Spiritual Disciplines - Nurturing Your Relationship with Jesus
Tom Shrader addresses the decline of spiritual disciplines in modern Christian life, emphasizing that knowing God requires intentional practices like prayer, Bible study, memorization, and worship. Drawing from John 17:3 and Philippians 2:12-13, he explains that believers must work out their salvation through disciplined habits that transform their character. He warns that without these foundations, Christians face spiritual crisis in later life when external accountability disappears.
“There's a big difference between knowing about Donald Trump and knowing Donald Trump, and when we bring that to God, it's the same thing - there's a big difference between knowing a lot about God and knowing God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Standalone Teachings
Recorded: September 14, 2017
Duration: 39 min
Themes: prayer, discipline, habits, character, worship, devotions, commitment, growth, busy professional, struggling with consistency, young adult, new believer, parent, lacking accountability, spiritual dryness, aging christian
Scripture: John 17:3, Philippians 2:12-13, Mark 3:13-14
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual formation, biblical meditation, scripture memorization, devotional life, spiritual maturity, discipleship, knowing god
Full Transcript
You should have in front of you, near you, reachable, an outline, and we're going to follow that outline. Sandy is in Pasadena, and she'll be back tonight. She asked me how did PL go yesterday, and I told her it went pretty well. It is the culmination of some of the things we talked about right before vacation, and some of the things that I've been working on.
When you walk away, there's kind of three shots in here. It started on two tracks. It started with this idea of spiritual disciplines. It started with Jamie asking me to teach the young leaders at Scottsdale Bible Church on spiritual disciplines. I did a little bit of work on that, and then Jamie was out of town, so I texted him, and I said, "Listen, I don't want to miss some big point you're trying to make, so let me know if there's something you want me to say."
He texts back, and I'm not going to read it to you, but in essence it said, "It's spiritual disciplines, nobody does it anymore. Nobody has a quiet time. Nobody memorizes scripture. Nobody, nobody, nobody." And I thought, that's interesting. So, we better go back to these spiritual disciplines.
The Lost Art of Spiritual Disciplines
Once I read that, I thought, you know what, it's kind of true. We used to grind on these things all the time. When I became a Christian in 1980, it was like every guy I knew had a little packet in his back pocket of Navigator's Bible memory cards. They were on the little visor. They were everywhere. You just did them. You didn't even ask, you just did them.
Everybody had a little Navigator's crank in the blank. They were forced, and by that I don't mean in a harsh way, I mean they were put in front of you constantly. So, I want to talk about spiritual disciplines, and then I want to come back to what I teased you with our last session, which was something we saw when we started doing the aging conversation. There was one thing, a whole bunch of stuff we learned, but there was one thing that surprised me. I'm going to try to tie all that together.
I want to work through this sheet on spiritual disciplines. So, you got it? If you don't have one, there's one near you somewhere. On one side, it says, "Nurturing your relationship with Jesus." On the other side are some general observations. Look at the side with number 1, 2, 3, 4 on it.
The Foundation: Knowing God
I start with three pretty simple scriptures. "This is eternal life, that they might know you, the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you've sent." So, on my sheet, which means I'd want you to do it on your sheet, I put a box around the word "eternal life," and drew a line to the word "know." I need to know God.
Now, you've been through this a thousand times. There's a big difference between knowing about Donald Trump and knowing Donald Trump. I'm not sure if either is appealing, but there's a big difference between those two things. When we bring that to God, it's the same thing. There's a big difference between knowing a lot about God and knowing God.
I would suggest to you, in its really basic simple form, that it might be time to order a copy of "Knowing God" by J.I. Packer. Many of you already have the book. But it's probably time to re-read that book.
How Do We Come to Know God?
In some mystical way, it gets a little goofy. How do I know God? He's in heaven, He's there, how do I know Him? I was watching, I taped a ton of shows, and watched a lot of television for the last two months. Even a lot for me. I was watching an interview with David McCullough, one of my favorite historical writers. Interesting enough, to me, he never studied history in school. He was an English major. Which makes sense. Because you've taken a great storyteller, and you give him a good story, you have something interesting.
They're interviewing him, Brian Lamb, and these two guys love each other. They talk all the time. They're talking about different things. McCullough's getting old. He's got that beautiful voice, wish I had that. He's getting older. But he's so excited. He gets so excited.
So Lamb is talking, "Are you writing a book now?" And he said, "Yes I am. I'm researching it." It came out of writing the Wright Brothers book. He found this character, and I'm embarrassed, I don't remember the guy's name, but he was a guy that convinced the Congress at the end of the Revolutionary War. Great Britain with a stroke of a pen doubled the size of the United States by essentially transferring the land that includes, I'm pretty close here, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin. I think that's right. If not, that's close.
Well this guy went to the Congress, and he said, "We got all these Revolutionary veterans who we paid them nothing, let's sell them this land. And we'll homestead it. Eight cents an acre." You could buy 24th and Camelback for eight cents an acre. Had to wait a whole lot.
Learning Through Letters and Documents
So Lamb goes, "How'd you discover this guy?" He said, "Well I started reading about him." It's a long way around the barn to get to knowing God. He said, "I started reading about him. And I went to the Historic Society, and the guy said to me, 'You're going to love this, I got boxes of letters that this guy wrote. Wrote to his wife, wrote to his kids, wrote to the Congress.'" Now today, they'd all be delayed emails. Because we don't record that anymore.
McCullough said, "I'm going to spend probably three, four years to get to know him." All of that to say, that's how you get to know God. The call is, you've got to get to know Him. How do I do it? Through the spiritual disciplines.
Working Out Your Salvation
In Philippians chapter 2, He says, "Beloved, it's point two in your outline, just as you've always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but much more in my absence, here's the key phrase, work out your salvation in fear and trembling. For it's God who's at work in you, both to will, and work for His good pleasure."
Now, there's a phrase in there that seems, I don't know, innocuous, I guess, until you think of the
dynamic of it, and the phrase is, work out your salvation. I had not been a believer, maybe two or three years, and I was really active in the pro-life movement, and we were picketing an abortion clinic in Tempe. Even a radical picketer needs a break, so we were taking a break. I was talking to this lady, and she said, tell me about yourself, and I told her, and I said, where do you go to church? I said, well, I go to Grace Community Church. She said, were you raised there?
I said, I was raised Catholic—grade school, high school, college. She said, oh. I said, where are you going? It was Saint something. I said, a Catholic church? She said, yes. She said, why are you not there anymore? I said, you know, I'm really tired from picketing. This is not... I don't want to do this. I said, I'm saved by grace through faith. And she quoted this verse exactly. But that's not what the Scripture says. The Scripture says, work out your salvation.
Understanding "Work Out Your Salvation"
This is a really key point, especially if you're new to this. The Scripture is not saying work for your salvation. It's saying, and this is the amplified translation, do the things that result from being saved. Do you see that distinction? Not asking for buy-in at this point. Just do you see the distinction? My life is to be different, changed, unique, because I know Jesus.
I've had a rough recovery. Sandy has to be in Pasadena for these meetings, so my girls are hovering. They have one of the boys drive me last night because I had to teach and they didn't want me driving and I'm a little shaky. So my daughter Sarah calls me. I love to go for a ride. It's kind of a lost art. Nobody goes for a ride anymore. My daughter hates it. Sandy hates it. Nobody likes it. Sarah loves to go for a ride.
So Sarah called me the other day and said, hey, what are you doing tomorrow? I said, honey, I'm really busy. She said, why don't I pick you up and take you for a ride and then I'll take you to Mimi's. Nobody will go to Mimi's with me. I love to go to Mimi's. Cup of chowder, grilled cheese sandwich, which I predict that soup is going to disappear because the only people ordering soup are old men.
A Picture of Joy in Action
So we go to Mimi's and this gal comes up. She goes, hi, welcome to Mimi's. I'm so glad to have you guys here. Here, sit down. Oh, you're so cute. We had McKinley with us. You're so cute. What can I get you? What can I get you to drink? I said, well, like a lemonade. She goes, that's great. Let me get it. I'll bring it right back. And she left. I said to Sarah, I need a nap. She wore me out. I went happy, and she couldn't stop.
She said finally, okay, what are we going to? You, McKinley, and so she gets mac and cheese. She goes to me, now what sir are you going to have? I said, well, I'm going to have what every old man in here has. I'm going to have a cup of corn chowder and a grilled cheese. She goes, oh, that's so good. That's got to be great. Can I get you a side? It comes with a side. I said, what is my option? She goes, I have cottage cheese, fruit. I said, if I wanted fruit, I wouldn't get grilled cheese. Fruit, French fries. Then it was like, she looked around, she goes, I could bring you a dessert. And she was the cheeriest happiness.
She left and I said to Sarah, I don't know anybody like this. All the happy people in my world don't exist. They're not around. We're all done. We're on our way out. I see Sarah talking to her. Sarah said to her, my dad really enjoyed your service. She said, I love serving you guys. Come again.
Now, I've got no idea if this gal's a Christian or not. If she is, she's charismatic. I'm pretty sure. She's not hanging around at SBC, I can tell you that. But she's smiling, cheering. This is the way we're supposed to be. A life change. Love, joy, peace. You work out your salvation. See me building here from knowing God to working out your salvation.
Called to Be With Him
The third thing is somewhat of a random selection. It's a passage from the Gospel of Mark where Jesus is summoning, the word might be called, those to Himself, those that He wanted. And they came to Him. Look what He did. He appointed them so they could be with Him. And then He could send them out to preach the word. That's the life we're called to. Know Him. Work out my salvation. Be with Him.
Now, it raises all these questions. How do I do that? But let's just see, that's where we're going. Be with Him so He can send us out. That's your call, my call, is to go into the world. And not some big, it's not like you have to get a visa and a passport and shots and learn a language and go somewhere. It's the world and the mission field that God's called you to. Whatever it is.
Christians Acting Like Christians
Years ago, I was at a talk. The guy was a member of the Reagan administration and he was Reagan's liaison to Africa, if I remember correctly, some version of that. He did a talk and it was, you could have written it, I could have written it. He's all done. He said, any questions? First question. Mr. Ambassador, would you agree or do you believe that we need more Christians in government? I thought, we don't need another one of these. And he didn't hesitate. Here's what he said. No. I thought, wow, I didn't expect that. I said, no, I don't think we do. I'm around it all day. We got plenty of Christians in government. We need the ones that are there to act like Christians when they get there.
Well, that's a pretty powerful statement because I'm in these meetings all the time. How are we going to infect the city of Phoenix? We're already there. You're already all over. These guys, you pull out the old Phoenix 40 and they're in all your churches and you look on the boards and you look around. We're
Part 3 of 5
The mission is to act like it. I was talking to Haley - it must have been her day to babysit me on Tuesday because she called me and took me to lunch. Well, I say take me to lunch. They drive, I buy. We're at lunch and she's got on all her workout pants because she'd been working out. I said, "How was the gym?"
She said, "Dad, it's amazing. Lauren's there." Lauren's the wife of one of our staff guys. She said, "Lauren has these moms. There are all these young moms and all they do is exercises and they talk." She said, "It's amazing." What she was saying is it's better than any small group I've ever been in because we're talking about real life.
That's what's going to happen. If you're with a group of a dozen moms with small kids for six months, you're going to have tons of opportunity to share Jesus, to babysit for them. That's the life that's supposed to live. That's the normal Christian life.
The Normal Christian Life
The normal Christian life is for you to get to know God, for you to live a transformed, changed, unique life to be with Jesus and then to be sent into your world. I want to make sure you get that last part. It's not "go out there and make disciples." It's literally as you go, you're developing relationships as you go.
Now these disciplines - discipline doesn't sound very appealing to me. I'm not a very disciplined guy. Sandy and I were just talking about this. Sandy and I are so different. In August, she had a friend who was swimming from Catalina to the shore, 22 miles with current. Sandy was part of the two or three person kayak team who kayak along to make sure they have energy gel and water and all that goes with it.
The best part of this story is she thinks football's stupid. They start at midnight, dead black in the middle of the sea, swimming and kayaking for somewhere between 11 and 13 hours to get to shore. Sharks were there two days before. A shark butted against the boat two days before. There's not a thing in the world that would make me want to do this. That's what I think of when I hear discipline.
Understanding Spiritual Disciplines
I want to give you this observation. Discipline is defined - it's on side two of your notes - as training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior. It is a normal component. You mark that, circle that, X that - it's the normal component of the Christian life. In fact, almost nothing significant in our life happens if it's not accomplished through discipline.
If you just read this sentence and accept that it's true: if you're not engaged in these spiritual disciplines, something's really missing, something big. The foremost of the disciplines involve the study of God's Word, meditating, memorizing. If that's neglected, all the other stuff is a waste of time.
In this process of studying, I'm filled with the Holy Spirit. Have you heard that term? Sure you have, in church - to be filled with the Holy Spirit. What does it mean? At one point, Paul says, and I like this picture, "Don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit."
Living Under the Influence of the Holy Spirit
When I'm drunk with wine - and I've been there two or three times where I've been caught by the police in the middle of this and charged with a DUI, driving under the influence - to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be under the influence, living under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Just like with alcohol, every guy I know has said, "That's just the booze talking." Well, here you go: that's just the Holy Spirit talking. That's how this comes out. That's how this begins to live.
The spiritual disciplines are those practices that are found in Scripture that promote spiritual growth among believers. They're habits. Habits of devotion. Habits of experiencing Christ. They've been practiced for centuries.
Going to the botanical gardens is not a spiritual discipline. I can make it spiritual. Contemplating God on the 15th hole at the golf course is not a spiritual discipline. It can happen there. The spiritual disciplines are the blocking and tackling of the Christian life. You have to ask yourself: are you engaged in them?
Prayer as Interactive Conversation
Prayer. Prayer is an interactive conversation with God about what we're doing together. "God, how are we doing?" It's interaction. In prayer, I am inevitably changed. I approach God with openness and honesty and I trust Him like a child trusts a parent. You should pray that way - that should be a part of your life.
What I'm going to advocate, and I don't know that this is going to work, but what I'm going to advocate is this becomes a programmed, prepared habit part of your life. You can and should pray all day long. But there should be a place, a time when it's devoted to that. I'm not talking an hour - carve out five minutes where I'm praying, where I'm fasting.
Fasting as Spiritual Practice
Tony Evans describes fasting as "the deliberate abstention from some form of physical gratification to achieve a greater spiritual goal." The whole point of prayer, the whole point of fasting, the whole point of spiritual disciplines - they are not an end, they are a means to an end.
Recently, during Ramadan, I was at the mosque for dinner at the end of Ramadan. These people had been fasting all day. They can't have a morsel of food until the sun is down. They've got a countdown clock in the front showing 8:32pm when the sun is down, or whatever it is.
This guy gets up and does this little devotional, and then he says, "Are there any questions?" Much to my encouragement, like there would be in a Christian group, we don't want questions. Let's eat. We don't want any questions. So this kid asks some question, and the guy running it says...
Finding God Through Hunger
The whole reason for fasting is to take that hunger and let it be replaced with a hunger for God. The hunger that you have for the chicken translates into a hunger for God. To abstain from something is to say it's going to push me toward God.
The Necessity of Scripture
To find time in the Scriptures - it absolutely makes no sense to say you want to be a Christian and alive and growing and not be reading, studying, meditating, memorizing the Word of God. God has never spoken to me through a Scripture that I'd never read before. It's never happened. I've never just woken up in the morning and He goes, "Ezekiel 2:12. Oh, I need to look that up?" God's going to speak to you. He's going to fill you. He's going to fill your mind, your heart, your attitude.
I have this thing that at least once a day in my life, there is a Seinfeld moment. There's at least once a day where I go, "That's Seinfeld." And I one day had something happen, I thought, "That's Seinfeld." And then this occurred to me. Wouldn't it be a little more profitable if once a day I had a "That's a Jesus moment"? "That's a Bible moment"? "That's a man of God moment"?
Worship and Humility
And then worship. All of this has to be packaged against this sense of humility. That I come - the very act of coming to pray, to study, to memorize - I'm coming with nothing. I'm coming with a teachable spirit and a sense of humility that says I need to be taught. I need to be molded. I need to be developed.
Now, I would argue that there's no best time to start that other than right now.
The Power of Habits
My grandson, Braden, is 11. And He is - and my fear is He's a normal 11-year-old - but He can't remember anything. He can't find His shoes. He can't find His glove. He can't find His hat. And so, every encounter is tension for Him and then tension for His mom, tension for His dad, and sure enough, tension for me. Because I'm not going to jack around sitting in the car while you try to find your shoes.
I said to Him the other day, we're standing by the door. He's leaving. I said, "Don't forget your shoes." "I won't." And I said, "Well, I'm going to go to the bathroom." I came back. He's gone. And here are these size 14 shoes sitting in the doorway. Three minutes later, "I forgot my shoes." I said, "How did you get out the door? You had to go like this to get over those shoes."
Well, here's what I'm trying to tell Him. And I told His dad last night, this is not my kid. And I raised two, and I don't want them back. But I'd like to help Him think of habits. Because all this tension can be reduced by 90% if He just puts His shoes in the same place, and His glove in the same place, and His hat in the same place.
Simple Tools for Life Change
I'm saying to you, it's the same thing with this now. You can change your life. I can change your life right now for a dollar. You can go to Office Max today and get a pack of 3x5 cards for a dollar. And those 3x5 cards will change your life. If every night you just list 2, 3, 4, 5 things that are on that list, take your phone, that are to do tomorrow, and the next night you get a new card, you mark off the ones that you did or didn't do, the things that didn't get done, you transfer this, and you just check them off, you're going to become a doing machine. You're going to get so much stuff done. This is like the old IBM Xerox training stuff. But these spiritual disciplines are just that.
Retirement Realities
Before we took a break, we surveyed about a hundred men and women with questions on pre-retirement and post-retirement. And it was like, what's the best part of this stage, what's your biggest concern? So we asked people getting to retire, what's your biggest concern? What do you think it was? Money. Everyone - money, money, having enough money, well I have enough money, got it.
Then it's like, what do you plan to do? Almost universally, they said, take a class. Didn't say where, didn't say when, didn't say in what. Travel. They're going to take Viking - buy Viking cruise line stock. They're going to travel a river. Viking is going to be doing salt river cruises within a year. They're on the Mississippi now and they're not even coming down to Davenport. They're only going to Dubuque - there's nothing up there but a tree. They're going to travel. They're going to volunteer. Never where, never when, never what. And they're going to spend time with their kids and the grandkids.
The Reality Check
Then we said, now that you've retired, what have you noticed? I'm not volunteering because I don't want to give up my freedom. They want me to come in every Tuesday morning at 8 and that's when I walk the dog. I've traveled. What do you know, there's another castle. I've tried to take a class but I can't figure out how to sign up and they're not offering anything that's interesting. And my kids and my grandkids, they don't want to spend time with me.
And you get into this retirement stuff and people start talking about physical limitations. Biggest surprise - physical limitations. I don't have the energy. This is the theme that shocked me. What has been the biggest spiritual challenge you've faced in retirement? Finding accountability. No one holds me accountable. Energy for personal devotion.
The Need for Accountability
So I have a trainer. My trainer now is Rhonda, which has to be the worst name in the world for a trainer. Every day she hears 50 times, "Help me Rhonda, help, help me Rhonda." It's terrible. So I walk in and I've had these trainers but Rhonda's a little different. Rhonda has a little military background. Rhonda's got a little Rhonda Rousey in her. So I'm not looking for that in a trainer.
So I'm talking to her the other day and I'm pushing and she said, "You know Tom, you can do more." I said, "I don't think so." And she said, "You can just push. You can do one more." And I said, "I don't think I can." Here's what I know. I don't want to do one more. And she said, "Okay, this is a waste of time."
All of these adult, mature adult trainers will tell you working with old people, the hardest thing is to push them. It's to take Nana and say, "Nana, you can do another one." Now they come spiritually and what these people are saying is, we got old, we became invisible and nobody pushes us. Nobody holds us accountable.
I can skip Bible study for months at a time and nobody cares. All they want to do is make sure they swing by the house to make sure I'm not dead. They feel marginalized.
The Reality of Aging in Our Culture
I've become a mall walker. I've started to walk the malls. It's too hot outside. And it's an interesting place to go. But I walked through the mall and I hear you, Claire's - you know Claire's, the store Claire's. This is an interesting thing. They have pierced a hundred million years. There's a sign right there that says it.
And I walked by it all these years. And I'm walking through the mall. And here's what I realized. There's not one thing in Fashion Square designed for me except the restroom. They don't care about me at all. I went in to buy a pair of jeans. And she said, "Well, here's some." I said, "They're not for my sister. These are for me." There's nothing.
I go to Nordstrom's. I get great attention. They follow me around because they're scared to death I'm going to pass out and die in ready-to-wear. And you're marginalized.
Feeling Marginalized in the Church
And now, here's what I start to hear when I get one-on-one as they talk about the church. They said, even the church has kind of let me go. Here's the phrase that I've coined. Here's how old people generally feel about church: They want me to show up, shut up, and cough up. We want you here, sit in the back where we don't have to look at you. I don't want to hear about the music. But we designed a little segment in here, four or five minutes, where we're going to kind of come around and see if we can gather a little loose change. And that's what you'll hear.
All of a sudden, what's pouring out of these surveys to me that just blew me away is, I'm having spiritual crisis. I'm Nana. I guess I should know this, but I'm Nana. Nana doesn't have a crisis. Nana prays more. Nana does more.
The Critical Importance of Spiritual Disciplines
I got this hanging out here, and there's a lot more there. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. But I can tell you this: it started with the message, it's never too late. And it ended with, it's never too early.
These spiritual disciplines, if they're not in place, when you are an old man or an old woman, and the world is blown by you, and I'm telling you, when you go from who's who to who's He, and it happens like that, and there's a moment when it happens - when that happens, if you don't have Jesus to fall back on, you're going to fall in crisis. You're just as vulnerable as that 17-year-old. And these spiritual disciplines are what are going to drive you, and push you, and support you through that.
There's a lot more there, and it's just hanging, but we got to go, and you've lost interest. I hit your wall about five minutes ago.
Father, take this, and use it in our life, and show us what you'd have us do, and how you'd have us live. And God, use us for your honor and your glory. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.