03-17-13 Blocking The Desires

In Philip. 2:12-13 Paul writes:

Phil. 2:12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;

Phil. 2:13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

For what we are going to do this morning

to make any sense to you

I need to spend a few minutes

reviewing where we have been

for the past couple of weeks.

Our study of the Book of Philippians

has brought us to this single sentence

I just read for us,

found in Philippians 2:12-13.

It is a sentence that talks to us

about the remarkable arrangement

our Lord has made with each Christian,

an arrangement in which He has committed Himself to “work in each of us”,

an arrangement in which He takes upon Himself two responsibilities.

He promises to WILL His good pleasure within us

and He promises to WORK FOR His good pleasure within us.

And last week we spent our time

looking at how that actually plays out in our life.

We began by realizing that God’s will

is not so much something we DO

as it is something we EMBRACE,

it is not an action we perform

or a point we reach

so much as it is a heart response we offer to our Lord.

STEP 1 in our living within the will of God

begins with HIM.

It begins with Him doing

just exactly what He said He would do

in this sentence in Philippians 2:13 -

He places within us

the WILL, the DESIRES for the things

He seeks to do in and through us.

And let me just mention here

that this one single concept

has in some ways helped me as much

in my role as a Bible teacher

as any other concept in Scripture.

One of the really big places

where we so often get ourselves into a muddle in our walk with Christ

is when we try to take on ourselves

responsibilities God has never given us.

And when it comes to equipping God’s people

for the life and calling He has for them

He is real clear where the division of responsibilities lie.

He tells us that HE is the one

who will create within each believer

the will or the heart desire

for the things He wants to do in and through us.

He then tells us that,

well, if you would like it in Paul’s own words in Ephesians 4:11-12,

Eph. 4:11 And He (God) gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,

Eph. 4:12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;

Now, you see what He’s saying -

HE places within each of us

the desires for the work of service

He has selected for each of us.

He then gives the Body of Christ

pastors and teachers

whose role it is to EQUIP God’s people

to effectively fulfill

the desires God has placed within them.

I have seen so much time and effort wasted

within the Body of Christ

by teachers who have mistakenly believed

it is their responsibility

to create within God’s people

the DESIRES to do

what God wants them to do.

They are forever wrestling with questions such as,

“How can I motivate these people?

How can I give them a desire

to do the things God wants them to do?”

And they are questions that have no answers,

because they are taking on themselves

a responsibility GOD has reserved for Himself.

Do you know what happens

whenever we take on ourselves

a responsibility God has reserved for Himself?

We end up creating little flesh imitations of the real thing.

In the Body of Christ

we are notorious for using FEAR

or GUILT FEELINGS

or COMPETITION

or EGO motivations

as little flesh substitutes

for the true heart desires

God seeks to place within us.

And like all flesh imitations

of the real thing

they last only as long as the feelings last.

When I realized that my role as a teacher

was not to try to create within you

a desire for the will of God

it was a tremendously freeing thing.

My role as your Bible teacher

is simply to help equip you

to effectively live out

the desires God has already placed within you,

as best I can, feeding you

with the concepts and ideas and principles from the Word

that will free you to fulfill the desires

God has already created within you.

When I meet a person who seems to have

no heart desire for life with the King,

I know that one of two things must be true -

either they are not a child of God,

there is a barrier in their life

that is making it impossible for them to hear what God is saying to them in their heart.

For me to try to paste on

some emotion-based desire for healthy Christian living is foolishness.

First the barrier must be removed

and then once it is

they will be able to hear the desires

that God Himself has already placed within them.

I think there are some Christians

who spend years and years

walled off from this whole process,

completely walled off

from the desires God is seeking to share with them,

living out a religious form

that never transforms their life.

I am aware of at least 3 distinctly different types of barriers

dealt with in Scripture

that have the ability to seal a Christian off

from the desires God is placing within their hearts.

There are countless different circumstances

and reasons why a Christian

may be pulled into one of these three,

but I think the deceptions themselves

are not that numerous.

#1. The first one is what we might call Religious Addiction.

Paul deals with this

in the first half of the book of Colossians.

It is falling victim to the lie

that the path to security with God

and to effective Christian living

is found through the careful observance

of a prescribed set of religious duties.

The bottom line is - learn the rules and follow them.

Once this lie takes root within a believer

any hope of discovering

the true desires God has placed within us

and then allowing them to become the motivational foundation for our life

is buried under and endless list of duties

and obligations,

and an endless effort to more accurately

define and refine the requirements

of “faithful Christian living”.

It is an addiction that can exert tremendous power over a Christian

because it feeds on itself.

Once the list/duty mentality is accepted

the focus becomes one

of more and more highly refining the list,

correcting and adjusting it

so that it more accurately reflects

the true calling of the believer.

This type of religious addiction

can produce only two possible results

in the life of the believer.

With some it will produce a rigid,

judgmental,

pride-filled believer who believes he or she has kept the rules

and resents those who have not.

This is the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son.

Do you remember his response to the father

when he was invited to the party

to celebrate his brother’s return?

Luk 15:29 ... 'Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends;

Luk 15:30 but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.'

Or it will bury the believer

under a mountain of guilt,

making him feel as though

he or she is always falling short of what is being required,

never able to generate the level of performance

that a “really good” Christian should have.

I know of only one solution

for this religious addiction.

Paul hints at it in Col. 2:23

when he says,

Col. 2:23 These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

The religion addict

must hit the place where they desperately need answers

and is forced to realize

that all their rules and duties

are powerless to bring real changes in their life,

or real healing from their wounds,

or real freedom from their areas of bondage.

In other words, they must crash and burn,

and through that process discover

that what God has offered us in Christ

is not a better list,

what He has offered us is Himself -

His love,

His forgiveness,

His life within us,

and His ability to live through us

one day at a time.

#2. The second possible barrier

to the Christian discovering the desires

that Christ has placed within them

is when the Christian is deceived into believing his or her needs cannot be met within God’s protective moral framework.

When the Christian looks at their life

and the needs they feel inside

and finds themself saying,

“Yes, Lord, I know what You have said

about honesty

or about moral purity

or about submission to the authorities you have placed me under,

but what You’ve said

simply will not work in my particular situation...

there is no way what I need can ever be mine

if I follow what You’ve said...”,

once that lie takes root in the believer

it will create a tension

and a distrust in our relationship with God that puts everything else on hold

until God’s Spirit can show us the lie

and bring us back to practical trust

in the leadership of our Lord.

#3. The last barrier I would mention

that has the ability to seal us off

from the desires God is seeking

to place within our hearts

is when we reject the growth project or issue He has selected for us.

We have talked in the past

about the way in which our trust-friendship with our Lord

grows and develops by our sharing with Him

the growth issues He carefully selects

for that process in our life.

It is the way in which

He teaches us about Himself

and His ability to bring changes into our lives.

And most of all,

it is the way in which He teaches us

more and more about the true nature of His love for us.

But He does not cram growth down our throats.

We can always say NO!

We can look at some issue He has brought into our life,

and tell Him -

“Sorry, Lord, that one is just not an option”,

and refuse to face it and work through it with Him.

When we do this, though,

we are also saying to our Lord,

“I do not trust You -

I don’t trust Your ability to bring me through this,

I don’t trust Your love to keep me,

or your power to heal me.

I’ll handle this on my own, Lord,

because doing business with You

at this point is just too risky.”

The problem is that once that distrust

takes root within us

it also blinds us to the desires

He is seeking to share with us,

because we now have a God

we don’t really trust.

And until He is able to bring us back

to the place where we will face the growth issue

that He has selected for us

everything gets put on hold.

Now I got into all of that because

I happened to mention that it is GOD’s responsibility to place within us

the desires He knows will serve His purpose in our lives.

It’s nothing we can ever do to or for one another,

and if the desires aren’t there

the answer is not to try to drum them up

or paste them on,

the answer is to remove the barrier

that is preventing them from being

the motivating force in our life.

And then we saw last week

that once God does place those desires within us,

He then helps us deal with the way in which our flesh

tends to take those desires

and try to turn them to our own fleshly ends.

I’m not going to go back and reteach all of that,

but I do want to at least touch on one additional question.

I mentioned last week

that one of the key tools the Lord uses

in helping to pry our little fleshly fingers off of the desires He places within us

is for Him to create a desire within us

and then to place us into a situation

in which we are forced to wait on Him

sometimes for an extended period of time

before we see Him bring the desire into reality.

I used Moses as an example -

God had given him a desire

to see the Children of Israel

freed from their slavery in Egypt.

Then, at age 40 Moses plunged in

and tried to use his own abilities

and skills and influence

to pull the deliverance off for the Lord.

The Lord then responded by saying,

“Right goal, Moses, but wrong means.”

And then He placed Moses in a situation

where he had to wait for another 40 years

before he was finally ready

for the work God wanted to do through Him.

Which brings up the question,

what things can we do when we are in that waiting mode.

Now I’ve spent so much time getting here

that we’re not really going to look at the answer to that question until next week.

But there is one more important distinction

I want to touch on today

in preparation for that question.

We need to see the distinction between

DESIRES and WANTS.

As God’s children He makes it clear

that He wants us to share

every aspect of our life with Him.

In fact, in Chapter 4 of this same letter to the Philippians we are studying

Paul says,

Phil. 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

God has established a Father-Child relationship between us and Himself,

a relationship in which we can bring our wants to Him boldly,

knowing He loves us,

He cares,

and He will hear and act in the way that is perfect for us.

That means we can bring all our wants to Him.

I have all sorts of wants -

I want physical health for myself

and my family.

I want my physical needs to be met

at the standard I believe fits with the work God is doing in my life.

I want both Sandee and I to live healthy, long, relatively pain-free lives,

and then be taken home to the Lord together.

Things like that are not the desires Paul is talking about in this verse in Philippians.

Those things are wants.

Some of our wants fit well with the work God is doing in our life,

some of them are way off base.

But all of them can and should be shared with our Lord,

with the understanding that He can and will do with each of them

what He knows is best for His work within us.

The DESIRES that I see Paul talking about

here in this passage,

those places where He shares with us

His will,

to will and to work for His good pleasure,

are those things that result from Him allowing us to see

some little piece of ourselves

or our world through His eyes.

I don’t know how else to define it

except in that way - it is those inner longings within us

that result from His allowing us

to see ourselves or our world

through His eyes.

It is that kind of inner motivation

that grows out of us seeing

the need of another person or group of people,

or feeling the pain or bondage of someone else.

Sometimes it grows out of our Lord

allowing us to see ourselves-

our own sin through His eyes,

seeing the pain our actions

or attitudes are causing others.

I’ve shared with you in the past

points in my own parenting

where God’s Spirit suddenly

opened my eyes to the way

my own career goals

or compulsive desire to please other people

was blinding me

to the needs in my little girl when she was growing up,

needs that only a daddy could fill.

And as He allowed me

to see a little bit of myself

through HIS eyes,

He gave me a heart desire to change

and to grow.

That wasn’t something I did,

it was strictly His doing.

Sometimes those desires involve

His allowing us to see the ignorance

or the confusion in another person’s life,

or the loneliness and isolation in them,

and giving us a longing

to help

or encourage

or heal

or free them.

The wants we have, on the other hand, are universal in nature-

things that every human being longs for.

They’re not necessarily wrong,

but they are not what Paul is talking about here in Philippians.

But the Willing, the desires are things

that could not be a part of us

apart from the working of God within us.

We’ll come back to this right here next week

and then talk about what we do

at those times when He has created a desire withing us

and then asks us to wait for a period of time

until that desire is fulfilled.