Teaching | Become Like Jesus | Practicing the Way Vision Series E03 (From the Archive)

Hey friends, right now we are crowdfunding to create our final practice, the witness practice, and we need your help. For many of us, the practice of witness in our modern post-Christian culture feels confusing or scary. We may even have an emotional allergy to it based on past experiences. But as we learn what it means to be a witness in the way of Jesus, we find something beautiful. a partnership with the Spirit that brings us alive as we simply and lovingly testify to the good news of Jesus.

You can help create the witness practice at practicingtheway.org slash give. Hello and welcome to the John Marcoma teachings podcast.

My name is Yinka Dawson and I'm your host. Each week we feature teachings by John Mark or other voices in the formation space. Today, John Mark tackles the second of the three goals of being an apprentice. To become like our Rabbi, Jesus. But this transformation doesn't just happen. We have to be intentional. Here's John Monk.

Luke chapter 6. Hey, we're in a vision series through the fall that we're calling Practicing the Way. And the basic idea is that the open invite of Jesus of Nazareth was to become a Talmudim in Hebrew, or we translate that And to live as an apprentice of Jesus of Nazareth is to order your life around three goals. The first goal is to be with Jesus. The second is to be with Jesus.

become like Jesus, and the third is to do what he did. And if you've been around the last few weeks, we're working through each goal one at a time. So last week we covered be with Jesus, and then up on the docket for tonight is to become like Jesus. So let's start off right here in Luke chapter 6. Look down at verse 39. Jesus told them this parable. And get ready for the shortest parable of all time. It's a whopping

like two sentences long. Can the blind lead the blind? What's the answer? Nope. Will they not both fall into a pit? Answer? Yes. The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher. That's it. Parable over and done with full stop. And what is this parable about?

It's about discipleship. That blind sentence right there is a nod to the Pharisees. If you've read the four gospels, you know that Jesus regularly called the Pharisees blind guides. And he's saying, listen, there are blind disciples out there who are far. following blind rabbis. But then he says something really key. The student, and the word there in Greek is mathetes, which is the word that is translated student, or usually it's translated disciple or apprentice. The student, the disciple, the

apprentice is not above his or her teacher or rabbi, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher. Now, I could go off. Don't worry, I don't have time tonight. But if you want to put your exegete kind of hat on and pay really close attention. to the text right there, notice a few things. Notice that first the whole point of apprenticeship is to become like your rabbi or your teacher, not just to kind of know all of the Bible and theology, but to actually be transformed.

into the image, so to speak, of your teacher. Also notice that it takes training, that language there, fully trained. It doesn't just kind of happen, ah, naturally, it takes intentional training. Notice that there's like a fully which means there's also a what?

partially trained. Like there are stages to our discipleship to Jesus. And notice finally that it takes time. Like this is not like a one moment thing. It takes time to become like our rabbi, like our teacher. Now for you and me, what does all of this mean?

if you're an apprentice of Jesus, and I am and most of you are, not all of you, and you're welcome here wherever you're at on that journey, but if you're an apprentice of Jesus and your goal is to be with Jesus and then to become like Jesus, there's a little bit of a minor problem there. That means that most of us need to change. Am I right? How many of you are like, be like Jesus? Done. Got it.

Like it's Monday morning stuff for me. No problem. Do you make it to Monday afternoon or whatever? This means that most of us have to change. And by change, I don't mean tweak our life a little bit through self-help. I mean, most of us need a radical overhaul. of our entire person from the inside out to become like Jesus. Now, the word used in the New Testament for this kind of change, this level and degree of change, is the word transformation. Here's one example.

chapter 3 verse 18. This is from the writer Paul. Quote, and we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, that's Jesus in context, are being transformed, there it is, into his image. the image of Jesus with ever-increasing glory.

The Greek word used right there is metamorphou, where we get the word metamorphous, the word for when a caterpillar is changed into a butterfly. In fact, I looked it up. Merriam-Webster actually defines transformation as this, quote, form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism, as from the caterpillar to the pupa and from the pupa to the adult butterfly.

The question is that I want to kind of wrap about a bit tonight is, is this kind of change possible? And before you jump in and say that, yes, it is, like, no, actually, like... Slow down for a minute and think about that. Is this kind of radical, from the ground up transformation, is it actually possible, and if so, how?

I hit a wall, I don't know, about three years ago in my discipleship to Jesus. I grew up in the church from a really good home. My dad was a pastor. I became a pastor at a young age. We planted Bridgetown when I was still in my 20s. And on the surface, I was... doing really well, like I was successful by whatever metric system. But under the surface, there were some deep places in my life that my discipleship to Jesus had yet to touch.

I was wracked by anxiety. The teachings of Jesus on worry were like a foreign language to me. I was not in a mental space of hell. I was not happy. Not that the point of life is to be happy, but like there's something to emotional health. I don't think Jesus was grouchy and depressed all the time. Actually, I'm sure he wasn't. Wow. Well done. That's great.

And, you know, I was so kind of just not well at a number of levels that I was on track, in my humble opinion, to become a failure as a husband. And then it's only a matter of time until that is next on the docket for as a father. and I felt stuck. My problem, this was fascinating for me, my problem wasn't that I didn't want to change. or that I wasn't trying to change. I did want to change, and I was trying really hard. My problem was I did not know how to change.

Then right around the same time, I started to kind of, in all honesty, grow really disillusioned as a pastor because I realized I was not alone. Like what's that saying? As the leaders go, so goes the church. I hated that saying. It was terrifying. I was like, I'm miserable. I don't want a whole bunch of other miserable people.

following me and the elders around. And our church was full of people who had been going to church, many of them for decades, 10, 20, 30, 40 years, who had still not been transformed. cleaned up on the outside, yeah, kind of act for the most part together, sure, but transformed from the inside out to live the radical, provocative, countercultural way of Jesus into the image of Jesus.

Not really. There were some people for sure, but it was a minority. It was not the critical mass of the church that I was leading. And I realized they were hitting, a lot of you were hitting the same wall as me. Again, it's not that people didn't want to change or that people weren't trying to change. They did and they were. It's that we did not know how to change. So as a lot of you know, I started.

I stepped down from leading. We used to be a part of this mega church in the city. I stepped down from leading that, went on a three-month sabbatical. I started therapy, which has been life-changing. We all went through the Emotionally Healthy Church together, which is essentially my therapy. I dragged you along with it. It was fantastic.

And I started into Sabbath and like all this great stuff. Okay, most of you know that. What most of you don't know is that I've spent the last two years reading and researching everything I can get my hands on in the area of discipleship and spiritual formation. Everything from...

secular psychology to dense like really over my head neurology to mystic catholic spirituality i've read about everything from the limbic system to levitation i'm not making that up don't worry we're not that's not our plan for bridgetown we're like Next up, levitation. A three-week series. No, but that is like a weird Catholic mystic thing. Anyway, it's been one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life. I have been learning a ton. I've been unlearning a ton. And it was the impetus for...

why we're starting to kind of change up how we format community in the new year. So here's the plan for tonight. I want to download on you kind of the 30,000 foot summary of everything that we as a leadership team have learned over the last few years. Heads up today is more of a I'm sorry, more of a lecture than a sermon.

So we'll move really fast tonight. Just stick with me. The insider lingo for how we change, the process by which we change to become more like Jesus is spiritual formation. Here's a working definition from Dallas Willard. Spiritual formation in the Christian tradition is a... process of increasingly being possessed and permeated by the character traits of Jesus as we walk in the easy yoke of discipleship with Jesus our teacher. Here's the key idea I want to open up with.

Spiritual formation isn't a Christian thing. It's a human thing. To be human is to be dynamic, not static, meaning we're all being shaped. We're all being formed every second of every minute of every hour of every day. Put another way, and we don't like to hear this in particular in kind of anti-authority, whatever, end of the Oregon Trail, Portland, but we're all a disciple of somebody or something.

The question is not, are you an apprentice of somebody? It's who or what are you an apprentice of? Meaning you are all, myself included, we're all being formed, we're all being shaped. The question is, what are we being formed and shaped into? On that note, two paradigms I want to walk you through. The first, I think we have a slide for it. Hopefully we have a slide. Yes, okay. The first we call unintentional spiritual formation. And that's because this is kind of the idea behind this paradigm.

If you just wake up tomorrow morning, you go to school or you go to work or you go about your day with your family, whatever, and live with no intentional thought to your apprenticeship to Jesus, this is how you are being and I am being formed and shaped. First, we're all being formed.

by the stories we believe. We all have stories or narratives that we live by to make sense of the chaotic, messy, all over the map, dense, confusing world we call home. But Bette Buster calls human beings narrative. animals, meaning we just ache for, we crave story, our obsession with film and literature and myth and mythology and storytelling, like we crave it. We're just, we're created for story, to live into a story.

Stories that you believe or don't believe give rise to the way that you live. A great example is sexuality. If you buy into the story, and I would argue that's what it is, it's a story, it's a way of reading the data of reality.

of evolution, and by that I mean evolution with a capital E, kind of the idea that God was not involved, and I don't really care how long ago we were created or even how we were created. What matters to me is that we were created. But if you don't buy that, man, if you think of humanity,

as no more than a glorified accident, as this miracle, but only in the sense of like, wow, that was really unlikely. And as to be human is really not to be anything more than an animal farther down the timeline. If you believe that monogamy is associated

construct, that marriage is something we made up in the Byzantine era, that sex is great and it's a lot of fun, but it's not really anything more than biological release. It's kind of essentially play for grown-ups. If that's the story you believe, and that is a story. then that obviously will have a huge effect on how you express and enjoy or don't enjoy your sexuality and relationship with other people. So first, the stories we believe. Second, the habits that we live into.

All sorts of work has been done over the last few decades in the field of psychology over this idea of the power of habit. It's a best-selling book that's actually worth a read by that name. We are little more than the cumulative effect of our daily and weekly habits, what we do on a regular basis we become.

Or another way to say that is the things we do, do something to us. And we'll talk more about this in a few weeks, but short version is our habits get into the core of our being, like get into your limbic system. and they actually shape your loves and your longings. What in the New Testament is called your heart, your kind of orientation and direction forward in the world. For example,

I did not grow up loving coffee. I did not even grow up liking coffee. But I got a job when I was a senior in high school at Coffee People. Anybody around in Portland in the late 90s? It was like third wave before there was a third wave, all right? At least I like to tell myself.

band. I thought it was punk rock and whatever. I worked at coffee people. So I hated coffee, but I worked there. So I had to drink it. So I would just put a lot of chocolate and sugar and vanilla and dairy and animal and like whipped cream on top and do everything I could.

go to mask the taste of coffee, and I'd be like, I love it, it's so great, or whatever. Anybody remember the Black Tiger Milkshake? Anybody around? Late 90s? Yeah, the Quince, like five of you. It was a moment in time, all right? Anyway, so this crazy thing started to happen. I started to move from this is gross, but I like sugar, to this is not bad, to I think I actually like this, to let's try it without sugar and dairy and all this stuff.

drink it as is and oh it's kind of a little weird but oh it's kind of a good weird and oh like I started to change and I became the kind of person whose loves and longings are directed to that cup of coffee morning by morning Good morning. through the daily ritual of waking up in the morning. Now I spend a stupid amount of my paycheck on designer coffee. It's like $15 for like a week. It's just, it's an addiction. And I have my Japanese kettle and my scale.

like in Chinese, but that's the good one. And I like pour and my whole thing. And through the daily ritual of Chemex coffee, I have started to love coffee. Now, here's the thing. I know in my mind that coffee, and Peter, who's one of our elders, who's a doctor, who's about to put me under church discipline, but I know that coffee's terrible for me. I went off of it for six months. It was the best and worst six months. of my life.

I know that if I were to stop drinking coffee, I would sleep better at night. I would have more energy during the day. I would actually have more focus. I would have more, like, I'm type A and high strung as it is. The last thing I need is caffeine to start off my day. I know all of that.

But that does not change. I do not drink coffee every day because I made a conscious decision. I read a blog post and worked with a doctor and I decided to drink coffee. Now, I know it's terrible for me. I drink coffee every day because I love it. And the reality is what you love... which is in particular shaped by your habits, has far more of an effect on your life than what you know to be true in your head. Our habits shape our loves and our longings. So, stories we believe.

the habits we live into. Third is the relationships that we're involved in. We become, we all know this, we become like the people we hang out with on a regular basis. The odds are you dress like your group of friends, or maybe you're super indie and you don't, like, okay.

Whatever. But the odds are you think like your group of friends. You vote like your group of friends or your roommate or your family of origin or your office space or whatever. The people that you're around on a regular basis. The odds are that over time you become like those people. And this is a good thing.

or a bad thing or an in-between thing, depending on who those people are. And then all of this happens in an environment. For us, that's the urban core of Portland, Oregon. This city, as you hopefully know by now, if you're new to it, is a formation. machine. Like this city is like the ultimate rabbi and you are its disciple. You are its apprentice. It has a very clear idea in its, I speak of it as if it's alive, but it has a very clear idea of who and what it wants to be.

you to become. There's a stereotype that we all shrug off. Every time I travel, people are like, is it Portlandia? I'm like, no, kinda, but no. Not at all. Like, there's this stereotype of it wants you to be progressive and vote Democratic and recycle your toilet paper and everything and cycle everywhere like it has. And a lot of it's great stuff. I mean, I love the city. A lot of it is not great.

at all. It's very upside down from the way of Jesus. My point is there is an environment here, and this city wants to shape you and form you into its image. The longer you live in Portland, the more you become like Portland. There's this guy that just moved in a block down my street in the alphabet district.

And he's clearly new to the neighborhood because he is driving and trying every night. It's Alphabet District. It's street parking. He's trying to park this jive-freaking-normous Ford truck. It's like a Ford 950 or something. And it's like, it's all black and tinted windows. And it's, what do you call it, murdered? Is that like what kids these days call it? It's murdered where it's all black. And it has the black rims with the star, you know, the like 1999 star in the middle.

And then it has this huge skateboard logo, like literally along the entire side. It's like bigger than my, it's huge. It's clear, bro, you're not from Portland. I don't know him yet, but I would bet you good money. Where are you from? Southern California. No doubt. Where are you from? Oh, Riverside. Where are you from? Inland Empire. I would bet $100.

Now give that guy a year or two, because right now the neighbors all just glare at the poor guy as he's trying to parallel park between the Subaru and the hybrid. It's so bad, right? Now, if, by the way, you're my neighbor and you're here, welcome to our city. That's great. My point is, like, it's clear. All right, you're not from around here. You're new. Give it time, and the odds are that thing, which is fine, will be swapped out for a bicycle.

My point is, we become like the place that we call home. For all of us, we live in the digital age. It's our city, and then it's our phone world. This is why no matter where you travel in the world, hipsters are like a thing. It doesn't matter if you go to London or San Francisco. basically anywhere where there's...

people. They're all wearing APC jeans and listening to local natives and have the Carhartt beanie. It's not just you. Actually, some other people have the exact same ensemble. And it's not a critique. That's not a slam. It's just a point of fact. The world is...

getting smaller with each and every day. Now, here's my point. The stories we believe, the habits we live into, the relationships we're involved in, and the environment we call home, even our phone world that we live in, all of this, it has a synergistic energy They conspire and collaborate together to shape you and form you into a very specific kind of person.

Now, this doesn't happen in a moment. All of this happens over time. So think of the dude who's new to Portland in the Ford 950. Give him a year or two or three. The odds are it will change. And it happens through experiences. Good, bad, ugly, in between.

you go through divorce, you start a business and it's a raging success, or it's a failure, you were abused at age nine, your family of origin has really more of an effect on you than pretty much anything else, the way you do life, the way you do relationships, healthy, unhealthy. in between. We're shaped by, we're formed by our experiences. My point for right now is that all of this has an effect on you and all you have to do is wake up tomorrow morning.

You don't have to plan anything. You don't have to schedule anything. You don't have to strategize. Just wake up, go about your day, and trust me, you are becoming somebody. You're being formed, and so am I. It's not just like all of us are being shaped.

The question is, for you and me as an apprentice of Jesus, how do we counter? Because that's a lot. How do we offset that? In our apprenticeship to Jesus, how do we change to become more, not like Portland or our phone or whatever, but more like Jesus? Well, hint.

The odds are it's not how you think. It was a lot of new information for me. So before we get into the next paradigm, two myths I want to beat up on. These are myths that I just pick up in conversation here and there, bits and pieces over coffee. on the internet, all of that. Two myths that I just want to take a moment to call out. The first myth is this, that all you really need to do is know the Bible. All you really need to do is just like...

know the Bible. And so we read the Bible and we study the Bible and memorize the Bible and write books about the Bible and we talk about the Bible and you all know me. So please don't misread me. I'm a huge fan of all of that, but here's the problem.

We have been so deeply shaped by Western European history. So you have the Protestant Reformation, if you know about that, a few hundred years ago. You have Martin Luther, who's a great example, great leader in that movement. His theory of what he called sanctification.

at the time, which was kind of an old school way of saying spiritual formation, of how we change to become like Jesus was twofold. He said we change through what he called the preaching of the gospel. And for Luther, that was a sermon. So kind of evangelism and Bible teaching in his mind.

through the sacraments. He was still essentially Catholic in his view of the bread and the cup. And so for Luther, and he's just a great archetype, a whole bunch of other people from that era, the way that we change is you come to church on Sunday, you hear the preaching, you hear the sermon or whatever, you take the bread, you take

a cup. You do that over time and you're changed. Now, fast forward a few hundred years, you get to America. Evangelicalism comes along that we're kind of the grandchild of and essentially says goodbye to the sacraments. Right or wrong, this is a whole other teaching. Most followers of Jesus in America have a very low view of the body and the blood, and the plastic cup really does not help on that front. And so you're essentially left with the sermon. It's why you have so many...

church models that are essentially built around that 40-minute block right at the middle of everything. That's kind of what the whole church is about. But it's not just that. Really, more than the Reformation, more than all of that, the greatest effect was really enlightenment, which most of you now has had. had just a massive effect on Western European consciousness. And, you know, of course, you have the French philosopher René Descartes' famous line, I think, therefore, I what?

I am, I think, therefore I am. He called human beings res cagatons in Latin or thinking things in English. His view of what it means to be human has shaped our Western world and the way we approach church and discipleship in the West. The problem is basically everybody now says the dude was smart, but he was wrong. If he was right, if this view of what it means to be human was true, then we could just think something, know it in our head, and then go do it. Easy as that.

How's that working for you? We could just read a book on health food and never eat sugar or dairy or meat again. Be really easy. We could just read a little teaching from Jesus about loving our enemy and be like, cool. Got it. Great. Thank you. We could just read a little thing on, you know, anxiety and don't worry. Don't worry. What a great idea. Okay. Let's not worry this week.

The problem is that knowing something is not the same as doing it, which is still not the same as wanting to do it. Am I right? So a lot of stuff that you know, a lot of stuff that I know that I don't do. And frankly, I don't even want to do, even though I know it's right. So there's a way deeper problem here than the brain.

What this means for our apprenticeship to Jesus, and this is a key idea for us tonight, is that we can't think our way to Christlikeness. And the mind is essential, but we'll get into that. But just bear with me, you can't think your way to Christlikeness because the way of Jesus is a way. It's not just a set of ideas. It is a way of life. Our problem is that, as a general rule, even in the most anti-intellectual churches in the U.S.,

It's not a slam, but it's just how it is. Our approach to discipleship is usually a solely intellectual endeavor. Now, by intellectual, I don't mean it's heady and only for the educated people in the church. I mean that it's solely through the mind and the imagination. It's all about information transfer. So it's, hey, you want to grow and mature in Jesus? Come to Bible study on Wednesday night.

Get with your small group, read this book and have discussion questions or meet with your mentor for coffee every Thursday morning, work through this curriculum from the navigators on basic doctrine of Christianity or whatever. That's all great stuff. Don't misread me. I'm not down on any of it. But hopefully you all know this. Information transfer alone does not yield transformation.

It is a false assumption to think as your knowledge of the Bible goes up, your Christ-likeness will go up with it. That might happen. That's the goal, but not necessarily. There's way more going on. So that's the first myth. All you need to do is know the Bible.

Second myth, and that first one is more if you come from a, I don't know, reformed background or Bible church background or just you have no church background, but you're wired more intellectual or education or whatever. This one is a little bit more if you come out of a Pentecostal background or charismatic background. artistic background. And it's this, you don't need to do anything. It's all God. So the famous cliche that gave rise to this is let go and what?

Let God. That is such bad theology. I don't even know where to start. There's actually a tagline from the Keswick Convention. There's a whole history there. Let go and let God. I call it like the matrix theory of spiritual formation. Remember matrix? Come on. It's no Star Wars, obviously, but it's really good. You remember the download thing, Trinity here? I need a pilot program for a B-12 helicopter. It's like, got it, and now she's a pilot.

Yeah. That's so cool in a movie. That's not how apprenticeship to Jesus works. I wish it was like, hey, Jesus, I need a download for peace. Got it. Hey, Jesus, download Patience, my seven-year-old. Holy, got it. Hi. Like, Jesus, I just need a download for freedom from the addiction to...

yeah, I don't even want that anymore. No, I'm good. Like, oh, that would be so cool. Unfortunately, it is absolute fantasy. I love that saying. It's one of the few cliches that I really like. Without him, we can't, but without us, he won't. Without him, we can't. Without us, he won't. Change, transformation is a joint effort between you and God. God has a part and you have a part.

God has a responsibility and a role to play, and so do you and I. And if that makes you nervous, I love Dallas Willard's line about how grace isn't opposed to effort, it's opposed to earning. So often we confuse the two. I have a 10-year-old son I love who every day I make him practice the piano in the afternoon, whether he wants to or not. And he's kind of into music, so it's usually okay. But I don't make him practice the piano to earn my love. He has my love. Like, I love that kid.

too much, if anything. Make him practice the piano because my love will not make him into a really good rock star. I mean, musician. I mean, piano player. Whatever. Like for that, like he has a responsibility. He has a part to play to become the man that I think God created him to be.

All that to say, we have to partner with God. He has a part and so do we. So all of that leads me back to the question, how do we turn the page? Well, here's the next paradigm. I'll make this really fast because the plan is to come back and teach in depth on this one idea at a time.

This, as I said before, is overview. And all of this is counter. So when I think, we call this intentional spiritual formation. This is our apprenticeship to Jesus. This is you wake up tomorrow morning and you follow after your rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth. And all of this is counter formation.

meaning it's all designed to offset kind of the overwhelming tide of life in our city. So counter the stories that we believe is teaching. This is where teaching what we're doing right now and reading the Bible tomorrow morning, reading a book about the Bible or the way of Jesus.

it has a vital role to play. So don't misread me. We're not down on it. We're all for it. It's what I give the bulk of my life to. We just don't think it's enough all by itself. But the best kind of teaching does more than just tell you right from wrong. It gets into your head with a vision of the good life. It undermines the stories that you believe that are not true. It says, that's not true. That's a lie.

And this is the real true story of reality. That's why so many of Jesus' teachings did not even have a command. There's no like moral to the story. There's no like three things to work on in the coming week. He would just tell a story about the way the world actually is. works. Hey, the last are first. Is that a command?

No. I mean, there's an implicit kind of, yeah, this is a great way to live. He's just saying that's the way the world actually works. That's real, true story. And this is where the classic text, of course, on this is Romans 12, verse 1. conformed to the world, but be what? Transform, there's that word by the what?

renewing of your mind if you've never read that go read it romans chapter 12 verse 2 and so this is where teaching church on sunday reading a good book a class all of that plays a vital role in our transformation. But teaching, getting right ideas into our head, is only the beginning. Next, counter the habits that we live into is practice. So two weeks ago,

And we read from the Sermon on the Mount. If you were here, we made the point, Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, is Jesus' manifesto for how to live as an apprentice in the new reality of the kingdom of God. And we pointed out that Jesus begins and ends the Sermon on the Mount with this idea of practice.

So for Jesus, this whole vision of how to be human is fantastic, but Jesus just assumes it will take a lifetime of practice in community. You're not going to like, love your enemy. Cool, got it, no problem. Don't worry. Yeah, that was great. I have it down. No, it's going to take a lifetime of practice. not alone, but with other apprentices of Jesus in your life. We said that it's not about trying really hard, but about training really hard. So we use that marathon analogy. You remember that?

Yep. Here's another one, if it's at all helpful. Every day, as I said, I make my son Jude practice the piano. What would happen if tomorrow afternoon I said to Jude, hey Jude, I want you to play Mozart, Requiem in D minor.

He's 10, by the way. He's good, but he's not anywhere close to that, you know? And Jude, like, I want, how, Daddy? It's overwhelming. I don't know. And I just said, try really hard, really extra. And what if I, like, started to pray over jude holy spirit come like i just like maybe that would work if there was a miracle but then in order for him to play it again he would need another miracle and another miracle and another miracle no

How does Jude play Mozart, Requiem, and D minor? By trying really hard? No, by training really hard, by practice. Every afternoon at 3.30 for half an hour, whether you want to or not, bro, you're in my house, bro, whatever, son. Millennial parent moment. You're in my house, like, I believe in you, whatever. Through practice. And a year goes by, and two years go by, and ten years go by, and guess what?

He becomes the kind of person for whom playing Mozart is hard. It will always be hard, but it's well within his capacity as a musician. So it's not that Jude can't play Mozart. It's that he can't play it yet. And this is how we need to approach our apprenticeship to Jesus. It's not that you can't live a life free from worry or anxiety or lust or greed. It's that you can't live that way yet.

because it takes a lifetime of practice in community. But that said, the practices of Jesus do more than help us live well. They do something, as I said before, To us, the things we do do something to us. This is bad news for me and coffee. It's great news for all of us and Jesus. The practices of Jesus are what are usually called the spiritual disciplines. Do something very specific. They get in at a subconscious limbic system level.

to your heart, your orientation to the world, and they rehabituate our loves and our longings. They change the orientation of our heart, our desires and our dreams, our attitude and our affection. Last night, I was up, and we have this little balcony deck, and there's just a little bit of a view. It's beautiful.

I was just up there and I had just finished my Sabbath. My wife and I, our family, we Sabbath Friday night to Saturday night just because Sunday is a work day for me. And I was thinking about what a different... more space I was in than 24 hours before. When on Friday evening, as we started our Sabbath, I was just anxious about a number of things going on in my life right now. And I was grouchy. I was on edge with my wife and my three kids.

And my heart, frankly, was like there was very little desire to be with Jesus. I wanted to be with my Michael Crichton novel or whatever. You don't know. Now you know. It's really good. Anyway, email me.

My heart was just not in a good place. And I realized, man, in 24 hours, my heart had changed. And I was way more than just, ah, rested up. There was something about... adopting this practice based on the lifestyle of Jesus, that when I read the four gospels, I see Jesus was marked by the practice of Sabbath, an entire day set aside for rest and for worship.

turn off my phone, clear my schedule, chill, sleep, be with my family, pray, read the Bible, go on a walk, like just rest and worship. It did something to my heart. I was more than rested. Like I was re-inspired is way too flimsy of a word. My heart was changed.

to actually want to follow after Jesus. So in place of habits is practice. Third, in place of relationships is community. What's the difference? Well, relationships we, for the most part, self-select. That's not bad. Community are more kind of the other followers in Jesus that we inherit because they live in our neighborhood and go to Bridgetown or our family of origin or whatever. They're people that we make a decision to follow Jesus alongside because we can't follow Jesus.

Jesus alone. You all know that, right? You can't follow Jesus alone. I don't care, but I'm the exception. No, nobody is the exception. Like, you can't, and neither can I. Jesus did not have a disciple. He had disciples. And there was a reason for that.

Transformation, change, it happens in the context of community because community does two beautiful things to us. It does exposure and encouragement. Exposure, it shows, it's like kind of the squeezing of a sponge. It shows what's actually inside of you.

This is why we have so many young people in our church who are getting married right now. And I noticed this pattern. It's really fun to watch. And if you're engaged, just wait for it. So fun. Yeah, well done. You won't like what I'm about to say, though.

I noticed this pattern, like really great single people in our church who are involved and I know are fantastic people get married. And then all of a sudden they have this moment where they're like, oh my gosh, I'm a selfish jerk. And I put the toilet paper on the wrong side. and I'm late, and I don't communicate well, and I don't really emote well, and I assume this, and my expectations were all off kilter, and it's like, oh, I'm a terrible human being.

Well, you kind of are, but that's a whole other... No. And here's the thing. It's not that when you get married, you become a worse person. You're the same person you were before you got married. It's that before you were married, there was nobody really around to show you how messed up you were. And now you have this beautiful mirror that you call Joe or whatever, whose sole mission in life is to show you how messed up you are or whatever. No, and we joke, but the reality is...

Community brings out the best in us and the worst in us, whether that's a marriage or a Bridgetown community or a close friendship or a roommate, best in you and the worst, you exposure. But a healthy community, a Jesus kind of community also does encouragement. That spouse, that community member, that friend says, listen,

I love you, and that was lame, but I see who you are becoming in Jesus, and I say yes to that, and I'm with you for the journey, and let me help you. Let me pray you. Exposure and encouragement. Honestly, living in community is hard. I get it from experience and my own life. We'll talk about that openly and honestly in a few weeks. But it is so worth it, and it's mandatory if you want to experience transformation. Next, in place of our environment, is the Holy Spirit. And just stay with me.

Thank you for everything I said last week about abiding. The goal is that, here's the end goal, that the Holy Spirit becomes our dominant reality and environment, more than our city, more than our phone, that practicing the presence of God becomes... the first and primary way that we experience life on planet earth. And that is, as we said last week, the baseline for all transformation. As Paul said in Galatians 5, walk in the spirit, keep in step with the spirit out of that.

That is the fruit of the spirit. Now, all of this happens over time. We don't become like Jesus in a year or two. It's not like, oh, we have this new Bridgetown program. It's six months long. Become like Jesus. Great. Go through it. Have you been through that? Oh, you're not like Jesus. Go through it. Like there's no. killer app. There's no silver bullet. There's no quick fix.

And this needs to be said in an age of the microwave and FedEx and text message and Wi-Fi and everything, the world at your fingertips, you still can't microwave character. You can't overnight it. You can't instant message. Christ-likeness. All you can do is grow it like a tree, like takes not a year or two, but a decade or three or four.

And that's not a bad thing. That's how the whole thing was set up. It all happens over time, and it happens through the hard knocks of life, in the words of Jay-Z, the prophet of our day. Whether you are a disciple of Jesus or not, life, as we all know, is not easy. But if you are a disciple of Jesus, the most hard, difficult, gut-wrenching moments, and some of you are in them right now. can become a catalyst to shape you into the image of Jesus.

I say can become because a lot of people go through hardship and just become bitter and torn out of shape and angry at God and everybody else and dysfunctional. So much of it has to do with whether or not you follow Jesus through that hardship to the other side. The classic text on this is James 1. Most of you recognize this.

you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Over and over, the writers of the Old and the New Testament make the point that it's the very moments that we run away from, in particular in the West, where our entire society is built around life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

suffering, hardship, pain at all costs. Our Western secular worldview has no redemptive edge at all to suffering. At best, it's an interruption. At worst, it's a permanent obstacle to the meaning of life. So all we do All we can offer people other than a little bit of self-help therapy is...

escapism, distraction. Here's a bottle, here's a video game, here's a Netflix show, here's sex, here's a new house, here's more hours in your career. All we can offer in Western secular society is distraction. But it's the very moments that we run away from that have the potential to catalyze change and transformation in you and in me into the way of Jesus to incubate our apprenticeship.

So how do we change to become more like Jesus? Through teaching, through practice, through community, and by the Holy Spirit. All of this happens over time and through the hard knocks of life.

So, as we wind down, to circle back to our question, is transformation possible? I mean, is it really, like a deep soul level, possible? What if you've been through divorce and you're just bitter about it? What if your dad abused you and you were a four-year-old little girl or boy? What if you feel like you're a failure in life? What if you're a type A difficult personality? Is transformation possible for you?

The answer is yes. It's absolutely possible, but it's not inevitable. It won't just happen. It's not like, because what a ton of people think, just come to church most Sundays, unless if there's a Timbers game or whatever. read your Bible every other day, and just boom, 20 years later, you're like Mother Teresa, just...

It's not that coming to church is a bad thing. It's not that it's not important. It's essential. It's critical. I can't even imagine discipleship to Jesus without the Sunday gathering. It's not that reading your Bible in the morning is bad or unimportant. It's essential. It's critical. I can't even imagine following Jesus without reading the scriptures every single day. It's that up against the overwhelming tide of culture.

The stories we believe, the habits, the relationships, our environment, it's just not enough. If you want to experience change and transformation, then it takes a lifetime of intentional discipleship to Jesus in community with people around you. So I just want to end with this question, not to get all like millennial email on you, but...

Rather than like a pragmatic kind of end, and we'll have all of that. We're rebuilding our entire church around this idea of practice. We'll have all of the pragmatic stuff down the road. Last week, we started with one simple idea, 10 minutes of silence and solitude every morning or at night.

Hope that was a good week for you. Just keep on that if you want to. We're up it to 20 or 30 this week and add in a psalm. Or if you already do that, you're in the Bible every single day, then maybe add in the daily office. Just pick another time, 10-minute block on your lunch break or the afternoon.

or at night before you go to bed to just abide in Jesus. Great. There's a pragmatic handhold for you. But where I really want to end today is just two closing thoughts. One is I want you to just ask the question, who are you becoming? Because every day you are becoming somebody, and so am I. If you plot the trajectory of your character arc out 20, 30, 40 years, in particular if you're young, but no matter what your age is, who do you see on the horizon?

Do you see Jesus expressed through your personality, your gender, your ethnicity, your stage of life, your socioeconomic strata, whatever? Does it look like that's kind of how I imagine Jesus through me? And I feel like it's slow going, but I'm on track for that. Or do you see something else or somebody else? And I know that's kind of like a heavy question. I asked that question three years ago, and I did not like the answer at all.

I saw myself at 60, 30, I saw myself at 60 and I saw a man who was success on the outside and a failure. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I can be a successful pastor and a miserable failure as a human being, husband, father, and apprentice of Jesus. And that was terrifying for me. I saw who I was becoming and I said, nope.

That is not what I want my autobiography to read. Not that I'm expecting to have an autobiography. That's a whole other thing. But you know what I'm saying. I did not mean it that way. All right. So all that to say, ask that question. Just go on a walk, set aside a little time to be quiet, get your journal open. Or if you're an extrovert, get with your friends, your community, dream together about it. But ask that question, who am I becoming?

And my second thing, just to wrap up, is I just want to encourage you in a really good way that you can change. If you're stuck, I've been there. You're stuck in an addiction. You're stuck in a habit. You're stuck in a relational dysfunction, a pattern, a program for happiness that is off kilter. You're stuck in your relationship to God. If you just feel like, oh, I just...

This is the life that Jesus had on offer. Like you, I really want you to believe this. You can change. You can experience transformation from the ground up. as you lay your life one day at a time before Jesus of Nazareth, and you just say, Jesus, have your way, you can recover your humanity through life with God. Let's stand and pray.

I found that framework so helpful. We are shaped by the stories we believe, the habits we practice, the relationships we cultivate, and the environment we live in. So to end today... Let's take a moment and let the Spirit highlight one place where we're being deformed away from becoming like Jesus. If you'd like, take a deep breath with me. And we center your attention on God's presence. And ask God to highlight a story, habit, relationship.

or aspect of your environment that's forming you into something other than your true self and God. And with that story, habit, or other in mind, just ask, what's one thing I can do to help me become more like Jesus in that area? Maybe it's taken time to forgive someone or renounce a lie you're believing. Or maybe it's a habit you need to replace or a community you need to lean into more. Just ask. and let the Holy Spirit bring the right step to mind.

Thank you, Jesus, that we don't have to earn our salvation. Thank you for inviting us to partner with you in the transformational work that you're doing in each of our lives. Would you give our efforts supernatural grace to transform us, that by doing what we can, you will do what only you can and conform us into the image of your Son. Amen.

Thanks for listening. This podcast is from Practice in the Way. We develop resources to help churches and small groups apprentice in the way of Jesus. If you enjoy the show, consider leaving a rating or review. It'll help other people find us. We're a crowdfunded nonprofit, so everything we make is completely free because it's already been paid for by The Circle, our community of monthly givers. Special thanks today goes to Darren from Henderson, Nevada.

Savannah from Portland, Oregon. Bill from Waynesboro, Virginia. Matt from Brooklyn, South Dakota. And Jeff from Columbus, Ohio. Thank you all very much. To join these friends in the circle or learn more about our resources, visit practiceintheway.org. Until next time, may you go in peace to love and serve the Lord.