Discernment - a lost art? - Eph 4:14

Discernment – a lost art?

September 18, 2011

Eph 4:14

Introduction

• Have you ever been caught in the dark
• This morning when I got to the church at 5.15 it was all dark. I did not immediately switch on the light, but attempted to walk down the aisle in the dark
• Sure enough, I bumped into things along the way
• I think this is a picture of what it is to be without discernment
• We bump into things, create messes, and life is painful
• God’s intention for us is that we walk in the light
• He expects us to grow up and no longer be naïve and impressionable infants, but instead that we use discernment in our lives
• This morning we will be talking about three forms of discernment

Natural discernment

• God created man with the ability to choose
• We were not created with animal instincts, but with the power to decide what we want to do
• Eve uses this natural discernment, in the garden of Eden
• Gen 3:1-6
• This natural discernment consisted of examining the issue through the five senses
• The fruit looked good, so she ate it
• She listened to the lies the enemy fed her, and chose to disobey God
• Natural discernment looks at the way things look and does not think about what is really happening here
• What was really happening was that Satan was driving a wedge between God and man
• What Adam and Eve looked at, was that the fruit looked good, and they immediately believed the lie that the enemy told them, that eating it would make them wise.
• How many of us think that that is so stupid! That eating some fruit would make you wise!
• In a way this is similar to the way a baby thinks
• A baby sees a bright red button on the floor, thinks, that looks good, I’ll eat it
• Like when we were babysitting our grandchildren
• I was playing with the youngest, age 3, on the floor. Suddenly he calmly tells me he swallowed a coin that had been on the floor. We spent half the night at the ER, and a lot of worry, till finally the coin appeared in his diaper a day or so later!
• Using natural discernment entails blindly accepting the lies that are fed to us, and making choices based on outward appearances
• It does not involve looking at the source, it does not examine the truth, it just blindly accepts the enemy’s lies and allows that to influence our behavior.
• Do we just believe everything we hear?
• I am amazed at what people will believe, when something is depicted in a movie, or on history channel!
• Suddenly everything they had learned at church goes out the window, and this new knowledge is blithely accepted, without examining whether or not it is true
• For example, the movie The Da Vinci Code
• God does not want us to continue as little babies
• Eph 4:14
• God wants us to grow up, and mature

Spiritual discernment

• Spiritual discernment looks at situations God’s way, from His viewpoint
• What does God say about this?
• The Bible is our standard by which we evaluate is it right or wrong

• “Discernment in Scripture is the skill that enables us to differentiate. It is the ability to see issues clearly. We desperately need to cultivate this spiritual skill that will enable us to know right from wrong. We must be prepared to distinguish light from darkness, truth from error, best from better, righteousness from unrighteousness, purity from defilement, and principles from pragmatics.”  - J. Stowell, Fan The Flame, Moody, 1986, p. 44.
• But how do we do this? How can we know what is truth, or what is error?
• We examine the situation in terms of God’s word
• Isaiah 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
• This of course presupposes that we know God’s word
• This is why we read, study and devour the Bible.
• It is not an idle exercise in legalism
• It is because we want to see things God’s way and by studying and reading the Bible we learn how God thinks
• Devour the Proverbs. When I was 18 I asked God for wisdom, and I started reading right through the book of Proverbs, once a month.
• I would use different translations and get to know wisdom
• I read Proverbs 1:15 which says do not go along with sinners or follow their path
• I read Proverbs 3:5-6 – don’t lean on your own understanding
• Proverbs 12:15 – a wise man listens to advice
• Proverbs 13:20 – He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm
• God says, ask me for wisdom
• James 1:5-8
• Ask in faith, and be obedient to what he says

The gift of discernment

• The last form of discernment is a supernatural gift God gives us through the Holy Spirit
• This gift is the ability to evaluate right from wrong, light from darkness, is the option of God or of the enemy, as when Eve listened to the devil
• This gift is not the gift of judgment or of being critical
• It is not the gift of accusation or of jumping to conclusions
• This gift is a supernatural ability to know is it of God or is it not.
• Not everyone has this gift, though we should all be growing in this area
• Every gift should be exercised in love, not in demeaning or hurting people

Summary

• So we have looked at three forms of discernment
• One is that of natural discernment, going by appearances
• Secondly, there is spiritual discernment, is it the way God would deal with the situation
• Lastly, we have the gift of discerment, a spiritual gift God gives by the Holy Spirit, a gift given for the protection of the Body

Conclusion

• God tells us to grow up, and mature as Christians
• Eph 4:11-15
• The whole body, growing up together, unified in Christ