John Launchbury - Class 3: Search Me and Know My Heart

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   You are listening to a Bible Talk recorded at the 2011 Western Christadelphian Bible School at Manuka. The speaker is John Lonsberry, and this is the third class in his series, The Transformed Mind. This address is entitled Search Me and Know My Heart and was recorded on July 27, 2011. So our series is about the transformed mind, and what we've done in the last couple of talks is really about dismantling things that get in the way.

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   The first thing that we worked at dismantling was the idea that our religion is made up of a set of do's and don'ts and rules that are externally imposed, as opposed to transformation within, a transformation that then has us manifest in the things that we do in our lives. So we were really trying to say, let's not think about our religion as these externally imposed regulations.

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   but rather let's think about what we're doing as having a different spirit, a different attitude that is manifest in our day-to-day life. So that was the first day. What was yesterday? Oh, I know what yesterday was. If I can't remember, it's... Yesterday, we were trying to dismantle the focus on the mundane that we often have.

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   We were sort of comparing and contrasting the divine with the mundane, or to use Jesus' words, God and mammon. On the one hand, there's all the things of God, and on the other hand, there's all the things of this life. And if we worship the things of this life and commit ourselves to the things of this life, just the day-to-day things, if that becomes what is important in our life, then we lose track of God.

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   If we are engrossed in the mundane, then we miss the divine. You can't serve both the mundane and the divine. You can't serve two masters. So now, we're going to sort of shift a little bit, and instead of working about dismantling some of the things that get in the way, we're going to start looking...

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   I was going to say more positively. I don't mean that like we've been looking negatively before, but we're going to be looking at dimensions of things which are sort of actively moving forward in the transformation process. And today's title is Search Me and Know My Thoughts. And it's really about prayer and meditation and self-examination.

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   So how is your prayer life? I've asked lots of people over the years, lots of Christadelphians, people that I deeply respect, and again and again and again and again and again, I get the answer. It's something I struggle with. It's something I really struggle with. And that gave me a lot of confidence because it's something I struggle with.

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   There are times in my life, there are two times in my life, where I can remember with great clarity just coming to God with absolute passion. I mean, just pouring my heart out to God. Lying on my bed, weeping with tears. I mean, it's every bit of the Psalms kind of thing. Two occasions in my life.

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   One of them is a young man trying to decide whether to ask Rachel out. It seems as though God may have guided me in a good direction there.

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    Another one was 10 or 12 years ago when in this state here we were wrestling with reunion and my pride was getting in the way of the process. And finally when I realized that, I was able to go to God in prayer and pour out my heart and say, it's your process, Lord.

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    It's for you to bring about. It's, I give this over to you. Two occasions. How long have I been baptized? I don't know, 1978 to now. I'm not very good with arithmetic.

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    Why? Why is prayer so hard? I think for a long time, I thought of prayer as, I go to talk to God. I have to have in mind what I'm going to say to God and I go and I talk to Him. And so sometimes I would go through, I would have what I've come to call almost like a shopping list prayer.

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    Do you know what I mean by that? This and this and this and this and this. And then the next day, goodness me, I've got the same shopping list to go through again. And it just starts to feel overwhelming. It starts to feel repetitious. Giving thanks for a meal, I found myself saying the same things again and again.

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    In group prayer, I found great value. But in personal prayer, I just struggled. I wrestled. Look at Matthew chapter 6. The disciples said to Jesus, teach us to pray. And you know this prayer. We're not going to go through it. But it's often called the Lord's Prayer. Jesus says, this is then how you should pray.

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    Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. And so on.

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    Jesus says, this is how you should pray. Gives what we sometimes call a model prayer. Look at Jesus' practice in prayer. While it's still dark, He gets up and He goes out to a solitary place. I don't know, walks a mile or two out of the town till He finds a solitary place while it's still dark.

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    And He prays. And He's out there for, I don't know, an hour or two. Or after the feeding of the 5,000, when the crowd are wanting to make Him king, He makes the disciples get into the boat and He goes up onto the mountainside. and He prays and He prays and He prays.

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    And it's well into the middle of the night as the disciples are rowing against the storm that He finishes His prayer and He comes down and He walks on the water.

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    I mean, is He for an hour just saying these words again and again and again and again? I mean, clearly not. So what's Jesus mean when He says this is how you should pray and in some sense it doesn't match with what we see of Him in His prayer?

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    Let this cup pass from me. Is there no other way? He takes an hour to pray that. comes back and finds the disciples sleeping and He goes back and He takes another hour to pray the same thing.

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    And I don't think that Jesus had an hour-long prayer of words. It seems to me that that hour was taken with that very simple idea. And then the next time He comes back and for an hour again praise not my will but yours be done. And again, I don't think it's repetition or, I mean, Jesus is really clear about that, you know.

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    Let your words be few we read in Ecclesiastes when you go to the house of God. Jesus said the pagans and others, the Pharisees and scribes, they think they'll be heard for their many words and their repetition.

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    Look at Acts chapter 10. This is verse 9. About noon the following day as they, that is the people from Cornelius, about noon the following day as the people from Cornelius were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat and while the meal was being prepared he fell into a trance and he saw heaven opened and so on.

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    And a wonderful vision that he sees. There's a couple of things that I think are fascinating about that which, again, sort of shook me out of thinking I knew what prayer was. The first was that Peter's relationship with prayer was such that there is time before lunch is being prepared. I've got half an hour.

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    What shall I do? My relationship with prayer and with God is such that I think I'll just spend that time in prayer. Ah! I mean, isn't that just wonderful?

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    And yet we have all of these busynesses, you know, if I'm bored like that I turn on the TV and do you see how different it is? And again, none of what I'm saying here is to guilt us. We've already in some sense laid guilt aside. We've realized that legal and so on is not the right way to think about it.

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    It's more like I'm trying to diagnose. I'm trying to say that there's something off and I'm starting to notice something off that my natural inclination is not just to go and spend the half an hour while the meal is being prepared in prayer.

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    And then the other thing about this while he was praying he fell into a trance. That's not like any Christadelphian prayer I've ever been in.

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    There's something interesting, something intriguing going on here. Now, I mean, I don't know any more about this than these words that are here. I don't know what nature of trance it was. But all I can deduce is that the intensity and the engagement of his prayer was such that it became the sole thing of his experience.

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    That everything else just passed into the background. And Peter isn't the only one. If you jump later on in Acts, in Acts 22, Paul uses exactly the same language of himself. In Acts 22 and verse 17, he's talking about what happened after his conversion and he says in verse 17 of Acts 22, when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking.

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    Now again, I don't want to sort of run with just these two examples here in Scripture. One always has to be careful if something is only written in a couple of places in Scripture. But there is something about the kind of prayer that our early brothers were doing that is different from our regular prayer practice that we tend to talk about.

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    And so that over the past many years has been something that I've been wanting to understand more and wanting to explore. My prayer life is very different now.

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    Now, when I pray, I come to sit in the presence of God. God. That's what I do. I don't come to talk. I don't come to work through my list. There are times, absolutely, when there are specific things I want to talk to God about. But my general practice now is to come to sit in the presence of God.

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    Not to be thinking about things. Just simply to be sitting in the presence of God. And I'd like to explore this a little bit from elements of Scripture to see how this actually reflects a bunch of things that go on in Scripture. So I think there's a number of aspects of this, what one might call meditative or contemplative prayer time as opposed to actual word prayer that goes on.

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    I'd like to start by going to Psalm 23. This is something I learned many years ago from my father-in-law and it's something that has always been with me ever since. Psalm 23.

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    There's a fascinating thing about the language in Psalm 23 which I think is very helpful for us when we think about prayer. We know this Psalm off by heart. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me, he restores me, he guides, you see it's about God, he, he, the Lord, he, him.

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    Until we get to verse 4, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod, your staff, they comfort me, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil. Do you see the shift that has happened?

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    He started out thinking about God, he's aware of the provision of God and he's reflecting it in his poem here, in his mind, he's reflecting the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want, and he's reflecting that aspect where you consider the things that God has done for you and is continuing to do, and the way that he's working in your life.

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    And what we get in this psalm is that the effect of his consideration leads him to start talking to God. You know, Lord, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me. I'll fear no evil because of that. Your rod, your staff, they comfort me. He's moved from thinking about God into talking to God.

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    And that also has its natural cycle, and it comes to an end. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. And then he starts thinking about God again. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. He doesn't say, I'll dwell in your house forever.

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    He's finished his conversation to God, and he's now contemplating and thinking about God. And I love that transition. Here in what has to be the most famous psalm, the most famous psalm, we get this guidance for prayer, this guidance for spend time thinking about God, God, and then you start talking to God, and then you start thinking about God.

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    There's an even richer example, just two psalms further on in Psalm 25, a much longer one, but you'll see the same thing. It starts out as a prayer to God. To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. In you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame.

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    Verse three, no one who's hope in you will ever be put to shame. Verse four, show me your ways. Do you see he's talking to God very explicitly. You, your, remember verse six, O Lord, your great mercy and love for they're from old. Verse eight, good and upright is the Lord, therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.

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    He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them. All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful. Do you see how he's shifted? His prayer came, his conversation to God came to a natural conclusion. And whereas for me, if I had sort of run out of things to say to God, I would then start to be uncomfortable and not quite sure what to do with my prayer, the psalmist then continues sitting in the presence of God.

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    And in this case, just contemplating and thinking about the things God has done. Here, of course, we have them put into words so that we can share them. I'm not sure that they were necessarily formed in words in David's mind. Indeed, I now find that for me, if I'm giving thanks for food, if I'm with a group or with a family, obviously I put it into words because it's a group prayer.

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    But if it's for myself, I used to find I got into this repetitive thing, saying the same thing, the same thing, the same thing, and then my mind would be going off on the prayer, but my spirit wouldn't be in it. What I do now is I sit quietly in silence with gratitude to my God.

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    And I just hold gratitude in my heart. I don't have to find words to express it. I don't have to put it in eloquent language or invent some new way to say something. I just have a sense of gratitude as I sit with God. And then I take the food that is provided.

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    And I think that that may be an element of what was actually going on for David when he's doing these. But of course he's put them in words for us so that we get the sense of it. Good and upright is the Lord, therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. David isn't finished here.

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    Verse 10, all the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful. He's still in the about God passage. And then just verse 11, just this tiny little thing, for the sake of your name O Lord forgive my iniquity though it's great.

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    And then he goes back to thinking about God. So there in the middle of that sense of the work of God and the presence of God, he suddenly has this sense of his own inadequacy and he talks to God about it. Forgive my iniquity, O Lord. And then that's dealt with and he comes back to contemplating the wonder and the majesty of God.

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    And then the shift happens again in verse 16 where he starts talking to God again, turn to me and be gracious to me, and that runs through to the end of the psalm. I can't believe that this is just accidental stuff that's going on here. I mean, look at lots of psalms and you see the same pattern, talking, thinking about God, talking to God, thinking about God, talking to God.

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    This shift and I think it gives us a very natural pattern for our prayers. Now I want to make it clear that this thinking about God is not Bible study with concordances. That is a different exercise. It has its value, it has its place, but this is not it. There may be a time where you're sitting with God, contemplating something, and then afterwards you decide, I want to follow that idea through, and you get out your concordance and you follow the idea through, and that gives more fertile ground for you in your future contemplations.

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    But in the contemplation, if you find yourself wondering what the Greek word is for this, or where else this particular idea happens in scripture, then you're actually leaving in some sense the presence of God, and you're entering a different state, as it were. You're thinking more about study. And again, as I say, study is important, but let's not confuse study with prayer.

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    So that's one aspect I found very helpful. Another is awareness of the presence of God. It's not something we often talk about as Christodolphians. And we say things like, God is here amongst us, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them. And so we have this sense that the angels surround us, that Jesus is here with us, that God's spirit pervades this place, that God is here with us.

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    We sort of know that almost like an intellectual level and at a faith level that we believe it. God's love and we are going to to be saying something ! He seems to be saying something even a little bit stronger than just you can believe God is watching over us kind of thing.

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    Here, this is Acts 17 and Paul is giving an explanation of why the nations ended up where they did. and he says in verse 27, God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. The NASB has a wonderful, the New American Standard Bible has a wonderful translation I just learned this morning, that men would grope for him.

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    I think people got NASB, you may be able to confirm that. That interesting idea that it's sort of like reaching out in the darkness and trying to feel God, to grope for him. That men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him though he is not far from each one of us.

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    And then he quotes just for their sake a couple of Greek poets to let them know that this idea isn't all that different from something that is present in some of their own understanding. He quotes Epimenides and he says for in him we live and move and have our being and then he quotes Aretas and he says as some of your own poets have said we are his offspring.

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    So Paul is trying to make this case that you don't want to think of God as over there like so far away you can't possibly reach. he says ! He says in him we live and move and have our being. His spirit is the thing that sustains all of creation. The spark of the divine is the thing that actually gives us life.

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    When he breathes into Adam he's taking his breath his spirit and he's placing it in Adam so that Adam will become alive. he is not far from each one of us. We can just be aware of that.

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    And you know I realized that in my prayer I had never actually looked for that before. I had never looked for the expectation that I could actually in some sense and we're always cautious as Christadelphians to talk about personal experience and things like this but I shall be bold.

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    Now in prayerful meditation I actually have a sense of the life of God within me in a way that I never had it before. Previously my mind was too noisy, my life was too busy and I wasn't actually aware of God. actually that spark of the divine that is in me that has been placed there that is to grow and as Paul says in Galatians until Christ is formed within me.

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    if I sit quietly and think about the past I discover I can't find God I'm just in my own mind if I sit quietly and I consider the future I also discover that I can't find God I'm just in my own mind the past and the future are mental creations that we have they're the world that we build we build an interpretation of everything that happened in the past it's in some sense not the reality it's our model of it it's our interpretation of it and as we dwell in that we're not dwelling in reality or we have an imagination of all the things that might happen in the future and we have plans and again those are mental constructs they don't actually exist and when I find myself dwelling in the past or dwelling in the future I'm living in the world that I have created and I am not living in the world that God has created but when I take that time to sit quietly with God and to be aware of this moment now that God has created I'm suddenly in the world God has created and not the world that I create I think this is a little bit of what Jesus was saying when he said don't be anxious about tomorrow don't do these big plans seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be added unto you I think he's saying walk in the reign of God every minute just allow yourself to be in this moment that God has created walk in it and all these other things that you stress so much

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    about what you're going to wear what you're going to eat how you're going to pay the mortgage I mean God will sort this out now if I was just up here saying these words you would not believe me I mean we have trouble enough believing Jesus when he says it but Jesus says it and so the extent to which we're not able to accept it again let's not guilt ourselves let's not say we have to make ourselves accept it let's use it as a diagnosis that says we're still not there yet we still have growing to do so that I can truly dwell in the reign of God moment by moment moment by moment I find that when I'm sitting in the presence of God I can practice not worrying about the future and not worrying about the past I find it a time when I can actually practice being aware of his presence within me now and that time of practice in prayer I'm then able to bring outside of that and by no means all the time I step out of the reign of God and back into the reign of mammon all the time but for the first time in my life I have a glimpse of the divine like never before and it's very powerful I'd like you just to pause and maybe even shut your eyes if you're willing to and take a gentle breath or two just be aware of the breath that you have and ask yourself just in this moment now is there anything you could possibly want that you don't have in this moment now not about

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    the future not about the new car or the new job or the is there any hunger that is making this moment now unbearable any cold or heat that is making this moment now unbearable or any physical affliction now of course we have physical afflictions that give us pain and they become wearing over time but just look at this moment now is there anything that is too hard for me to bear is there any danger any immediate harm any dread emotion of this moment now this is the world God has created this moment the past and the future they're our constructs there are terrors and dragons and demons in the past and the future that we have built but God has given us in this moment now everything that we need and what's special about this moment now why will it be different than when we do this same exercise at another moment and we will discover in that moment too God has given us everything that we need whether we lack something or have something that needs to be better or our wants they're all about the past or the future they're not about this moment now Jesus says walk in the reign of God and you'll experience that let the planning and the organizing mind go and its grief will go too it's very powerful spiritual teaching and humans have recognized this too I've got a few quotes here from various places over the last 2000 years I don't know all of these people but a guy called Zachary Berkovitz said some patients I see are actually draining into their bodies the diseased thoughts

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    of their minds Mark Twain said I am an old man and have known a great many troubles but most of them never happened Seneca back in Roman times there are more things Lucilius that frighten us than injure us and we suffer more in imagination than in reality Leo Buscaglia worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow it only saps today of its joy Jesus says lay aside the cares of tomorrow rest in this day this moment seek the reign of God all these other things will take care of themselves in this moment now I rest in the love of God one of the challenges for being able to do this is I think related to the idea of forgiveness and say something slightly strange about forgiveness we have to learn how to forgive this moment what I mean by that is so much of our lives are about it should have been different the situation that I find myself in this moment now should not have been the way that it is if only such and such had done something or other then now would be different in some way !

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    And what we are doing is we are objecting to this moment and we're unwilling to accept this moment as it is today we're unwilling to forgive this moment for being the way that it is and our present circumstances for being the way that they are this is the one moment we can actually connect with God but not if we can't allow it to be that will get in the way of us being able to connect with him Jesus said receive the kingdom like a little child take the reign of God upon yourself like a little child it's not talking about the doctrinal issues !

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    It's about not interposing our view of what ought to be on what is this moment is in God's hands it is what it is let the past go this is where I am today Lord for me one of the most beautiful examples of this whole sense of being willing just to let it all go is the disciples are in the boat and Jesus says beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and they are just like us aren't they just like us we forgot to bring bread he's saying this because we forgot to bring bread and you know what he says to them you know guys we were out there in the desert five loaves two fish five thousand people how many basketfuls of bread did we pick up twelve when they're all done and the four thousand how many basketfuls seven was it seven don't you get it he says don't you get it now picking up on mark's comment from earlier moment of the breaking of bread where he says this is 1 corinthians 11 man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup i find that if i engage my mind to examine myself i'll see a few things i'll think i shouldn't have done this i shouldn't have done that and so i've got a bunch of those things but in my experience it's actually a fairly superficial examination that takes place i'm not actually able to go very deep by that and even though i then discover those things i then end up feeling guilt about them and i don't necessarily know what or

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    how to do anything about it so i've been struggling with this passage what i discover by sitting quietly with god is a fulfillment of the verses that we have the title from for this psalm 139 psalm 139 verse 23 where david says search me oh god oh god and know my heart test me and know my anxious thoughts see if there is any offensive way in me lead me in the way everlasting !

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    david says to god search me know my heart but verse one of this psalm says oh lord you have searched me and you know me so god actually doesn't need to have any more information about david than he already has so what's david talking about when he says search me and know my thoughts it seems to me that this is in that moment of prayer that moment of sitting quietly with the lord where you're inviting the lord to show things to search us to show us things about ourselves and indeed this is what i what i discover when i sit quietly with my mind quiet focused on this moment now things arise things arise for me they come out of my mind they come out of deep within myself things arise and i come to see things about myself i come to know things about myself that i was too noisy to be able to notice before i was too noisy to be able to discover for example i'll have a memory of something i'll remember an incident and then i'll feel resentment about it welling up within me and that part of me that is watching this happen as i'm sitting with god in the moment starts to notice that i have that resentment i have this thing that is unfinished i watch this moment i do my best not to become it not to enter into it not to let it wash over me and take me over as it but i watch that resentment and i have compassion for it i don't judge it i don't try and get rid of it

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    i don't say oh that's wrong you know hey i found a bad bit about me let's bang because that actually gives it strength that drives it deeper within myself i have mercy i have compassion for it i have compassion for myself and then later on i discover that when that resentment next rears its head it feels a little bit more like acceptance than it feels like resentment because i'm convinced because the light of god has shone upon it and i haven't had to get rid of the resentment i've merely allowed it to come and be there held in the presence of god remember that phrase in in ephesians i think it's ephesians 4 wake up o sleeper rise from the dead and christ will shine on you what's that mean naturally we walk around like zombies we walk around totally engrossed in the mundane in the things of mammon wake up i think it was an old hymn i mean from the first century wake up o sleeper rise from the dead and then christ will shine on you and the light of christ will have a transforming effect so it's very powerful to be in that time of prayer sitting in the presence of god in his presence we are searched and come to see it ourselves and that by itself has a transforming effect there's nothing to do it's just to watch find it fascinating that so many of jesus parables he said watch now i've always been told that this is watch the prophecies or things like that i don't think that anymore i think it's the same thing he's saying wake up

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    actually bring that part of you to life that was sleeping that part of you that can be aware of the presence of god and the reign of god in this moment now wake up watch keep your loins girded and your lamps shining don't allow yourself to be lulled into the unconsciousness of your day-to-day activities where you find yourself driving from home to work and you think how did i get here psalm 4 we'll make this our final reference psalm 4 verse 4 in your anger do not sin when you are on your beds search your hearts and be silent just prior to his crucifixion jesus said an outrageous thing to peter he said when you're converted the man had been following him had had i mean so much he had just given up for three and a half years already he had been a disciple of john before that he exhibited a level of faith that i i just dream of and aspire to i mean getting out of a boat and walking on water and yet he still had growth he still jesus isn't saying this to condemn him jesus is saying this to encourage to exhort him and to indicate to him that there is a new stage of growth for him to go through when you are converted and i think we should expect serious growing so that we are able to come to the point where we also are able to worship in spirit and truth we're going to close with a hymn from the praise book the hymn is 277 it's very quiet meditative one and we'll have some time of

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    quiet just after that i'm sure the bell is likely to ring but allow the bell to ring and just sit for a moment and then as you wish feel free to stand up put your books away and so on hymn 277 to be in your presence to sit at your feet where your love surrounds me and makes me complete this is my desire oh lord this is my desire

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    's love Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.