Spiritual Life of the Leader - Lesson 11

Dr. Stephen Martyn
Spiritual Life of a Leader
sf502-11
The Eight Deadly Sins (Part 3/4)
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:00] What I want us to do now is let's. Let's crawl. Let's. Let's walk out of this valley. Let's let the Lord show us what's called the reformation of deformed dispositions. You know, what we're talking about is the tendency we have in ministry to think that it's all bad news, that the people that it's just impossible. At least I had that tendency that and the the pencil line just expanded out too broadly for me. So what what do we do? I love Psalm nine. I was coming out of a situation where. I moved from pastoral leadership and was kind of grieving the whole process. And then my wife and I went on a Celtic pilgrimage where we traced the Celtic Christian movement, started in England in the western part of England, and it went to Ireland and it went up to Scotland and it went down to north eastern England, Northumbria and it got back and I think I was just tired. I mean, I was physically tired. I was drained from some of the conflict that we'd had in the local church and was starting a new position. And I was walking in the park and was reading as I walked who was reading Psalm nine. Love it. So I will give thanks to the Lord and I'll do it with my whole heart. Now you just got to put yourself into some of the understanding here of what a wholehearted thanks means. In other words, I'm put my whole body into this. I'm putting my whole life into this. I will tell of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exalt in you. That's a jump up. That's what you do at basketball games or that's what you do if you're a football fan.

[00:02:19] Most of you football is on the ground, the ball you kick on the ground in America, it'll it'll be the ball you pass and run with. But anyway, you jump up in the yay and I will sing praise to your name. Oh most. Hi David wrote the ball. And so at that point, as I was going around the park, I said, You know what? I'm just going to I'm just going to count my blessings, literally. And I just started. Lord, thank you for this. Thank you for that. Thank you for this. You may have grown up with this song. I'm not even sure I can remember the words. Count your blessings. Name them one by one hand to go see what God has done. Anyway, I can't sing it, but it is a great old gospel song and there's real truth in it, you know? What is Psalm 100? Tell us. I will enter his gates with Thanksgiving, and then as I get closer into by the holy of holies, where the presence of God dwells and His courts with praise. So this business of thanking God, thanking Him for all myriad kinds of things is huge. You know, it opens the door. It allows the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to open the doors of our hearts to the reality of grace that's everywhere and always presence in our lives. John Pierre de Cozad is the one who had that classic saying, The grace of God is everywhere and always present, but open only to those who have the eyes of faith to see it. So when we enter his gates with Thanksgiving and his courts with praise, what happens? You are empowered, empowered to overcome these two deadly sins that that the early church says really get.

[00:04:26] These are things that get a hold of of the whole hearted followers. These are that these are the two the most likely wants to to sink us the deadly sin of sadness and the deadly sin of acedia or it's acedia is just I don't care anymore. That's the great danger of leadership. I just don't care. You can have it. Forget it. Count me out. I quit. Now, let me just give a word here. There's very few pastoral leaders who have it quit. At least they said they're going to quit multiple times. So let's just. Including myself, let's just be honest about that. And the Lord is gracious. He said, Now, now I understand. And he pats on the back is get back in the fight. Get back in the fight. Now, what is twisted here? What is this? A sin of sadness? This is important to get a hold of this thing. It's wrongly processing suffering. It's not saying there won't be suffering is just saying it's wrongly processing, suffering and loss. And it's allowing the soul to close in upon itself. And it refuses the grace of God and it refuses instruction from God. This is tough because, yes, you do need to have time of grieving. Yes, you do need to go through loss. But yes, you do need to hear. You need to hear the love of God. You need to experience that. It's going to be a both. And we're not going to deny suffering. We're not going to we're not going to be Pollyannish. We're not going to be cruel. We're going to allow God to even be with us through the suffering that we have to go through. True story is neither a result of other people or of our outward circumstances, writes Thomas Merton.

[00:06:50] Now, leaders, I need your love. I need you to really focus in here. How often do we say if this were to happen, if I could just get this in place, if I could just get that in place, or if I just didn't have to deal with that, or if I just didn't have to struggle with this. In other words, my well-being is determined by outside factors. Listen, this will destroy a marriage or a relationship. In very quick order. If. If she would only. Or if he would only. You know what the wisdom of the ancients is? Your well-being can not be determined by what others do or don't do. Your well-being is caught up in an essential relationship with your Lord. It takes real courage, Thomas Merton wrote, to recognize that we ourselves are the cause of our own unhappiness. Now, keep in mind, he's addressing the scene of a twisted here. And of course, when someone has had a massive tragedy in their lives, you know, you don't throw this kind of stuff at them. They they are unhappy and they're going to go through that time and you're going to be with them through that time. So. So we're not talking about violence done against somebody. That would be that would be crazy. What we're talking about is our preference to harp on what is wrong. Now, why do I know this is so applicable? Look, all you got to do is show up in any convention of pastors. Or church leaders. And I've done this with Roman Catholics, I've done this with Protestants. I've I've done I've. I've seen this with Orthodox. By that I mean the Orthodox denomination. I've seen this in Asia, I've seen this in Central America, and I have most definitely seen it across the United States.

[00:09:28] You get groups of pastors together regardless of denomination, and it's only a few minutes before griping, complaining, Gretchen, you know, starts coming out. Listen, leaders who are listening to this, wherever you are around the globe. This is not the way of Christ. All of us serve in fallen systems. If you've got a system. It's not dealing with issues. Please let us know. But I just. I haven't been there. Whether you're in a highly structured ecclesiastical setting or you're completely independent. There could be issues that you're going to have to deal with. And one of the greatest issues that we're going to that Merton is saying we've got to come to grips with is our own preference for sadness. Lord, save us from this. Help us, Jesus. Now they would call it the early church would call it John Kasson would call it morbid sadness. Now, let's keep in mind that we've made a lot of advances in mental health since that time. We know now that, for instance, when I would have someone come in and they were what I would term clinically depressed, the first thing I would do is, you know, I really. When's the last time you had a physical and when is the last time you spoke to your physician about this? And I'm telling you, God can do absolute miracles through medical intervention with mental health issues here. So let's don't get this confused. This morbid sense is that propensity to dwell on how bad things are. Now, there was a show in the 1960s in the United States which might can be accessed on YouTube from around the world. I don't know. But it was called Hee Haw. It's a funny it was a funny show and it's most definitely dating me.

[00:12:00] But I remember on Hee Haw they would sing a song every now and then. Minnie Pearl was there and Rowan and who else was It was on there. Anyway, they would sing this song Glow, Despair and Agony on Me. If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. Gloom, despair and agony on me. That becomes a way of life for for a lot of ministry leaders. It cannot be a way of life for us because it's a way that leads to death. The gospel is not about gloom, despair and agony. The gospel is about chains being broken and people receiving life and love. So when this stuff keeps on, then something worse happens. Then the noonday devil. Acedia. The noonday devil. You know, that's when you're sitting by a fire and you're kind of worn out. And the speaker's drawing on and on. You know, you just want to go take a nap is they'll help me. Jesus, Help me. The noonday. You know, actually, it's a far worse condition than they are. The noonday devil grabs our wearied and anxious hearts. It's a demonic spirit that grab anxious and wearied heart and drives us to the conclusion, the tragic conclusion, that our ministries simply don't matter anymore. Man. It's a wrong way. Acedia is weariness of life itself, a disgust with everything. It certainly implies discouragement, a paralysis of the spirit combined with restlessness and indecision. Acedia is, in fact, one of the great spiritual diseases of our times. It's a disease of the best minds. Now, what in the world did Merton mean by a disease of the best minds? Look, it's a disease where people who are well educated, well trained in ministry look around and say, This is impossible.

[00:14:19] We're not going to we're not going to overcome this stuff. In the early church speaks to us and the Holy Spirit checks us and says, You're veering off. You're veering off. See, the Satan needs to get off. Get us off the path. And one way or the other, either to the right. In stupid presumption. Or to the left in sinful carelessness, either to the left, where we break a known law of God, or to the right, where we presume upon grace, we become arrogant in our life and we start interpreting, making wrong interpretations about life. And that's what's happening with acedia. CD is the frustrated and sad Heart crying out I quit. It's not worth it anymore. I'm not going to put up with it any more. Forget it. Now there's a way out. And now we're going to start looking up and we're going to look at the goodness of God here because he loves you too much to let you quit his kingdom, man. His kingdom is coming. This kingdom's here. His kingdom is triumphant. It's unshakable. We're staying in a hotel right now. Here in the southern part of the state of Washington is 730. Every morning, this concrete structure starts vibrating. And yesterday, I thought we were having we thought we were having an earthquake. So we're not quite sure what's vibrating this concrete structure. But this morning I sit and watch the lambs listen, The kingdom's unshakable and God's not God's not whipped. Are you kidding me? What is the atonement say? The atonement says the back of evil was broken. Jesus is victorious. He's not with friends and evil is not going to have the last say and disorder is not going to be the last word. The light.

[00:16:49] The love is alive. It's real. It's here. It is triumphant, infused hope there. Now, keep in mind, we've got to get biblical terms here. Faith, hope and love. Paul talked about faith, absolute trust in Jesus, confidence in Jesus hope. This is not the kind of wishy washy stuff we'll say, Oh, I wish that. I wish I could. Whatever. You know, I hope that this. What? No, no, no hope. Well, you know, Hebrews, that man is firm confidence. It's this. This is this is this is confirmed in my life. It's I know that. I know that. I know that God is good, that his kingdom is coming. His kingdom is here. I know this all shall be well in him. It's a gift to those who literally abandon themselves to Christ and his benevolent goodness and to the beneficial meaning this of everyday events, circumstances and things like, Look, God holds all things together and you know these things, even though evil is not his purpose, he doesn't. He's not the author of evil. At least I don't believe that. I know there are some systems that but I don't I don't hold there. But he redeems it. He redeems the hurt that evil has done. Infused hope says that there's nothing that he can't touch, there's nothing that he can't heal. And you have not gone gone so far that you can't be brought back home. That's infused hope. A Christian knows how to face the disastrous conditions of the world today with what was sobriety. Other words, we're not stupid. We're not Pollyannish with sobriety. With compassion. We have compassion on the fallen of those around us without false and shallow exuberance. Listen, my boss is a man by the name of Dr. Timothy Tennant, and he's an awesome guy.

[00:19:16] I loved him. He's, you know, Tim said, Hey, this whole business of sexuality right now is going to take the church a long time to get all this sorted out in church history. He says, We're just in the beginning of this thing, just in the beginning. So we got confidence, you know, God's got the big picture. God's got the way here. A Christian knows how to do this without false and shallow exuberance, but with theological hope. I stand on that because of the resurrection and the ascension and the enthronement of Christ. That's why I can have hope in order to do so. Look, we've got to resist this temptation to hopelessness. Do you hear me? Do you hear me? So I'm looking at. I'm looking at leaders all over the world right now. Your situation is not hopeless. It is not. I don't care what you're facing right now. Look. What. What is hopelessness? It's really selfish. It looks around at the world and it says, Man, I've used all the resources. I know there's nothing left, and this is a lost cause. Do you see how selfish said it's. There are resources we can't even dream of. Imagine. God is in control of history. God is sovereign. God is working in and through history. He works in redemptive ways that just blows our socks off. And your situation is not hopeless. He's at work. He's at work. So we resist this temptation to acedia, and it enables us to cease blaming our unhappiness on people or circumstances outside of us, rather than focusing upon what's wrong with our lives. We focus upon who God is and how He is at work in our lives. We stop writing these formulas, these false scripts for happiness.

[00:21:38] It's not. I hope that. No way you don't. The minute you start filling in, that is the minute you're boxing God in. No, this came out of this came out of the depths of World War Two. It's simply, I hope. I have absolute confidence that God is at work in this situation, and I thank him that even though I cannot see any way out of it, I have confidence and I thank him ahead of time that he will deliver me and he will work this situation to the praise of his glory. I hope infused hope enables me and enables us to throw ourselves into a love relationship with Jesus, where we spend time with the living Word. Who is Christ in the miracle of the written word that He's given us. And we give thanks for that written word. We listen for his voice. We make commitments then to love his people, the people right where we've been placed, even the old grouchy ones. We grew up in a town or near a town that in Texas, said Stanton, Texas, the home of something like 3250 friendly people and a few old sore heads. So you're going to have a few also friends in your church. We love them. Our question no longer revolves around what's wrong with them. Instead, we sincerely ask, How is the Lord calling me to faithfully love the people in my life? And we give thanks. Now that he's going to let his grace come and encourage all of our hearts. And so we offer it in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And we affirm infused hope as a gift from Jesus. Amen.