The Universal and Hidden Barriers to Spiritual Growth for a Christian

Good morning and welcome to class on this first weekend after Easter. As you all know we will be starting our next topical study on April 6th, so we have a spare week to fill in. I have prepared a “special lesson” for us this morning, and have given it the grand title of:

“Universal and hidden barriers to spiritual growth of a Christian”

Let me say that again. Let’s pick this apart a little so that we all know what I’m going to be covering today.

· Universal – This means that every person, believer or non-believer, faces these barriers.
· Hidden – We can’t sense them in any way, in our natural state. (What do I mean by that?)
· Barriers – Something that gets in the way of progress.
· Spiritual Growth of a Christian – Progress in becoming more Christ like.

Sounds like a mystery, doesn’t it? This morning I want to demystify it for all of us. First, though, I think it would be good to simply list some barriers to spiritual growth for Christians. Let’s try to use some actual examples we have seen in our, or other’s, lives.

· No prayer life.
· Don’t study the Word.
· Fellowship with unbelievers.
· Other gods; like materialism or leisure.
· Not attending church.
· Ungodly spouse.
· Compulsive behaviors or addictions.
· Inappropriate relationships.
· Worry.
· Distractions. (Discuss)

This is a big list, and I am experimenting this morning to see if anybody comes up with any of the hidden barriers I am about to discuss. (State whether we did or didn’t)

These are the hidden barriers, and although we might be able to identify more, I am going to contend that it is these three that hold up our growth more than any other:

· Values
· Beliefs
· Attitudes

Can anybody identify what characteristics these three have in common? I’m looking for one big common characteristic, common to every person.

· Change over time.
· Change minute by minute.
· Related to one another.
· THE BIG ONE – They are characteristics of the HEART!

Our Scripture has many things to say about the heart, and there is one verse that captures the “hidden barrier” concept well. It is Jer 17:9:

The heart is more deceitful than all else, and is desperately sick; who can understand it? NASU

This is a statement that is directed at all people. Contextually God, speaking through Jeremiah, is addressing the apostate nation of Israel whose heart has turned away from believing and trusting God. This demonstrates the “universal” nature of the problem within the heart, that it applies to all people, believer or non-believer.

Here we see that God is trying to help understand that our values, beliefs and attitudes are hidden in our heart and because they are hidden, they will deceive us. Now let’s move on to looking at these three in detail, starting with “values”.

Values

I want to start this subject by asking everybody to list 20 values, just kidding. Let ask ourselves this question though:

· What are my values, and where do they come from? (Discuss for a minute)

(Make sure “worldly sources” are discussed, like school, TV, Internet, work)

Now let’s narrow down our value statements by clarifying what a value is, and as usual I look to my trusty Webster’s dictionary, a value is:

A principle, standard or quality regarded as worthwhile or desirable.

What is it about this thing called “values” that causes them to be a hidden barrier? I’m going to open this question up because we need to get to the answer, as all of us battle with this. (Open for discussion)

If we look at this small section from the “Sermon on the Mount” we might get a clue as to what God wants us to understand. Mt 6:5-6 says:

When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. NASU

What is Jesus telling us here? That the people praying on the corner are not praying to meet a value they say they have, they are praying for the adoration of men, a different value. What do we call this? Hypocrisy!

The sin of hypocrisy is one of the reasons that God has called our heart sick, and as the great physician he knows what we need to heal it. I am going to have us look at the greatest value statement of all time, which, if we take it on as some of our values will help our hearts to become well. It is found in Mt 22:36-40:

"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' " On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." NASU

In a nutshell here it is; Love God, Love Yourself, Love Others. In that order and priority. I included verse 40, which says, “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets”. We must not miss this point. Jesus gave us the values, and He added the extra point to tell the Jews, and now us through the written word, that everything depends on these values. Don’t be confused by the word “commandment”, Jesus was telling us to value God above all things, then value ourselves and others after that, and demonstrate it through love.

Everything we do, everything we think, and everything we feel can be tested against these three values. Take your mind back to what you have done over the last twenty-four hours, have you been meeting the standard set by these values?

A challenge for all of us is to search our hearts and look to see if we are using the values God Himself had written down for us, or do we use something else. There is a wonderful Psalm that looks at this whole subject of are we using God’s values or are we using values from “worldly sources”. In Psalm 119 we find an extensive look at the results of using ungodly values, and how much less our life is because of it. It seems to me that if we could all run our lives with God’s values screening our thoughts, feelings and actions, we might enjoy a more joyful and peaceful life. I want to quote just two verses from this chapter 119 of Psalms, the first is verse 105:

Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path. NASU

This verse captures what I’m saying, God’s word, which contains God’s values, shows you the right road to travel on.

The second is verse 11:

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. NIV

This, to me, says it all, what does it say to you about values?

Now I’m going to move on to beliefs.

Beliefs

Beliefs are enormously powerful. It is beliefs that enable a suicide bomber to commit his or her act, it is beliefs that enable one person to discriminate against another, and it is beliefs that are the key to eternal life. So what exactly is a belief? Webster’s dictionary says this, a belief is:

A mental acceptance of or conviction in the truth or actuality of something.

When the dictionary speaks of “mental acceptance”, it is using a secular term that is better understood as “psychological” by us. This means that the belief is accepted somewhere inside the Soul. There is a familiar passage of scripture that identifies exactly where. Romans 10:9-10

That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. NASU

Clear as a sunny day, “with the heart a person believes”.

What is it about beliefs that are hidden and dangerous? Much like our values, we get our beliefs from a variety of sources. Some of us might believe that a certain presidential candidate can “save us”, where does that belief come from? The things we read, TV, people we listen to, the Internet, even in church! As these worldly opinions get allowed into our Soul, they slowly cement in as new beliefs, we can’t even tell when and how it is happening. We just “know” that we believe a certain thing to be true.

Our hidden beliefs are demonstrated in our actions. Can you think of some examples of a hidden belief being exposed? Let’s try to identify what the hidden belief might be.

· Not praying about something.
· Driving while intoxicated.
· Having an affair.
· Not coming to church on time.

How do we deal with these secret beliefs? It is really very straightforward; we test them against the truth! For example if we believe it is acceptable to drive at 80 mph on the Katy freeway, we might have a police officer test that against the truth for us!

Every human acts in accordance with his or her beliefs, hidden or not. As Christians, this presents a challenge. When we act in accordance with our beliefs, but against the truth, the Holy Spirit convicts us. God can see our hidden beliefs, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And if they are not truthful beliefs, He wants us to correct them.

I want to say a little on conviction. The Holy Spirit will always convict us, that is part of His role. It is us who do not listen, it is us who listens but chooses to ignore and it is us who simply disobeys.

The remedy for dealing with our hidden beliefs is therefore the truth, and where can we find that? In Jn 14:6 Jesus says this:

I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. NASU

If you want the truth go to Jesus!

Attitudes

Did anybody arrive today with a “tude”? If you don’t admit it, you are fooling yourself; we all have attitudes, all the time. Webster’s dictionary says an attitude is:

“A state of mind or feeling”.

Are we always aware of our attitudes? Of course not! Is our attitude a constant and consistent thing? Of course not! Do we display our attitudes? All the time! Can you think of some examples of where hidden attitudes come out?

· Driving!
· When we snap at someone.
· Sarcasm.
· Some of our thoughts.

Does God have anything to say about attitude? He does, I just enjoy the absolute direct and simple way He communicates about this. In the book of Jeremiah, chapter 12, the first two lines of verse 3 capture it:

But You know me, O Lord; You see me; And You examine my heart's attitude toward You. NASU

God states here that he knows us, sees us, and examines the attitude in the Heart. Have you ever thought about having your attitudes examined? It is really a scary proposition. What if your spouse or co-worker knew exactly how you were feeling toward them at every moment? It could produce some interesting conversations!

What can be done about these hidden attitudes? This is a little difficult to pin down, but I think we can find a clue in the following scripture. Ph 2:3-5 seems to help us understand what we ought to do about them, it says:

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. NASU

The antidote to malevolent hidden attitudes is humility. Why do you think this might be so? It is because the hidden attitudes are the ones that involve “self”, such as:

· I’m more important than him or her.
· I know more about this than him or her.
· I deserve this more than him or her.
· I’m a better person than him or her.

I think that hits the point home, these are all prideful statements.

Let me summarize what we have covered this morning. There are three major hidden barriers to personal spiritual growth, and our God provides a remedy for each of these sicknesses.

· Values, studying the scripture helps deal with this.
· Beliefs, knowing the truth combats hidden beliefs.
· Attitudes, learning humility is the answer.

That concludes our lesson for today, next week we kick off “Safe People”.