Living Unclogged
TCF Sermon
August 22, 2004
Rather than open with a reading from scripture - we’ll read many throughout this message - let me start by reading a few definitions from the Random House dictionary.
con•duit, n. 1. a pipe, tube, or the like, for conveying water or other fluid.
ar•ter•y n., pl. -ter•ies.
1.Anat. a blood vessel that conveys blood from the heart to any part of the body.
2.a main channel or highway, esp. of a connected system with many branches.
pipe1, n., v., piped, pip•ing. –n.
1.a hollow cylinder of metal, wood, or other material, used for the conveyance of water, gas, steam, petroleum, etc.
So, here we have three pathways described....A conduit, an artery or a pipe...All these things are paths or channels, things through which some substance flows, from one place to another... right?
Water, fluid of some sort, blood, gas, steam, petroleum...whatever...
One thing that the dictionary doesn’t mention is electrical power. Electricity – delivered through some sort of electrical wire or what we sometimes call an electric conduit.
What do these things have in common? What we’re looking at this morning is that they can get clogged, or somehow restricted in the flow of whatever substance they convey from one place to another.
illustration: show four pipes:
1. water flows clean and clear
2. water flows, but with some dirt and sediment included – a dirty pipe
3. one clogged, little or nothing flows
4. one’s dry – there’s no source attached
So any kind of conduit, a pipe like these, arteries that carry blood in our body,and electrical conduit, can get clogged, choked or shut down in some way, so that they do not convey, so that they no longer are able to allow whatever substance we can name, to flow freely, or flow at all.
clog (klog, klôg), v., clogged, clog•ging, n. –v.t.
1.to hinder or obstruct with thick or sticky matter; choke up: to clog a drain.
2.to crowd excessively, esp. so that movement is impeded; Cars clogged the highway.
as a noun a clog can be:
3.anything that impedes motion or action; an encumbrance; a hindrance.
Let’s remember these definitions as we move along this morning. And let’s think back to Jim’s message last Sunday. Speaking of clogs – no just kidding...
Actually, Jim was kind of a roto-rooter last week. Jim encouraged us to be willing, to be available, even to eagerly desire, as he preached from 1 Cor 14, to be useful, as God’s instruments, to one another....to be the conduit, if you will, the pipe, the artery, the channel,through which God’s Holy Spirit flows...to strengthen, encourage, exhort and console one another, using God’s various gifts of the Holy Spirit, and especially the gift of prophecy.
Now, Jim really messed me up last Sunday, because I was planning another message for today. Thanks a lot, Jim. I’d already begun to pray about and study Isaiah 40, with a message in mind to deliver this morning.
But when I returned to that passage to continue studying last Sunday afternoon, I struggled with a sense that I needed to connect in some way to what God brought through our brother Jim last week.
Now, from one Sunday to the next, with different elders preaching, there’s not always a connection. But I’ve been amazed at how often God has a thread that runs through the different messages we hear each Sunday at TCF, all this with no formal planning between us...that is, we don’t say to each other, well, so and so is preaching on this, so you should preach on this the next week to bring continuity.
Through the leading of the Holy Spirit, I believe that God gives us what we need each week, and more often than not, there is a thread of connection. When there’s not a clear connection, I believe God is clearly directing in that, too, so we don’t feel under any obligation to make that connection happen.
But last week, I couldn’t escape the Spirit’s leading that there was a followup needed to what Jim preached. Not a sequel, not a continuation, but a message that followed on the heels of what God said last week.
If we accept that God was speaking through Jim last week, and we do, the question that came to my mind was, “how do we keep from impeding, from clogging, the work of the Holy Spirit among us, as individuals? What’s our responsibility here?
How can we, so to speak, live spiritually unclogged lives?
That question inspired the title of this morning’s message: Living Unclogged
How can we keep the flow strong, clean and clear, in each of us as individuals, so that the Holy Spirit flows through us, in such a way that we do for each other exactly what Jim spoke of last week? So that we profit one another, and honor God in that?
So these are the questions we’re going to look to the Scriptures to answer for us this morning. First and foremost, we have to start by priming the pump.
Now, this is an expression that most of us don’t understand from firsthand experience. We’re used to going to a faucet, turning a knob or lifting a handle, and getting water to flow. Sometimes, perhaps, we take the working of the Holy Spirit for granted in a similar way. We might expect it to flow without our cooperation of priming the pump. But there was a day when many people drew water from a well. And many of those wells had a hand pump attached. But the water didn’t automatically start flowing until you first got some water, and primed the pump. You needed to start with some water to get more water to flow through the pump.
To prime, in this context, means: to prepare or make ready for a particular purpose or operation.
Literally, to prime a pump means: to pour or admit liquid into (a pump), to expel air from the pump, and prepare it for action.
To prime a pump, is to charge a pump with water, in order to put it in working condition.
In the spiritual context we’re examining this morning, to prime the pump, we must live by the Spirit. We must take the water of the Spirit we already have, and if we’re born again, we already have the Spirit, and put it into practice in our lives.
It may or may not be necessary to remind us of this, but of course, when we’re talking about desiring spiritual gifts, we’re talking about the use of these gifts by believers in our Lord Jesus Christ. These passages don’t apply to unbelievers.
But what this means, this priming of the pump, is that we must rely on the Holy Spirit’s equipping, as we seek God’s direction for our lives each and every day. And especially, as we look to His Word for teaching, exhortation, and direction, and also as we desire and seek to be used by the Holy Spirit, in the realm of spiritual gifts.
Just as it takes water to get water from a pump, it takes the Holy Spirit, His direction, His working in us, to get more of the Holy Spirit.
Now, you might be thinking, gee, Bill, how obvious can it get? But if it’s so obvious, I wonder this:
Why do people come to church un-primed? Why do we neglect the ways God has given to prime and prepare us, and the primary means, the Word of God, God’s chief source of speaking to us, equipping us?
The Word of God is living and active and sharp, because the Holy Spirit makes it that way for us. God penetrates our hearts to convict, exhort, comfort, encourage. The Holy Spirit uses God’s word to speak those things to us, and the Holy Spirit illuminates the Word so we can understand, the Holy Spirit uses God’s Word to illuminate those areas of our lives that need his changing power.
How can we neglect God’s chief source of speaking to us, and expect to be prepared, or even able, to speak for Him?
Galatians 5:25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit, (or let us also walk by the Spirit)
This cannot be a Sunday-only thing....Living Unclogged must be a lifestyle. It must be nurtured, developed, encouraged to grow. It must be primed, and primed daily.
You cannot come to TCF’s Sunday service and expect God to use you – to impart His gifts through you - unless you have been living by the Spirit.
You cannot live by the Spirit if you neglect the living and active Word of God. It’s our source of supply. It’s the living water. If you’re a dry pipe this morning, maybe not clogged, but with nothing there to flow, you must prime the pump.
What primes the pump to keep the things of the spirit flowing? What’s the engine that keeps the arteries, the pipes unclogged? A wholehearted devotion to the Lord, a hunger for Him, reflected in a healthy spiritual life of spending time in God’s word, regular prayer, godly Christian fellowship, etc...
We’re talking about the basics, here. Nothing flows from you unless it flows into you first...that makes sense, doesn’t it? And it doesn’t flow into you first unless you prime the pump...It doesn’t just flow like a faucet turns on and off. The pump must be primed, and the pipes have to be clean and not corroded, the source must be tapped effectively.
That’s where we must start. But, then, let’s assume that we’ve had the flow of the spirit in our lives. We’ve seen God move through us, we’ve seen Him use us in spiritual giftings, maybe even prophecy....maybe in the fellowship, house church, the Sunday morning service, or with a prophetic word for an individual.
But now, there’s a clog somewhere in the conduit. Now nothing seems to be flowing. How do we get clogged to begin with?
The first passage of scripture that came to mind as God changed the direction of the message for today was this:
Isaiah 59:2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
and then
Jeremiah 5:25 Your wrongdoings have kept these away; your sins have deprived you of good.
or how about:
Psalm 66:18 If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;
If we believe the operation of the spiritual gifts is a good thing, then one of the ways we block, we clog, the flow of these things in our lives, is by our sin.
The Isaiah passage says that our iniquities, our sins, have separated us from God. Jeremiah notes that our sin deprives us of good. That “good” could be many things, and I believe it could certainly include these gifts of the Spirit, too.
A verse in Proverbs is even stronger.
Proverbs 28:9 If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable.
If we don’t obey God...if we take sin in our lives lightly, not only does God not listen to our prayers...but our prayers are detestable.
What a thing to consider!!! If we will not hear, and obey, God’s law, God will not hear our prayer. More than that, our prayer is hateful to God.
John Burton wrote
I may as well kneel down
And worship gods of stone
As offer to the Living God
A prayer of words alone.
God takes sin seriously. So should we. In the context of what we’re looking at this morning, we cannot come to Him and say, God, let your Spirit flow through me on Sunday, let us see the spiritual gifts flow and operate...and then live throughout the week without dealing with our sin.
Of course, we’re also assuming, as we’ve already noted, that our pump is primed, too. What’s more, temporary, or superficial fixes won’t work – Andy Obrochta and I were talking about this earlier this week.
Now, for years, Andy was coming to church on Sunday and living a lie. If that seems harsh – Andy will tell you that himself. I don’t know if he was asking God to use Him, but I’m guessing he would have liked that. In the context of what we’re examining now, Andy said that when the plumbing is corroded, putting a new faucet on a sink might help for a while, but unless your pipeline to the source is clear and clean, a brand new faucet, though it looks good on the outside, ultimately won’t help your water flow problems.
Andy looked good on the outside, his life looked like it was full of godly good works, and he talked a good game spiritually, but inside, his pipes were clogged and corroded.
I thank God that he’s cleaning out Andy’s pipes, and as I meet with him, I now see clean water flowing. Andy mentioned this in the context of his daily devotions, in which he’s reading the book of Galatians.
He read to me a verse just a few verses earlier than the one we just read:
Galatians 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
He noted that you could turn this around, and the opposite will be true. If you do not live by the Spirit, you will gratify the desires of the sinful nature. You will clog your pipes.
Another thing that can clog your pipes, and this could be included in the category of sin, but it’s more subtle than that, is the spirit of the world. In Matthew 13:18,19 Jesus, in the parable of the sower, talks about those seeds scattered on the different kinds of soil.
Now, He’s speaking of the seed of the Word of God, and usually people think of this in the context of seed spread among unbelievers and their reception of the good news of the gospel.
But just for a moment, let’s consider how this might apply to us as Christians.
Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.
The biblical commentator RC Trench wrote this:
"the cares of this world and its pleasures; these are the thorns and bristles that strangle the life of the soul. When that which God promises is felt to be good, but also what the world promises is felt to be equally good, there will be an attempt made to serve both God and mammon.... both God and the world."
What we have here are three competing concerns. These are concerns that distract us from living by the Spirit. They may or may not lead to outright sin...
but they definitely do not lead us further on and further up with God.
1. the worries of this life
2. the deceitfulness, or the deceptive lure, of wealth
3. the desires for other things, which I guess could be a pretty large list
These things compete for our allegiance. They compete for our time. They compete for our attention. They can be impediments, clogs, to the flow of the Holy Spirit in our lives. They can be idols in our lives. Matthew says they “choke” the word. They make it unfruitful. The Holy Spirit brings fruit. The Holy Spirit provides gifts for the building up of the body.
But, even if the primary message in this passage clearly applies to how unbelievers receive the Word, I think we can apply this to ourselves, too.
Life Application Bible comments on this parable:
Worldly worries, the false sense of security brought on by prosperity, and the desire for things plagued first-century disciples as they do us today. How easy it is for our daily routines to become overcrowded. A life packed with materialistic pursuits deafens us to God’s Word. Stay free so you can hear God when he speaks.
I don’t think there’s anyone here who wants to be categorized as one who is deaf to God’s word. And, in the context of our look at living unclogged...we can say this clearly:
being deaf to God’s Word, is without doubt a clog in the conduit of spiritual gifts into our lives, and then out of our lives for the building up of the body. As we noted, these distractions can be idols, and that’s when they become sin.
Idols today are a lot more subtle than those in the Old Testament, but just as real.
I think it’s safe to say that no one here worships a golden calf, nor a statue of some false deity. Someone said, “Today’s idols are more in the self than on the shelf. “ A good barometer is this:
That for which I would give anything, and accept nothing in exchange, is the most important thing in my life. Whatever that is, is my god.
I would go further still – anything apart from God that captures and holds our attention, whatever we consider more important than most anything else, whatever we spend a large amount of time or money on, can become an idol.
Not inevitably, but without keeping it in perspective, even otherwise good things can become idols, every bit as much forbidden as the idols worshipped in the OT. God looks at our hearts, and we’re talking here more about an attitude than anything.
One commentator noted:
though we do not face a pantheon of false gods like the Israelites did, we face pressures from a pantheon of false values--materialism, love of leisure, sensuality, worship of self, security, and many others. The second commandment deals with idols. This may be something that most of us can’t relate to--unless we include life goals that revolve around something other than God Himself. What is the object of our affections, our efforts, and our attention? Where does the majority of our time go? On what do we spend the greatest amount of our resources? Idolatry is a very real threat to all of us.
The word “unfruitful” in the parable of the sower could not be any clearer, could it?
I’ve watched a little bit of the Olympics this past week. When you hear the story of many of these Olympians, you can come to no other conclusion, other than that these Olympic athletes must be really devoted to their sport.
- it’s real devotion
- it involves time, effort, expense, deep commitment
- they don’t just show up and expect to compete....
Joel, how about you and I go to Athens this week and just show up, and get on that there pommel horse and see how we do. Ridiculous, isn’t it? I’m not sure I could even walk across that thing, let alone jump, run or tumble without falling off.
These athletes do what they know they need to do to be prepared. Just as Olympic athletes must prime the pump, just as they must invest wholeheartedly in being the best at their sport in their respective countries, we can’t just show up on Sunday, or Wednesday night, and expect God to use us.
We participate in the process by coming prepared, by coming already built up, already equipped.
What can threaten our readiness? All these things we’ve looked at this morning. And this is not an exhaustive list by any means. Whatever’s a distraction would fit.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
2 Cor. 11:3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
He was concerned with false teaching here, which is certainly another potential clog in our pipeline, but all these things and more, are things in our lives that may somehow lead us astray from sincere and pure devotion to Christ. And if we’re led astray from this pure and wholehearted devotion, we can’t help but live spiritually clogged lives. God wants to use us. He wants to use us to reach others. He wants to use us to build up the body.
God told King Asa in
2 Chron. 16:9 For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him
Sadly, King Asa, though much of his life was marked by wholehearted devotion to the Lord, somewhere along the way allowed his spiritual conduit to get clogged. But the thing I want to focus on in this passage, is that God is looking for those who are fully committed to Him.
And why does He look for them? To strengthen them. Clearly, one of the things He uses to strengthen, as Jim preached so clearly last week, is the giftings of His Holy Spirit.
But it has to start with us living unclogged. Each of us has the responsibility before God, to keep the pipelines open. To keep the lifeblood of God flowing through our spiritual arteries.
We don’t do this alone...in fact, we cannot do it without the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Yet, we have a personal responsibility to cooperate with God. If we do, He will allow the Holy Spirit to flow, through each of us as individuals, to the benefit, blessing, exhortation, and building up of this body at TCF.
I’d like to close with a passage I believe God would use to speak to us this morning,
Psalm 147:18-19 He sends his word and melts them; he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow. 19He has revealed his word to Jacob, his laws and decrees to Israel.
Now, the context of the verses preceding these is God’s amazing power in nature. What God melts is hail, or some sort of frozen precipitation, in vs. 17, just before the passage we read.
But I believe we could see a metaphor here, and apply the flow of the water here to the flow of the Holy Spirit we’ve been looking at this morning.
The fact that verse 19 uses Word in the sense of the Word of God that we’ve been seeing this morning might support this idea.
Matthew Henry wrote that Israel, in this Psalm
is exhorted to praise him for all the benefits and blessings vouchsafed (given) to her; and these are represented by his favours in the course of nature. The thawing word may represent the gospel of Christ, and the thawing wind the Spirit of Christ; for the Spirit is compared to the wind, John 3:8. Converting grace softens the heart that was hard frozen, and melts it into tears of repentance, and makes good reflections to flow, which before were chilled and stopped up. The change which the thaw makes is very evident, yet how it is done no one can say. Such is the change wrought in the conversion of a soul, when God’s word and Spirit are sent to melt it and restore it to itself.
Whether or not we see these ideas as representing spiritual renewal or not, it’s clear that when God sends His Word, it produces dramatic results.... it produces change. It’s true in nature. It’s true in human hearts and it can be true in this church.
William McDonald wrote:
And so it is in human affairs that the dark, cold winters are followed by the warmth and revival of spring.
Where God’s Word is spoken, studied, meditated on and received, the waters flow. Let’s keep our flow unclogged.
Psalm 147:18-19 He sends his word and melts them; he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow. 19He has revealed his word to Jacob, his laws and decrees to Israel.
Which kind of pipe do you have this morning?
1. the spirit flows clean and clear
2. the spirit flows, with dirt and sediment mixed in
3. you’re clogged, and little flows into or out of you
4. your pipe’s dry
pray
