It was interesting to watch the mud volleyball yesterday. Did you catch the key word— watch? I thought I was watching safely from a distance until Samson (BradandChristen’s dog) came up and shook mud all over the place. I’d not seen a golden retriever (nor teenagers) wallow in mud like a pig before.
Mud volleyball is a funny thing. It’s wet. It’s cold. It smells as bad as it looks. Yet everyone was more than happy to dive into the mud, sling it around, or even make mud angels.
Those on the sidelines didn’t think twice about cheering the players on. People traveling along Toronto Road honked and stuck their thumbs up in approval. And whenever a willing soul showed up, the other players would quickly initiatehim by wrestlinghim into the mud pit, or by smearing mud all over him. Every few minutes someone would step out of the mud to have their eyes washed, but then dive right back into the mud!
The Christian life is very difficult.
The Christian life feels like mud volleyball. If you have a desire to become clean, it is virtually impossible. For every one person who wants to leavehis sins and become clean, there are two dozen who will stand inhis way. Those in darkness derive pleasurefrom drawing others into the same muck and mire. Many who have been made clean, who have been washed and forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ, return to their sins.
It can be discouragingtobe aChristian. Loving God and obeying what he commands is a long, difficult road. And it’s a lonely road. When Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV),"...wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life, and only a few find it", he was telling us something important about relationships.
If we choose to love God and obey what he commands it may very well create conflict in your marriage, with your children, with your grandchildren, with coworkers, with your boyfriend or girlfriend, with your fiancée, with teachers at school, and with other students. It’s the exception that someone would be honking and cheering us on in loving God.People are far more likely to be antagonistic. Consider these examples.
You want to be pure, but your fiancé pressures you to be impure.
You want to honor God with a tithe, but it makes your husband angry.
You want to do family devotions and pray together, but your family would rather watch television.
You want to make church a greater priority, but you cannot say no to the coach who insists on Sunday morning practices and games.
Your business made a costly mistake and you want to make it right for the customer, but your business partner wants to cut and run.
You purchased a song legally on the internet, but your friend wants you to illegally transfer it ontoher iPod.
You want to watch a wholesome PG movie (as if one exists), but your spouse wants to watch an R rated movie with violence and nudity.
You are trying to be godly, but your coworker causes you to stumble by telling coarse jokes and gossiping about the supervisor.
You want to forgive a parent who hurt you, but your siblings are bitter and stir up those old emotions every time you talk.
You want a ministry in the church to be excellent, but the people in that area are comfortable and complacent.
It is easy to become weary when trying to do right.
Galatians 6:9 (NIV) says, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Not only do we grow weary, but a lot of times we just give up. Fine, you can illegally copy my software. Fine, we won’t invite that new neighbor into our home. Fine, we’ll do sports camp instead of church camp. Okay, I’ll go to that party this weekend even though his parents are out of town. Fine, I’ll lay off and let you smoke a little marijuana so long as you let me buy that furniture. Fine, I won’t bring up that thing anymore, seeing how upset it makes you.
How many times in a given week do you become so discouraged trying to love God and obey what he commands that you just give up? Far more than we really know or could count. It’s a whole lot easier just to jump into the muck than to be holy. It’s a whole lot easier for us to choose disobedience than to disrupt our comfortable relationships, or go against the flow. So I’ll just keep quiet. I’ll just leave it alone. I’ll just let it lay.
In John 14:15 (NIV) Jesus says, "If you love me, you will obey what I command." Now just drink in those words for amoment. I already know what you are thinking, "Here we go again…" But think of the challenge offered by these words! Think about how high Jesus is raising the bar for us in our day to day lives! Think about how clean, how holy, how righteous, and how upright he wants us to be! Think about what a fully surrendered life God desires for us— that we would love him with all our heart, in every idle thought, with every action of our body, and that we would honor him in all our relationships.
Through the Holy Spirit, Christ provides a way for us to be obedient.
Christ’s call to holiness is nothing but a cruel joke if he doesn’t provide a way for us to be obedient. So I was reading John 14:15 and noticed what Jesus says next.
John 14:15-21 (NIV) says, "If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him (the counselor), because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."
Jesus says that he will give you another counselor? He will be with you forever? The Spirit of truth? The world neither accepts or knows him? But you know him and he lives with you?He will be in you? Let me tell youaboutwho Jesus is talking about. When all the world has turned down a different path, and we have chosen the narrow path of obedience, it’s the Holy Spirit who will come alongside us, and dwell within us, and encourage us.
The Holy Spirit is our counselor. In the Greek, a counselor is literally one who comes alongside another. When all the world has abandoned us, it’s God’s Spirit who remains.
The Holy Spirit is our encourager.
When Jesus went out into the wilderness and was tempted by the devil for forty days and forty nights, he wasn’t alone. He was led by the Holy Spirit of God. When the early Church faced persecution and death forits belief in Christ’s resurrection Acts 9:31 (NIV) tells us how, "… the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord."
That same word "encouraged" is the same word found in John 14:16. The Holy Spirit is our paraclete, our counselor, our encourager, and the one who comes alongside us as we love God and obey God. You’ll never feel more encouraged and more filled with the presence of God than when you’re walking in obedience, loving God. God’s not going to abandon us in our attempts for obedience. He’s not going to hide from us when we most need him. He meets us in the wilderness when we're resisting temptation,when we're choosing obedience.
We don’t feel the presence of God when we're loving the world, when we're sitting on the fence, compromising, wanting to be the people-pleaser more than the God-pleaser. You’ll never feel more discouraged than when your heart is divided. You’ll never feel more discouraged than when you are giving lip service to God’s commandments while your heart is far from him. But with obedience comes encouragement, the indwelling presence and power of God’s mighty Holy Spirit, coming along us in orderto sustain us.
You will find the Holy Spirit in the presence of God fearing, obedient Christians.
Now let me say a word about how the Holy Spirit encourages us. Pay very close attention to the prepositions in this verse. In John 14:17 (NIV) Jesus says of the Holy Spirit, "...he lives with you and will be in you." The Holy Spirit lives within every obedient, God-loving follower of Jesus Christ. If you are discouraged, guess where you are guaranteed to find encouragement? In the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, in the presence of Spirit-filled, Jesus-loving, God fearing, obedient Christians. Do you hang around any of those kind of people?
Contemplate Hebrews 10:22-25 (NIV) which says, "…let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another— and all the more as you see the Day approaching."
Nothing will dull your spiritual edge faster than avoiding Spirit-filled relationships. If you avoid Spirit-filled relationships, you die inside. It's that simple. If you spend the whole summer and fall and winter in sports, away from the body of Christ, you die inside. If you avoid Spirit-filled relationships like what’s in Bible School, Life Groups, choir, or ministry teams, you die inside. The Church, indwelt by the Spirit of God, is your lifeline.
But think about how iron sharpens iron when we're gathering together, spurring one another toward love and good deeds, and habitually meeting together. You’ll never feel more alive in the Spirit of God than when you're learning, being inspired, having fellowship, and being encouraged by other Christians.
It's a mistake to try to experience God under your own power.
I think one of the grave mistakes we often make is to seek some kind of individualistic, mystical experience with God’s Holy Spirit. We're not lone rangers. We're the body of Christ, indwelt by God’s Holy Spirit, obeying the head, which is Christ. We cannot detach ourselves and expect to survive. The indwelt body of Christ is our lifeline. We are a church, a community. Let us encourage one another in the Spirit.
Hebrews 3:12-13 (NIV) tells us, "See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness."
Look to the Holy Spirit in prayer.
I want to end with two action points. And right now I want you toclose your eyes and be in the spirit of prayer.
First,identify one or two things that the Holy Spirit has placed on your conscience this morning. It’s an area of compromise for you. It’s an area of blatant disobedience, or an area where you are clearly resisting the Holy Spirit. Youare discouraged. You are capitulating. You have grown weary. You have been giving up. But now this morning the Holy Spirit has brought it back to your mind. When you are alone it overwhelms you. Alone, it is too big and too daunting. It invokes fear, it is hard, or it will affect a relationship you hold dear or need to survive.
Second, now pray for God's Holy Spirit to fill you with his presence and power. Pray for the counselor to come alongside you in that thing you identified. Pray for God to fill you with courage. Pray for God to put his courage in you so that you can walk in obedience and so that your love for God will become evident to all. Resolve to draw near to God’s Spirit which is dwelling within other believers. Stop running from accountability. Stop running alone.Find a group of believers withwhomyou can learn, be inspired, enjoy fellowship, and receive encouragement to do that next right thing. Pray for God to reveal himself to you through his people. Pray that God's Spirit will work through you to encourage others. Take advantage of that class, that Bible study, that Life Group, or that opportunity to serve with Spirit-filled believers. And together, may we be built into a holy temple in which God dwells and is glorified.
Amen.