#2631: Diving Into The Spiritual Depths

[Music] [Music] All right, so good to share this time with all of you. Once again, our summer series is called "Devate." And what we're talking about is how the growing life with God can be nurtured and strengthened. Some of you may recall that a few weeks ago I actually opened the series with a teaching from Psalm 92, which in my mind is one of the great Psalms of the Scriptures. And we reflected on how good it is to worship the Lord with Thanksgiving and how that praising him with a grateful heart, both honors God and blesses us. So it does two things. It honors God and it blesses us. And even now, Lord, we ask that you would release your blessing. You would release good things in us. Speak to our hearts. Speak to us through these words. We want to have an ear to ear what you might want to say to us in Jesus' name we pray. All right, love one. Let's return to Psalm 92 and read once more how it opens. It is good to give thanks to the Lord. To sing praise is to your name, old, most high. To declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night. To the music of the loot and the harp into the melody of the fire. These ancient instruments for you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work and at the work of your hands. I sing for joy. How great are your works, O Lord, in your thoughts they are very deep. I just want us to note that last phrase. Your thoughts are very deep. At least one of the things we are being reminded of there is that to really engage God is going to involve diving in a deep waters because his thoughts are very deep. It's true they are paradoxically simple and can be understood even by a child, but they are also profound and they are deep. Something we can explore all the days of our lives. If I saw in 42, 7 says indeed, deep calls unto deep. So the Lord invites us to plunge into the depths. That's what it means to cultivate a deep soul. You know the Christian life, it's not meant to be lived in the shallows. Always on the surface. No, we are created to grow. We are created in Christ Jesus to grow in our understanding of His works and of His ways to know Him and to enjoy the treasure He has for us means we must do more than just pursue Him at a surface level. We must dive into the deep to find the treasures below. There are certain treasures that can only be discovered if we are willing to dive into the depths. In the deep waters, that's where they are found. And cultivating has to mean at least in part diving into the deep. This means we are going to need to do and practice certain things. If we are really going to cultivate and to go into deep waters with the Lord and grow our soul, then we are going to have to do certain things and one of those things is stillness. Indeed, we are told in the Psalm 4610, "Be still and know that I am God." What's interesting is that the word still comes from the Hebrew word Rafa, which means to let go of, to cease, to slacken, to relax. It also carries with it, and I found this kind of, I just found this fascinating, actually, it carries with it the idea of weakness, something that is idle or has gone limp. So we are reminded that knowing God, going deeper with Him, cultivating depth of soul will involve more than not doing and simply calming ourselves. So it's more than just calming. It is that, it involves that, but it includes a kind of trust and humility as well, a surrender of sorts. So I'm calming and I'm surrendering. I'm surrendering my capacity. I'm surrendering my strength. I'm surrendering my skills or a flux of kind of chosen feebleness, a powerlessness if we can say it that way. Again, the image of something gone limp, like a rope that is untied or a, yeah, or even a flower that's drooping. For me, it's a way of saying, take time to remember that you are not in control and stop trying to control what cannot be controlled. In that regard, it's very similar to open hands, like me worship the Lord with open hands. Part of what we're saying is, Lord, I surrender. I'm honoring you in limitation. At the same time, I'm acknowledging God's non-limitation. So I'm acknowledging His strength even as I acknowledge My need. Do you see what we are doing when we actually engage Him in stillness and surrender? In fact, when you read the Psalms, one of the things we notice is that a big part of what the psalmist do is contrast our limitation with His glory and non-limitation. There's a lot of contrast between our weakness, our need, and God's capacity to fill that need and His overcoming strength. Just take this one more step further. Historically, followers of Jesus have found that stillness comes easier in silence. We might call it spiritual and mental noise reduction. And there are times like with our airpods when we have to use adaptive listening mode. Because sometimes even when it's really noisy, we have to use noise cancellation. And I know that sounds simplistic, but the depths of God which we are invited into, the cultivation of the soul that we are being called to is connected to quieting and listening for His voice through His words and in our writings or the writings of others and prayers. So whether it's journaling or reading, we hear God's words. It's why Christians sometimes talk about devotions as having quiet time with the Lord. Now that may or may not involve complete silence. So, in fact, a lot of people actually prefer having devotions with praise or soft music in the background. You might prefer it that way. But whether or not it's silence or ambient noise or nature, which is where some of my best listening happens, in my case, I often listen with the ambient noise of a coffee house. It works for me sometimes too. But we live in a noisy world. So, stealing ourselves actually requires intention. And so, whether it's praise and worship in the background, it will involve removing competing voices to listen for the voice that matters most. And I think that's what we need to remember. We need to be listening for the voice that will reveal to us how He wants us to think about and engage life. So, it may be complete silence or maybe a silencing of those voices. In that regard, there is an aspect of devotions that involves prayerfully listening to our lives or put another way. There is an aspect of devotions that involves prayerfully examining with an honest and an attentive heart, our lives and motives. Literally, before the Lord, we are listening to our lives. We are listening to our lives. So, one of the reasons why we need those spaces. It's been a practice of Christians for generations. To have that time of devotion, to quiet our life so that we might listen. Okay, going back to the song, we note a few other ways of diving into the depths of cultivating our soul. We read to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night. We see that for the psalmist, there is a value in devotional rhythm that He has incorporated into His life. You see how about the rhythm of the day and the night, which are 10 pakes on which His day is hung, the morning and the evening. And again, for the psalmist, the day is opening and the day is closed. Our marking points for what we might call the three-piece, praise, prayer and proclamation, praise, prayer and proclamation in the morning and in the evening. Speaking of morning and night, without question, there is a unique blessing that is reserved for meeting with the Lord in the morning. There is, it's, there's just something about it, of having time to think and to pray and to listen for the Lord when the day opens. It says things in motion. I was reminded of John Bunyan, the writer of the Christian classes. pilgrims progress. Bunyan shared, I think insipherly that he who runs from God in the morning will scarcely find him the rest of the day. Right? It matters how we start our day. It was also as many of us are aware, the practice of our Lord during his earthly ministry, and what Jesus clearly saw as a key to his alignment with the Father. I mean one example is found in Mark 1 verse 35, so very early in the gospel and rising very early in the morning while it was still dark, he Jesus departed and went out to a desolate place and there he prayed. There's stillness there, there's the quieting of the soul. In his case he's in nature, right? That's another. Well, I actually do think what we can draw from this are a few more keys for the deeper life. Again, the value of rising early in the morning, in his case, Jesus' case before sunrise, but also the value of solitude and prayer. One of one studies the setting and the context of this verse is clear that Jesus had been immersed in ministry and swapped relentlessly by people in need. And even after the masses had gone and the day had closed, he was still with his disciples, so if I may say it this way, while others slept, he slipped away. Jesus slipped away to pray. And I think it's important for us to remember that Jesus experienced prayer not just as a ritual, as part of a religion, but as a necessity. Really let that think in. For Jesus' prayer was not just a ritual, it was a necessity. Now if God's own son felt compelled to pray as a means of staying on target, how much more true is it for us, for you and me, I was reminded of Jesus in the garden when he spoke to his faltering disciples while the cross was looming before him. I mean, you think about it at the opening of his ministry. And now you're at the end of his ministry. He says this in Matthew 2641, "Watch and pray." He tells them that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Boy do we know that. How true that is. And as Psalm 92 reminds us, so one of the best times for watchful prayer and worshipful praise for declaring his steadfast love is in the morning before the day's rush is upon us. In the morning we are to ground ourselves in his steadfast, his ever committed, ever present, never changing, utter dependable love, your steadfast love in the morning Lord. In the morning as we ground ourselves in his love to see ourselves as a beloved son or a beloved daughter and live in and out of that relationship, trying to keep the Lord close to our heart, seeking his one loved to represent our father's interests and concerns. And there'll be many things trying to pull us away from that. It's true. But he wants us to love what he loves and love more as he loves. Think about that. To love what he loves and to love more as he loves, embedding our identity in his love. But we are told there is also a unique blessing that awaits us in the evening as we rehearse his faithfulness by night. In other words, giving attention not only to how the day begins, but also how we end it. Christians, followers of Jesus for centuries, understood the value of finishing the day well by remembering God at night. The practice of saying your prayers before we sleep is based upon the idea of closing it well. I remember reading a reflection from Frederick Ward Cates. In fact, I was reading it when I was alone in a very beautiful wild natural setting. He said this the ideal time for meditation, worship and prayer, many have found, many have found, is either early in the morning before the day's activities have begun or late at night when the day's labor is done. Recollection, attention, concentration, and a certain spiritual clarity in spiritual things comes easier at these times. He says, "God's quiet prevails at the awakening of the day, and it rains again at dark. At the dawn, the noises man creates in the world have not commenced or at least not commenced as much. At night, they have been stilled or at least more stilled. Night time, as day dawning time, is a most spiritually rewarding time." So some of us, depending on our unique makeup, some of us are early morning and others of us were night owls. Also, then it depends on our life stage if you're a parent or but we may be drawn into the morning or night for our best time with the Lord depending on the circumstances of our life. What are you in on this? Are you more of a morning time with the Lord person or more of a night time person or some combo? They might depend on just where things are at with our lives. Remember, they both have different blessings attached to them and we can switch or work combinations at different times in our lives. We can place more of an emphasis on the morning or more of an emphasis on the night, but I just, you know, I lean to the morning, but I just think the more we make it a priority, the deeper we are going to be, the more we cultivate our soul by spending time with the Lord at the beginning and if possible the end of our day. I call it, and I'm just going to end with what I call a Psalm 92 prayer that I wrote, "Lord, I open my day by expressing my deep gratitude for your kindness and tender mercies. I thank you for the gift of being known and loved, walk with me into this day and by grace I will endeavor to close my day by thanking you for your faithfulness, for the gift of being kept, thanking you for the day that has been, and for your keeping power. As I entrust my life to you and close my eyes to sleep, trusting you for my tomorrow in Jesus' name. So let's be intentional about cultivating our soul. Let's be intentional about diving into the deep waters. Let's be intentional about spending more time, quality time with the Lord, softening, silencing, creating space for God to speak to us in the morning and at night, the rhythm of a devoted one. Lord, help us to do this. It's our privilege to know you better, but it doesn't happen when we are just simply going through the motions or content only to follow you at a surface level. It happens as a result of intention, the choice to go deeper. And we ask that you would help us give us grace to do that, knowing how love we are. Yeah, that's what I asked for all of us in Jesus' name. So with that in mind, let's close out the service. Here we go. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] ♪ I will turn from my heart ♪ ♪ You are good ♪ ♪ Always I ♪ ♪ Morning, my morning ♪ ♪ Great is your faithfulness to me ♪ ♪ All fear be reminded ♪ ♪ My future is said Lord ♪ ♪ All my fire has spoken ♪ ♪ And it keeps it everywhere ♪ ♪ All fear be reminded ♪ ♪ My future is said Lord ♪ ♪ All my fire be spoken ♪ ♪ And it keeps it everywhere ♪ ♪ All I will turn ♪ ♪ Morning, my morning ♪ ♪ All I will turn ♪ ♪ Where you lead I will turn ♪ ♪ I can see ♪ ♪ Morning, my morning ♪ ♪ My morning, great is your faithfulness ♪ ♪ To me ♪ ♪ I will trust ♪ ♪ All my heart ♪ ♪ You are good ♪ ♪ Always I ♪ ♪ Morning, my morning ♪ ♪ Great is your faithfulness to me ♪ (gentle music)