01-09-11 More About Life Rules

I want to pick up our study of Romans chapter 8

right where we left off last week.

Actually, I want to reenter our study

with just a few more comments about some things we were looking at last week.

We are studying Romans 8:18-30,

a passage written by Paul

to help equip the Christian

with some crucial information we need

in order to handle those times in our lives when we hurt.

The presence of suffering in the life of the Christian is a certainty.

There is some suffering we encounter

simply because we live

in a world drenched in the accumulated consequences of man’s rebellion against God

since the time of Adam.

But, as we saw a few weeks ago,

there are also some types of suffering

that come into our lives

as a direct result of our union with Christ.

There is a measure of pain

that comes with our willingness

to allow our God to reshape our character

into greater conformity with Christ.

There is pain that comes

whenever our God allows us to see

a little bit of our world through His eyes.

There is suffering we will sometimes encounter

when we choose to live a life of moral integrity

in an immoral world.

And there is pain that sometimes comes

as a direct result of Satan’s attacks on us.

And in the passage we are now studying in this 8^th chapter

we have seen Paul preparing us for those times when we hurt

by telling us 3 things we very much need to know about the future,

and 2 things we very much need to know about the present.

Our study has taken us through those first 3 things we need to know about the future:

1. The glory that will one day be ours

will vastly exceed any suffering we go through here and now. (It really is worth it all.)

2. This corrupted world in which we live

will, at the return of our King,

be put back exactly as God originally designed it to be.

3. And then last week we looked at the 3^rd,

God’s promise that these physical bodies in which we now live,

bodies which at times so powerfully resist the life of Christ within us,

will at the return of Christ

be replaced by brand new ones that have never learned an incorrect thought,

bodies that have no memories of irrational fears,

or of past failures,

or rejections,

bodies that have no life rules recorded within them,

bodies that will be perfectly matched to our new spirits,

and provide the perfect means through which those spirits can express themselves.

I want us to move on to the 4^th support for suffering

given to us by Paul in this passage,

but before we do I just want to add a few more thoughts

to that discussion we got into last week

about life rules.

If you were not in on that discussion

you might want to get a copy of last week’s notes.

But in a couple of sentences

let me just say that we were talking about how one of the greatest enemies to the life of Christ within us

is the force exerted upon us

by life rules we operate on,

rules that form the grid through which we filter everything that enters our lives on a daily basis.

These life rules

are the whole spectrum of established

and unquestioned assumptions

about ourselves,

and about life,

and human relationships,

and God Himself

that form the backdrop to every response and thought process we have.

What does it mean to be male?

What does it mean to be female?

Am I funny?

Am I insightful?

Am I worth listening to?

Am I stupid?

Am I smart?

Will I succeed or fail in social encounters?

Can authority figures be trusted?

Each of us have already answered these questions

and countless others like them for ourselves,

and those answers have already predetermined for us

most of the “choices” we make every day.

There was a book that came out a number of years ago entitled “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche”.

Do you know what that is?

That’s one of those life rules peaking out into the light.

“Our special today is an excellent ham and spinach Quiche.”

“Oh really?... Yes, well I believe I’ll have a hamburger and fries.”

Before we leave that discussion on life rules,

I want to tidy it up a bit with just a few more comments.

First of all, I want to mention that apart from the work of God’s Spirit within us,

it is very difficult for us to recognize our own life rules.

By their very nature

they are not at the conscious level within us.

They are our foundation assumptions

upon which our conscious reasoning processes are based.

If we grew up in a home environment

that established for us a life rule

telling us that family secrets are to be kept secret at all costs

and issues are never to be brought out in the open and addressed,

then our mind will invest its efforts and energies into finding ways of continuing to keep issues hidden

rather than trying to find ways of addressing and resolving them.

If we have a life rule that tells us, “Men can never be trusted”,

we will enter each new male relationship

focused on how we can protect ourselves from this man

rather than focusing on how we can build

a healthy trust relationship with this individual.

The life rules within us

predetermine where we focus

our mental and emotional energies.

It’s a little bit like what happens in a foot race.

If we enter a race and are told the finish line is at a certain point,

we don’t invest our energies into wondering whether that’s really the correct finish line,

we invest our energies

into getting there as fast as possible.

Our life rules

tell us where all the finish lines are.

The problem, of course,

is that some of the finish lines we have accepted as correct

are currently forcing us to run

in the worst possible direction.

So how do we go about recognizing

where and when our life rules are incorrect?

Let me share with you first

how we do NOT recognize flawed life rules.

We do not recognize them on the basis

of how we feel.

You see, once something has become a life rule within us,

even if it is highly destructive,

it will feel like it is right,

and anything that violates it

will feel all wrong.

A woman who enters her adult years

with a life rule that tells her

that men will be abusive to women

will actually feel at home in an abusive relationship with a man.

And men who are kind, and gentle,

and considerate,

and in no way abusive

won’t seem like “real men” to her.

The truth is,

nothing can feel quite so emotionally terrifying

as when one of our life rules is challenged,

whether it is a valid rule or not.

So how do we go about recognizing flawed life rules?

I want to read for us

a portion of the 19^th Psalm

and I want us listen closely to what the Psalmist says.

PSA 19:7 The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

PSA 19:8 The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

PSA 19:9 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether.

PSA 19:10 They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.

PSA 19:11 Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there is great reward.

PSA 19:12 Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.

PSA 19:13 Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, And I shall be acquitted of great transgression.

PSA 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

Now look at this -

David tells us that the Word of God

has the ability to restore a damaged soul,

it can make us wise

where we are simple,

it can bring us joy at the heart level,

and it can enlighten our eyes to the way things really are.

Then David asks the same question we are asking this morning,

“Who can discern his errors?”

What person has the ability

to see himself honestly?

And the implied answer to the question

is, “None of us.”

We can’t do it.

But then David goes on to reveal the solution to our problem

when he says to God Himself,

“Acquit me of hidden faults.”

That word “acquit”

means to purge or to cleanse.

And what David is telling us

is that none of us have the ability

to look at ourselves honestly and objectively.

We just simply can’t do it.

But then he goes on to tell us

that the combination of two things in our life

can do for us

what we could never do for ourselves.

One of them is the written Word of God,

and the other is the direct, personal intervention of God Himself in our lives.

And I love the way David unites those two

as he moves through that Psalm.

He begins by talking about the Word of the Lord

and what it can accomplish in our lives,

but by the time we get to the end of the Psalm

David is involved in this intimate, personal conversation with God Himself

about all of these blind spots

that he knows exist within himself,

asking God Himself to personally intervene and bring him into freedom.

And my point in all of this

is simply that our hope of finding freedom from those destructive life rules within us

rests in God’s ability to apply His truth to our lives

in a way that provides us with both the courage

and the path for rewriting those rules.

Our part in the process

is to do the same two things David does in this Psalm.

First, he affirmed his absolute trust and confidence in the truth of the Word of God.

In other words,

he says to himself and to His God,

“Look, I know that my life is filled

with all sorts of places where right now

I believe differently from what is true.”

In the terms we are using for our teaching this morning,

he could say, “I know I have a number of life rules recorded within me

that are completely wrong.”

But then he goes on to say to the Lord,

“So here’s the deal. Every time You show me

some place where You and I disagree,

I’m going to choose to believe You’re right and I’m wrong.”

Now, it is dangerous for me to say what I have just said

because, as soon as we get near this whole business of trusting or believing the Word of God,

there is this little religious switch

that goes off in our minds,

a switch that automatically flicks us onto some kind of a mindless religious auto-pilot

in which we nod solemnly to ourselves

acknowledging that we do indeed

accept the absolute truth and authority of the Word of God in our lives.

Holding an intellectual doctrinal affirmation of the truth of the written Word is great,

but it is simply not going to work at that level with what is going on here.

David is not modeling for us some sort of passive intellectual doctrinal affirmation

of the inspiration of Scripture.

He is saying that he knows what happens when we enter into a true, growing walk with God-

we will encounter a life-long series of conflicts

between what we currently accept as true

and what God tells us is true.

And each time another one of those conflicts comes up

our hope for forward movement

depends upon our actively choosing to trust what God says rather than what we feel or believe.

Let me give you an example.

I mentioned earlier in this study

that a very common life rule

held by many people

is that authority figures cannot be trusted.

Those who hold authority over us

are viewed as the enemy,

and submission and defeat are considered to be the same thing.

One of the very few things I recall from my high school history class

is the teacher’s bold proclamation

that “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

We live in a society

that firmly believes

the rights of the individual to pursue life, liberty, and happiness in any way we choose

over-rides any obligation we may have to submit to authority.

We as a culture

feel very comfortable

with an approach to life in which we pick and choose which laws we will

and will not abide by.

If, in our estimation,

some law is oppressive,

or unreasonable,

or illogical,

or just plain stupid,

or if it infringes upon our right of self expression,

then we simply ignore it.

This is the culture in which we live.

And then as Christians,

we come to the Word of God,

and we hear God saying,

1PE 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority,

1PE 2:14 or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.

1PE 2:15 For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.

1PE 2:16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.

1PE 2:17 Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

And suddenly we are faced with the same choice that David faced -

who do I believe,

myself, my feelings, and my culture,

or my God?

And the truth is, that’s one of the easier issues.

The hard ones are the ones in which

we begin to hear the voice of our God

speaking to us with words of intimacy and love,

words that, if we accept them,

will challenge the central belief pillars of our existence.

ZEP 3:17 The Lord your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

What if that is true?

I mean REALLY true?

What if the God who is,

the God who spoke and brought into being all that is,

what if that God is not just aware of your existence

as one of His billions of created beings,

but what if He is right now with you,

in your midst as a victorious warrior?

What if, right now, this day, this minute

this God is exulting over you with joy?

What if, even as I speak,

He is encompassing you in His quiet love?

What if He is rejoicing over you with shouts of joy?

If that was really true,

if God Himself really loves you at that level,

and is involved in your life at that level,

it would mean that all those voices

that have been telling you for so long

that you really don’t matter all that much are wrong.

It would mean that all of your frantic efforts

to try to find peace with God are unnecessary.

It would mean that right now,

as your Victorious Warrior,

He is going before you,

preparing the way for you,

and leading you into the path

that He knows is perfect for you,

and all of that anxiety you feel about the future,

and all of that stress does not have to be.

Let me share with you

the way it really is.

From the instant you entered this world

your Creator began drawing you to Himself,

seeking to reveal to you

your desperate need for Him,

and His eternal longing to embrace you in His love.

And then, once you acknowledged your need for Him and invited Him in,

He then began going before you,

preparing a path

that would lead you into greater and greater healing

from the lies that have kept you in bondage.

And all the time He has been saying,

“Trust Me...trust Me...trust Me.”

And countless times along the way

there will be times when the direction He leads

conflicts with some life rule within us,

and it will feel all wrong.

And when those feelings hit,

our hope and our security rest in knowing

that He alone knows how to lead us into the freedom we long for,

and He alone loves us enough to bring us through.

Well, some time ago

I started to say that our part in the process is two-fold.

First of all, we, like David,

must choose to trust what our God has said

more than we trust those life rules recorded within us.

And then, second, we must invite our God, on a daily basis,

to lead us through the healing process.

Our God will never force us to heal,

nor will He demand that we enter into freedom.

With each of us the road to freedom

is by invitation only, one day at a time,

our invitation to our God that He take His truth and once again, this day, apply it to our lives personally.