The Way of Silence | "The Way" Week 6

- I have been enjoying this season of the way, have you? And I don't know how I drew the short straw for today, but today we're gonna be talking about the way of silence. I know, they told me that and I thought, are you kidding me? I'm supposed to talk about that. But I came across something interesting this week. And it was a study back in 2014. The University of Virginia got a group of people together and they sent them into a room all by themselves. They had no phones, they had no books, nothing. It was just them and the quiet. Their only option was this button that they could push that would give themselves a mild electric shock. And they put them in this room for anywhere from about six to 15 minutes and here's what happened. Before it started, all of the people involved said, "I will pay money," not to get shocked by that button. But after they had been in that room with their thoughts all by themselves, 67% of men and 25% of the women. I will let you draw your own conclusions. Push that button. Can you believe that? I thought that was crazy. The truth is we would rather experience pain in our body than be left alone with our own thoughts. And apparently the men would really rather. (laughs) But I thought it was fascinating.

But that's the world that we're gonna walk into this morning and the way of silence. So stay with me, all right? A few weeks ago, Pastor John talked about the way of work and he talked about how we need a cook for the king. You remember that? And how our work can become worship to God. And then the next week we talked about the way of rest and he said to put down the spatula and that rest can reveal what is running us on the inside. And then last week, like we just heard, we talked about the way of community and how we need to stop curating our lives for everybody to see. And I think underneath all of these weeks, there have been a couple of questions that we've really been answering. And those are what are we still hiding and who are we hiding from? And this week really asks the most exposed version of that question. What happens when we stop hiding from God? Silence is a practice of the way that can be underneath all of the others. There's no task to hide inside, there's no image to manage, there's no audience, except for the one who already knows everything anyway. And scripture talks to us about silence and it doesn't really talk about it as a suggestion. Several of you, I'm sure, are familiar with this phrase

and the Psalms, maybe it's on your wall or it was on your aunt or grandmother's wall in their home and it says, "Be still and know that I am God." And the Hebrew therefore still, be still is rafah and it means to let go, to release control, to stop striving. And Christians have been practicing silence and solitude for thousands of years, going back to the desert fathers and mothers who retreated from the city into the desert to try to hear from God a little bit more because I think they understood a really simple truth. We cannot hear a voice that we refuse to stop talking over. And so this morning, when we're talking about silence, I'm not just talking about what it would be like if this room were just quiet and everything went quiet with no noise. All of this season, we're talking about practice, we're talking about behaviors, well, you're talking about things that we can continue to go back to in our lives that help us to live out the way of Jesus. And silence is really choosing for a set amount of time to stop filling the gap with all of the noise of our life and come before God with no agenda. And that is a discipline. [BLANK_AUDIO] But silence trains us, this practice trains us, to become more aware of God. Even when our surroundings and the things that are happening around us are not announcing his presence. But the truth is, we're just not good at the quiet, or at least I'm not. I don't know about you, but I mean, have you been in your car in a commute in the middle of traffic recently?

Or waiting at a doctor's office, or in any kind of a line, or anything like that? If you're like me, you just kind of grab your phone and start looking at it. What's going on in the world? What's happening? Or I turn on a podcast and listen to someone talk to me, right? We're just not that great at the quiet. And it's not just about our phones. I mean, we talk about that because that is the single, most effective invention we have ever made to deal with an old problem. And that is that we would do almost anything and be almost anywhere, just like those people in that study, to keep from being in silence and solitude with the Lord. So that's a muscle that we're going to work today. Are you ready? All right. It's uncomfortable. And this morning, I really just want to answer a question of when and how do we practice this silence? What does that look for us, Rhonda? That sounds great. I have no idea how to do that. We're going to talk about that a little bit today, all right? But let's pray. God, I am so thankful for the way you come and your presence is here. We say come Holy Spirit and continue to dwell here with us. So for the next few moments, we set everything else aside and we're coming together as one community to listen to you, to what you have to say. So speak to us. We're listening. And may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you today. In your name, Jesus, amen. So I think one of the most obvious times that we need to practice silence and solitude in our lives is when we have nothing left. So turn with me to 1 Kings, chapter 19. We're going to talk a little bit about Elijah. And in order for us to understand what's happening here in chapter 19, we need to understand what was just happening in chapter 18 with Elijah. If you're unfamiliar with his story, Elijah was a prophet of God. And just before what we're about to read, he had stood at Mount Carmel in front of 450 false prophets of the false God bale. He had stood in front of them and he had called fire down from heaven and it came. And all of Israel fell down and said it was like national revival. They said, that God, the God of Elijah, that's the real one. That's the one. So Elijah had just come from this amazing, miraculous experience with God. And right after that, he gets a message from Jezebel and says, by this time tomorrow, Elijah, you're going to be just as dead as those prophets of bale. So Elijah, the prophet who had just called down fire from heaven, starts running for his life. And that's where we find him in verse 3.

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there. While he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, he came to a broom bush sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, Lord," he said, "take my life. I am no better than my ancestors." So one chapter out of one of the greatest days of Elijah's life, he's under a bush asking God to let him die. And if you have ever found yourself in a place after an effective week or season or a time where you felt God really close to you into a season where you kind of crash and feel empty and feel like you just can't do it anymore, I think we can relate to Elijah's story. But notice what God does first. And I just love this about the Lord. He deals with the way Elijah is An angel comes to him and touches him and says, "Get up and eat, Elijah." And so he gets up, he eats, he goes to sleep, he eats again, says, "This journey's been too much for you." And what I love about this is God knew what he really needed. I know that sometimes when I feel like I'm running on empty, my first instinct isn't to rest. It's usually to just keep pushing through. But really, I think sometimes the way into silence can be just as simple as a snack and a nap. Sometimes the most spiritual thing I could do would be let the Lord just minister to the way I am feeling, right? So I love that about him, but he's fed, he's rested, he gets up and he travels 40 days further. He's still running for his life. He goes to the core of the mountain of God. He finds a cave there and that's when God starts talking to what's really going on. He starts addressing the attitudes and even Elijah's own theology about what he's believing about God and he says, "Why are you here, Elijah?" At this, this is Elijah's answer.

I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, they've torn down your altars and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left and they are trying to kill me too. I love Elijah's story here. It's only me, God, you should be grateful. I'm the only faithful one left, no one knows the cost. I just hear myself, unfortunately, in that a little bit sometimes. I know the script, the story that I start rehearsing about myself in the middle of the noise. When I'm hiding and fearful and I'm convinced that no one can understand what I am suffering for the Lord. And this is what God says. Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, Elijah, for the Lord is about to pass by. Even a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. That the Hebrew behind that phrase, "Gentle Whisper" is "cold-de-me-ma-de-cha." It literally means a thin sound or silence. Older translations say, "A still small voice."

You know, we can't miss an earthquake or a tornado that comes, but we can most definitely miss a whisper. Especially when we have come to God expecting him to show up the way he did before in the spectacle. God had just allowed fire to come down from heaven to show himself mighty. So it would be appropriate of Elijah to think that he's gonna get an encore of that very thing, but instead God came to him as a father who started feeding a suicidal prophet and then whispered him to him in such a way that Elijah had to be quiet enough. To hear him. God asked the question of him a second time asking Elijah to just name into the silence what was really going on. And then he addresses that story that Elijah has been telling himself. He says, "Elijah, I reserved 7,000 in Israel. All whose knees have not bowed down to Baal. "You are not the only one left, Elijah. "I have 7,000 more. "7,000 believers that Elijah couldn't see "when he was hiding in the cave and he was worried "and he was listening to the fear "that was trying to address him." Here's the truth, silence is where our trust gets tested. It's where we go to listen and hear that God is good to us.

That he's there for us, that he understands. And I think we live out Elijah's story more often than we would really like to admit we do. end of yourself, you have nothing left. What is God trying to whisper to you underneath whatever the noise is that you have allowed to come into your life? So we need silence. We need solitude when we're at the end of ourselves, when we don't have anything left. We also need it when we're succeeding, when things are going well. I mean, if the prophet of God needed to be quiet enough to hear the voice of God, I really don't have any kind of excuse. In my life, I'm running a lot faster from a lot smaller problems than Elijah was running from. But let's go and let's see what Jesus has to say about this. Turn with me now to Mark chapter 1. And again, right before this passage begins, where we're going to read, Jesus had had like the best day in his ministry career so far. He had just healed Peter's mother-in-law, all right? And so we come here to Mark chapter 1, verse 32. That evening after sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who were ill and those who were demon possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases and drove out many demons. The whole town was at the door. Everyone wanted to hear what Jesus had to say. Everyone wanted to bear witness to the miracles that he was performing. He was doing great, and let's be honest, if we were managing his ministry calendar, the next day, we would have been like, get a bigger venue. I'm booking some press interviews. I have Jesus ready to go on to this podcast.

It's going to be bigger and better, everybody. We are crushing it. We would just want to ride the momentum. Everyone's already gathered, but this is what Jesus did. In verse 35, very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place where he prayed. He withdrew at the exact moment that everything was going well. In a moment that we would really be tempted to kind of skip the quiet part. Let's ride that momentum as far as it would go, Jesus interrupted himself, and he withdrew to be quiet with the Father. Luke tells us that that's a pattern in Jesus' life, and Luke 5 says, "The news about Jesus spread all the more so that the crowds of people came to hear him and be healed of their diseases, but Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. And withdrew is a rhythm." And remember who we're talking about? This is Jesus. I mean, he's like the one person in history who probably could have just skipped this part. I mean, John tells us that Jesus was given the spirit without limit. He was the most spiritually resource person that ever lived in history. He had everything at his immediate access, but if he thought that prayer and time alone with God was non-negotiable, then what am I doing? It was a rhythm. It was part of his life, but let me be honest with you, when they said that I had to speak on the way of silence, me, Rhonda Davis, I was like, "I am a total imposter up there." I mean, my calendar runs way past the margins. My schedule is to the limit, and I am the most excited when I am working, and everyone around me is working. It just makes me happy. Quiet time and silence and solitude with God is often, honestly, if I'm just being transparent

with you, it can often be the first thing that goes. Because nobody's watching me, nobody's checking off that I did that every day, and nothing breaks immediately if I miss a few moments alone. But if I am honest, the real reason why I struggle against silence and solitude with God really has nothing to do with time, because busy is comfortable. She asks something of me that silence never asks of me. by a group of people to stop curating the content that we give. And when I was preparing this message, I had to confess to the Lord, because here's what I had to admit, the same instinct that makes me curate what other people see about me is the same temptation, the same instinct that keeps me away from silence and solitude with God. Somehow, I have convinced myself that I can manage what God sees of me. I don't know why I can, I mean, Psalms is very clear with us, before I get up, he knows, before I lay down, he knows, before I open my mouth, he knows what I'm going to say. It's very clear with us, but somehow, I have convinced myself that I can manage it, and to come into silence, to be fully known and seen by God, I will come to the Scriptures all the time, I'll study the Word and learn about the Word. I'll talk to God in prayer, I'll tell him all about the things I need him to do for me, but to be quiet and listen to him, to let him read me, that is something altogether different. There's no filter, and I think that's why so many of us just decide to skip over this practice of the way. That sustainable fruitfulness runs on rhythm, and the way to a long spirit-formed life requires a rhythm just like Jesus' rhythm, a rhythm of withdrawal, of coming away, of allowing myself to be fully known by the one who has never one time been confused about who I really am. We need silence when we're in the middle of a great success. We need silence and solitude when we want something that lasts. Elijah and Jesus, these two stories are teaching us kind of the same thing from two different perspectives and two different points of time. They are helping us remember that the voice of God does not compete at the same volume

as all of the rest of the noise that's in our life. We are not going to get there into deeper relationships with God by asking God to speak more loudly, by asking him to yell above all of the noise. We are going to get there into communion with God by ourselves becoming quieter, by listening. And I know that that is a hard thing. We are in a culture that just produces noise, visual, audio noise, all the time. But there's a trap that we can get into with silence and solitude that I think these two stories are trying to correct. And the last time I was with you, I told you about this book that I've been reading through the summer called What Grows in Weary Lands. And I love this quote from that book. It is not that in our day we never see solitude or stillness as valuable. But they are merely fuel for a machine whose chief purpose is output and productivity. But this story, the one with Jesus, implies that solitude and silence are our orienting goals. We are creatures made to dwell deeply with God. We are so wired for productivity and busyness that we will allow so many of these practices, especially silence and solitude with God, to just be like drinking a spiritual cup of coffee or something like that. Like I'm going to go away into silence with God. I'm going to listen to him so that I might be more productive later. Like it is a means to an end. But the withdrawal and the relationship and the communion with God is the point. Outcome what God does out of that, that's up to him. It's kind of like if I had a jar of water and I shook it up really good. And it was in constant motion, that jar of water would look pretty clear because I would be swirling it around, right? But if I set that jar on this table and I allowed everything to steal, all the silt and the sediment would fall to the ground. And that's kind of what silence does.

It allows everything to quiet so that we can see what's resting there underneath the motion. That should sound a little bit familiar because a few weeks ago when we were talking about the way of rest, Pastor John talked about that. He's talked about how our motion hides our motivation and it reveals what's really on the inside of us. And silence does something very similar but it just goes one layer deeper. Rest calms and quiets our hands, but silence quiets our mind and allows us to deal with the issues and the things that the rest has exposed. So we practice silence and solitude, not just as fuel for the productivity of our lives but just for the relationship with him. We need a relationship with Jesus, with the one who created us, one where we don't do all the talking. Have you ever been out with friends who just talk all the time? I bet you don't want to. We need to listen, right? So today we're gonna practice this a little bit. We're gonna practice and this isn't the only way to practice silence but it's just kind of a doorway into what this could look like 'cause this is totally counter-cultural. It's totally different.

We're going against the grain here by choosing to still ourselves and to quiet ourselves. But we're gonna practice something today. It's one of the oldest practices of the church and if you've been around Victory Church for a little while, this won't be new to you. It's a way of reading scripture called Lectio Divina. It's Latin for a sacred reading is all. We're gonna read scripture slowly enough and we're gonna listen closely enough so that we can let it read us. Lectio Divina has four parts. Read, reflect, respond, rest. Those are the parts. And I'm gonna read the same passage of scripture and after I finish reading it, I'm just gonna give you a couple of prompts but I'm just gonna let us be silent and listen and I love this phrase that I learned one time. Let silence do the heavy lifting. We're gonna let it let whatever bubbles up bubble up, okay? If you've never done this before, it's okay. There's no wrong way to do this. I'm not like giving you a quiz afterward. And your mind is probably going to wonder because we're human. So just let it come back, let it come back to the scripture. But I am going to read in Luke chapter 10, it's a familiar passage to many of us and it's one that speaks directly to this concept

of busyness versus silence and rest. So let's settle in a little bit. Put your phone away. Nobody's gonna need you. It's just gonna be a few minutes. Put your phone away. Maybe you wanna close your eyes while I read, maybe not. Just focus in, give yourself a minute. We just say, Holy Spirit, we don't need to figure anything out right now. We just wanna notice what it is that you're doing among us. (gentle music) So I'm gonna read the passage this first time and you don't need to remember it, just notice. Just notice if a word or a phrase stands out to you. This is Luke 10, 38. As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me. Martha, Martha, the Lord answered. You are worried and upset about many things,

but few things are needed, or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her. (gentle music) (soft music) [MUSIC PLAYING] - This time when I read the same passage, we're just going to reflect. Whatever word or phrase stood out to you, just kind of let it turn over and ask, God, why, why this word, why this phrase? What does this touch in my life this week? Okay? As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me "to do the work by myself? "Tell her to help me." "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "You are worried and upset about many things, "but few things are needed, or indeed only one. "Mary has chosen what is better, "and it will not be taken away from her." (gentle music)

(gentle music) (gentle music) I'm gonna read the same passage a third time. And this time we respond, not out loud, but just to whatever words come. Maybe it's gratitude. Maybe it's a question that you haven't been able to answer. Maybe it's God I have been Martha all year and I didn't even realize it. Whatever is true, just talk to God about that. As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet, listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care "that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? "Tell her to help me." "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "You are worried and upset about many things, "but few things are needed, or indeed only one. "Mary has chosen what is better "and it will not be taken away from her." (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) Now, in a little bit more just a little extended silence in these few moments, we rest.

We just let it go. We don't need to say anything else. Here we just stay, the way Mary stayed, with nothing to manage, nothing to prove. He's not grating you. We're just gonna be with him just for a couple of moments. (gentle music) - Hey men. (soft music) I hope you heard him a little bit. Or maybe you took a little nap. Maybe there are some of you who have come running in today. Kind of like Elijah was running. Got a lot going on. And you're coming to the end of yourself. And you need to hear that there's a God who will give you rest and who will feed you. Or maybe you're like Jesus and you're at the top of your game. Things are going really well. You're in an excellent season and you just need to hear that invitation to interrupt yourself. And remember that silence and solitude are also part of the rhythm. All of that is fine. We don't build the rhythm in one sitting. And it's not about how long you spend with him. It's about you coming back over and over and over. To bring everything in your life.

Even all of the noise and all of the distraction and all of the things to just wrap that up and offer it to the Lord. Just you and him. No agenda. - We're so grateful that you joined us today. At Victory, we pray big prayers to a big God and we expect big results. If you would like to receive prayer, you can submit a prayer request by visiting victory.church/pray. If this message or any of our messages have impacted your life and you would like to partner with us through giving, you can do so at victory.church/give. Thank you again for joining us. At Victory Church, we live life to the full. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) You