The Disciple’s Communion

Recently I heard a true story about an American doctor who lived in Afghanistan during the early 1980’s. This was shortly after the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan and there was a lot of fighting going on in the country.

This American doctor was a devoted follower of Jesus Christ, which was not easy to be in a Muslim country. His medical specialty was ophthalmology and he was helping the local people with their eye problems. But he was also witnessing to them, and many became Christians.

He began a Bible study in his home. They met at night, by candlelight, and they put heavy blankets over the windows to keep people from seeing in, because what they were doing was illegal. The Soviets, who had invaded the country, wanted no Christian groups meeting like this, and the Muslim fundamentalists who were fighting against the Soviets thought that anyone who converted to Christianity was worthy of death. So you can see that they were in a dangerous situation.

Well it happened that one night they were meeting for prayer and Bible study. And all of a sudden, the door of the house came crashing down and in walked five Soviet soldiers, with machine guns at the ready.

One of the soldiers said “Anyone who is NOT a Christian can leave. But anyone who IS a follower of Jesus Christ has to stay because you are going to be executed.”

With that, about half of the people quickly got up and left. But the rest of the group, including the American doctor, stayed right where they were, knowing that they only had minutes left to live.

As soon as the last person had left the room, the Soviet soldiers took the door that they had knocked down, and put it back up on its hinges. And then they put their machine guns down and said “Now we can worship with you, because we too are followers of Jesus Christ.”

Those soldiers knew that they could not afford to worship with anyone who was not a fully-committed follower of Jesus Christ. They knew that their lives were on the line, and they could only trust other Christians who were also ready to die for Christ.

What would you have done if you were in that room? Would you have got up and left? Or would you have stayed put and identified yourself as a Christian, knowing that it would probably cost you your life? The answer to that question depends on how you are doing in that area of the Christian life that we want to look at today—your communion with God.

Now the dictionary defines communion as “fellowship…sharing things in common… communicating deeply and intimately with another person.” So when we talk about communion with God, we’re talking about that close personal, ongoing relationship with Him.

We have been talking about our vision as a church to Win, Build, and Equip disciples. The vision of FBC is to become a training center that produces fully-equipped followers of Jesus Christ. And we can’t do that unless we know what a fully-equipped follower of Jesus Christ looks like.

We’ve been using a brochure that describes such a person. Last week, if you were here, you got a copy. If you have a copy of that brochure, please take it out. If you need a brochure, the ushers would be glad to give you one right now, if you’ll just raise your hand.

Listed in this brochure are six key qualities of a responsible disciple, or a fully-equipped follower of Jesus Christ. Last week, we looked at the first one - a disciple is a Christian.

A disciple is someone who has put his personal trust in Jesus Christ to be his savior, his leader, and his lord. He has undergone what the Bible calls conversion. He has gone from being spiritually dead to being spiritually alive. Because of his conversion, many changes have taken place in his life. He has gained a new identity as a child of God. And he has a new confession—he’s not afraid to publicly identify himself as a follower of Jesus—because he has a deep inner confidence that he belongs to Christ.

Those four things: conversion; change; confession; and confidence are the initial marks of a truly born-again Christian.

Now the second key indicator of a fully-equipped follower of Jesus Christ is his communion. He maintains an ongoing personal relationship with Christ that is expressed in three ways: listening; talking; and attitude.

1. He’s spending time in the Word of God—he’s letting God speak to him—he’s listening to God.

2. He’s praying—he’s talking to God—he’s sharing with God what’s on his heart.

3. He’s consistently worshiping God—both individually and with other believers—he has the right attitude toward God; an attitude of reverence and awe and devotion.

Now of all of the areas of the Christian life, this is where Satan will attack us the most. If he can break our fellowship, our communion with God, he can prevent us from ever becoming fully-equipped followers of Jesus Christ. Because all the other qualities—our character development; our caring for others; our contributing to the cause of Christ; and our obedience to the Great Commission—they all depend on our communion with Christ.

If there’s no ongoing dynamic personal relationship happening, all those other things will soon dry up. They’ll wither and die. Because we’ll just be doing them out of a sense of duty or obligation. There won’t be any love behind it.

So that’s why Satan attacks us most persistently and insistently in this area. He will try to keep you from drawing closer to God.

What does closeness to God look like? Let’s go to Psalm 119. Because of all the passages in the Bible, I think that Psalm 119 best illustrates a picture of an individual who is drawing closer to God.

Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm in the Bible—it has 176 verses. And we don’t know for sure who wrote it. But whoever it was was a very skilled writer. This Psalm is divided into 22 stanzas—one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And every verse in the each stanza begins with that letter of the alphabet. So, for example, in the first stanza, all the verses begin with the letter Aleph, because that is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And in the second stanza, all the verses begin with Beth, the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And so on.

And each stanza has eight verses. You know why? Because in the Hebrew language there are exactly eight terms used for the Word of God—terms that are translated into English by the words statutes, laws, decrees, commands, precepts, and so forth. And in every stanza you will find at least six of those terms, and usually all eight.

So in writing this psalm in this way, the author seems to be telling us that the Word of God is central to our lives, and our devotion to God is as basic to living as the alphabet is to writing.

And in this Psalm, he listens to God, he talks to God, and he worships God—the three ingredients of communion with God. Look at verse 1…

Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.

Are you seeking God with all of your heart this morning? When you open the Bible, do you do it out of a sense of obligation, or duty—do you do it simply out of curiosity, or a thirst for knowledge—do you do it merely to find something to help your day go better, or to find an answer to a problem you’re wrestling with?

Or do you open the Bible in order to seek God’s face? To know Him better?

I’ll be the first one to admit that I don’t always seek God’s face. I have often neglected my quiet time with God. Often relegated him to a small insignificant place in my life.

I know that I have much growing to do in this area. But that’s why I’m so encouraged by what I find in verse 5…

Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees! Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands.

You see, the Psalmist is admitting that he hasn’t arrived yet. He’s being brutally honest with God. He’s being authentic. He yearns to be more steadfast, more diligent, less ashamed of his own inconsistency in his walk with God. And I feel all those things too.

If we are ever going to grow in our walk with God, we need to be honest with God about ourselves. We need to acknowledge to Him our inner weakness, our struggles, our failures.

I have found in my relationship with Carolyn and with my sons that when I am honest with them about myself—about my weaknesses, about my mistakes, about the times I have blown it and messed up—that that honesty strengthens our relationship. It does not drive us apart, it draws us closer together.

But so many of us—especially us men—feel uncomfortable in sharing our weaknesses, even with God. When’s the last time you honestly talked to God about your weakness? When’s the last time you told him about your temper? Or your envy? Or a problem that you’re having with lust?

Communion with God has to be based on honesty, transparency. David wrote in Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.”

Look at verse 10…

I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.

Here’s a man who is being honest. He wants to know God with all of his heart, but he also knows that within himself there is a tendency to stray away from God. As the hymnwriter put it: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.”

And when we wander away, we end up where the Psalmist ended up in verse 25…

I am laid low in the dust; preserve my life according to your word.

So what does he do about it? Look at verse 26…

I recounted my ways and you answered me; teach me your decrees.

He confessed his sin to the Lord. He recounted his ways. Openness. Transparency. Honesty.

When we try to cover up our sinfulness before God, we are just like Adam and Eve in the Garden. We want to run and hide from God’s presence. And if we keep doing this, we end up in verse 28 - living a lie. Constantly trying to cover our tracks and keep the secret hidden. Deceiving ourselves that life can go on as usual.

My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word. Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me through your law.

Gordon MacDonald, in his book Rebuilding Your Broken World, tells the story of three young boys in Massachusetts who pushed a friend into a pond where he drowned. The three boys made a pact to keep their role in the tragedy a secret. They told the police that it had been an accident. They had had nothing to do with it.

A few years later, the truth came out. And it was found that during the time that they were covering up, each of the boys suffered from increasingly severe emotional problems. Their previously close friendship dissolved. Their school performance faltered. One was plagued with terrible nightmares. Another eventually had to be admitted to a psychiatric institution. All because they had covered up their sin.

The truth is that there is peace and freedom in following God’s ways. Look at verse 32:

I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.

One of the things that happens when we draw close to God is that He begins to re-orient our value system. Look at verse 36

Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.

We are all prone to put the wrong value on things. I find within myself an incredibly strong tendency to chase after precisely those things which are temporary, perishable, and ultimately unsatisfying. I’m talking about things like pleasure; money and the things that money can buy; success as measured by the recognition and acclaim of men. I find myself strongly attracted to these things. It’s like I have a compass in my life which is defective. It is skewed; it steers me off in the wrong direction when I consult it. It makes me want to chase after things that are ultimately worthless.

And it is only by drawing close to God that I can have my inner compass re-calibrated. That I can have my values and my whole orientation to life changed. That cannot happen anywhere else but in communion with God—listening to Him, talking to Him, worshiping Him.

Look at the central portion of your brochure. It’s time to do a little self-evaluation. You see that section which is labeled “The Communion of a Disciple”? There are four items that you can rate yourself on. Use a scale of 1–10; 1 being weakest; 10 being strongest. This is not a test; no one will see your scores.

1. I regularly spend time in God’s Word. (Psalm 119:48 - I lift up my hands to your commands, which I love, and I meditate on your decrees.)

2. God’s Word is the central factor in shaping my attitudes, behavior, and choices. (COL 3:17 = And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.)

3. I regularly spend time talking to God in prayer. (PSA 119:147 I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word.)

4. I am at church, prepared to meet God in worship on Sunday. A lot of us are at church but we are not prepared to meet God in worship. We come with our minds cluttered up with other things. We come with no sense of anticipation, no excitement to be in God’s presence.

Rate yourself honestly before God in these areas.

I want us to bow in prayer right now. And if you see that you are weak and need help in any of these areas, now’s the time for you to tell God about it. Be honest with him. The Psalmist who wrote Psalm 119 was certainly honest about his weaknesses. Why don’t you be too? It’ll be the first step to a deeper level of communion with God.

Tell God you want to get to know Him better. He delights in hearing that prayer. And he promises to draw near to anyone who seeks Him in that way.

Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and lofty One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

A fully-equipped follower of Jesus Christ is someone who communes regularly with God.