Key #1 to Spiritual Growth

Happy Sunday. We have talked about backsliding for several weeks now. Today, and for the next many times together, I want to talk about spiritual growth, moving forward, growing in Christ, personal Revival, if you will.

Do you know any one who is accident prone? I remember a young man from my youth who was fearless and often would place his brain in neutral, if he had one. A bad combination. One day he was driving, he was about 16 years old, and he saw a snake crossing the road. He stopped his car, got out, caught the snake, put it in a bag, and threw it in the back seat.

As he was driving away, the snake made its way out of the bag, crawled under the seat, and bit the young man on the back of his ankle and his leg. It was, by the way, a poisonous snake. So he drove himself to the emergency room. At that age he was an accident waiting to happen.

Spiritual growth is no accident. If you want to progress spiritually, you must put forth some effort. If you want to get in shape physically, you have to work at it. The same is true with spiritual growth. Now please note, I'm not talking about being saved by works; I'm talking about growing by discipline.

A logical place to begin talking about Revival is found in the book of 2 Chronicles, chapter 7. As background here, Solomon has finally built the temple to honor God. The temple was magnificent: 880,000 Stone Cutters, 70,000 and Carpenters worked, 4,000 supervisors. They worked with Cyprus and stone and bronze and gold and just the best of materials to build this incredible tribute to God.

In 2 Chronicles, Solomon dedicates the temple. There's a festival, the people celebrate, and God shows his awesome Power by sending fire from heaven to consume a burnt offering. God's people are very devoted to him on this great day, but God gives warning. God knows how fickle the human heart can be.

So in verse 13 of chapter 7 of 2 Chronicles, God tells Solomon, "When I shut up the Heavens so that there is no rain, or command the Locust to Devour the land, or send pestilence among my people." In other words, the verse says, when Trouble Comes, then you need to do the following. And the following is found in verse 14: "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their Wicked Ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive them their sin and heal their land."

Verse 14 is used often when people talk of Revival. It can even be looked at as a formula, if you wish. Today I want to talk about the first instruction given: "If my people people who are called by my name humble themselves." The first instruction given for Revival is to humble yourself.

And this may be a bit surprising: humble yourself comes even before prayer. Why is that? The truth is that without humbling ourselves, we can often pray wrongly. We have to seek God as humble people.

I remember years ago, at a Revival service in a church, a lady came up to me after the service and said, "It's so good to see these people praying." I was so sad, because she was not looking at herself; she was looking at others. And true Revival comes when we look at ourselves. She had no humility whatsoever.

If I think I have no room for improvement, and that others are the problem, I am in deep trouble. Humility is key. The opposite of humility is pride, and we we know how dangerous Pride can be.

The Story Goes that one day the great fighter Muhammad Ali was on an airplane, and they were getting ready to take off. He had not yet fastened his seat belt, so the stewardess told him he needed to buckle up. Proud fighter Ali responded, "Superman don't need no seat belt." She thought for a minute, and the stewardess replied, "Superman doesn't need an airplane. Buckle up or get out and fly yourself."

If we think we are special, we may just think that we have no need of God. I love this quote: the smaller we become, the more room God has. Let me say it again: the smaller we become, the more room God has. This is also true: the bigger we think we are, the less room we have for God.

Listen to this teaching from 1 Peter, chapter five: "All of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time."

St Augustine once said, "It was Pride that changed Angels into devils, and it is humility that makes men as angels." To grow in Christ, you must first see that you still have a way to go.

One of my spiritual Heroes was a Godly, humble man at the very first church I pastored. I suppose he was in his 80s when his wife called me one December. She wanted me to help her buy her husband a present for Christmas. He wanted a study Bible. He was 80 years old. I will always remember his example.

Want to avoid backsliding? Be humble, then move forward. Pray with me.

Father God, thank you for putting up with us at times when we've gone in the wrong direction. And we realize today it's not going to be an accident for us to move forward, but it's going to be a plan, a program, a desire. Give us that desire to grow closer to you, and in the weeks ahead, the days ahead, the years ahead, we pray we do just that. In the name of Jesus I pray, amen.

God bless. Thanks so much for being with me today.