Formatio 2019 - Session 1 w/John Mark Comer

[Applause] hello is it kia-ora is that right oh I'm hesitant I'm sorry we Americans can't pronounce anything even our own language we don't really do very well with although better than you I'm not gonna lie but at least we finished the word and don't shorten everything but hello thank you so much for your hospitality and warm welcome after watching how you all needle each other with whatever it is tall poppy syndrome sarcasm and call it love I'm very grateful that I experienced the American form of love or the the jeez like actual love not that love but now seriously thank you it was an easy yes to come down this is a little cheesy but I wanted to visit your country since I was I think I was 12 years old my son's with me he's 13 and I remember it like it was back in the like slideshow days when somebody would come back from a trip this is really dating myself and and they would have like a slideshow of the trip and I remember our family friend who just got back from New Zealand and it was just pre Lord of the Rings before you were famous all over the world for your beauty it was just sheep and mountains and I just thought I want to go there someday so it took me a few decades but here I am and I'm so happy honestly my fame I'd like kind of driving passion and we'll talk later in the day a little bit about some of my autobiography but really got to my early 30s after my whole life in the church my dad's a pastor and all of that and really felt stuck in my apprenticeship as I would say to Jesus of Nazareth and really in my spiritual formation which is language will define it a bit and and so it's been really a journey for me into how do we actually change to become more like Jesus and in doing so our real true self so I don't have all the answers by any stretch of the imagination but I feel like I'm asking some good questions and I think you are too and so let's just go on that journey together I'll share what I have to learn and to offer and then hopefully you do the same um if you have a Bible please turn to the Gospel of Mark chapter 1 our morning session is very simple and straight down the middle most of the kind of key stuff I have to offer is this afternoon so don't overeat at lunch but this morning let me just kind of frame up for you this concept of apprenticeship to Jesus you know Jesus was a lot of things in our day and age we often think of Jesus as the Son of God which he was or if you have spent time in the New Testament we think of him as the Messiah or this long-awaited king of Israel and the world and that's true as well but if you were a first century Jew and you were just to rock up to synagogue one Saturday or Sabbath morning and there was a guest rabbi in town to teach from whatever the most likely category that you would have put Jesus in was that of a rabbi now rabbis just a Hebrew word meaning teacher and a rabbi would travel around from city to city or village to village from Sabbath to Sabbath and he would teach from the Torah or the Jewish kind of writings of a vision of how to be human he would offer what was called his yoke which was his way of reading the Torah his way of kind of being human in the world and this is first and foremost what Jesus was of the 90 or so times that people engage with Jesus in the four Gospels over-60s 60 of those he's called rabbi or teacher but tragically this is a very simple idea that we've lost sight of in the West for all sorts of reasons the kind of Protestant Catholic tension I don't know if that's a big deal down here or not more recently at least in my country the liberal conservative rift between right and left we're kind of liberals took Jesus the teacher and the Conservatives took Jesus the Son of God and and just it was really messy in the divorce and really tragic and so this is an idea that many of us need to recapture of Jesus first off as smart like I would argue is the most intelligent human being to ever walk the face of the earth with a brilliant vision not only of God but of what it means to be human and this is the beauty of Jesus the god-man as we would say in English this divinity and humanity in the exact same place in Jesus we see not only what God is like but we see a vision of what human beings have the potential to be like as well so let's just read a story or two before we talk about it of Jesus the rabbi and the apprentices in his wake mark chapter one take a look at this well-known story verse 16 as Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake for they were fishermen come follow me jesus said and I will send you out to fish for people now once they left their nets and they followed him we had gone a little farther he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John and a boat preparing their nets without delay he called them as well and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him turn the page chapter 2 verse 13 once again Jesus went out to beside the lake a large crowd came to him and he began to teach them he's a teacher he's a rabbi that's what he does as he walked along he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collectors booth follow me Jesus told him and Levi got up and followed him turn the page again chapter 3 take a look at verse 13 Jesus went up on a mountainside and called there's that language again to him those he wanted and they came to him he appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons these are the twelve the appointed Simon whom he gave the name Peter James son of Zebedee and his brother John to them he gave the name something or other which means sons of thunder Andrew Philip Bartholomew Matthew Thomas James son of Alphaeus Thaddaeus Simon the zealot and Judas Iscariot who later betrayed him one more turn over to mark chapter 8 near the end versus called the crowd to him pay attention to that we'll come back to that along with his disciples and he said quote whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves take up their cross and follow me for whoever wants to save their life will lose it the word life there is pursuit gay and Greek where we get the word psychology can also be translated soul it's all of you whoever wants to save their soul will lose it but whoever loses their life for me and the gospel will save it well good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul did you see a pattern in those stories and that's just a sample set there are many more in story after story the invitation of Jesus was not hey everybody become a Christian or believe in me or believe the right things about God and the Bible and myself and what's about to happen in my death and resurrection and in the meantime just kind of wait for life after death and be a nice person and go to church instead the invitation was come and follow me or another way to translate that is come and be my disciple now the word disciple and Hebrew was Talmud eeeem and there are all sorts of ways to translate that it can be translated to disciples a fine translation it's just not a word that's used in English any more outside of the church so it's a bit foreign and often people import meanings into it for example at least in my country normally it's used as a verb it's never used as a verb one time in the New Testament so in the New Testament you don't disciple anybody any more than you Christians somebody or believe or somebody you either are like people always ask me who are you disciple and I just want to quit back who are you Christian aim you know who are you believer in or whatever it's not a verb it's a noun it's not something you do it's definitely not something that is done to you it is something that you are it is something where the onus of responsibility is not on a pastor or a mentor it is actually on you as a disciple of Jesus so disciple is a fine word it's not really used and so we kind of make up meanings for it student is also a valid translation but often then we think a kind of university system like I have class with Jesus Monday Wednesday Friday you know from ten to ten fifty or whatever followers also a valid translation but now social media just ruined that for the world so it's like I love Jesus I follow him on Instagram he's great instagrams stories like doing things with spit and healing people it's great whatever but honestly I think the best word a number of scholars argue that the best word we have in the English language which I think we both speak almost kind of sort of is this that wasn't a slam I mean it's like we kind of speak the same language but then you keep saying things and I have no idea what you're saying you know my goodness but a number of scholars argue that the best word we have to capture the idea behind Talmud II more the Greek translation of that as well is this word apprentice to follow a rabbi was to be an apprentice of a rabbi now the hard truth just to begin our time is we might think of you know apprenticeship or discipleship as a foreign kind of concept from the ancient world not the modern one but the reality is it's not at all the hard truth is we are all disciples or apprentices or followers whatever you want to call it of somebody or something the question is not are you a disciple but who or what are you a disciple of and in the West in particular in your country and mine where we have this myth of like the rugged individual out to sail across the world and what ruin it but that's a whole other thing we have this like kind of ethos the celebration of the rugged individual and we want so badly to believe that we are in charge of our own destiny but it's just not true as the poet said no man is an island and neither is a woman at some point in life you have to chart a course or you just wander and to do that we need first off a vision of some kind of a destination and that ironically vision has to come from somebody else who's been there and then we need either a map or even better a guide who ideally has been there as well or at least is further down the journey to show us how to get from here to there from birth to what we would call the good life you need a community to journey along with you need grace for that journey and if your vision of what in both our countries we would call the good life if it is good and beautiful and true and if your map is accurate or your guide knows what he or she is doing then you are good you are in route to a life of human flourishing but if your vision is at all off kilter if what you think is good is not as good as you think if what we think is beautiful is not as beautiful as we think or true is actually a bit of truth with a bit of lie or if your map is inaccurate or your guide is not trustworthy or maybe well-meaning but just off the mark then in time over the years and over the decades we end up in trouble to follow Jesus or if you prefer to apprentice under Jesus is to take his teachings again he was a rabbi his vision of the good life as the vision of the good life it's to take his map to his destination it's to take and I don't just mean heaven or hell I mean to human flourishing to take his presence as your guide his community to the people to your right and to your left as those that you journey with and His grace for the journey this is essentially what it means to be a disciple or an apprentice or a follower of Jesus it's just to apprentice under Jesus into his vision of the good life and just again to say it you are all disciples of somebody or something if you're here and you don't buy any of this all of us none of us have been where we want to go so all of us work off a map to move forward into our vision of the good life to follow Jesus is just to take Jesus vision his map and his presence as our guide now just to frame our time to be an apprentice of a rabbi both in the first century and for us in the 21st century was very simple endeavor it was just to organize your life around three very simple goals to be with Jesus for us to become like Jesus and to do what he did just a short word on each first off be with Jesus so Jesus did not make up apprenticeship or discipleship many of us don't realize that he was not the first rabbi to have disciples or the last in fact in the first century discipleship was the apex of the Jewish education system similar to our PhD or something like that were three basic levels there was the beit suffer or the house of learning and sorry the house of the book which was kind of our version of primary school or whatever you call it here up till about age 11 or 12 you would memorize the entire Torah Genesis to Deuteronomy put two memories and oral culture pre Codex all of that and then at that point ninety plus percent of students were done you would go home and you would join the family business work on the farm apprentice under your dad mom whatever but then the best-of-the-best moved on to his second level of education called Beit Talmud or the house I'm sorry Bates efford that the house of learning which was actually a room or little house built off the side of the synagogue where you would study under a full-time teacher either a rabbi or a scribe and you would memorize over the next three four or five years of your life the entire what we call the Old Testament Genesis to Malachi put to memory right so when Jesus or Paul whoever quotes scripture right and left don't like that was a pre-google world they literally and if they get it wrong once in a while show them a little grace alright pre-google they had the entire Old Testament put to memory then again at that point you're 15 you're 16 years old the vast majority went back to the family business but the best of the best of the best I don't know if you call it here we'd say summa kalla day or the road scholar or whatever went on to this third level of education where you would apprentice under a rabbi now this was really hard to get into again this was the elite you come from money you have the right connections you're brilliant you have the student thing all of that and if you could get a rabbi to take you on it was a really big deal and at that point you would follow you would drop everything dropped the family business all of that and you would follow a rabbi now this wasn't a metaphor this wasn't a word picture you would literally follow him as in you would walk behind him you would go from village to village and from town to town and your first goal was just to be with him you were with him 24/7 you would sleep at his side take your meals at his side sit under his teaching all day long in fact he would walk with you class was open-air environment as you would walk from village to village for his next teaching you would walk at a slow pace right behind him say 10 12 however many apprentices and he would just listen to him talk listen to him teach the Torah his yoke and you would take that on there was a first-century blessing that just said may you be covered in the dust of your rabbi this is from a pre as faltered you call it tarmac here what do you again we almost speak the same language whatever pre paved road everything was dirt and you would walk behind him and by the end of the day you were just covered in the dust of your rabbi and this was a blessing in that day now again what does this mean for us 2 millennia later on the other side I think somebody said the new zealand's the farthest place in the world from Israel is that right it sounds cool if not either way you're here and you follow Jesus and you know what does this mean for us I mean Jesus is not here in the flesh how do we follow Jesus well it's pretty basic math and you know this but you know now through Jesus death and resurrection and the coming of the Spirit in Acts chapter 2 that we read of now we all have access to Jesus through his Spirit Jesus actually said this is better because when he was here in the flesh he had to limit his like close circle to twelve there's a few more than twelve followers of Jesus in the world now and I mean that would be really miserable if you really needed to have coffee with Jesus and you had to book it out a few centuries in advance or whatever but now we all have access to Jesus through the spirit this means that the first and primary goal of our apprenticeship to Jesus is to live in connection to an awareness of the Spirit all day long this is it the reality is that the spirit of Jesus is always with us tragically we're not always with him we're often on our phone or in traffic or in the middle of email or staff meeting or class or whatever it is that you do kind of during the weeks one of the reasons that church or days like today that are set aside are so important because we come back in our mind in our body to be with the God who is always with us our body is so often in a hurry as we move through the world often this means we just need to slow down and come back to the moment because the moment is where we find God not only in our mind but in our soul now whatever you want to call this Jesus called this way of life abiding which is another word picture of a vineyard I hear you have some lovely vineyard it's not far away so that's beautiful word picture of this vine and this branch and that's what life was with God for Jesus st. Paul later called this prayer without ceasing st. Teresa if you're familiar with her work she later called it contemplation which is language still used today brother Lawrence that Parisian monk from a few hundred years ago called it the practice of the presence of God I think that's one of my favorite names for it because it takes practice aw Tozer called it constant conscious communion and all of this comes as the natural byproduct of a mind that is set on God all through the day I don't know if you've read this I've been savory and one of the I have a few beds a few books that I keep in my bedside table just to come back to on a regular basis and one is it's barely a book it's I think 45 pages long it's called letters by a modern-day mystic by frank la bach anybody read that he was a american missionary to the philippines and quiet about a century ago to the Morrow's which is a Muslim group in the Philippines part of the silent billion at the time of people who could not read or write it's the only missionary to ever make it on to a u.s. postage stamp not that you care but we think that's kind of a cool thing and he's actually well known in academic circles and very well respected for his work around social justice and literacy that's kind of what he's famous for in the secular world but many people ignore the fact that work of social justice and literacy and his model of literacy is still used by millions of educational centers around the world decades after his life and work but people often forget that grew out of a deeper life passion which was what he called the practice of the presence of God early on he called it his game with minutes he would play this little game where he would just every single minute of the day his goal was to just turn his mind to God for one second of one minute every single day and think about that's an easy thing and it's the hardest thing in the world right and you can read his little book and it's just a collection of letters and they're just beautiful let me just read one excerpt to you writes this perhaps a man who has been an ordained minister since 1914 ought to be ashamed to confess that he never before felt the joy a complete hourly minute-by-minute now what do I even call this more than surrender I had that before more than listening to God I tried that before I cannot find the word that will mean to you or me what I am now experiencing it is a will Act I compel my mind to open straight out toward God I wait and listen with determined sensitiveness I fix my attention there and sometimes it requires a long time early in the morning to attain that mental state but I determine not to get out of bed until that mindset that concentration upon God is settled it also requires determination to keep it there for IV laz though the words and thoughts of others near me were constantly exerting a drag backward or sideways for the most part recently I've not liked lost sight of this purpose for long and I've soon come back to it after a while perhaps it will become a habit and the sense of effort will grow less later in his journey a few years into this he writes this this concentration upon God is strenuous but everything else has ceased to be sell I think more clearly I forget less frequently things which I did with the strain before I now do easily and with no effort whatever I worry about nothing I lose no sleep I walk on air a good part of the time even the mirror reveals a new light in my eyes and face I no longer feel in a hurry about anything each minute I meet calmly nothing can go wrong excepting one thing that is that God may slip from my mind I read that excerpt to you I know that's a bit long because I think that's an autobiographical experience of what Jesus has for all of his apprentices and this is harder than it was in 1914 we have this little demonic beam in our pocket called an iPhone right which is quite helpful at times but not in this we have the busyness of life and you're in a city and there's noise and we're in this secular narrative that is just swimming in our mind all of the time but this is the beginning point some of you if you're new at all to Jesus and there's a lot to this whole thing and to millennia of tradition and you're thinking where do I even start very simple you start right here you just slow your life down you take out your schedule you get a red pen and you just murder about 19 things that's it you just like just get violent with your schedule or maybe you start with two I'm a little bit over intense I apologize start with two kill two things out of your morning or your day routine or your week you slow your mind and you just begin to set your mind on God if you know much about the monastic trician we're fixed our prayer comes from where they would have seven set times during the day to come together for prayer you'd read a psalm or liturgy it was just an attempt at this it was just training wheels to a bicycle do you have training wheels to bicycle do bicycles there yes yeah I think we're at the edge of the world who knows people right but it's just mental training wheels call that neuroplasticity called it effect sixth hour of prayer call it a body and it was just they would pause seven times in a day to just come back to the moment and above all come back to God and let it begin to become a habit in your mind let the way that God wired the neurobiology of your mind begin to reform into a mind that is set on God to where more and more when you get a moment of quiet you're at the stoplight you get a break between email you are walking out to your car your mind just goes back to God goes back to God goes back to God aw toes are one of the most famous mystics of the 20th century writing from the busy city of Chicago and his day said that as we set our hearts attention on Jesus I like that language he said this a habit of soul is forming which will become after a while a sort of spiritual reflex requiring no more conscious effort on our part so if you're new to the practice it's like okay you set the alarm on your you know Apple watch or whatever and it's like every hour you're like think about God okay what do I think about again okay think it and it just it feels awkward and it feels clumsy and it feels like an act of the will but as you grow and zu mature into it over months over years over a lifetime your mind just goes right to God the second it has a moment you wake up and the first thought in your mind will be God and you will begin just to live more and more from this connection to an awareness of the Spirit of Jesus Dallas Willard who's the most important teacher outside of the New Testament in my journey with Jesus has this wonderful kind of paragraph about the practice the presence of God and at the end he writes soon after just a long time of practice our minds will return to God as the needle of a compass constantly returns to the north I love that I love that imagery the needle of a compass just goes back to the north goes back to the north your mind will begin to just go back to God go back to God go back to God my point is that what all of these master teachers of the way of Jesus down through church history and going all the way back to the writings in the New Testament and of course Jesus himself what they all attest to is that if you keep at this your mind will reshape it will reform your neural pathways will begin to set the hearts attention on God the heart of course in biblical literature is this trifecta of your thought life your emotions and your will or your desire it's what you think about what you feel what you want this core aspect of you you could define that as your spirituality because all three of those things don't really work under a microscope the mind in particular is one of the great mysteries of science says I know just enough to be dangerous about science but you can't take a mind you can take a brain and you can you can analyze that you can't analyze a mind so there's the spiritual part of you that the but writers of the Bible call the heart what you think about what you feel and what you want the will is even more than the mind impossible for scientists to track this this inner influx that is what separates human beings from the animals it is you could argue the most important thing about you your will your capacity agency your freedom to choose between one option or another and this Center of you your heart your thinking we're feeling your desire as you begin just to through your mind set it upon God set it upon God set as you begin to see who God actually is as put on display through the love of Jesus as you begin to notice the way that God is looking at you as you begin to see the way that God is looking at you with love and compassion with truth but with overwhelming hospitality and welcome and a smile on his face that is the beginning point we'll talk this afternoon about how we change that is the beginning and it is the baseline and you never move on from that this is just the baseline of our Prentice shift to Jesus just a life with God all day long and it's the best part like I like to quip that the best part about following Jesus is Jesus and often we forget that we think the best part is like you know meeting a girl at church or whatever it is or the best part is an answer to prayer or healing or the prophetic or life from I'm for me the older I get the more I think the the second best part is the transformation of the soul into Christlikeness all of that is true but the best of the best is just Jesus himself secondly your goal as an apprentice of Jesus is to become like Jesus again rewind to the first century if you were an apprentice under a rabbi you this is millennia before that kind of hyper individualism of the Western world you wanted to be your rabbi you would literally dress like him you would copy not only his theology his way of reading Torah you would copy his tone of voice his mannerisms you would mimic him because you wanted to be him there was apprentices of Jesus our goal is the same it is to become like our teacher and in doing so become our real true self again tragically this needs to be said again I don't know your country I've been here half of a day I love it by the way the rivalry between Australia and New Zealand you win hands down just you win but what can I say I'm 12 hours in maybe I just it's just the best parts or something I don't know but this tragically needs to be said there's this gross heretical at least in my country kind of take that the point is just to kind of have relationship with Jesus and go to the right place where you die what a tragedy that the transformation of the soul is not front and center for many followers of Jesus you know philosophers argue that there are three great questions in life who is God who are we and what is the good life obviously the secular narrative has a radically different answer to all three of those questions who is God there is none he/she it is a myth from pre-scientific age now we know better we have a microscope who are we were animals with time and chance on our side what is the good life well since there is no meaning or purpose all of this is just an accident so basically it's pleasure or happiness depending on who you talk just feel as good as you can for as long as you can until you die unless of Silicon Valley gets its act together and we can upload our consciousness to the internet and live forever right which is what behalf of my country thinks is going to happen it's nonsense it's a religion it's a bad religion it's a worldview those are answers to the questions from the secular perspective Jesus has very different answers to who are you who is God what is the good life to apprentice under Jesus is to place your trust the word is usually translated believe in the New Testament Jesus says repent and believe in the gospel again we almost speak the same language believe in American for most people means say yes in your mind to and that's great but the bigger idea behind that Greek word is to place your trust in so you know it's not it's not I believe that the Sun is X number of miles away from the earth or whatever to believe is when you get on an airplane that's trust not belief like you trust that it will take you where you want to go and hopefully you won't die along the way and you actually place the weight of your life into that metal tube and somebody you can't even see behind a door that is now locked right and you place your trust in it to go where you want to go this is what it means to believe or to trust to apprentice under Jesus is to believe or to trust in his answers to those human questions who is God who are we what is the good life it is let his vision of God his vision of humanity and his vision of the good life shaped your own this is why if you go all the way back to the book of Genesis what is the temptation in the garden it is a temptation to doubt the goodness of God and to redefine good and evil based not on the voice of God but based on the voice in the ear personified by the serpent and the desire of your own heart that is the human condition fast forward however many millennia to where we are now it's still the exact same temptation on repeat don't trust what God has said about his love and goodness toward you and don't trust his definition of good and evil and human flourishing whether it's about money or sex or power whatever it is for you rather trust the voice in your head and the desire of your heart this is where the rubber meets the road why Jesus would constantly call people to repent which is a word that can be translated rethink rethink your worldview and believe place your trust in Jesus teachings again he was a teacher in his vision of reality and this is really what it means to apprentice under him you know there's a progression in our spiritual formation we'll define that word this afternoon just means how we're formed from the inside out there's a progression from believed to become to behave put another way what we believe or or the stories that we trust in our mind or the ideas that we trust in our mind shapes the person we become right we live into that through habit habit has this effect on our the fiber of our being which in turn shapes how we behave we just naturally live less out of willpower and more out of habit and character you know I hear people rail against behavior modification and moralism all the time and I get that but and maybe this is just because I'm in a hyper progressive very non-christian City but I'm pretty sure that Jesus wants to modify my behavior at least I know there's quite a bit of it that I would like to modify because it's not in line with the Sermon on the Mount there's just a little bit of discrepancy in my life between Matthew 6 and 7 and my own day to day life not much just a tiny bit you know just just a scotch and I'm pretty sure that I mean morality is about human flourishing it's about good and evil it's about what is the good life so to beat up on behavior modification or moralism is a a tragic I think miss reading of what Jesus is on about but what's right about that and why people have a gut reaction in particular people who grew up in a legalistic or kind of hyper conservative wing of the church what's right about that is Jesus is after more than behavior modification he's at the core of who you are like again your heart what you think about what you feel and even what you want he's at the core of the truth or the lies that we place our trust and believe and live from who we become he's after the spiritual formation of our core because ever the heart everything comes from the heart and the dream is that as we apprentice under Jesus as we hear his vision of the good life of good evil beautiful true what is it as we place our trust in it as we index our heart our thinking or feeling or even our desire toward him at his vision that we begin to change from the inside out into the kind of people who just over time are naturally like him the kind of people for whom it would be easier to trust in God than to stress out it would be easier to move slowly through our day and calm gratitude then to live in this hurry and the stress in this chaos it would be easier just to say thank you and enjoy what we have then to live from greed it would be easier to celebrate the success in life and flourishing of a friend or a competitor or colleague then it would be to give in to the envy of the human heart it would be easier to love our enemy than to do violence toward them or even gossip about them it would be easier to celebrate than to criticize to rejoice than to be sad this to love than to hate this this is the kind of person that we want to become through our apprenticeship to Jesus you know and it's really the most important thing we'll talk again all afternoon about this but Dallas Willard used to say that the most important thing that Jesus gets out of your life and that you get out of your life is the person you become through your apprenticeship to Jesus and this is what you will carry with you into eternity and this is the heart of an apprentice of Jesus just this relentless ruthless desire to change grow mature through the grace and love of God to become more like Jesus because in our world view and this is radically different than the secular worldview that we live in and we experience through our phone feed every single day which is out of a capitalistic system that wants to commoditize that wants to ties everything and everybody and wants to make money off of your disorder desire your sin your human condition your angst your lack of fulfillment your lack of mean it just wants to monetize all of that and so it constantly screams to us that the good life our happiness is the result of circumstances all right if you just get the right economic level you get the right salad we get the right job you get the right body you get the right partner and you get the right Fame you get whatever it is you surf that morning whatever it is for you that's how you achieve the happy life and then if that's your working theory of how to live a happy life life just becomes you realize this as you hit I don't know near 30 or so the life is just one giant game of whack-a-mole you know domain like you fix one problem you like if I just get this fixed if I just get graduated from college and get a good job it's like you whack that mole and then it's like another one comes up well okay if I just fix this one boom it's another one and then also you rise this just doesn't stop I've just whack a most over and over and over again Rohr says that we try to change our circumstances to avoid changing our character right because we think that's the way to manipulate the external circumstances of our life is the route to happiness where we just play into the propaganda of advertising that just wants to sell us another thing give us a new identity that's external not internal that we achieve rather than we discover Jesus would say that a better route to achieve I don't think he would use the word happiness he would use the word joy or something like that is to become the kind of person who is happy no matter what the circumstances are of your life for whom life I think is the word Jesus would use is the result of communion with God and your character that comes over years of life with him to become the person who has by nature the inner disposition of peace as of Jesus as laid out in Galatians love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and gentleness and goodness and you know counter to what many people think as we become more like Jesus we don't become clones like that's that's the fear of every Western what if I'm like everybody else oh the or of it right but actually we become more a real true best self the irony of Western society is that for all of our focus on individualism sin makes people the same like if you like just set aside like everything gender socioeconomic class ethnic background worldview education religion just set all of that aside and you devolve human beings to desire specifically with the riders in your Testament called the flesh your desires that are bent in the wrong direction you really come up with a pretty short list hence the Ten Commandments I mean seriously think about it there's you come up with the Ten Commandments people often exalt as this moral it's like baseline morality don't murder right Jesus takes it a little bit farther than don't kill people you know don't have an affair like it's it's baseline more rat don't lie baseline morality you devolve and it's ironic when people are run by desire when people are in the language of the New Testament in slavery to desire which is ironically what the Western world has redefined and called freedom the freedom to do whatever you want which is shocking because that is literally what the New Testament calls slavery then you devolve to this baseline what the New Testament calls the flesh it's this animalistic primal part of who you are for lust for sex for greed for self for instant gratification for power over others for the ability to do whatever the heck you want and nobody to tell you different but if you follow Jesus and you die to yourself right and you let those desires the one not the healthy ones that are from Jesus but the bent ones you put them to death you set them aside you ironically are set free from the need to posture and perform to fit a stereotype in order to achieve and experience love you realize I am loved the mess that I am right now I'm loved I won't be more loved when I get my act more together I will be loved then I'm loved now and then you are actually free to explore the full range of your personhood the good the bad the ugly to meet the reality of who you actually are in the safe place of the father's love and compassion to begin the slow journey to move forward in Christ's likeness and then you actually set free to be who you are the most individualistic people I know are all like really old followers of Jesus none of them dressed cool because they don't care anymore you know and it's not just because it's because there is a uniqueness there's an individuality there is a freedom that comes from the people who died to self follow Jesus and ironically become the person that God had in mind before they were in their mother's womb M Scott Peck says it this way if everyone has the good fortune to meet a living Saint one will have met somebody absolutely unique though their visions may be remarkably similar the personhood of saints is remarkably different this is because they have become utterly themselves God creates each soul differently so that when all the mud is finally cleaned away his light will shine through it in a beautiful colorful totally new pattern finally goal one is to be with Jesus out of that goal two is to become like Jesus and finally goal three is then in time to do what he did or really a better way to say that is you know to do what he would do if he were me um did you have the 90s phenomenon of the WWJD bracelet did that hit over here fantastic see we share a lot we share more in common than we want to admit right and that's kind of a great question but it's kind of not all that helpful you know what I mean like what would Jesus do if you're like a young mom and you're breastfeeding how would what does Jesus say about breastfeeding is the natural birth water birth epidural no what would he say like he doesn't say anything about that I'm sorry he was a man and he would didn't even have a wife much less a child right so a more helpful question is what would Jesus do if he were me what if he was a 17 year old girl who was a student what do you call it we call high school in school whatever what would he do if he were a 69 year old widower he was the executive at a company he was a barista at your local coffee shop if he had no idea what he was supposed to do with this like what how would Jesus live if he had your personality your myers-briggs type your Enneagram number your gender your socioeconomic status your family of origin your ethnicity your national history how would Jesus live if he were me that is the driving question of an apprentice of Jesus because you think about that's why I like this word apprenticeship and as Newt said earlier if you're an apprentice like we still have the only place that we use the word apprentice really in American culture is for the trades all apprentice so I don't know if you would say that here but an electrician or a plumber or a carpenter or sometimes in the arts you would apprentice under a master art any kind of craftsman or crafts woman so like there's a guy in our church right now as a volunteer who's in a Prentice to become a plumber it's a four-year program and you and his goal at the end of four years is not just to like answer the plumbing test like with a hundred percent a plus plus and know all about plumbing his goal is to plumb I don't know plums a verb but okay it is now to plumb a house right to get a job as a plumber and do the work of his master teacher and in the same way and this is what I love about the vineyard movement and kind of the charismatic movement that we have been just learning from so much over the last five years is there's this recognition that Jesus does all that he does not just teaching but healing the sick and prophesying social justice and for all of it political ad to everything he does it not just because he's God he is but he does it empowered by the Spirit of Jesus and we now have the same spirit where Jesus says at the end of the Gospel of John like you'll do greater things than these now there's lots of debate and controversy about what the heck does Jesus mean thereby greater than raising the dead greater than feeding five I don't know exactly was it quality as a quantity I don't know exactly what he means by greater but I know he doesn't mean lesser whatever it means it doesn't mean lesser whatever greater means it doesn't mean lesser so like this Jesus mindset no he we'll go to the father which he said is better the spirit will come so one now we all have access to the father's love and that same spirit will empower you to do what Jesus did which means you read a story about Jesus healing the sick your goal is an apprentice of Jesus is to grow mature in the power of the Spirit to where you heal the sick you prophesy you do your work whether it's as a rabbi or a professor or a full-time parent or a barista or an architect or an engineer or whatever it is that you do with your life this is the driving framework of Jesus where there is no divide between sacred and secular between your job and your discipleship in your life and your community all of it is under this rubric whether you're an engineer or a parent whether you're today off or your vacation or you're at the office all of it is under this rubric of I follow Jesus what would he do if he were me and I love that that's a question with an open answer to it right there's no there's no test there's no sometimes there's not even right or wrong there's just the question it's not about the answer it's about living the question I think about some of the great questions of our day whether it be around racial injustice or colonization or around the role of money in society or political theory sometimes we just have to live the questions it's less about the right answer it's what would Jesus do if he were me and we act out with this creative freedom that God put in us his call on our life so be with Jesus become like Jesus and do what he would do if you were me now this is what back home we call practicing the way of Jesus and I love this language of the way it's used all through the Gospels it's not used much in the Western Church anymore and I love this picture because the way of Jesus is exactly that it is a way of life it's not just a set of ideas that we believe in our head or what we would call Bible and theology it's not just a list of do's and dont's what we would call ethics it is both of those things but it's more not less it is a lifestyle based on that of Jesus of Nazareth this is why the four Gospels come to us as first century biographies any biography readers in the house you know who you are it takes a special kind of person to give 800 pages to a dead person you know I'm not an avid biography reader I devil every basically once a year on vacation I read a few so this last year I read Elon Musk and Martin Luther by metaxas and another one so it's it's but think about biographies why do most of us read biographies usually we read a biography of a luminary it's rare to read a biography of like Bob you know and I mean normally it's some it's Steve Jobs or it's Benjamin Franklin or its I don't know who would be really cool down here forgive my lack of cultural awareness but whoever it we read about some luminary some man some woman who was a bright thinker an incredible leader who changed the world because we want to be like them or in some of their cases we don't want to be like them at all and we want to either a copy or avoid at whatever cost that kind of a life and so when you read a biography at least the way most of us is you read a detail about the life of said luminary and you often think how could I incorporate that detail into my life so a hero mine is Dallas Willard I read his biography this last summer on vacation sorry it's winter where I'm from it's it's confusing I know last winter for I don't know whatever forget that my last summer and and just he's a hero of mine and just reading about how he would wake up every morning and before he would let himself get out of bed he would lie there often was Psalm 23 and he would just set his mind on God and he would just sit in the love and compassion of God and he would wait until his heart was just set in attention and awareness on the love of God before he would ever get out of bed so I read that I don't just think wow cool I think okay I know what I'm doing in the morning right because I want to become like him I want to be transformed to become more like Jesus ultimately but I don't mind being like Dallas Willard either and so I then copy that detail into my morning routine I've been a year now and I'm still in this place I love it I can't think of a better way now to begin each morning my point is this is how you read biographies tragically very few of us read Matthew Mark Luke and John this way notice that we'll talk all afternoon about the role of the practices of the spiritual disciplines with a few exceptions they are never commanded Jesus does not command you to have a quiet time in the morning he doesn't command you to read the Bible at all much less read through the Bible in a year or lectio divina or whatever your style is he doesn't command you to go to church on Sunday he just does all of these things and then says come apprentice under me that's how it works like maybe you could argue he commands you to pray that's about the one thing other than that you just read Jesus got up early in the morning he went off to a solitary place and there he prayed Jesus was in the synagogue quote as was his custom one sabbath morning and then jesus would just regularly say come follow me come apprentice under me another way to translate that is come copy the details of my life and this is what all of the practices or the spiritual disciplines are they are just attempts to copy the details of jesus morning routine his weekend routine his day-to-day his lifestyle to add not just theology not just ethics but his lifestyle which is really where the money's at to add all of that into your life with the result that all of the practices every last one whatever you are listed sounds of solitude sabbath prayer fasting church all of it worship by singing all of it the end goal is just to make space for god to set your mind and your body not just your mind all of you before the spirit and the truth of god because it's by spirit and by truth that we are transformed from the heart out saint john of the cross spanish mystic that i've been reading it a lot the last few years writes this the spiritual life is about making space for God in our lives a space for God because his greatest desire is to give himself completely to us everything that we'll talk about this afternoon the practice of spiritual formation how we change talked a lot about our part and our responsibility before God talk about that later it's kind of the most important thing I have to say today but do not miss the why behind all of it where people get off with the spiritual disciplines with spiritual formation is when they forget the why all of this is about making space for God to love us there is a discipline hence the name and even a duty to them but the motivation is loving relationship because in the post sexual revolution kind of Western world love has been redefined as an emotion rather than a virtue this is hard for many of us to get our head around we think that to do something out of duty is bad it's not it's actually healthy maturity but love is often manifested as the discipline and duty to make space for relationship every Friday morning my wife and I go out for brunch I have Friday's off our kids are in school every Friday morning there are times when I really want to there are other times when I'd rather do something else but it isn't it don't tell her that please she's not here and I'm sure she does not feel that way about me at all ever all of you single people like how could you dare say that all the Ameri people are like yeah of course actually but there is a duty to it a discipline even to most don't get me wrong most of time I really enjoy it but there's a duty and an he like who is this guy as a duty and a discipline to it that is an expression of my love for her same with my children same with my best friends you know I'm my best friend just had a baby and I'm gonna pay out of my pocket to fly down to San Francisco and see his baby I don't really want to spend $400 I'll see her in March at this thing we're both going to be at but it's an active duty basically but it's the right thing to do but I'm not doing it out of guilt trip or obliging it because this is my best friend and I love of him I love him and I want to be there not two months after her birth but two weeks after her birth just for four hours just to give them a hug and said that's love that's what you do through duty and discipline you make space for loving relationship our relationship with Jesus is no different we get out what we put in we have to carve out time this is why I think the number one thing we'll talk about this tomorrow any of you around it that church gathering is we have to slow our life down this is not this can't be more on top of an already over busy life this has to be less we have to make space for the relationship of love because everything back to that first goal be with Jesus that is the baseline for everything out of which we change if you want to take some time later on today just go read Galatians chapter 5 that famous passage on the fruit of the Spirit that is often bent out of shape into a list of commands to be more virtuous so often when people read that list and think I need to be more loving I need to be more joyful I need to be more so stressed out and he'd be more peaceful I'm so like impatient with my children I need a okay be more patient peeve or they're not commands you can't even command them if you want because many of them are emotional dispositions you know I mean you can like command do you act loving but you can't command like to like somebody like there's no switch in you to like I'm really really sad right now okay be happy switch done great right if there was like entire industries of medicine and therapy would just go out of business all right there's no switch these are not commands there is one command that Paul repeats three that's at Galatians five is Paul's exegesis of John chapter 15 on Jesus teaching on abiding and Moute there's all sorts of illusions in there and there's one command he repeats it not once not twice but three times and it is to quote walk in the spirit that's Paul for Jesus abide in the vine as you just set your mind on God put your thoughts your feelings your desire on God notice how God is loving you and live from that posture of awareness to in connection to God what happens is Jesus does the work of transformation and you overtime it doesn't happen like this you become more and more loving more and more joyful more and more at peace more and more patient and on down the list this is what Jesus has for you which means your main responsibility in all of this is just to set yourself before God as often as you can every single day it's just to make space we have a responsibility to make space for God to love us and transform us for the inside how so this is my best just take or frame of reference for what it means to apprentice under Jesus that you're new to this five years from now ten years from now down the road one you experience more and more life with Jesus you just find that your mind just is in the presence of God more and more to that you become more like Jesus you are transformed to become a more loving more joyful more peaceful more patient kind of soul and three that you just begin to do the kinds of things that Jesus would do if he were you and to play your small part in the world in closing just notice one last thing but again the invitation of Jesus is to become an apprentice not a Christian you know I'm guessing you know this but the word Christian is never used by Jesus once Christianity is not used at all in the New Testament the word Christian is used two or three times in the New Testament by outsiders not insiders as an insult that later post New Testament people began to kind of take on an own like in the way you do people just mock you for something all the time you can't beat them you just yeah that's right that's what I am a kind of thing but the word that's used not two times but 268 times by Jesus the writers of the four Gospels the writers in the New Testament is that word in greek it's Moffat Ace or disciple or apprentice this is Jesus primary identity the second one is Adelphi or brothers sisters family first where prentices of Jesus and a close second is where family this is the language of Jesus now what's the difference in the English language between Christian and disciple again I'm reading some of my own context into yours and forgive me for that but in my country all the word Christian means I mean you read that like 80 plus percent of our country's Christian and then you read about our politics and you're like wait a minute eighty percent of that country is not following Jesus right read the Donald Trump's a Christian you're like wait a minute B well I don't think the driving principles of his life are be with Jesus become like Jesus and do what he would do if he was president the United States I don't think that's even on his radar right there's a voting block over there that likes the word Christian all right we'll play to that you know my point is in my country we've created a cultural milieu where you can be a Christian but not an apprentice of Jesus and that for most people my country just means you you're theistic you believe in God you have a quasi Orthodox view of Christianity the religion that's grown up around Jesus life death resurrection and teaching some of it wonderful some of it not and you go to church once in a while and you're a quasi moral person I don't even know what that means anymore this this is not what Jesus is after Jesus is not after converts to Christianity but apprentices into his kingdom vision of life and this category of Christian is just nowhere to be found in Jesus mind you read the four Gospels we read one example in mark 8 there are two categories not three there's the crowds and there's the apprentices of Jesus and the crowds are really ambiguous you have no idea who's there Jew Gentile Torah observant not Torah observant they're for the right reasons they're for a free lunch you have no clue who they are what the motivation is and that's on purpose it's not to shame them they're not bad they're just this the crowds are anybody the crowds are everybody and the invitation is always for the crowds to become apprentices of Jesus what that means for many in the West is that the invitation is for Christians to become followers of Jesus right this was you could argue the greatest issue facing our world today and of course this will cost all of us we'll talk more about that this afternoon Dietrich Bonhoeffer riding under Nazi Germany coined that famous phrase the cost discipleship based on what we read in mark 8 come deny yourself take up your cross meaning there's this life begins with death saying yes to Jesus begins with saying no to all the other teachers and visions of the good life on offer and he said man he was beating up on the what he called cheap grace which in his time was on the right not on the left and gave rise to the church's baptism of Nazism he was just an advocate against that but many since him have rightly pointed out yes we have to talk about the cost of discipleship but we also have to talk about the cost of non discipleship it will cost you to follow Jesus it will cost you even more not to follow Jesus in Jesus own language it will cost you your soul your specific Aiki the life that you crave no matter what it is that does not go by the name of Jesus it's never worth it so again this morning very simple more to save this afternoon but this is what it means to apprentice Jesus to be with him to become like him to do what he did to experience his love by just making space for relationship whether that means a death to busyness a death to sin death to our individualism a death to our antonym Ian kind of don't tell me what to do we set this deaf because we believe on the other side of death is resurrection and we believe that as we lose our life our soul we gain it let's stand together and just pray would you just take a deep breath and I've said a lot let's just have a moment just to wait on God see what he would have for us before our break spirit come I mean you just experienced the love of God may you notice how God is noticing you right now sit in his love and his joy and his peace Spiricom I'm not in a rush just take your time before we end I just would love to pray a little bit if there's anyone in the room and I don't know if this one of you or 50 of you and you've maybe grown up in the church or been in it for a while and your experience has been a little bit more of the religion of Christianity then the way of Jesus and a little bit more the behavior modification and moralism then the transformation by love and joy and peace I just sensed that there's some for whom hurt some kind of an emotional or relational wound is holding you back from apprenticeship to Jesus in the life that he has for you and we don't have all the answers for that and there's not therapist here but we would love to just say yes to what the Spirit of God wants to do in your life and set you free and bring inner healing over that if you resonate at all of that this is a really safe place would you just slip your hand up and we're just going to pray for you're not gonna make you say your name you know it's the same thing you have to tell your story would you just if you feel up for that will you just thank you for that or and just keep it up for a moment we're just gonna pray for you that's all just keep your hand up I'm not going to take your debit card number or anything I promise great just cute oh just gonna give it five seconds for I know it's a little scary I don't know what the culture is here if you do this or not but just give it a moment okay now just keep it up I want to put all of you around them like you're now on the prayer team for from aunty oh okay so I just want to have you if you follow Jesus and you breathe oxygen I'd love to have you pray so maybe half a dozen or so around each hand up if you know just look around you see if there's anybody around you make sure nobody is miss would you just go to them and if it's appropriate place a hand on a shoulder and if you want to get a name that's it you don't need to have a interview or journalistic nothing just maybe a name and then we'll just wait on God would you just wait for a moment and see if God brings a word or a phrase or a scripture or something plays in your mind and then in humility would you just offer that to them and love and prayer and if nothing comes to your mind would you just pray a short prayer of blessing and healing of God over them and let's just pray for these so go ahead circle up there should be about a quick name thing about 20 seconds of just quiet as people wait on God and then just begin to pray you don't need to whisper pray as loud as you want please make sure nobody is lost if you put your hand up and people aren't around you just slip it back up again and we'll make sure we come around you again we're not in a rush the many inconvenience for the few sparrow we just pray of it even now as these names are spoken out loud that they would come before you and that you'd begin to offer truth and spirit and healing

Channel: Formatio

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Id: bHI_4KxsqW4

Length: 68min 47sec (4127 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 10 2019