Spiritual Formation

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Spiritual Formation

• Sunday, April 23, 2006

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Lenten Study Character of Christ

• People shared the aspect of Christs character
  that they most admired
• Friend
• Teacher
• Home-base
• Humorous
• Creative
• Community-builder
• Deliverer

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Longer Talks

• The Upside-down Character of Christ
• The Worlds Greatest Teacher
• Jesus at Prayer
• The Hearts True North
• The Fathers Love for the Son
• Blessed are the Poor in Spirit
• He is Risen The Meaning of Grace

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All for Spiritual Formation

• We can say, in a preliminary manner, that
  spiritual formation for the Christian basically
  refers to the Spirit-driven process of forming
  the inner world of the human self in such a way
  that it becomes like the inner being of Christ
  himself.
• Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart

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Now What?

• Weve acknowledged the need to deepen
• Weve looked again at Jesus as our goal
• Where do we go from here?
• Elvis
• Summer activities and many different speakers
• Everything provides opportunity

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Spiritual Formation Passages

• 2 Peter 12 Grace and peace be multiplied to
  you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our
  Lord
• 3 seeing that His divine power has granted to
  us everything pertaining to life and godliness,
  through the true knowledge of Him who called us
  by His own glory and excellence.
• 4 For by these He has granted to us His
  precious and magnificent promises, so that by
  them you may become partakers of the divine
  nature, having escaped the corruption that is in
  the world by lust.

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2 Peter 12-8

• 5 Now for this very reason also, applying all
  diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence,
  and in your moral excellence, knowledge,
• 6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in
  your self-control, perseverance, and in your
  perseverance, godliness,
• 7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness,
  and in your brotherly kindness, love.
• 8 For if these qualities are yours and are
  increasing, they render you neither useless nor
  unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord
  Jesus Christ.

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Encouraging

• Its a process
• You dont have to be Mother Teresa overnight
• But you can grow
• Remember the story of Mother Teresa and the
  American journalist

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Another Passage1 John 212-14

• 12 I am writing to you, little children,
  because your sins have been forgiven you for His
  name's sake.
• 13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you
  know Him who has been from the beginning. I am
  writing to you, young men, because you have
  overcome the evil one. I have written to you,
  children, because you know the Father.
• 14 I have written to you, fathers, because you
  know Him who has been from the beginning. I have
  written to you, young men, because you are
  strong, and the word of God abides in you, and
  you have overcome the evil one.

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Three Stages

• Children sins forgiven, know the Father
• Young Men strong, Word of God abides in you,
  overcome the evil one
• Fathers know Him who has been from the beginning

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Other Patterns

• James Fowler (6 stages corresponding to human
  development stages, leading to Universalizing
  Faith or Love)
• M. Scott Peck
• Not caring
• Blind faith (God as judge, everything figured
  out, dos donts)
• Skepticism
• Getting to Know God as He Is

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Bernard of Clairvaux

• The First Degree of Love When Man Loves Himself
  for His Own Sake
• The Second Degree of Love When Man Loves God for
  His Own Good
• The Third Degree of Love When Man Loves God for
  Gods Sake
• The Fourth Degree of Love When Man Loves Himself
  for the Sake of God

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The Process of Growth

• Mans frequent needs make it necessary for him
  to call upon God often, and to taste by frequent
  contact, and to discover by tasting how sweet the
  Lord is (Ps. 339). It is in this way that the
  taste of his own sweetness leads us to love God
  in purity more than our need alone would prompt
  us to do.

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Explanation

• This is how we grow through the stages. All
  people, believers and unbelievers alike, look up
  when they are pressed down. When they look up
  they taste Gods goodness. If they let the
  heavenly sweetness of his Presence do its work in
  their lives, they will progress in the spiritual
  life through the four Degrees.

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Bernard

• There are some who praise God for his power,
  some who praise him for his goodness to them, and
  some who praise him simply because he is good.
  The first is a slave, fearful on his own account.
  The second is mercenary, and desires profit for
  himself. The third is a son who honors his
  father. Both he who is fearful and he who is
  greedy act for themselves. Only he who loves like
  a son does not seek his own (1 Cor. 135).

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This Leads us to Jesus

• He calls us all sons and daughtersthe problem is
  that we dont know it yet
• But He does distinguish between stages of growth
• Watchers/Doers
• Servants/Friends

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Watchers/Doers

• Matthew 423
• Matthew 935
• Matthew 2818-20

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Servants/Friends

• John 1514 "You are My friends if you do what I
  command you.
• 15 "No longer do I call you slaves, for the
  slave does not know what his master is doing but
  I have called you friends, for all things that I
  have heard from My Father I have made known to
  you.

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Back to 2 Peter 15-8

• 5 Now for this very reason also, applying all
  diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence,
  and in your moral excellence, knowledge,
• 6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in
  your self-control, perseverance, and in your
  perseverance, godliness,
• 7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness,
  and in your brotherly kindness, love.
• 8 For if these qualities are yours and are
  increasing, they render you neither useless nor
  unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord
  Jesus Christ.

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What do you Need to Grow?

• Give it your best shot
• Work on character issues
• Work on increasing knowledge
• Learn to restrain your bodys urges as well as
  your tongues
• Stick to things
• Make Gods priorities your own

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Action Plan

• Do practical things to help
• Become a friend
• Learn how to care
• You will find that this demands that you accept
  that you are loved by God and others
• Become Love
• This is probably enough to work on for the summer
  . . .

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Prayer Patient Trust

• Above all, trust in the slow work of God.We are
  quite naturally impatient in everythingto reach
  the end without delay.We should like to skip the
  intermediate stages.We are impatient of being on
  the way to somethingunknown, something new.And
  yet it is the law of all progressthat it is made
  by passing throughsome stages of instability
  -and that it may take a very long time.

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Patient Trust

• And so I think it is with you.Your ideas mature
  gradually - let them grow, let them shape
  themselves, without undue haste.Don't try to
  force them on,as though you could be today what
  time(that is to say, grace and
  circumstancesacting on your own good will)will
  make of you tomorrow.

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Patient Trust

• Only God could say what this new
  spiritgradually forming within you will be.Give
  Our Lord the benefit of believingthat his hand
  is leading you,And accept the anxiety of feeling
  yourselfin suspense and incomplete.
• Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ