Sermon Synopsis 10/19 - The problem of emotionally unhealthy spirituality
Today we are beginning a new series. During the next eight weeks, we’re doing a series called “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.” It’s the basis for the book of the same name, which I trust many of you will be reading. The thesis of the book is “Emotional Health and Contemplative Spirituality Must be Brought Together to have Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.” Or you can put it this way: you can’t separate emotional health and spiritual maturity. And the key thing is that when the two are brought together it offers nothing short of a spiritual revolution in our lives. It transforms the places deep beneath the surface of our lives.I believe our lives can be equated to an iceberg. With an iceberg we only see about 10% of it. The rest of the iceberg - the other 90% is below the surface – it can’t be seen. That is what it is like for us as well. What others see of us is really only about 10% of who we really are. But it’s the things deep beneath the surface - those things that we can’t see - that come out when we are under great stress. That’s the ninety percent that Jesus is out to transform.
So there’s a connection of our exterior life that corresponds to a deep change in the interior life. Intellectually, we can understand this quite easily. But it’s another thing entirely to actually begin to implement it into our lives, where it actually changes the way that we live, the way that we see God, the way that we follow Jesus Christ, and the way that we make decisions on an everyday basis. And so what we’re after as a church over these next eight weeks is to integrate these principles more deeply into our lives. And that is going to require meditating on these principles and pondering them.
It’s not just throwing something into our Christian lives like a little icing on the cake. We’re talking about a real revolution in the way that we look at God and the way that we follow Christ. And it’s so different from the way the world functions. It’s even very different from the way the church-at-large functions. I’m well aware of what we are bucking up against because we are going to be talking about changing habits - unhealthy habits that go back our whole lives. And I believe it’s where God is calling us as a church.
So as we begin this series we are going to begin by talking about the problem of emotionally unhealthy spirituality. For most of my life I had an emotionally unhealthy spirituality. It took a crisis in my life (my medical leave a year and a half ago) to wake me up to this reality. I thought everything was great in my life up to that point but the problem was that I was like that iceberg. On the outside everything may have appeared to be good but under the surface it was a mess. I was a very unhealthy person.
I allowed fear to dominate my life: fear of rejection, fear of failure, far of hurting others. I had many faulty beliefs systems like: I had to have it all together as a pastor all the time (can’t show any weaknesses), that ALL conflict is bad, I don’t know HOW to share my feelings. In all reality, I had learned a lot about cultivating my “spiritual life” but very LITTLE about cultivating my “emotional life.”
Through my time off I was given the opportunity to begin to look below the surface and believe me it was not fun – it was actually painful – very painful. But in hindsight I am so glad that I began the journey toward an emotionally healthy spirituality. And that is what it continues to be – a journey. A journey that will continue for the rest of my life.
This morning, as we examine this issue of emotionally unhealthy spirituality, I want us to examine the life of King Saul from the Old Testament. Saul is probably one of the greatest examples in Scripture of someone who lacked emotional health and a contemplative life, and it brought destruction to his life. And he was a person with great promise. He had the potential of an incredible future. He had an anointing on his life to be someone and to do something for God. He started out very well, with very humble beginnings, but, then things didn’t go so well.
We’re going to pick up his story in 1 Samuel chapter 15. In 1 Samuel 15, Saul is given a command by God to muster the armies of Israel, hundreds of thousands of troops, and to go up against the Amalekite’s, and to wipe them out, bringing God’s judgment upon them. The prophet Samuel brings Saul this message from God to go and be obedient and to do this. And so Saul musters the armies of Israel and out he goes on the mission but he doesn’t do it all – he only partially obeys. He does most of it but not all of it.
In verse 9, it tells us that instead of wiping out all the sheep and cattle, and the king and all of the Amalekites, “…Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs -- everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.” Because, pragmatically speaking, it didn’t make sense to lose all those financial resources. Politically, as well, it wasn’t a wise thing to do this to the Amalekites - you just make more enemies, right? And so Saul made a pragmatic decision and just didn’t go all the way with God and he had no guilt about it.
And then the prophet Samuel shows up. Saul’s response to Samuel in verse 13 is, “The Lord bless you. I’ve carried out the LORD’s instructions.” I mean as far as Saul is concerned everything is hunky-dory: “I’ve done God’s will!” And he just can’t see it. And the amazing thing about Saul is that on the surface of his life, on the one-tenth of the iceberg above the surface - that part that is visible to those around him - everything looked great. I mean he just looks like a great churchgoing follower of God. You know, a great Christian. But underneath the surface, things are not so good. And that’s why Saul makes such a great classic example of emotionally unhealthy spirituality, because he does not integrate the two, emotional health and contemplative spirituality into his life. His life is out of order underneath the surface where nobody can see it. Again, the argument here is that you cannot separate emotional health and spiritual maturity – they’ve got to go together. Saul never lets God get beneath the surface of the iceberg. In his whole life, Saul never lets Him in completely.
And so what I want us to do this morning is to look at three basic characteristics of the emotionally unhealthy spirituality as they are seen in the life of Saul. The first thing Saul does as an emotionally unhealthy person here is he says, “No” to reflection and self-awareness. He’s just not going down that road to be reflective and self-aware. He’s praying. He’s listening. He actually prophesied at a certain point. He’s doing some of God’s will. It’s like he’s going to church. He’s doing worship. He’s doing the whole thing. But underneath, he’s very concerned about the approval of people.
In fact, that’s a real theme in this text. We see this even when he repents. Listen to what he says in verse 30: “Saul replied, “I have sinned. But please honour me before the elders of my people and before Israel; and come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD your God.” Saul wants Samuel to go back with him so he doesn’t look so bad. This need or desire for approval is just so deep in him and he can’t see that. He’s unaware of his own fears. He’s just not in touch. He can even say, “I was afraid”, but his conduct shows that he doesn’t even get it how his fear is dominating his life. Notice in verse 24 he actually admits it. He says: “I have sinned. I violated the LORD’s command. I was afraid of the people …” They wanted it so badly and I was afraid. “… and so I gave into them.” So Saul thought to himself, all right, keep the best sheep and animals and use it as a sacrifice to God. It seemed like a good motive. But he’s unaware and he’s not reflective about the fact that he is operating out of fear.
He also has a HUGE issue with jealousy in his life. He doesn’t want other people to be more popular than him or to look better than him. And his big struggle is with David. As David emerges as a young man and people start liking David, he gets upset. You’ll see this big theme of jealously beginning to grow towards David in 1 Samuel chapters 18-20, when he tries to murder David six times. Saul is totally unaware of all the stuff going on inside of him, and he’s acting it out. His jealousy and envy get to a point where he can’t even think or see straight. In the middle of all this he really believes he’s doing God’s will. That’s the killer! And if you’re in a small group with him, Saul’s probably leading the small group, and he thinks he’s doing wonderfully. But he’s shallow. His spirituality is very shallow. And he’s really not paying attention to God. He goes to church, but he truly wants the approval of people and he’s making decisions out of fear, and he’s got a lot of jealousy and envy inside of him.
Can anyone relate to this? A few of us maybe? You may have found yourself getting jealous of somebody at work or at even at church? You see them prospering and doing great and it starts to eat away at you. But rather than to bring it to God, you just push it away. You end up acting all sweet and nice. When you see that person you act very sweet, like nothings wrong, like everything is great when deep down you are jealous of them.
Or you know it’s like to be in conflict with people and know that you need to say some hard things, but it is out of fear that you don’t engage them because you don’t want to risk the fact that they might not like you. And so you shrink back and you don’t tell the whole truth, and you tell what we call the “half lie.” And sometimes, we do hear God’s will; we kind of know it intuitively, but it’s too emotionally painful to go down that road. It requires too much of this reflection and self-awareness so we don’t want anything to do with it.
So what happens, is we live one appearance above the surface, and another reality underneath the surface and the two don’t correspond. And it happens very slowly and over a long period of time. The reality is that we can’t be in touch with God if we are not in touch with ourselves. And the key to staying in touch with God and staying in touch with ourselves is silence and solitude. And it’s not just paying attention to what’s going on in life around us but it’s actually looking at the motives inside. We need to ask ourselves, “Why am I doing what I’m doing? What are the feelings that I’ve got about what’s going on? And what are my thoughts on the inside?” And it’s about wrestling with these things. You see, we can’t be in touch with God if we’re not in touch with ourselves.
And it takes a tremendous amount of silence and solitude to be reflective and aware.You will never see Saul spending time in silence and solitude. He just doesn’t do it. David on the other hand, his life is full of it. But not Saul! You see him doing a lot, but you’ll never see Saul writing poems and music and psalms for worship or pouring out his conflicted inner self. Saul said “NO” to reflection and self-awareness.
Then, the second thing he does is he says, “No” to cultivating his personal relationship with God. He doesn’t spend the energy and take the time to cultivate his personal relationship with God. And God had touched his life early on. He’s very humble and he receives a blessing. The Holy Spirit comes on him and he’s made a king. So he gets this grace and mercy, but he doesn’t do anything with it. He doesn’t actively or consciously cultivate, develop, or nurture his relationship with God. He just kind of slides along on autopilot. And you know what’s heavy is that there is no indication in his life, at least in Scripture, of him cultivating that personal relationship. Not one. He does not seem to have a hidden life in God. He has a public life in God, a visible exterior life in God. But in a hidden life, when nobody’s looking, there’s no indication.
Instead, Saul wants to be known by people. He’s very concerned about what others are thinking about him and how others are viewing him. And he really wants the benefits of God. For Saul it was very important to get the blessing of God but he only listens as it benefited him. And when listening became problematic, he generally just ignored it. It’s a kind of selective listening. You know, you hear half of it and you forget the rest.
Look at verse 22 when God speaks to Saul. I mean these are poignant, sharp words, not just in Saul’s life, or in the Old Testament, but for us today. God says in verse 22, “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices more than in obeying the voice of the LORD?” God is saying: “Saul, don’t you get it? Do you think I delight in having you do all this religious activity?” The word “obey” and “listen” are the same word in Hebrew. But Saul is not listening – he is on autopilot. God is saying: “Saul, your life is not one of cultivating and listening to me, in a relationship, and following me” “for to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”
Look at verse 23, God says “For rebellion is like the sin of divination…” God says: “Saul, you’re in rebellion.” Saul thinks he’s obeying everything. And then God compares Saul’s actions to the sin of witchcraft. God is saying: “It’s like you’re going to a witch or a psychic for direction instead of Me.” And God continues on in verse 23 and says, “and your arrogance is like the evil of idolatry.” And here’s the killer: Saul thinks he’s humble. And so he gets this really, harsh word, and it doesn’t even faze him! I mean he repents, but it’s a half repentance, it’s short-lived and he just goes back to how he lives before. And, he’s not asking the question. “How does this apply to me? What’s God saying to me?” He wasn’t willing to have a contemplative spirituality.
Before we go any further we need to pause and answer this question because it is important: What does having a contemplative spirituality mean? Contemplative spirituality is simply about clearing space out in our life, so we can go deep and we can go wide in our relationship with God It’s about developing the interior space of our being. It’s about actually getting beyond our head and into our experience, into our heart, and having it become our life. That’s why sermons are not enough. They’re helpful to get us moving, but it’s really the living out of our relationship with God that’s really going to make or break it. I mean, how else can I know that God is not “Scrooge?” I can know intellectually that God is Abba Father and that God is love and He’s my Abba but the truth is I can live like He’s a tight fisted “Scrooge” or He’s like a disinterested parent, or He’s like General Patton.
Take the Pharisee's as an example. The Pharisee's just couldn’t get it. They memorized the verses about the love of God. They memorized the first five books of the Old Testament, but they didn’t know a thing about the love of God because they didn’t cultivate their personal relationship with God. They didn’t ask: What’s God’s saying and doing to me? They didn’t take the time and energy to actually cultivate it.
Over the next eight weeks we are going to be introduced to something called the “Daily Office.” Many of you bought this book. I want to show a brief video that describes what the “Daily Office” is.
Thirdly, Saul just doesn’t say ‘no’ to reflection and awareness. He doesn’t just say ‘no’ to developing his personal relationship with God. He says ‘no’ to being broken through setbacks and difficulties. He refuses to be broken by it. Setbacks, trials, difficulties, and testings from God come to every one of us. There are no exceptions to this through history. There has not been one person who has ever walked this world without a setback, a trial, a difficulty or a testing. Not even Jesus – especially not Jesus!
But Saul just refuses to be broken by God’s testing. He just gets up and fights again. He’ll come to the altar and cry, but he’s not broken by anything. But his trial’s come. He has to wait on God. In chapter 13 it says the army of the Philistines are about to wipe them out and they’re hanging by a thread. And God says He’s going to show up on the seventh day. And it’s the seventh day and God’s not showing up. He’s in this testing of having to wait. You know what it’s like. We all know what it’s like to wait.
Testing and waiting breaks our self-sufficiency because our tendency is to want to grab the bull by the horns and take the situation into our own hands. And that is what Saul does. And Saul just says, “I can’t take it. I can’t wait anymore” And he takes things into his own hands. In chapter 15, he feels the pressure of his soldiers to do something: “Let’s keep the wealth, and give it back to God, of course.” It’s a task for him to resist it and he just doesn’t do it. But, you see it’s only through our hurts and our setbacks and our sufferings and testings that we will learn humility. There is no other way to learn brokenness and humility except through trials and testings.
Saul does not embrace poverty of spirit. He does not want to be that absolutely dependent, hanging on God. But we cannot have God without poverty of spirit. We can have ourselves, we can have religion, but we cannot have God without poverty of spirit. We have to experience that dependence on God. And Saul, when testings come in his life, he just throws them out. God’s trying to humble Saul and break him to make him something great. And Saul was just trying to be something great on his own terms NOT on God’s terms.
Now, before we start to think too highly of ourselves we need to remember that there is a Saul in everyone one of us. You see, God really wants to take the Saul out of us. More true to the point: God wants to rip it out of us. Our self-will and stubbornness has to be ripped out. God wants us to have an emotionally healthy spirituality. In order to do this God wants to teach us to say “YES” instead of “NO”. God wants us to teach us to say ‘yes’ to reflection and self-awareness. He wants to teach us to say: “Even though I wasn’t raised that way, even though my church tradition is not like that, and no one around me is necessarily doing this, I’m still choosing ‘yes’ to be self-aware and reflective before God.”
God wants to teach us to say ‘yes’ to cultivating our personal relationship with Him even though nobody around us may be encouraging us to do that. And we cultivate our relationship with God though spending time with Him. Saying “yes” means taking responsibility for cultivating our own personal relationship with God – no one else can do this for us.
And finally God wants to teach us to say ‘yes’ to being broken through setbacks and difficulties. There is nothing like testings and trials to destroy our illusions; our illusions about ourselves, our illusions about others, our illusions about life. They get us into reality. There is something we learn and that we can learn no other way. I don’t understand it, but adversity strips illusions and it brings about an authentic life.
Saul said ‘no,’ and it led him down a bad road. We need to learn to say “YES.” So, I challenge you today to prayerfully consider which of the “YES’s” the Holy Spirit is challenging you apply to your life. In what area is God asking you to say “YES”?
And so, for the next seven weeks, we’re going to talk about emotional health and contemplative spirituality in a very positive sense. Because we need both. We need to embrace both so that we might love God well, we might love other people well, and we might love ourselves well. And this is a journey. To have Saul ripped out of us is a lifetime process.It’s not a moment, it’s a journey. And that’s why I’m going to challenge you to do something with this material during the week. Get in a small group because they will go deeper than the sermons will. Read the book. Try the “Daily Offices”.
\My dream is that we want to get this deeply into our lives. And so I’m inviting you to join with me on beginning the journey toward an emotionally healthy spirituality
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