Transformation is possible! But how? Join us as we talk about the reliable pattern for change- Vision, Intention, and Means and how we can apply this to Spiritual Formation in the Way of Jesus.
Evidence of a Renovated Heart
Speakers
Jackson Wilson
Executive Students Pastor
Notes
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1 Timothy 4:12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.
Psalm 119:15-16
15 I will meditate on your precepts
and fix my eyes on your ways.
16 I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.
[Biblical] Meditation is recalling what we have committed to memory and then turning it over and over in our minds to see the fullest implications and applications of the truth.
James Boice
1 Thessalonians 4:3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification
1 John 3:11-18 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers,[c] that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
EVIDENCE OF A RENOVATED HEART (The Renovation of our Relationships)
Spiritual formation, good or bad, is always profoundly social. You cannot keep it to yourself. Anyone who thinks of it as a merely private matter has misunderstood it. Anyone who says, “It’s just between me and God,” or “What I do is my own business,” has misunderstood God as well as “me.” Strictly speaking there is nothing “just between me and God.” For all that is between me and God affects who I am; and that, in turn, modifies my relationship to everyone around me. My relationship to others also modifies me and deeply affects my relationship to God. Hence those relationships must be transformed if I am to be transformed.
Dallas Willard
The spiritual formation of my heart is not an individual experience, it is a shared experience.
1 Corinthians 15:33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”
Proverbs 12:26 One who is righteous is a guide to his neighbor, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.
Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!
A wrong view of my soul leads me towards wrong goals, causes me to celebrate the wrong wins, and forms me into a difference image all together.
Our problem with following Jesus is we’re trying to be a better version of us, rather than a more accurate reflection of Him.
Bob Goff
ACTIONS THAT REFLECT A MALFORMED HEART:
1. PRIDE
Spiritual formation will turn into “project-self”
We contradict ourselves: We claim to be independent, and try to be the victim at the same time
We will become the judge of ourselves and others
2. ATTACK
1 John 3:11-12 11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous.
Commandment 5. Honor your father and mother (You have authority over me that I want)
Commandment 6. Do not murder (You did something that I don’t like)
Commandment 7. Do not commit adultery (You have a person that I desire to have)
Commandment 8. Do not steal (You have a possession that I desire to have)
Commandment 9. Do not lie (You have understanding of truth that I desire to manipulate)
Commandment 10. Do not covet (You have a life that I desire to have)
3. WITHDRAWAL
Admittedly, we now live in a different world. But is it a better world for that? Could the epidemic of addictions and dysfunctions from which the masses suffer possibly be related to the fact that we are constantly in the presence of people who are withdrawn from us, who don’t want to acknowledge we are there and frankly would feel more at ease if we weren’t - people who in many cases explicitly reject us and feel it only right to do so?
Dallas Willard
Leviticus 19:1-2 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
Leviticus 19:9-10 9 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.
John 4:8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Notice that he did not say, “He who hates,” but simply, “He who DOES NOT LOVE.” The mere absence of love is deadly. It is withdrawal.
Dallas Willard
IF MY RELATIONSHIPS AREN’T CHANGING THEN MY HEART IS NOT CHANGING
God cannot transform the person you are pretending to be.
Jon Tyson
1 John 3:16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
HOW DO WE SEE THE RELATIONSHIPS IN OUR LIFE RENOVATED?
If God’s love in us isn’t spilling out towards others then we need to ask ourselves, “Am I being filled, formed, and sustained by God’s love?”
RECLAIMING RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH TRINITARIAN LOVE
The relational posture of a Christian is anchored in our union with Christ. God dwells in us, by the Spirit, nearer to us than our very breath-Anyone who lives from this depth of intimate relationship will long to be like-minded, unified, unselfish, humble, deferential, and self-sacrificial—anything but narcissistic.
Chuck DeGroat
1. COMPLETE
My peace is the greatness of God. Because He, who not only loves me but is love, is so great, I live beyond harm in His hands, and there is nothing that can happen to me that will not turn out to my good. Nothing.
Dallas Willard
2. CO-EQUAL
And within the Trinity there is, I believe, not even a thought of “First, second, and third.” There is no subordination within the Trinity, not because of some profound metaphysical fact, but because the members of the Trinity will not have it.
Dallas Willard