Habit 8: Desire & Fight

H a b i t 8 : Desire & Fight

Jesus is a radical person. There’s nothing status quo or tame about follow-

ing Jesus. His call to discipleship is daring, dangerous, dynamic. Jesus isn’t interested in the surface of our lives, he’s interested in the depths of our lives. He’s after our desires—the deep motivations and longings of our heart. If we’re not tapping into desire in our relationships, not awakening and transforming our deep wants, then our discipleship is superficial and will not bear long-term fruit. Our next step is to follow Jesus together in the arena of desire, discover what’s there, be prepared to fight sin and Satan, and take some risks.

MEMORIZE

Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,

“ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God

and him only shall you serve.’ ” - Matthew 4:10

STUDY MATTHEW 4:1-11 AND GENESIS 3:1-7.

What is Satan doing in these 2 texts? What are the different names used

for our Enemy in these 2 texts? What similarities do you see between these narratives that sit at the beginning of the Old Testament and New Testament? What is Satan’s strategy for tempting Eve and Adam, tempting Jesus, and what connections can you make between how the Tempter tempts you? Where do you see an appeal to desire in these texts? How does Jesus fight temptation? What is the result of Jesus’ fight? What additional connections can you make between these chapters of the Bible, the core book you’re reading, and your stories?

“What do you want?

-JESUS

“Christianity has nothing to say to the person who is completely happy with the way things are. Its message is for those who hunger and thirst—for those who desire life as it was meant to be.”

John Eldredge 69

AWAKEN DESIRE.

To be human is to desire. When we fail to engage our heart’s desire we settle

to pay attention to only the surface of our souls. Desire matters to God. The Bible reveals a God who wants to awaken our desire, forming disciples who worship him and enjoy abundant life from a place of desire and delight, instead of duty or drudgery.

The problem is that because of desires gone sideways, most Christian community settles for the tame territory of behavior modification. We don’t let one another get away with that. Garden City’s culture is one of learning to awaken, surface, and pay attention to our deep desires so that Jesus can meet us in the deep drive of our heart and form our desires towards what is most Life-giving.

To get started with awakening desire, use the question Jesus asks his first disciples in the Gospel of John: “What do you want?” This question is more powerful than it looks.

Stay with this question as a Discipleship Group, ask it to one another and see where it takes you. The goal here is to, over time, get more in touch with your deepest desires (even if they are sinful, addictive, messy) so that Jesus is accessing and transforming us at the core of our being and so that we’re tapping the most powerful engine of disciple-making. For example: Say you’re attending to a problem area in someone’s life and they say all the right things about how they will use their willpower to overcome this issue, but they have no desire to change. You can be certain there will be no lasting change in this person’s life, your efforts are just reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic before it sinks. True transformation happens at the level of our wants.

So, we awaken desire.

C.S Lewis

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“The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord vends our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far to easily pleased”

MEMORIZE

Delight yourself in the LORD,

and he will give you the desires of your heart. - Psalm 37:4

PROCESS YOUR LIMITS AND LOSSES.

We are overbuilt for this world. Our God-sized desires will not be fully satis-

fied this side of the grave. In this fallen world, maturity looks like the ability to come to terms with our limits and losses. Though you may have explored some of this territory with Habit #3 (Story), go deeper now in processing your limits and losses.

What desires do you have that are likely to remain unrealized because of your limits and losses? If you have little to share here, know that this is coming. Once someone reaches about age 40 they’ve begun to be slapped in the face with various limits and losses, and whole-hearted discipleship involves processing this.

“To be human is to be for something, directed toward something, oriented toward something. To be human is to be on the move, pursuing something, after something…To be human is to be on a quest…You can’t not bet your life on something.”

James K.A. Smith

LIVE PSALMICALLY.

The Psalms are one of God’s greatest gifts to his church. For thousands of

years God’s people have soaked in and prayed the Psalms, letting the Psalter form their desires and give language to the diverse emotions and seasons of life. The Psalms teach us how to desire, rejoice, suffer, weep, celebrate, lament, trust, complain, process, repent, fight, wait, progress, ask, rest, worship, sing, and hope. Join in with a habit that’s existed among the saints since before the birth of Christ: Live Psalmically—develop a close relationship of listening and talking to God through the Psalms so that you can be a well rounded disciple able to enter into and process all the ups and downs of life. One great way to do this is to follow Garden City’s Word & Prayer Plan, which typically guides you through the entire book of Psalms 1-2x per year.

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“The deepest spiritual lessons come through suffering. It takes the deep water and the hot fire and the dark valley to teach us the walk of faith.”

- Elizabeth Elliot

“If you don’t trust God in your suffering you’ll develop a neurosis that’s worse than the suffering. There will never be enough rational clarity to explain suffering.”

MEMORIZE

- Rich Plass

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. - Psalm 42:1-2

FIGHT SIN.

Though we are justified (Habit #4) and freed from the penalty of sin, and

are set free by Jesus and the Holy Spirit to overcome the power of sin, we are not yet free from the presence of sin. Each of us have particular sins (usually stemming from our root idols, see Habit #6) that we struggle with and need to fight. Some of these are sins of commission (something we’re doing), some of these are sins of omission (something we’re not doing and ought to be doing). Discuss together 1 or 2 particular sins God is calling you to fight against, and discuss the strategies you and other Christians throughout history have found effective for fighting sin. How can you lovingly hold one another accountable in your fight against sin?

“Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

MEMORIZE

John Owen

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So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

- Romans 8:12-13

“Jack saw in his own life that growth in these basics happened only as he admitted every day that he was a desperate sinner in constant need of the grace of God. As he studied what the Bible taught about faith and humility, he understood that repentance is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but a whole way of life. It is this life of ongoing repentance that the Spirit will use to bring faith and humility to the heart of the leader…he modeled repentance to young leaders by acknowledging his sins and asking them to pray for him.”

Barbara Miller

FIGHT SATAN.

Satan hates God, hates the gospel, hates the church, and hates you. Though

God is sovereign and has the ultimate victory over Satan, Satan remains actively at work. In the words of Peter: “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” -1 Peter 5:8. Spiritual warfare is real. We are disciples at war not just with sin, but also with Satan and “the cosmic powers over this present darkness.” Satan is a liar, and he’s been lying to you your entire life. Discuss as a group the ways Satan typically lies, tempts, and attacks you, and discuss your battle plans for putting on the armor of the Lord and fighting Satan.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. - James 4:7

MEMORIZE

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. - Ephesians 6:10-12

TRUST AND RISK.

We see a pattern in Scripture and in our experience that a main way God

grows people’s faith is through calling them to step out in faith. Trust in God grows as we choose to live by faith (not sight), to take the risk of stepping out into new territory where we are 100% dependent on God to come through. God calls us to these next steps of faith by appealing to a desire to trust him wholeheartedly and give ourselves to what most glorifies him. Discuss as a group where God is calling you towards deeper trust and fresh risk, and where you see God doing this with his people in Scripture.

What’s 1 risk you could take this week to demonstrate your trust in God? A simple and stretching way to keep your adventure with God fresh is to take 1 risk each week or each day. Try it out. Make a habit of it. Imagine how God could use such a community of dependent risk-takers for his glory!

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MEMORIZE

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. - Hebrews 11:1, 6, 8

“F.A.I.T.H. a Fantastic Adventure In Trusting Him.” Corrie Ten Boom

BE FAMILY, HOSPITAL, AND ARMY AS THE CHURCH.

Hold together 3 metaphors for the church. The church is Family: we are rela-

tional—we belong to one another and know & love each other as family. The church is also Hospital: we are redemptive—we provide a place for hurting people to heal.

And the church is Army: we are missional—we are a band of brothers and sister on a mission, at war, fighting an enemy, advancing the Kingdom. Healthy disciples and churches hold these metaphors in balance. Discuss how this 8th Habit emphasizes “Army” yet still touches on all 3 of these dimensions of being the church, and take action as a Discipleship Group to be Family, Hospital, and Army together.

Martin Luther King Jr. 74

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”

“Go forward in every part of your ministry. Act like a courageous person even when you may not feel like one. In anyplace where you feel fear, plunge in.”

- Jack Miller

“The vast majority of the Bible was written by people facing significant danger and chaos.”

- Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch

MAIN TAKEAWAY: We’re a church of disciples who practice the habit of desiring, fighting, and risking.

What is God saying to you?

What’s your next step?

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES FOR HABIT 8: The Journey of Desire, John Eldredge The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith Killing Us Softly, Efrem Smith Be Still My Soul, Elizabeth Elliot The Expulsive Power of a New Affection (sermon), Thomas Chalmers From Fear to Freedom, Rose Marie Miller

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