Ken Boa Reflections Ministries

Dr. Ken Boa: Good morning. Lord, we thank you for your presence in this our midst, and we ask that we would honor that by opening and exposing ourselves to your word, which is truth. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Now, I am sharing with you in this new series, brief though it is, principles and values to live by that I've put together. They are based on several that I had in *Conformed to His Image*, but we reshaped these. I find it very helpful for me to summarize my own pursuits in terms of three categories. There are 12 principles we've organized concerning pursuing God, starting with him. Then the second session is pursuing godly character, and there are 12 of those. That's not an accident; it's a good biblical number. It worked out well. Then the third one is pursuing the highest good of others.

So it goes from God to self to others, which is the sequence that I use so much: loving God completely, loving ourselves correctly, and loving others compassionately. That's the principle. My little red line shows me where I left off so I can't possibly forget. I did five out of 12, so I'm going to try to do the remaining seven. We are up to number six: committing to the centrality of Christ. I'm arguing here that we cannot be faithful followers of Jesus while compartmentalizing our faith, treating some areas as being under Christ's lordship but not other areas. If he is to be the Lord of our lives, he must be the Lord of every component.

I talk about this whole idea of compartmentalization. Often the difference between a believer and an non-believer is about that. What does that imply to you when you see that? He is one among many. He's a component, but he's not the centrality, and that's what makes all the difference in the world. A centered life is a radically different one. In the center, he's the hub of the wheel, and then all the spokes will find their proper orientation because essentially, if he's at the center, then the others are going to always find their proper place.

This is more of a biblical way of looking at it. This is a centered life. When Christ is at the center, this is what it means: there's no sacred-secular dichotomy in my life. All things are spiritual. What makes what is called secular turn into the spiritual? It's the focus of your heart. The so-called secular becomes spiritual when the focus of your heart is the eternal. If he's at the center, then if you're doing it as unto him, your work is done to the honor of Christ. You see your work is done in a way that pleases and honors him. So he's the center.

Whether it is your finances or your recreation, there's no sacred-secular dichotomy. The danger in the realities of life is that sometimes something else, like work, will become the center of our life, and then Christ becomes the component. Then when it's finances, that becomes the center. Sometimes Christ might be at the center for a period of time, but at the end of the day, it turns out that it's not actually consistent with that kind of life that we want to have. Everything you do can be done to the glory of God. Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of Christ.

These 17 verses of Colossians chapter three, I commend for your study and memory if you want. It's really pretty powerful stuff. At the end of verse 17, it puts it this way: "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father." So you can see that summary, that there's no sacred-secular.

The next one is: remember that your deepest needs are met in Christ. Your security and significance are found in him alone. We can trust him to know and supply exactly what we need. When we recognize this, we'll be free to serve others without manipulating our relationships to get our needs met because you're coming to a relationship out of the overflow of Christ in you rather than out of a deficiency modality.

If you're coming to people and you're looking to them for security, you're going to be not serving them but actually trying to use them. It's a mindset that we have to bear in mind. We look at our fundamental needs that we all have. All of us have been hardwired in a very real way to need something that's going to make us feel secure, something that makes us significant, and something that makes us satisfied with our life.

What is it that we can turn to? You will turn to something, and generally speaking, you're going to turn to the wrong things. Often people will turn to people for security. They'll let you down. At the end of the day, people turn to significance for possessions. It seems though that possessions never provide all they are cracked up to be because even if you suddenly get this thing you've been longing to get, it's just never all that it was cracked up to be. It always leaves you a little bit deficient because you need something more than that.

Third, for satisfaction, they seek to accomplish something or put themselves in a position, and that's just an unstable basis for being. Here is where you turn for security: you turn to the Father who has adopted you into his family. You turn to the Son who has given his life for you and put you into the body of Christ. You turn to the Holy Spirit who has empowered you to accomplish something that's going to endure. Who wants to live a life that's going to have no ripple effects at all, as if you never were here?

All of us long for something that's going to have an eternal consequence. The only two things that go on into eternity are people and the word of God. So it's what we build into people; it's what we do when we are walking by the Spirit. It's what we do when we abide in Christ. It's what we do when we trust the Father. God knows we have those needs, but he tells us you've got to look at the right place to get them met.

Your needs are met in him, and it gives you fullness and security that you otherwise wouldn't have. God is able to make all grace abound to you so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed. He's talking about whatever you do and he's encouraging to give proportionately and sacrificially and cheerfully with a sense of participation. You can't outgive the Lord.

The next one I have is a huge topic: practicing God's presence, which is often overlooked. I created a book called *A Guide to Practicing God's Presence*, and there's another book that I have called *Life in the Presence of God*. Those two books are involved in helping people do what often people don't really take seriously. I made it a guidebook so that each week you have two exercises. There's 104 exercises for 52 weeks.

In addition to your devotional life, what do you do the rest of the day? Most people make it something that's not connected with him. Most of your day is not going to be spent in devotions unless you're a monastic. The reality is that you're called to actually be engaged in this world, but I claim that you can carry his presence with you because you're capable of living on two levels simultaneously. God's created you in such a way that you can think on two layers and two levels at once.

You can abide in Christ while you're doing anything. But most people don't consciously seek to do that. What am I going to do? Love God and my neighbor in the morning and maybe before I go to sleep? That's an ongoing process. Walk by the Spirit; keep in step with the Spirit. All of these are metaphors: rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, dwell on whatever is good and right and proper, and so forth. All these these principles. I find that this is a critical theme for me to encourage people to do.

"Whatever you do, do your work heartily as to the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance." So it's whatever you do; it's in all things. Instead of just alluding to people who became famous for this, for example, Brother Lawrence, realize we are called, every person is called in one way or another to be involved in the practice of his presence. There are different exercises, monitoring your thought life and so forth. I find it to be very helpful for me to encourage people to do that, and it's my own reminder to myself.

Number nine is seeking fresh bread. Don't live on yesterday's faith. Yesterday's faith is today's sight. What you're trusting God for in the past, and it took a risk then, but once you've become accustomed to that, then it's going to be requiring more risk for you to continue to grow. He'll often bump up the ante of risk. You can't grow, by the way, apart from risk-taking.

It's a very critical principle in scripture that obedience to God requires risk-taking because it means that we are treasuring what's not visible, what's not seen, over what's visible, what's not yet over what's now. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So you realize that to treasure what's not yet over what's seen takes a measure of risk. Obedience to God requires that, and to align my perspective with him makes all the difference in the world.

Every day, ask God to speak to you through his word and prayer, and ask for new insights, fresh bread, to show up. Show up before the scriptures, before the Lord, with an open heart and an open mind. I find it to be very helpful to do that and find scriptures that would help you. One resource I find myself using a lot is the *Handbook to Renewal* because there it not only has—I use it at night—but also there's a topical renewal guide.

I find that organizing these affirmations in biblical sequence is very powerful. Verses on courage and perseverance are very encouraging in times of adversity. I desire to be diligent to realize the full assurance of hope to the end. I don't want to become sluggish but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. These are things that I'm looking for to find ways in which I can creatively engage in the word and see new things that I didn't see before.

This is what I mean about new insights, asking God for fresh insights in the word. Without faith, it's impossible to please him because he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those who seek him. So he's always saying you need to continue to get new material, new understanding. I'm listening right now to the book of Exodus. This manna, which literally means "What is it?" they didn't know what it was, but it must have been the perfect food because it sustained these people for that many years until it ran out when they finally got into the land.

But the idea of fresh bread, you couldn't gather it for two days. You couldn't hoard it except on Friday; then you would get twice so you wouldn't have to go out on the Sabbath. Of course, on the Sabbath, what would they do? They'd go out looking for manna. He told them not to do it, but it's amazing how disobedient—you just get weary of it. Every time I go through the Old Testament, every time I hear these stories about people doing the dumbest things, I keep hoping it'll come out different this time. But you know it's going to be this way, and God puts up with a lot.

But the idea is if they tried to hoard and get too much or keep it over, it would rot. But on that particular day, it wouldn't rot. Give us this day our daily bread. It's living very daily. So you trust in him for your means and your resources. This means that your divine provision—not just food and clothing—but your divine provisions for what he needs in this day. Every day is a little mini-life that you're living before God. Seeking fresh bread makes good sense to me, to know that he's a rewarder of those who seek him diligently.

Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and to you who have no money, come, buy, and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully and eat what is good and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to me; listen that you may live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you according to the faithful mercies shown to David.

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near. All of this is a mindset of seeking him and having an appetite for the things that will endure. Any questions on these particular principles—the centrality of Christ, your deepest needs are met in him, practicing God's presence, or seeking fresh bread?

Guest (Male): What did you say yesterday's bread is today's sight or yesterday's faith?

Dr. Ken Boa: Yesterday's faith is today's sight. What took faith yesterday, you took a risk then, but once you've become accustomed to that, then it's going to be requiring more risk for you to continue to grow. He'll often bump up the ante of risk. You can't grow, by the way, apart from risk-taking. It's a very critical principle in scripture that obedience to God requires risk-taking because it means that we are treasuring what's not visible, what's not seen, over what's visible, what's not yet over what's now.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So we have to move from one scale to another. We have to transfer our hope and move into putting more hope now into the unseen and the not yet. There are different ways of going that would be the ideal way to go, but the reality is going to be different. These are the things that would keep us down: the worries of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, the desires for other things.

To break through is to see new things. It just reminds me again about the challenge of trust and the risk that it requires. If it's a dynamic relationship, it won't be static, and there will be always new things to be revealed and learned. I often use the metaphor of the iceberg as well. So much of your life is below the waterline; you don't even know. But when you respond to the light and that light is given to you, it illuminates. Then the loss of mass because when you respond to that light, then the exact amount of mass that was lost is replaced by material that was below the waterline.

Your life is like this and most of it's below the waterline. You don't even know what's going on. So at the end of the day, he's always teaching you. You never stop. The only time when it's finally going to be fully revealed is when we are with Jesus at the judgment seat and all will be made known. But he constantly wants us to grow. But he's not going to give you more light if you didn't respond to the light you received. Why would he give you more light if you didn't follow what he gave you already? It would be bad pedagogy. You respond to the light and take the risk, then he will give you more light that you can respond to and then you continue to move. Any other thoughts on this?

Guest (Male): Do you have a section on pruning or was that...

Dr. Ken Boa: A lot of it has to do with that. I think I do allude to it later on, but the pruning that he uses, you're making me think of one of my favorite poems by George Herbert. It's called *Paradise*. Have any of you ever seen this poem in your English history or English studies? It's a brilliant poem because he says, "I bless thee Lord because I grow among thy trees which in a row to thee both fruit and order owe." You see what he's doing here? He's actually pruning it. Grow, row, owe.

"What open force or hidden charm can blast my fruit or bring me harm while the enclosure is thine arm?" Charm, harm, arm. He did these poems privately and secretly and only on his deathbed did he give them over to his friend Ferrar and they would have been never known. But amazing stuff. "Enclose me still for fear I start. Be to me rather sharp and tart. Then let me want thy hand and art. When thou dost greater judgment spare and with thy knife but prune and pare, even fruitful trees more fruitful are."

Once again we go down to the pruning dynamic going on there. "Such sharpness shows the sweetest friend. Such cuttings rather heal than rend. And such beginnings touch their end." So he's saying what the process of pruning is to do is actually to cause us to have more fruit, not less. But it's not to say that it's not painful.

C.S. Lewis uses a couple of metaphors that I find very instructive along this idea of pruning. One of them is this whole idea of imagining that you were a canvas and you had nerve endings on this canvas. So you wouldn't want the artist to scrape off with his palette knife to perfect it, but you'd want him to just leave it alone. Every time he scrapes it, there's agony and pain. What would you as the canvas want to tell the artist? Cut it out. I'd rather be a thumbnail sketch.

But the artist wants to make you his magnum opus. Remember what the great work means? It's the work upon which the artist hinges his reputation. You see his desire is to show to men and to angels that God is who he is and to do it through you, who were formerly at enmity with him and now have been brought near by the blood of Christ. So pruning is always necessary. I want more from you than you would want from yourself. So pruning is a profound idea.

Or another way of metaphor of using it is faceting it, like you take a gem and you facet it and you keep every time you add more facets, it makes it more brilliant. And so that would be a painful thing again to be the gem that's being faceted, but he does that in our lives and it's necessary for our own growth. So that's the process that's involved.

Let's move on to the next ones. Cultivate a seeing eye, and actually that was one of the exercises that I had in this book. The heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of his hands. I just saw this David Attenborough thing on eggs. Who would think? It was just the life of eggs and how they're so exquisite and the most perfect thing that he knows in the created order. The more you learn about it, the more astonished you become. The variety and their shapes and their purposes and so forth is so rich and complex; it just staggers the imagination.

So I've made it part of my routine with Karen to help her see the glory of God through the natural world. I think that makes an enormous difference. Though she can't go out now in the garden as she used to do, I take lots of photos of it and show her those things because to cultivate a seeing eye is to have a sense of openness to the beauty and marvels of the living God because his beauty is so vast and so great.

I also collect when I think about the beauty of this world and the structures that I see on every order of magnitude. You look at this and cultivate the seeing eye, you can see this wonderful mimicry that you've got here and this beauty and this design, this elegance on every order of magnitude, this little shrimp and so forth. You see these things and why do we resonate with that? You see that as a beauty that we see and it's just something elegant and wonderful to behold. And so I like to do that in myself and take photos myself.

These are some photos I took as a part of a little collection I've got here. Just the splendor of looking at this marvel and this combination of things. So as I take these photos—I still remember when I picked these from our garden a couple years ago, these peonies—and just to see the color and the shape and the texture and the feel of them. See the rich complexity of ferns and what they reveal about God in this complex structure here, the geometry of that. These are things that I like to marvel in and to see.

How many of you have been to Gibbs Gardens? These are a couple photos that I took at Gibbs Gardens. Isn't it wonderful to go there? I strongly urge you to go there more than once because each—there are several times in the season when you can see these, but they're particularly great in the fall and seeing this rich color and this rich combinations there. Beautiful things that you can see there, this double colored iris and so forth. So as I look at these and see the textures and the beauty of these things and once you begin to do this, the more you see, the more you're able to see and that's what I find is most intriguing here.

Guest (Male): Look at the flowers on stage that Christy brought this morning.

Dr. Ken Boa: Aren't they beautiful? Again, you look at that and why do you put them up there? Why are they part of this worship service? They reveal the glory of God. Whenever you look at that, it's a reminder. One of the things that people don't do is you ought to feel flowers, the textures, not just the colors and the shapes and the complexities, but the textures are just so marvelous that you wonder at that. So it's important to have that, the senses being amplified in various real ways.

Look for the glory of God in the natural world around you. I'd like you to maintain more of a sense of childlike wonder because as we see these things, I get astonished. The more I learn, the more elegant, robust, rich, and mysterious the world is becoming. In fact, it's an interesting thing because more and more people are clinging to the "E" word, evolution, because that's all they've got if they want to, but really it points to the glory of God and he's not getting the honor he deserves.

At the same time, the irony is that science is revealing things that show it couldn't be mutations and natural selection and time and chance. It doesn't work. It's not sufficient enough to make these incremental changes that would be necessary; all at once, it would require the miraculous odds against even the simplest little improvements. So the idea is to realize that God is displaying himself now in ways he never did before, in richer and more profound ways, and the more we learn, the more we see.

Sharing that with others is always a good thing as well. So develop a sense of childlike wonder that you wonder about this and you're open to this and you're always learning. So I think it's very healthy for you to do that; it makes a big difference.

Number 11: invite the friendship and nearness of God. Long for God's companionship as one longs for the presence of a close friend. This is why these verses that I like to use a lot in my *Spiritual Renewal Cards* and these life-changing prayers, I really encourage you once again to use these cards or become familiar with them. You can find them on the website. But every one of these four prayers, two from Ephesians and one from Colossians and Philippians, are all designed to encourage us to know him in a deeper way than we do, not just as an inference but as a person to be known as a person that we can know as a friend.

As in any real friendship, we have to accept from him both wounds, suffering, discipline, rebuke, correction, and the healing that's sure to follow when we remain faithful to him. This wonderful idea, "I've called you to be my friends." So when I think about John 15, it is a reminder to me about how we're to abide in him and draw our vitality from him. "I've called you friends." It's the idea of abiding in him and drawing your vitality from him so that he becomes more near to you than he was before, to be called a friend of God.

You want to accept from that, in that friendship of relationship, an intimacy, a connection with him. So more than just an intellectual inference, you want him to be a personal presence. I think that's a prayer that God would honor. That's why I go back to these four life-changing prayers. This first one in Ephesians, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him." To know him personally, experientially, and relationally.

That the eyes of your heart may be enlightened and to know these three things. What is his calling? What is that hope? What are the riches of the glory of his inheritance that you're going to receive? What's your great, surpassing greatness of this power toward us who believe? Then he talks about in chapter three of Ephesians that you would know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. He's going more than just head knowledge; it's heart knowledge. It's relational knowledge. It's experiential knowledge. It's personal knowledge.

The same idea here, that you would have a greater knowledge of him and joyously giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. These are great prayers for you to follow and to make part of your prayers because they are prayers for intimacy. They are prayers for knowing him, becoming like him, and pursuing him.

Julian of Norwich used to pray in her revelations of divine love, the faithful wound of longing and of becoming like him and knowing what he's like. But suffering and discipline, rebuke, correction—those are severe mercies that are given to us for our good. It's significant that we learn through the adversities we have and to remain faithful to him in the times of temptation and testing because you're going to go through this on a regular basis. Clinging to him above all.

Finally, abiding in the Son. This is where you'll manifest the fruit of God's Spirit when you stay close to him as a branch stays connected with a vine. I've shown you this before, what abiding means, and it's good to review this again. There's a sequence, a beautiful sequence, in John chapter 15. In that sequence, he talks about, "by this is my Father glorified." How? What's the key to glorifying the Father? That you bear much fruit.

Remember he talked about fruit, more fruit, much fruit. He wants you to bear fruit, but you will not bear fruit in the flesh but only in the Spirit. So as you trust the Father, abide in the Son, walk by the Spirit, you will be bearing fruit. But what's the key to bearing fruit? Abiding in the branch.

The metaphor that I love to use is this metaphor of that you and I are branches and we do not create life. What do we do? As a branch, you receive life from the vine. So you're a conduit of his life that flows in you and through you as you. What's significant about that is that the fruit is not required for the branch to survive. The fruit is excess life; it's abundant life. But it's fruit that you didn't create but you received his life, abiding in him and allowing him to do it in you and through you.

What's the quality of that fruit? Twofold. Number one, fruit bears the seeds of its own reproduction. Secondly, fruit nourishes; it feeds. Those two qualities: evangelism and edification. You are receiving his life, and then you're an agent in the lives of those around you, the lives whom you touch. So if the key to glorifying the Father is bearing fruit, and if the key to bearing fruit is abiding, what's the key to abiding? In the text, he says, "You will abide in me if you obey and do what I command you to do." So you will abide in me when you obey me.

But obedience takes risk, and that's why I need to trust him because if I don't trust him, I'm not going to obey him. What's the key to trusting him? Go backwards. What would make you trust him? You love him, and what makes you love him is to know him. I'm back to those four life-changing prayers again. I want you to notice that it goes both ways. The key to knowing him is to love him. To love him is to trust him. To trust him is to obey him. To obey is to abide. When you abide, you bear fruit. When you bear fruit, you glorify the Father.

You can see this upward and downward cycle that makes good sense. This is what I mean by being a fruit-bearing person who actually, as you draw your vitality intentionally and deliberately through Christ in you the hope of glory, you become the word became flesh and you dwell in our midst as one who is an agent of that transforming change.

You're abiding in the Son. So now what I've done is I've managed to get through these first two groups. I'm going to go on to next is I'm going to look at pursuing godly character. These are just reminders to me, and I'll make this document available. It's something that I can provide.

It's good for you to just review these things and to see that God's desire for you is to be one who knows him, loves him, pursues him because you're shaped by your aspirations. You become conformed by that to which you aspire. What you long for, what you seek, will actually define you. So what do you seek more than anything else? Lord Jesus, we give you thanks and praise for your love for us and we ask that you would by your grace give us a greater aspiration to know you and become like you. In Christ's name, Amen.