectively with it.

But do you think there is a gospel for someone who is not going to die tonight? Do you think there might be some good news for them? Some news about how to lead an eternal kind of life now? The good news is that you can enter the kingdom of the heavens, and live there right now, by trusting Jesus Christ.

You see, what it means to trust Jesus is to believe that He is right about everything. Sometimes we need to set aside our conceptualizations of the deep divine realities and just let ourselves be absorbed in the simple thought that Jesus had it right. About everything!

In my profession I am often asked the question: “Are you really a follower of Jesus Christ? Why are you a follower of Jesus Christ?” And my answer is always the same: “Who else did you have in mind?” I’m willing to consider someone else. But there aren’t many very promising prospects.

Usually my interrogators come around to themselves, and then it is easy to point out that they are the ones who have the problem of who to follow in the first place. If I need someone to follow, I can’t help myself by following me.

It is my confidence that Jesus had it right. His ‘credentials’ are very impressive, and I have found him to be trustworthy. To trust Him is to become His disciple, his apprentice, and to spend time with Him learning how to live my life as God intended.

The “spiritual disciplines” are a part of the gospel, the good news of the rule of the heavens, because they are our ways, concrete ways, of being alone with Him. And this is our access to constant, personal and corporate spiritual renewal.

I challenge you to prove me wrong. All of the vital concerns that you have as a denomination—and there are many of them, as was made clear in the presentation a few minutes ago by Lyn—can be met triumphantly, if we address them in terms of spiritual life in Christ. There is much that needs to be modified in concept and in structure, no doubt. But the life that drives the changes has to come from the time that we live in personal contact with the risen Christ. From that resource there is nothing that can stop you. This is proven from the history of the church, which we must creatively recover for our times.

Airplanes and Faith

Look at an airplane sitting out there on the runway. I often like to go to the airport a little ahead of time to see if those things are still flying. They don’t look like they could fly. It isn’t for nothing that they are called “heavier than air” machines. They are awful heavy, and it is true that as long as they are just sitting there on the pad they won’t fly. In order for an airplane to fly it has to hurl itself with steady enthusiasm against the surrounding air.

Some of us in our situations—and perhaps all of us when we look at the hopelessness of the world scene—can easily think: God’s project of human redemption just won’t fly. But it will. The wind of the spirit blows as it will, Jesus told us. We may hear the sound of it, but we don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So is everyone who is born and lives in the spirit. (Jn 3)

You can fly. Your vision of spiritual renewal can be fulfilled, and there is no limit to how high you can fly in God’s purposes. There is no limit to how high you can fly, if you will hurl yourself constantly, enthusiastically against the reality of the kingdom where you live now with Jesus the triumphant one.

But you have to move. If you look at Jesus’ healings and His ministry, you will see that nearly every time He does something miraculous for someone, they too must act. Here is a man with a withered hand. Jesus says, “stretch out you hand.” The man might say, “Can’t you see, it is withered. I cannot stretch it out?” But he doesn’t say that.

Another case: “Take up you bed and walk.” “Don’t you know that they carried me in here on that thing. I can’t walk.” But he did.

Again: “Go wash in the pool.” “But don’t you see, I am blind?” But he wasn’t.

In John 14 Jesus says: “Obey my commands and I will send the Holy Spirit, I will send another Helper, and He will be with you always.” Dear friends, step out in Him. This evening I have told you concretely how you can step out in Him, by following him into his practices. And when you do that you will fly. You will fulfill the destiny that God has called you to in this part of human history.

Thank you very much.