Dr. Ron Sumners
November 7, 2010
There was a program that was very popular and effective a few years ago in churches called, “Lay Renewal Weekend.” I was able to participate in one such weekend while serving as a Baptist Campus Minister at Auburn University.
I talked with the pastor and his response to my questions about the need for renewal in his church were revealing. He said, “Our church is filled with good people who have lost their enthusiasm for their faith. Everything including worship had become business as usual. There is blandness about our church. We go through the motions, but there is no real movement of the Spirit. Our theology is orthodox. We believe the right stuff. The organization of the church is sound and we do a good job at meeting the budget. What is lacking is joy. I am a part of the cause. I cannot seem to engender any excitement, and exuberance. The church grows only slightly while there are hundreds of prospects in our area. We need to be renewed!”
This is not an isolated story. What happened in that church has happened and is happening to churches all across our nation? I think that may be the case here at Meadow Brook Baptist Church. Do we need renewal? Maybe a more pertinent question is this: “Do you need renewal in your faith?”
As I look out across the faces here, I know that there are many people who need a fresh touch from the Holy Spirit. There are many of you who are simply going through the motions; you are here because it is your habit to be here. You did not come today expecting to hear anything new, or to have an encounter with God. So many of us need a renewal in our lives! We need to confess our need for a fresh touch from the Father and repent of our apathy and blandness. That may be truer for me than anyone else in the room.
It is a constant source of frustration for me through the years that I cannot seem to get people to recognize and respond to that need for renewal of their faith!
We have all had times of renewal in our spiritual lives. They came at times when our relationship with the Lord had grown stale and perfunctory and lacked enthusiasm. Then someone or something brought us to the end of our resources and we were forced to seek help from beyond ourselves and we turned to the Lord. Do you remember that time? That help from God is still available today. If God can bring life from death; He can surely bring joy from apathy!
One of the greatest gifts the Lord can give us is to make us realize our emptiness. Only then will we admit our need for and seek renewal.
Often the Lord uses the teaching and preaching of someone like me to make us aware of our need. Maybe a Bible study group will be the catalyst for self-examination. It could be a conversation with someone else who has lost hope and focus and it causes us to examine our own life. Whatever the method the Lord uses to get through to us; He is constantly seeking to move our attention away from ourselves and toward Him. The closer we get to Him; we feel the delight of our first experience of becoming a Christian. The time of renewal puts the Lord back on center stage in our life. His Spirit creates a new hunger for the reading of the Bible, a new openness to His voice, and a new readiness to discover and do His will. Have you made that move back to Him?
There was a time when that happened to you, at least some of you. May I ask, “Where are you now?” Many of us have drifted back to dullness and apathy. The demands of living, edge out the renewed commitment and things return to their lackluster sameness. I can only answer that question for myself. Are you willing to ask that question of yourself and answer honestly? Where are you now?
How can we discover a secret of ever-renewing spiritual life? How can we get off the cycle of ups and downs of excitement about the Lord and dull toleration of Him? What would it take to keep our faith fresh and vigorous all the time?
Psalm 103 contains the key to daily renewal. This Psalm of triumphant praise has a residual power in that it can rejuvenate our spiritual life. What the Psalmist discovered at the time of blessing in his life can be the source of constant refreshment for us. He had been through a perilous experience of weakness and physical disability, which had brought him to the brink of death. The Lord intervened and gave him a new beginning. In response, he blessed the Lord for His forgiveness, the healing of disease, the gift of new beginning, and all the benefits of His loving-kindness. The psalmist claimed the results of those blessings from the Lord. His youth was renewed like the eagles.
Verses 1 and 5 of the Psalm belong together. They are two parts of the renewing experience. The antidote to bland spirituality is: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name!” When that happens, your strength is renewed like the eagle. How does this work?
We are to bless the Lord with all that is within us. As a sensitive Jew, the psalmist had often repeated Moses’ words from Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and with all your might.” He was calling on all his heart, soul and might to bless the Lord!
The soul is the spirit within us capable of receiving the Lord’s Spirit. It is the way of entry of the Holy Spirit, the threshold of His invasion into our inner self. Jesus affirmed this when He said, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
The Spirit in us is meant to be the contact point with the Lord’s Spirit; but that is just the beginning. The secret of renewal is the penetration by the Lord’s Spirit into our intellect, reason, memory, imagination, will, and then on to into our emotions. The psalmist wanted everything to bless the Lord. Nothing could be excluded or hidden!
I have taste in music that is varied. I like Bluegrass music. Ricky Skaggs is one of my favorite artists. I also like the story songs of the late Harry Chapin and Southern Gospel Quartets. I also like classical music. I listen for the individual instruments and then the way they blend together.
As I read the 103rd Psalm, I feel that the author is calling for an inner harmony of body, mind and spirit blessing the Lord in a glorious symphony of praise. Creating that kind of unity within ourselves and recognizing our gratitude to God is a prerequisite of renewal.
Growth in spiritual vitality is the result of all our faculties being in tune with the great Conductor of all of life. We bring all that we are into full participation of the music of praise. Yet, so often, our natures are like a disorderly orchestra playing different music. There is a cacophony of spiritual noise rather than the sweet music of praise coming from our lives.
We’ve all known intellectual Christians whose experience of the gospel converted their reason and intellect but left their emotions untouched; or we’ve known emotional people who soar in praise but leave their intellect out of a growing experience with God. We’ve known Christians who put a great emphasis on service as an expression of obedience.
Often this action-oriented discipleship grows weak when the resources of spiritual power are left untapped. Activists become exhausted in doing good. The great need for all of us is to have our intellect, emotions, and will completely utilized to bless the Lord in thought and action.
Renewal comes when any aspect that has been left out of the orchestra of our faculties to praise the Lord is called into harmony with the rest.
People experience renewal differently, but it usually begins when the areas of their life that have been uncommitted to the Lord are brought to Him in full surrender. The probing love of the Lord exposes attitudes, values, practices, and inner tensions that have been kept from Him. Good people are challenged to become great people; nice people are challenged to become new!
The psalmist had been through a harrowing experience that had given him time to realize how little of his nature was open to the Lord. The Lord invaded his life with sheer grace, so that the psalmist realized that God alone was the source of everything he held as essential and valuable.
The possibility of losing his health confronted him with the deep need he had for the Lord. His sense of thanksgiving for the healing he received demanded everything in him to come into harmony with his soul to bless the Lord.
What is it in your life that you are withholding from the Lord? Are there memories that need forgiveness and healing? Are there people you need to forgive? Are there relationships that need to be surrendered to God? Are there uncommitted areas of your life that need to be turned over to the Lord? What have you picketed off and refused to surrender to the Lord?
When we ask those questions, suddenly we realize the place where renewal needs to take place. When we allow the Lord to invade our lives completely, we are on our way to a new level of growth. There will always be something in us that needs to be confessed or surrendered to the Lord. Continuous renewal happens when more and more of our inner self begins to bless the Lord.
Verse 5 talks about having our strength renewed as the eagles. A careful study of the eagle reveals that while in flight, the eagle seldom flaps its wings. It has the capacity to soar at great heights. The secret of the eagle’s power is not in its wings but in the jet stream that lifts it up and carries it. It could not attain the height on its own.
When we bless the Lord with all that is within us, we experience the eagle’s strength multiplied by the wind. The symbolism is powerful. Surrender to the infilling and empowering of the Holy Spirit gives us the eagle’s capacity to soar in the stream of God’s limitless power! Our strength is renewed in that it is infused by divine energy. We become capable of thinking beyond our natural ability. Our emotions become released to express love beyond our capacity. We are enlivened with supernatural energy!
This is the reason some Christians, even in old age, remain vital and exuberant. They have learned the secret of living in the jet stream of the Lord’s power. Nothing is hidden. There is no cautious reserve or negative resistance to what the Lord seeks to do in and through them. They have discovered the truth of Isaiah 40:31:
Those who wait upon the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not be faint.
The source of renewal is that the Lord “satisfies your mouth with good things.” The Lord told Ezekiel to eat the scroll. Symbolically, that meant that he was to consume the Word of God. So too, we must consume the Word of God. The result is that our youth and excitement is renewed. That does not mean that we can defy the natural aging process. It does mean that we can remain young at heart and in enthusiasm!
Many Christians become old before their time because they lack the spiritual nutrients of prayer, study of the scriptures, honest, open fellowship with others, and an active ministry to share the Lord’s love with those who need Him.
I believe that you and I and Meadow Brook Baptist Church are on the edge of a new level of growth in the Lord right now. If that is to happen, it will take all of us blessing the Lord with all that we are.
Today, as I remember His forgiveness healing and intervention in the past when I needed Him, I am filled with a new excitement about life in Christ. What about you? Are you ready to be renewed?
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