Apr 15 2018 Wisdom related to Spiritual Formation and Character Development

We are going back to Proverbs -

Wisdom related to Spiritual Formation and Character Development

When we talk about Character Development – it is an ASPECT of spiritual formation, but it is not the same thing. Character development is an outcome of having our souls transformed.

Prov. 4:20 My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. 21 Do not let them depart from your sight; Keep them in the midst of your heart. 22 For they are life to those who find them And health to all their body. 23 Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.

24 Put away from you a deceitful mouth And put devious speech far from you. 25 Let your eyes look directly ahead And let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. 26 Watch the path of your feet And all your ways will be established. 27 Do not turn to the right nor to the left; Turn your foot from evil.

Remember as we go back – Proverbs are words and sayings and teachings of a father to a son. Specifically, the words and sayings of fathers who are part of the king’s court – and to their sons who might go into the king’s service someday. For us, we can think of it in several ways – any parent’s instruction to his children – or we can think of it as God’s instruction to His children. So it applied to all of us

The key to spiritual formation is the heart – The key to being spiritually transformed is the heart:

Prov. 4: 21 Do not let them depart from your sight; Keep them in the midst of your heart. 22 For they are life to those who find them And health to all their body. 23 Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.

The Bible, when it speaks of the heart, is not the organ that beats – but the heart, mind, and soul can be interchangeable in Scripture. They believed the heart resided in your gut somewhere. Where you feel it! But this tells us – it is speaking of our core being, our inner self that makes us who we are – and that is key in the transformation of our souls and lives.

Proverbs instructs us how to be wise at the core of our being, not just being clever and smart. Wisdom goes beyond knowing how to do things well, it is built on the foundation of how to BE well – how to have a healthy soul.

In our world, we live in a practical, pragmatic culture. Even in church, we emphasize how to do things efficiently and successfully. We talk about how to have good relationships, how to handle money – we call it stewardship – how to study the Bible, how to have proper behavior, and it is all good. Those are all important and valuable. However, sometimes our Christian skills and achievements can hide and mask an unhealthy soul. We do this through activity and accomplishment. But the Bible wants to transform us from the core of our souls. That is what our church is all about – helping people get there so God can do the work only He can do. That is a scary thought! God will do it with your permission, or without it! And it is best to let Him do it WITH your permission.

Spiritual formation is not just about behavioral modification. If you made the same mistakes as parents that I made, you focused on behavioral modification. It is important, but just having changed behavior is not proof of having developed character! True character happens when a person behaves and acts in certain ways that are proper and good – consistently and instinctively. When you have good character in something, you do that thing instinctively and naturally. When you do it naturally, you have already been formed that way in your heart. What is inside of you comes out.

Here is a really good example. A person who is truly generous, who has a character quality of generosity, is generous because they have a generous heart. The behavior of tithing – behavior modification – may or may not reveal a generous heart. How do we know that? Who tithed even on the herbs? The Pharisees.

But let’s be honest, we think, oh no no no, tithing means you are generous. But it MAY mean that you are generous – and it may not.

There are clues here in Proverbs how the heart is formed and transformed.

20 My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings.

God’s sayings and teachings play a critical role in the transformation of our souls.

21 Do not let them depart from your sight; Keep them in the midst of your heart.

Hide them in your heart – treasure them – store them up in your heart – embed it deep in your hearts! The question we should ask ourselves – how am I doing with that?

How much am I storing up in my heart? I don’t want you to feel guilty about it – we can all say, “Not enough!” – But – it is a new day, God does new things – and we need to begin anew the process of storing up God’s words in our heart – ESPECIALLY the words and sayings and teachings of Jesus. The goal of spiritual transformation is being transformed into the image of Jesus. How do we know what the image of Christ is if we are not studying His words? There are more than 4000 manuscripts of the New Testament. Some date to the very beginning of the second century. There are four times as many gospel manuscripts than all the others combined. The early church understood that it is about Jesus – and they copied them and sent them out through the Roman world. It is so important to devote enough time to Jesus.

Read your Bible, listen to your Bible – listen to teachings about your Bible – memorize as much as you can! Ponder, contemplate, study, and chew on it. Just start trying. Allow it into your life. Proverbs talks about storing up God’s word in our hearts. Think of it as storing it in a bank account – because when we do that, we can pull it out when we need it and ponder, “How does God’s word relate to what I am going through?” Our tendency is to react – to fall back on how we have always acted – in family, at work, in a crisis situation – but if we draw on God’s word, it allows us to be transformed and to act like God would want us to act.

Doing this – the only way to really do this – at first, it will feel mechanical – you get in the word, and get in a situation – and ask yourself, “what Bible stories do I know that inform this?” It takes work. But eventually it will become second nature. It is like work out your salvation with fear and trembling – eventually, it becomes second nature. Because you have stored God’s word in your heart, God will flood your heart and mind when you are in the situation. God longs to be actively involved in our lives. He wants to speak to us. He wants to teach us in certain circumstances. That is his heart and desire. We need to put ourselves in a position to allow that to happen.

Oh – there is a story in the gospels about this! I am living this!

23 Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.

Guard! Protect! Watch over your hearts! There are enemies, distractions, temptations, and deceptions coming at our hearts –and it is hard work to be transformed – at the core of our beings. There is a battle over our hearts raging – so we need to be vigilant – not only in storing God’s word in our heart, but stopping evil – in this battle of the mind – of the thoughts – and we need to engage that battle with our defenses up. Like Facebook giving away your information – and how much effort must be spent to keep people from hacking in – and there are all kinds of people sitting in little cubicles trying to stop it. Think about that in relation to your thoughts and your heart! It is more important than the Internet.

24 Put away from you a deceitful mouth And put devious speech far from you. 25 Let your eyes look directly ahead And let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. 26 Watch the path of your feet And all your ways will be established. 27 Do not turn to the right nor to the left; Turn your foot from evil.

What we allow to fill our thoughts – where we allow ourselves to go – What we watch - What he gets into here – be careful of what fills these things. He lays it out – keep this and that away from you – what you think about, what fills your time – these things determine how you are formed. Every soul is always being formed – there is no neutral. You are either being formed in the negative way – or the positive way – and Proverbs urges us to keep on the straight path of wisdom – don’t turn to the path of folly – the path of the adulteress –

Jesus talked about this:

Luke 6:43 "For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from brambles. 45 The good person out of the good treasury of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasury produces evil, for his mouth speaks from what fills his heart.

It is from the heart – from a good heart good comes out. When evil comes out – when bad stuff comes out – it means bad stuff is inside. When we think of character in our culture, we tend to think negative. We live in a negative world – we think of a LACK of character – so we think of sexual immorality, corruption, bad business practices, and criminal activity – don’t do those things and then you have good character. But with spiritual formation – we must go much deeper beyond not doing bad things. This parable is in a context – what is the context?

The context is basically the Sermon on the Mount. So what this tells us – the good tree and the good heart is a person who is living as a kingdom disciple – and when we read this – it starts with the Beatitudes – and Luke gives a condensed version compared to Matthew, but he talks about loving our enemies – and not condemning – and he gives the qualities of the Sermon on the Mount – and these qualities are what we should think about when we think about spiritual formation.

As we develop the characteristics and the qualities that Jesus talks about – especially in places like the Sermon on the Mount – when we learn to love our enemies and not condemn and judge and to do unto others as we would have them do to us – all the other aspects of character develop happen naturally and instinctively.

The person who is embodying the beatitudes does not cheat. That person does not become a corrupt politician. That person doesn’t lie. We don’t do those things when we focus our attention on being a disciple of the kingdom.

When we take what Jesus is talking about to be a citizen of His kingdom – and embody the Beatitudes in the way we act – and love our enemies as Jesus told us to love our enemies – what happens – the good character will flow out of us naturally. It will be who we become.

2 Cor. 3:18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.