Main Session 1 (Continued)

As I was writing last night's post I was sitting in a friend's room waiting for pizza. The pizza never came, and I fell asleep on the floor. I woke up only long enough to push Publish and stumble off to my own room and bed.

Main Session 1. Last night.

Joshua Harris spoke on discernment. Here are some notes from his message. I'll fix all the typos later.

The mission of New Attitude is to encourage believers and strengthen them to live what they believe with humility. This is Humble Orthodoxy. We want to discover these truths and we want these truths to shape us.

We don’t want to show up and say “Hey, we’ve got something new – check us out” – no, we want this truth that has always been, to completely transform us. We want to be humble before this truth. We want to see that the first priority when we encounter truth is to live it ourselves. Then we want to proclaim this truth to others. Sharing not as people who are right, but people who have been rescued.

Humble Orthodoxy is our goal, so discernment is the theme of this conference. You can’t have Humble Orthodoxy without discernment. You need discernment so that you can distinguish the truth from error.

Discernment is the ability to distinguish between things. Latin word means “to separate apart.”

Example: separating the peanuts from the popcorn in Cracker Jack. You’re going to choose the thing that you think is good. Distinguishing between things. From a christian perspective, it is the ability to judge between good/evil, right/wrong, truth/error, wise/unwise.

1 Thessalonians 5:21-22

You test ideas, concepts, etc. and then you sort between those. “The good” versus “that which is evil” and “displeases God.”

1. Testing (all things)
2. Discerning (good and evil)
3. Holding fast (that which is good)

1. It’s not that simple. Someone comes up to you and says “Can I be your friend? I’m evil.” You say NO, I avoid people who are evil – went to a whole conference about that!

We don’t come equipped with discernment. Not born with it. It’s not always as easy as picking the peanuts out of Cracker jack.

If people DID come and announce whether they were evil, that’d be easy!
“80% of this book is true. The rest is erroneous, patently false, and contrary to Biblical values. This information can be found in chapters 2, 3 and 9.”

“As I was preparing for this message I was really influenced by humanism and worldly values. Let’s start with prayer.”

“Hey guys, this next song has really mediocre words, but the music is great!”

“Welcome to my blog. I’m a total loser. If you knew me, if you knew my life, you wouldn’t care to have my opinion about anything. But since you don’t know me, I’m going to share all thins related to theology, every day!”

“The following sermon is a bunch of baloney. Nothing but a bunch of warmed-over spirital garbage. Thank you for listening to WJTL Spirit FM.”

The eventual consequences of ideas and practices we encounter in this culture are not always obvious. There are subtle, unhelpful tendencies. There are potential pitfalls that we won’t immediately see. Discernment with wise/unwise, sound/unhelpful teaching isn’t easy to see, and sometimes the two are mixed together.

2. Whether or not we have spiritual discernment is a matter of life and death.

There are times when discernment isn’t really important – issues of style, unimportant stuff. No big deal. But when it comes to spiritual discernment, we’re talking about our souls. Whether or not we’ll know truth that has the power to redeem fallen humanity. We’re talking about whether or not we will know the living God for who he is! We’re talking about whether we’ll walk the narrow road that leads to life of the broad path that leads to destruction. We see this in the Bible: Moses setting before the people life and death – which will you choose? Proverbs. Calls us to choose between wisdom and folly. Jesus in the Gospels. “There are two paths we have to choose from – broad path, easy to walk on, and a narrow path that few find and few are willing to journey on because it’s hard – but the narrow path leads to life. The broad path leads to destruction.
There is a way that seems riht to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
That’s why discernment matters. Because our souls are at stake.
We have the chance to distinguish truth and live truth in such a way that people around us can hear and see it! So that they might know God.

ultimately, discernment matters because God’s glory is at stake. He has revealed Himself to us through his Word. This Word brings him glgory and reveals His character. That’s why we need to pay attention.

Good new for us is that God has revealed to us how to discern, how to pay attention. ALL of us can grow in discernment, by the grace of God.

Scripture shows us we can ask for discernment

Psalm 119:125 prayerful request for discernment
Daniel 2:21 God gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning
1 Kings 3:9 the prayer that Solomon prayed requesting discernment between right and wrong

Other scruptures show us that we’re supposed to work at discernment.

Psalm 119:104 we get discernment from studying God’s word
Ephesians 5:10 try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord! Try! Work at it!
Hebrews 5:14 mature believers are those who have powers of discernment trained by constant practice, to distinguish good and evil
They’re practicing!

Digging deeper into a single passage: Romans 12
This is where Paul is making a transition from his exposition of the glorious Gospel to looking at the ethical implications of the gospel for our lives. Practical applications.
First two verses: I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Paul is saying – In light of what Jesus has done for you, here is the appropriate response: Give him everything that you are. Your whole self. All your time. Your very body! Make the aim of your life worshiping him and pleasing him and enjoying him! Offer your life as a sacrifice. Lay yourself on the altar as a living sacrifice before God. Everyting that you are.

And then, in verse 2, he explains the work that’s involved in maintaining a life of worship like this. How do you stay on that altar? How to live a life pleasing to the Lord? How to make sure you’re worshiping him with your life?
Well, it tells us we have to live a specific way so that we can discern – so that we can perceive the good, acceptable, perfect will of God.

The reason we want discernment is so that we can know and follow God’s will!

We want God, we want to please him, we want to walk humbly with him! That’s the motivation! That’s what Romans 12:1-2 help us to see. But it tells us what this kind of discernment requires.

1. Discernment requires resistance.

“Do not be conformed to this world.” Or this age. We need to resist being shaped by, being pulled along bty, the modern way of living! Going along with the world. It’s saying Don’t look at the world the way they think about things. Resist that! Do not be conformed.

So we learn there that one aspect of discernment is taking the time to understand our age and its values. Do you know how this world is trying to shape you? Yes, it wants you to sin. But have you ever taken steps beyond that to examine and study and think in light of Scripture the ways the world is trying to influence your thinking? The way it wants you to think about the church, relationships, money, marriage? Have you ever taken the time to truly understand the values of our age. You need to understand this way of thinking if you want to effectively resist it.

Francis Schaeffer, C.S. Lewis. Examples of men who understood the culture so they were able to respond to it Biblically, better.

Understanding this culture and the way it’s trying to mold us does not come easily! It takes hard work. A lifetime of work. That’s why we’re excited to be able to bring men from the previous generation to teach us what they’ve learned. Thank God we have pastors who are older than us! We need them to come alongside us and help us understand this culture!

Al Mohler’s site is like having a big brother who’ll help you beat someone up! I don’t understand something I read in the newspaper, how to respond, and I go to Al’s site and he kick’s butt.

Inevitably, following God’s way involves being rejected by this world.

Not being conformed means that you don’t fit in. You’ll be left out. You need to count that cost (of course, it’s easy to say here among 3000 Christians), but it’s not really fun to have the world think you’re foolish!

There’s a cost here. The practice of discernment requires a break with the world. There’s this radio show on NPR, This American Life. Cool show, I really like it. Stimulating, intelligent, incredible production values, very cool show. I feel cool just saying I like it. This guy, Ira Glass who has a nerdy delivery but he’s so cool! It’s like nerdy sheik.

And a friend emailed me and said “Did you know that you’re on the latest This American Life show?”

They were doing a show on the Ten Commandments, a little story on each commandment. I happened to be included because of a little book I wrote about lust, and it was included in the story on the commandment about adultery. And I found the part where I’m featured, and they picked the most terrible sentences that they could possibly have picked from my book.

I sounded like such a moron!

I remembered that when I’d recorded this audio book I’d had a cold, so I had a nasal voice – and it wasn’t nerdy-cool, it was just nerdy-annoying! I’m listening to this and I sounded like such a backward, uptight, fundamentalist, uncool Christian! No, Lord! I will go to the stake, I will go to the fire, I’ll give everything I have, but Jesus please don’t let me be uncool!

Christian nonconformity is not the cool kind. Rockstars can be nonconformist but it’s cool… but when Christians are nonconformists, we’re idiots! We look silly! And if we’re not willing to die to the desire to the apppear sophisticated and hip and together in the eyes of the world, then we will never be willing to resist conformity, and we wil lnever be discerning.

We want to serve Jesus, butw e want to do that in a way that the world will say “Those Christians, they’re not so bad – they don’t look so bad, they don’t dress so bad, they’re kinda cool in a Christian way.”

We want that so much. And if we let that desire rule us, we’ll be defined by the world’s pattern. Discernment dies!

IF we want to know the will of God, it’ll involve resistance. We will lose the world’s approval. We’ll look foolish. Choosing to please God is choosing to displease the world.

2. Discernment requires renewal.

Instead of being conformed to our age, we are to be “transformed by the renewal of your mind.” We are to be changed and shaped by God’s word.

I got an email from the library saying that I’d need to renew these two books which were about to expire. I need to take steps to say “These books – I want them to still be mine – I’d like to renew them.”

It’s like that with our hearts. We have to constantly choose to renew our hearts. Renew these truths and remind ourselves that we’re living before an eternal God, that this life is not about what we see and what we get. That our Saviour died for our sins. That the Holy Spirit is living in me and enabling me to obey. I don’t have to obey sin!

I need these truths renewed constantly. That’s why we’re here at Na. we’re here because we want to renew truth in our hearts. We want to be transformed by the truth. We want the truth of God’s word to shape us. We need constant and ongoing renewal!

Discernment comes when we know and we constantly renew and commit ourselves to right thinking from Scripture.

You can’t go off and freelance if you want to be renewed. You have to constantly be renewed by the turuths of God’s word.

3. Discernment requires action.

“that by testing you may discern what is the will of God.”

Testing means by doing! Taking action. You cant discern God’s good will by sitting back and just evaluating from a distance. Armchair discernment that is never played out in real life is not discernment. There’s got to be some doing! You can’t just be informed.

The only way for you to grow in discernment is to ACT on what God has revealed to you. Discernment requires application. Or implementation, is another way to say it. You can’t discern what God’s will is until you apply it in your life. Until you actually do it.

So, when you see the word testing – we don’t test God’s will like a teacher giving a pop quiz. What it’s saying is that we must test and examine it by obeying it. By doing it. When we hold on to what God isays is good and we avoid what he says is evil, when by grace we apply His truth, we find that He is truly good!

You know when you stop just sitting back and apply a truth, and as soon as you start doing it the lighbulb goes on and you see God’s goodness and the acceptability of His will?

You have to take action.

Francis Schaeffer, in his book True Spirituality, pounded on the importance of Christians living it. Not just know it.

He writes “We must have a strong, strong doctrinal content…. And as we have a strong doctrinal content, we must practice the content. Practice the Truth the way we believe… exhibit to our own children and to the watching world that we take truths eriously. It will not do to a relativistic age that we don’t practice truth”

Our world won’t be impressed with us if we trumpet truth in our words but don’t live it in our lives. If the theology that you hold doesn’t shape your life, then you’ve not experienced it. You’ve not experienced the richness of it fully until you live it.

Discernment grows as we act on and obey what God has shown us.

The reverse is also true: When we fail to act on and obey truth, discernment dies.

When you know something is true and you don’t live in accordance with that truth, you’re not only disoeying God. You’re stepping into spiritual blindness. You’re losing discernment, and the picture will become even more cloudy.

The most important step that most of you can take in discernment is to obey God in the places that He has already made his will clear in his word! You know that He’s called you to honor your parents. You know that He’s called you to stop lying and to tell the truth. You know that he doesn’t want you in that romantic relationship with someone who is not a believer. You know that He does not want you pursuing immorality. You know that He doesn’t want you browsing the Internet at night when you’re alone and you know you’ll be tempted. You know that He wants you involved and serving in a local church. You know that he wants you to read His word and meditate on His truths.

If you’re not acting on these things that He has made clear, discernment is going to die in your life. Discernment requires action.

As you oey, you will be able to discern what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God You’ll see how good and acceptable and perfect it is.


4. Discernment requires the Gospel.

In the flow of our text, this point really should have been the first point, but I wanted to keep it at the end because it’s the most important point I have to make tonight. The work of Christ fo rus. His perfect oedience to the Father, his substitutionary death for us, His resurrection, all that’s in the Gospel, undersgirds everything that we have discussed and will discuess about discernment.

I’m not just throwing the word Gospel in there so that we can check it off our list. I’m saying this because it’s absolutely true. We can’t rightly live the Christian life, and be discerning, unless we understand that the foundation off everything in our faith is not based on what we have done or can do, but what Jesus Christ has done for us!

Paul hass een talking about the Gospel for 11 chapters, but now that he’s stepping into the practical he doesn’t want anyone to think he’s stepping away from the Gospel! “I plead with you, in view of God’s mercy.”

All of our teahcing on discernment needs to be done in view of Calvery.s cross. Here is where we find the fullest display of God’s mercy. The Innocent One was slain for us, the guity and the vile. God’s mercy was shown when Jesus dies in our place for our sins. The cross reminds us of God’s love, of what we were, and that everyhting we have is because of God’s grace.

That’s why discernment should never be separated form the Gospel. Discernment is only possible because of the Gospel. We can only reist conforming to the world because Jesus has freed us from the dominion of sin! We used to have to obey satan we were slaves to our sin. But now we can RESIST – we can obey BECAUSE of the gospel!

We can only be renewed in our minds because we have been reborn through faith in Jesus and His resurrection. We were once dead, now we’re alive. Dead people don’t discern anything! But God, in His mercy while we were yet sinners, chose ro recue us.
We can’t hjave discernment apart from the Gospel. The only reason we can even respont to it is that God opened our eyes. We weren’t even discerning there! God revealed it to us.

We didn’t see the Gospel by our own strength or will. God came looking for us. We were lbind and dead and opposed to Him in every way, and He came to us and changed us and gave us new hearts and new desires and eyes to see and His Holy Spirit so that we could lvie for Him.

Now he calls us to cling to what is good. The only reason we can do that is because He first loved us. He chose us, He predestined us.

That’s why our practice of discernment should only be done with great humility. When we resist things and say that’s not true, there should be tears in our eyes because we discern in view of God’s mercy. Because He chose to pour out His grace in our lives.

There’s no place for an arrogant practice of discernment. Self-righteous expressions of Biblical discernment are so out of place! Make no sense. If you realize that someone is wrong or something is untrue, to have an attitude of superiority or arrogance, do you see that that has nothing to do with the mercy that you have been shown?!

If we practice discernment in view of God’s mercy, we will practice it with humility.
Any time God reveals something to you should be a moment to turn and thank Him for what He’s done in your life!


Our theme for Na07 is discernment. But even while we focus on discernment together, let’s not focus on discernment. Let’s be preoccupied with the undeserved mercy of God. We see because Jesus died for us.

In view of His mercy, He offers us to offer everything about us to Him as living sacrifices. He calls us to give up any claim that we have on our own life. Anything we desire ourselves, give it up! Present yourselves as a living sacrifice.

Discernment is simply the fruit of a life willingly offered to god. The result of knowing and enjoying our glorious God who gave Himself for us. Discernment summarizes the choices we make bbecause we are living for the One who gave His life for us.

Pastor Ray Ortmann, Jr. Having spread before you, dear friends, the mercies of God, I now call you to offer your whole selves to Him as a sacrifice alive with new life, set apart by holines,s pleasing to God. Such an act of worship is the only meaningful response to the Gospel. Resist being stamped by the views and values of this passing ave. Break ith the wordl. Open your heart to a new outlook on life through a reorientation of your thinking and affections. If you will. God will equip you with discernment and your thinking qith desires to do His will, that which is morally good and completely devoted.