Teaching | How We Change: Teaching and Practice | Practicing the Way Vision Series E05

Welcome to the John Mark Comer Teachings Podcast by Practicing the Way. This teaching was first given at Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon as a part of the Practicing the Way Vision Series.

Please turn your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark chapter 1, and then we'll get there in just a couple of minutes. I was at Powell's a few days ago for my weekly book run, and I was struck again. by the explosion in self-help literature over the last, I don't know, two decades or so. Here's a few titles just off like the shelf right when you walk in the door. Designing Your Life, How to Build a Well-Lived and Joyful Life.

Beautiful you, a daily guide to radical self-acceptance. Super better, the power of living gamefully. And then here's my personal favorite. The universe has your back. Transform fear to faith. It's always nice to know that the universe has my back. I just... Feels so much better now. You know, it's funny, for all the talk about secularization in the West, and in particular in a city like Portland,

I feel like we're more religious than ever before. But instead of church, it looks like a yoga studio. Instead of worship, it looks like Super Soul Sundays with Oprah. Instead of a teaching, it looks like a podcast or a TED Talk. Instead of a pastor, it looks like a therapist. Instead of a community, it looks like a gym membership or a running club. Instead of a Bible study, it looks like a...

book reading group. Instead of a retreat, it looks like a motivational seminar. Instead of silence and solitude and prayer, it looks like mindfulness.

I think we say that we in Portland are spiritual but not religious. I think that's absolutely ridiculous. I think we just don't want to be tied down to any one religion. We're more religious than ever before. It's all alive and well. Why? Because even in the second... age and even in a society that because it no longer believes in original sin has to blame shift all of the problems and issues in the world onto something external and in doing so onto somebody else. It's the market.

fault. It's globalization's fault. It's corporations fault. It's whatever. It's somebody else's fault out there. But still the reality is that deep down if we're honest with ourself, we know that the problem with the world is us. It's internal, not external. Something is wrong with us. Yes, we are created in the image of God in the language of the Old Testament, but something happened along the way, and that image is warped out of shape.

like a beautiful painting with graffiti all over the top. So there is this deep, primal, incumbent, spiritual desire in all of us, I think, follower of Jesus or not, to change. We all have this sense. that there's a gap between who we are and who we were created to be or evolved to be or whatever, who we want to be.

And for followers of Jesus, discipleship or apprenticeship to Jesus is about closing that gap. The question, of course, is how? For most of us, self-help just doesn't cut it. And I'm not down on self-help. I love to read all of that stuff. It's great. But it's just not enough. We're in a series right now on practicing the way of Jesus. And I, for one, feel like it's a watershed.

moment in our story. We're talking about what it means to be an apprentice, or if you prefer, a disciple or a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. And we've said it's to order your life around three goals. Say this out loud with me. Goal one, Be with Jesus. Goal two, become like Jesus. And goal three, do what he did.

We've done a teaching on each goal, but we're not done yet at all. To live the way of Jesus, to live all of that out, is going to require a transformation. In fact, that's one way to sum up all three goals into one. Followers of Jesus. Jesus are those who arrange their whole life around the goal of transformation into the image of Jesus. That is the word used all through the New Testament writings. In Greek, it's this word metamorpho, where we get the word metamorphism.

Merriam-Webster's definition of transformation, quote, a profound change in 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. That is a great metaphor for what we're after. But most of us aren't there yet. Even worse, a lot of us feel stuck, stuck in emotional pain from our family of origin or our past, stuck in addiction to alcohol or a substance or porn or your iPhone or the internet or work.

whatever, stuck in patterns of relationship, ways of coping with life that are unhealthy, that are escapist, that are addictive. And it's not just, it's not that we don't want to change. And it's not that we're not trying to change. It's that most of us don't know how to change. So a few weeks ago, we worked through, if you were here, two very different paradigms for spiritual formation. Spiritual formation, we use this definition 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. We made the point that spiritual formation isn't a Christian thing, it's a human thing. To be human is to be dynamic, not static. We are all being formed. We are all being shaped. Every day you wake up in the morning, you are becoming somebody. And so the first paradigm was this, what we call unintentional

spiritual formation. We're all being formed by the stories we believe. by our habits, by our relationships, and by our environment. For us, Portland, Oregon, and our phone. And all of this happens over time and through experiences. Then we said that apprenticeship to Jesus, it's counter-formation, meaning it has to counter-

or offset all of that from just life in our city that we know and love. And we work through this paradigm really fast, what we call intentional spiritual formation. In place of the stories we believe is teaching. In place of our habits.

is practice, in place of our relationships is community, and in place of our environment is the Holy Spirit. Now the plan for the next, I don't know, five or six weeks actually, is to work through this paradigm kind of one One piece at a time in depth from the scriptures as we move forward. And before we start the practices in January 1 where we start to get into it with your community, I really want to lay a foundation that we can build off.

of for years to come. So up on the docket for today is teaching, and then we'll get a little bit into practice. So first off, teaching. Hopefully your Bible is open right here to Mark chapter 1. Look down at verse 14. Jesus, if you know the story was a rabbi. It's a Hebrew word meaning a teacher, but he's not a self-help teacher with a pithy saying here or there on work efficiency or how to deal with your mother-in-law.

All of Jesus' teachings about how to be human were set inside a much larger idea that Jesus called the kingdom of God. Have a look at this, chapter 1, verse 14. good news or the gospel or the message of God. Well, what was that message? Here it is in one sentence. The time has come, he said. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.

The central theme of Jesus' teaching, contrary to popular opinion, was not love. It was not liberation for the poor or the oppressed. It was not justice, although all of that was encapsulated in Jesus' kingdom agenda. But the central message of Jesus was that that the kingdom of God, or put another way, this brand new reality, this in-breaking rule and reign of the creator God over creation, that it is near, it's right, it's accessible, and you have open invite now.

this new reality. And Jesus' call, meaning the response that he was looking for from the crowd or the people out there, was repent and believe. Can you say that out loud with me? Repent and believe. The word repent is fascinating. In Greek, it's metanoeo. It more literally means to change your mind. So repentance is about all of your life, but repentance as the word has more to do with your mind or your thought life. One lexicon puts it this way, quote,

change one's way of life as a result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness. To repent is to reimagine your life from the ground up. around the kingdom of God, to re-dream your life from top to bottom around a whole new way to be human in God's power and presence. And re-imagination is the first step to transformation.

Teaching is aimed, what I'm doing right now, is aimed first and foremost at the mind and the imagination. Remember we said that teaching is counter to the stories we believe. Teaching, when it's done well, says more than this is right and this is wrong and this is the Hebrew word or the Greek word. Teaching when it's done well gets into your head with an alternate vision of the good life. It says that story that you believe is a lie. That narrative script

that you live out from, actually it's not true. That worldview that you buy, that's not really the real true story of the world. Here's a better one. But this takes time to rewire our brains because the lies we believe are deeply embedded into our psyche. The anchor text on this, and most of you will recognize this, is Romans chapter 12, the opening line or two.

you've ever read Romans, it's like the Magna Carta of the New Testament. After 11 chapters of thick, in-depth, heady theology, Paul is like building, building, building, building up to this point, and then you have this watershed moment. in light of all of that, all 11 chapters, I urge you, brothers and sisters, hey, your family, in view of God's mercy,

Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. That's Hebrew imagery. This is your true and proper worship. So give God more than a song or two on Sunday night. Give him all of your life. Do not conform. to the pattern of this world, and here's the key line, read it out loud with me, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

For Paul, the first step to transformation is the renewal of the mind. And notice that is not a one-time act, but an ongoing, continuous process of discipleship. Paul, if you've ever read his writings in the New Testament, 13 or 14 letters, he is obsessed with your thought life. Here's a sample or two. 1 Corinthians 2.16, we have the mind of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10.5, say this with me.

thought captive to obey Christ. Colossians 3, 3. Say it again. Set your minds on things above. Philippians 3, 5. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. Dallas Willard puts it this way, the process of spiritual formation in Christ is one of progressively replacing destructive images and ideas with images and ideas that filled the mind of Jesus himself.

formation in Christ moves towards a total interchange of our ideas and images for his, or thinking God's thoughts after him. Now what Paul and Willard are both getting at is this idea that today, at least at a scientific level, we call neuroplasticity. Quick refresher. It's based on the scientific idea of Hebb's axiom, which simply put, if you're a scientific idiot like myself,

basically says neurons that fire together wire together. I found this explanation from Dr. Kurt Thompson helpful. He's a great little book if you want to like really nerd out for the three of you on the connection between neuroplasticity. neuroscience, the spiritual disciplines, and living in community. Fascinating read for three of us. He writes this.

Neurons that repeatedly activate in a particular pattern are statistically more likely to fire in that same pattern the more they are activated, meaning you think one thought, you're more likely now to think that thought again. Once the initial neurons in a network fire, there is a very high probability that the related neurons will also activate and move along the same bioelectrical pathway. Oh, the bioelectrical pathway.

to the end of that network. The more frequently those patterns have been fired, listen, the more easily they will fire in that same pattern in the future, okay? Now, for those of you that are absolutely lost, join the club. This is easy. He goes on to use the metaphor... that for me was helpful based on the work of another neuroscientist that essentially

The analogy is hiking through a jungle with a machete. The trail that you hack out or hack through the jungle is your thought life. The jungle is the billions of synapses in your brain. When you think a thought, it's like cutting a trail through the jungle. If you think it again,

Again, a second time, that trail gets even clearer. If you think of the third time, it gets even clearer. Fourth, fifth, tenth time, it's even clearer. Pretty soon, when you come to that part of the jungle, that part of your thought life, you just automatically take that.

route without even thinking about it anymore even if it's a dangerous trail even if it's not a healthy route even if there's a way better way to do it or a way better route because that's what you are now at a biochemical level hardwired in your brain

stay on that course now this neurological mapping is a good thing and a bad thing it's a good thing it's why I can remember my wife's name and she doesn't have to like wear a name tag but it's bad because we all get stuck in mental and emotional patterns that are harmful, if not toxic, and dysfunctional, and don't point you in the right direction. Now, in order to make a new pattern, and you can. That's why it's called neuroplasticity. There is a plasticity literally at a scientific level.

scientific level to your brain. You can rewire how you think but it does not happen with the flip of a switch. You have to rethink and rethink and rethink over and over and over again. It takes a lot of repetition.

That's why we spend so much time teaching on Sunday and reading the Bible in the morning or through the day and reading books and podcasting, all of that, because it takes a very long time to rewire our brains. Now, for those of you

that are pragmatists before we move on to practice and kind of want to know the nuts and bolts, there are all sorts of ways to get teaching into your mind and imagination and in doing so to rewire your brains and to replace kind of the stories that we live out that are not true. Here's my top five.

and I'd love to hear from you what is working well for you. First is reading the Bible. Reading in large swaths like the year of biblical literacy. I know a lot of you kind of did not make it through and that's okay. But honestly, I was really bummed just because there's something so healthy about reading.

reading large chunks of the Bible, a few chapters or through the Bible in a year or whatever at a time. But I think even more important than reading large chunks is meditation and memorization. Reading much smaller chunks of the Bible, really slow. slow, prayerfully, with an ear open to the Holy Spirit. So sometimes in my morning time, I'll spend 20 minutes just reading one psalm, and then I'll read through three chapters in the New Testament much faster or whatever. There's something really...

powerful when you take your mind and you think God's thoughts after him one sentence, one paragraph, one chapter at a time. So reading the Bible. Secondly is reading good books. I read a lot. I know there's a lot of readers in our church. A lot of you aren't. That's fine.

But reading is a great exercise. So I shoot for two books a week. I was feeling really good. That's 104 a year. I just hit 102. So I'm ahead for the year. I'm like pumped. I'm like trying to hit a record this year. And I was feeling all like great about myself. And then Matt Hughes was like, oh yeah, I just hit 102. 230. Come on, bro. You had to rain on my parade and be all smarter and cooler than me.

Point is, for those of you that are a reader, and even if you're not, I would encourage you to at least read a little bit, even if it's not your thing. I think there's a powerful effect in what I call spiritual reading, which I do every Sabbath, where you just read something that really is about.

the Bible or the way of Jesus to rewire your mind and imagination. Third is sitting under the teaching at a Sunday gathering. What we're doing right now, sitting under a teacher of the Bible and the way of Jesus is one of the best ways to be transformed.

formed by the renewing of your mind. Fourth is podcasting. This is a great way to get access to a gifted teacher from outside of your church or city. So I regularly podcast a few other people, gifted teachers who help me think well. And then finally,

getting a mentor or just getting somebody to speak truth over you. It doesn't have to be out of a book or a podcast or a sermon, although those are great mediums, but just get somebody to speak the real true story of the world over you. If you can't find a living mentor, a dead one. That's where books are always helpful. Like, I can't find a mentor. Go to Powell's, $9.99. It's on sale and it's used, right? I feel like Dallas Willard has been a mentor to me in the way of Jesus. He's dead.

I never had the chance to meet him. Pete Scazzaro, who's still alive, but I don't know, has been a mentor to me in the way. I just recently discovered the writing of this Catholic guy, Ronald Roheiser. Oh my gosh, it is like water for my soul in the last month or two.

So all that to say, and if you can't find a mentor and you don't want to read, then just live in community and get people to speak truth over you. As you give voice to what's in your mind and imagination, your community ideally is a sounding board to say, yes, that's... true no that's a lie yes that's true no that's a lie and to help you navigate life all that to say getting teaching into your mind and imagination through whatever medium is the first step in your transformation

but it's not the last. But a lot of people stop right there, come to church, take notes, read Bible in the morning, read a book once in a while, but that is kind of the end point, and people always stall out in discipleship. to Jesus, in particular in transformation. Why? Here's why. Because, and I said this a few weeks ago, you can't think your way to Christlikeness.

Say that out loud with me. You can't think your way to Christlikeness. Speaking of a motivational speaker, I'm getting you guys to like talk out loud tonight. I don't know what's up with me. Sorry, but just the election. I'm all excited. No, I'm not excited. Have you ever come to church on a Sunday?

And been inspired by the teaching or by worship or really by the Holy Spirit to change something about your life. And you're like, you're moved. You're ready to change. And you go back. You're all inspired. Maybe you journal at night before you go to bed or whatever. But then by like Monday afternoon, you're back. in the same old pattern. Is it just me? Okay, no? Please, a little love. No, thank you, Pavel. It's not just me. Your problem isn't knowledge. You know what you need to know.

Your problem is that information transfer alone is not enough for transformation because knowing something is not the same as doing it, which is still not the same as wanting to do it. That's why we all, every one of us, has a massive gap between what we know and what we do, and still another one between what we do and what we want to do. So the philosopher Jamie K. Smith, whose book I recommended a few weeks ago, You Are What You Love, fantastic.

read. It's for sale out there and on our website. He tells this great story about how his wife gave him a book on the slow food movement. and she was passionate about it and he's getting all into this book about eating slow locally you know locally grown whole plant-based food and he's just like yes a highlighter out and he's writing in the margin and then at one point he looked up and he realized

he was sitting in the Costco food court eating a hot dog. He's like, wait, wait a minute. There is a gap. between what I know based on this book and what I do. I have a hot dog half eaten in my lap. And he makes the point that my problem, his problem was not knowledge, his problem was love. He still loved hot dogs.

And this is what gets us into trouble, right? We know the right stuff in our head, but we still love whatever the equivalent is hot dogs for you. Because what we love in our heart has a far greater influence on what we do than what we know in our heart. head.

I want to say that again, what we love in our heart has a far greater influence on what we do than what we know in our head. For example, last night we had a birthday party for both of my boys who are downstairs right now. Moses turned eight on Monday.

Sunday, Jude turned 11 today. Say happy birthday to him if you see him. And so we did a joint party and there were, I don't know how many kids, grade schoolers at our house. Just a lot of, and this was the first year where girls got invited to the party. Jude's in fifth grade. There was a couple mm-hmm, yeah. And there was a dance party, and there was a lot of Justin Bieber, and it was just a moment for me as a dad. Anyway.

It was it was psychologically traumatic how stressful last night was 15 kids in my living room as a orderly neat introvert, but Anyway, my wife makes this vegan gluten-free pumpkin muffin cupcake that is to die for. If you've ever had it, you know like our church logo, the two circles, one is heaven, the other is earth, and there's that place of overlap.

that's her vegan muffin right there. That like crossover between heaven and earth where you're like, is this heaven or earth? I don't know, right? So we pass out, we put all the kids. on the floor or whatever. We pass out the muffins and I have a muffin. Then we give all the kids a second muffin. Then I have a second muffin. Then dance party's over and we do presents. And then we turn on a Captain America movie for the kids to watch. And the kids are in there. And then I'm over kind of in the...

dining room, and then there's a lot of extra pumpkin muffins on the table. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, I know in my head I've already had two. And I know that if I eat anymore, not only will I feel gross and sick, but I have to teach three times tomorrow. I'm getting over a cold. Like, I will regret it. I will not feel good tomorrow. It will affect my job performance, all of that. So I have... Three more.

Sorry babe, you don't even know that. I'm sorry. I had like two more and then she made like a couple like bags to send home with parents and one had four on it and like they don't need four and I just kind of... I went to bed last night feeling so ill. I mean it was literally sick to my stomach. Woke up this morning just dying, right? So my problem is not knowledge. I'm well aware that sugar is bad for me and that a little bit is okay. Five is not.

What's my problem? My problem is I still love pumpkin muffins. I don't know if that's a problem or a virtue, but there's a thing there. My problem is love. So how do we change that? Because we all get stuck here where we know something in our head, but our heart...

is not there yet. How do we change that? Well, through the next step in our transformation, and that is through practice. And remember that diagram in your head. We'll talk more about community later, and we'll talk a ton about the Holy Spirit. So just stay with me. But next, I want to talk about this idea of practice. Turn over to Matthew chapter... 7. Just, I don't know, eighth of an inch to the left. Matthew chapter 7. This is the tail end to what we call the Sermon on the Mount.

the most important, or the collection of really all Jesus' most important teachings. And it is a haunt, have you ever read it? It is a haunting way to end a sermon. Matthew chapter seven, verse 24. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and, say this out loud with me, puts them into practice.

It's like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. but everyone who hears these words of mine and does say it out loud not put them into practice

It's like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. It's a haunting way to end a teaching and then just walk off stage. It fell with a great crash. No pep talk. It fell with the grave. It's haunting. Jesus is saying this is what will happen if you take everything I just said and you put it into practice. House on the rock.

But this is what will happen if you hear everything I just said and you don't put it into practice. Rain, stream, storm, you're done. I think about this every time I see somebody I love from our church or a friend or a family member. go through some kind of a traumatic life event. And it's like in those moments you really see the true...

fabric of people's character, right? I'm watching my sister who my niece right now is in and out of the hospital and her life is literally in the balance. It's really hard time for my sister and for my family and I'm watching her just handle it with grace, honesty, grieving, lament, but with grace and Christlikeness. Then I watch other people go through something, disease, illness, unemployment, whatever, and fall apart. And not just one but…

a marriage fall apart, a family fall apart. What's the difference there? You see in that moment there are a lot of people that were Christian but were never practicing the way of Jesus. who were at church most of the time, who were around, who were social, and hi, how are you, and who were semi-moral, but were not actually built around practicing the way of Jesus. And in that moment,

Like the reality is, oh, wow, you're not actually an apprentice of Jesus. You're a good, nice person who was at church a lot, and now your life is falling apart. It's a haunting, like... Ominous end to a teaching. And it's not just here that Jesus has something to say about this central role of practice. I think of this iconic line in Luke chapter 8. My mother and brothers, you want to know what the church is all about? Here it is.

hear God's word and what? Put it into practice. Or I think of John 13. Now that you know all of these things, you will be blessed if you what? Do them. Of course, that brings to mind James 1. Because, oh, that's not James 1. Maybe is there another slide there?

No, that's definitely not James 1. That's okay. Let me read it over you. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking

himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what he looks like. Whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do. Over and over, Jesus and pretty much all the writers of the New Testament make the same point, that teaching has to lead to practice.

To quote my therapist on the power of habit, that's where the money is. I would say that to you about the power of practice. That's where the money is. Now, when I say practice, it's kind of an ambiguous word. I have three groupings of practices in mind.

practices based on the lifestyle of Jesus, what are usually called the spiritual disciplines, silence, solitude, prayer, fasting, reading the Bible, memorization, coming to church, Sabbath, simple living. We'll talk more about that next week. Then practices

based on the teachings of Jesus. So think of the Sermon on the Mount, love your enemy or do not worry. And then practices based on the mission and ministry of Jesus. Think of that list of 10 things from last week, preaching the gospel, teaching the way, healing the sick, casting out demons.

and so on now there is a ton i could stay here next week i'm going to do an in-depth teaching on the ins and outs of the spiritual disciplines i'm really looking forward to it i believe in them more now than ever before they are essential

non-negotiable component to your discipleship to Jesus. So if you can make it at all, please be here next week. And then later down the road, we'll talk more about kind of the teachings of Jesus and the ministry and mission of Jesus. For this week, I kind of want to stay up at 30,000 feet.

and talk about what the practice is of Jesus, all of that list, but in particular, think in your mind's eye of the spiritual disciplines. Think of reading your Bible, think of coming to church, think of fasting if that's a part of your practice, think of prayer, think of Sabbath, all of that, think of simplicity.

I wanna talk about what the practices of Jesus do to us because, and this is a key idea, the things we do do something to us. That's so like Twitterized, but there's actually a lot of truth in there. The things we do do something to us. do something to us, is what Charles Duhigg called the power of habit in that great little book. Remember we said that practice, teaching is to counter the stories we believe, right? Practice, on the other hand, is to counter our habits.

Because what we do on a regular basis we become. We are the cumulative effect of our daily and weekly habits. Just the ordinary, normal, mundane routine of how you wake up in the morning, what your job is, your relationship to your phone, your email account, your night routine, how you spend your free...

time on the weekend, all of that is doing something to you for better or for worse. Here's why. Your habits, or for a follower of Jesus, your practices get into you, not through the prefrontal cortex, but but through your limbic system, meaning not through your mind and imagination like a teaching is right now. I'm getting into you through your mind, right? But practice is getting into you through what the writers of the Bible called the heart. Here's a good working definition of the heart.

from Smith. Quote, the fulcrum of your most fundamental longings. Get the idea of like a fulcrum that like starts to point you in the right or wrong direction, a visceral subconscious orientation to the world. Put another way, it's the direction of your love.

To be human is to love. You're a human being that means you're a lover. You can't not love.

Our problem is not that we don't love, it's that we love so many of the wrong things. And so we have to ask the question, okay, what is it or who is it that I love? Because how you and I answer that question will define you because your heart, the direction of your heart, love is like an engine driving you forward towards some kind of a vision in your mind's eye of the good life have a look at this from smith because we are what we want

Our wants and longings and desires are at the core of our identity, the wellspring from which our actions and behavior flow. Our wants reverberate from our heart, the epicenter of the human person. Thus, scripture counsels above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it, Proverbs 4.23. Discipleship, we might say, is a way to curate your heart.

to be attentive to and intentional about what you love. Discipleship is more a matter of hungering and thirsting than of knowing and believing. Jesus' command to follow him is a command to align our loves and longings with his, to want what God wants, to desire what God desires, to hunger and thirst after God and crave a world where he is all in all. a vision encapsulated by the shorthand, the kingdom of God. How good is that? I think it's really good.

Smith is saying, and he's hopefully going to come and spend a weekend with us in the distant future, but he's saying that one of the primary tasks of discipleship is learning how to curate your heart. How to point your loves and longings in the right direction. Because your heart, if it's anything like mine, is prone to wander. The needle on the compass starts to wobble and we get off track. So we have to learn how to recalibrate our heart. This is why teaching...

practice have to go hand in hand. I really wanted to do just one teaching on teaching and then get into practice next week. And I said, I can't do that because we live in the West. Most of us get the teaching thing where we live in the West. We grew up in a university lecture-based system.

church is kind of set up like a lecture-based system. We kind of get the role of teaching and the mind and the imagination, but a lot of us stop there and we don't get that teaching without practice is really empty and shallow and doesn't get you very far.

is aimed at your vision of the good life? Because there's all sorts of visions of the good life out there, right? That's what we call it advertising. It's everybody saying, here's the vision of the good life. No, here's another vision. And you only have so much good life to go around.

You only have so much time in a day. You only have so much money in your bank account. You don't get to live every vision of the good life. You have to pick, right? And there's a vision that this is a vision of good life based on sexuality or the sexual liberation movement. Here's another vision of the good life.

on materialism. Here's another vision of the good life based on minimalism or based on whatever. There's all these competing visions of the good life. Jesus has a vision of the good life. He called it the kingdom of God or the way. To be a disciple of Jesus is to say, yeah, we buy Jesus' vision of the good life. We think that he knows better than the Powell's bestseller, although there's great stuff in there. But we think Jesus knows better. But practice is key because we have to want.

that vision. It's not enough to know it. We have to want it deep in the core of our being. Practice, unlike teaching that's aimed at the mind, practice is aimed at the heart because it's our practices or our habits, if you prefer, that give shape to our desire. The best example I know of this is shopping because most of us get this. You're all like at some point you have to go shopping. You're wearing clothing. At some point you did it, all right? Here's the crazy thing.

We live in this culture that says more stuff equals more happiness. Most of us claim we don't believe that. But then if you look at how we live, most of us believe that. But the reality is most of us know by now that the more you get, the more you what? Want. So the crazy thing about shopping is you go out to satiate a desire in your heart for a new jacket or a new car or a new phone or whatever, and you get it and you think it will satiate that desire, and it does.

for like five seconds. And then actually you have more desire. So I don't know if it's just me. I am the most discontent all year long the week after Christmas. I don't know if that's just me, but my family's really into gift giving. Generosity is a huge part, so we get all these presents or whatever. Normally, I don't really like whatever. I'm not really into shopping or whatever, right? Can I say that? Yes, I can say that. Through the air.

But, man, the week after Christmas, it's just like I get a new pair of shoes. I'm like, oh, those are great, but they're brown. I need a brown belt to go with that. And you go out shopping. You're like, oh, you know, my watch is kind of old and kind of lousy looking. You go, wow, look at that jacket. And then all of a sudden, I have this.

list of like 20 things I didn't even know existed a week ago and now I have to have. I have to have. I can't afford not to buy it, you know, like I have to have it. And that's the crazy thing about shopping. The more you shop, the more you want to shop. And it's not just shopping, it's just a great example. The more you eat a vegan donut, the more you want to eat two, three, four, five of them. The more that you watch Netflix, the more you want to watch Netflix.

The more you download porn, the more you want to download porn. The more you go too far with your boyfriend or girlfriend, the more you want to go too far. The more that you gossip, the more that you want to gossip. The things we do do something to us. Our habits shape our loves and our longings. Because we're not just shopping or eating or watching Netflix. We're doing something to our heart. Now, listen, this is really bad news for the upcoming Christmas season and you.

But it's great news for your discipleship to Jesus. It means that you have a role to play in what you love. Our culture wants to believe that love is this like force and our relationship to love is passive and it's just like a tsunami. We're like, oh, wow, I fell in love with this. somebody. It's not really how it works. You have a role to play. You have the authority and the power from the spirit of the resurrected Jesus to curate your heart.

to direct your heart towards, in the language of Jesus, to seek first the kingdom and his righteousness. How? Through practicing the way of Jesus. through living the lifestyle of Jesus, you can recalibrate your heart one day at a time. So, now to shift gears before I wrap up to the pragmatic thing. I'm beginning a number of...

people very nicely saying over the last few weeks, this is all great theory, I love it. Like, give me the nuts and bolts stuff. And we'll get in all of that in January, but we're like, that's a long time away. Like, give it to me now. So here's just one. really easy practice for the coming week that I have found really transformative in my own discipleship to Jesus. I want you to take what Jamie K. Smith calls a liturgical audit.

What he means by a liturgical audit. By liturgical, he means think about the rhythms and routines and rituals that make up your day, your week, your life. So just think about your habits, your practices, your schedule, your budget.

budget, how you spend your weekend, how you spend your work day, your relationship to your phone, just basic stuff, right? And what I want you to do if you're up for it this week and chat about this with your community is just maybe get an Evernote file or a journal or a pad of paper.

Maybe every night before you go to bed, take five or ten minutes and just start to write out your habits. Just to start to write out the things you do on a regular basis. And then here's the tricky part. I want you to see if you can make the connection. between those habits and what they are doing to your heart.

Okay, this is a different connection than what's sinful or not sinful. What can I get away with or not get away with? That's not the question I'm asking. The question is, what is this thing, good, bad, or neutral, what is it doing to your heart? And I want you to see, and it's a little bit tricky, and this is where prayer...

listening prayer, community is a huge help. I want you to see if you can make the connection between a habit or as part of your life, part of your liturgy and your heart. And then for a season of time, you decide if it's a week or a month or six. months or whatever, I want you to do a little experiment. Just cut out one habit out of your life, or if you want to go like all type A and go 10, whatever, great. But for most of us, maybe take one habit of your life, cut it out.

And then breaking a habit is all about habit replacement, if you know the psychology behind it. I want you to replace it with one of the practices of Jesus. So whatever is life-giving for you, it might be. prayer, it might be worship, it might be a walk in Forest Park, whatever is life-giving for you, one of the disciplines or the practices of Jesus, I just want you to do a little replacement and I want you to see

what it does to your heart. So, for example, it's a little embarrassing to admit, but I don't know, maybe two months ago, I just hit the spot where I realized that watching Netflix was just doing lame stuff to my heart. And I don't have a lot of free time. I'm a dad. I'm raising a family. I have a job. And so I don't have a lot of time to spare. And so when I spend a couple hours a week or whatever on Netflix, That's a huge chunk of my free time. And I realized, man,

This is doing something to my heart that's not healthy. It's for me making me more lustful. I'm going to bed like later than I should and I'm waking up the next morning feeling kind of guilty for watching that scene with that girl or whatever rather than just awake to the present.

and power of God. So I just, I was moved by the Holy Spirit that first season. I just need to go off all Netflix TV film or whatever until Star Wars Rogue One. I just assume, I didn't even pray about that. I just assume that Jesus is with me. me. And right, Mike, that's like a great lead up. And that's just, I'm sure Jesus is in that. So it's been this really interesting. So here I am, I don't know, a month, six weeks in.

Not surprising. I'm sleeping better at night, getting more sleep at night. My night routine, I feel way more rested, and I wake up in the morning, I'm in a better mood. Like, not surprising. What is really surprising, I was saying this to my wife the other day, is what it's done to my heart. I, it's done.

a lot, it's in wonders for my love for Jesus. It has done something to me where I just, I cut that out and in its place, I just try to pray for my kids a little bit after I put my kids to bed and then like maybe read a psalm or a quick little

I am not like a spiritual master. By the end of the day and after getting my kids to sleep, I am just like dead. I'm just done. So most of the time I just end up going to bed really early. So there's no like, I did this in a minute. I'm not speaking in tongues on the roof or something like that.

It's just like a couple of prayers over my three kids and maybe half of a psalm or something before I like collapse into bed with a sci-fi novel and then sleep. So, but just that shift, just that shift has done wonders for my heart. And it's like I have more of a desire.

than ever before to practice the presence of God, to just live from that place of abiding. Now, I am not saying that you all need to go cancel your Netflix subscription. I'm not a legalist. If anything that says, the fact that I have to cut it out all the way says more about my immaturity than my maturity. I'll talk about that next week. All I'm saying is that we are on very dangerous ground when we don't realize the power of habit.

So that's an idea, a liturgical audit. Take something out, replace it with one of the practices of Jesus. Starting in January, we'll take on a new practice of Jesus every two months is the plan as a church, and we'll flesh it out in our community, in your neighborhood.

We believe that the way of Jesus is just that. It's a way of life. I just became friends with this guy, Mark Scandrett, down in San Francisco in the Mission District. If you've ever been down there. And he does this crazy thing he's telling me about that he calls the Jesus Dojo.

And I'm like, bro, what is the Jesus Dojo? That sounds so San Francisco and weird. And basically, you know, he takes groups of, I don't know, 10, 20, 30 people through an eight-week-long practice of Jesus. Basically, what we are going to start doing in Jesus. January, which is why I made the connection with the guy. I'm like, all right, I need to talk to you. We need to hang out. I need to know what you're doing.

And I asked him, like, so what's up with the, like, why do you call it the Jesus dojo? And he had this great point. He said, you know, I think that following Jesus, that the way of Jesus is a way of life, not just a set of ideas, and that following Jesus is more like learning karate than learning algebra. or science or history, yet our churches are usually set up more like university lecture halls than karate dojos.

I'm like, yeah, that's kind of right. Like we come in, we take notes, like there's no mat and like instructor or whatever. And he made the point that trying to learn how to follow Jesus based on a sermon series and a really good book is kind of of like trying to learn how to do karate based on a podcast in a YouTube video. It's not that it's bad. It's a great place to start, but it won't get you all the way there. At some point, you need to wax on and wax off.

Like at some point you need to put on the parachute pants and go to the dojo and have somebody say, hey man, stick your elbow. I don't know. I'm a pacifist. I don't even know how to do karate, but whatever. Like you need to practice and you need to do it with other people. So we thought about renaming our church Bridgetown a Jesus Dojo. And then we're like, nah, maybe not. Next year. Save it for next year. The church isn't quite ready for that.

But that is where we are going towards this idea of practicing the way of Jesus together in Portland. Because we want to get really good at living. well, living the way of Jesus, but even more than that, we're after way more than behavior modification. We want to get really good at loving well, at loving God with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength and neighbor as ourself. So to close, you know,

We all ache to change. Now some of us maybe that has been numb or apathetic, but we all ache to change and to become not only like Jesus, but in doing so to become our real true self.

And I just want to say, that will not happen if you just come here on Sunday, even if you take really good notes and sit through the teaching, and even if you read your Bible every day. That's great stuff. That's not to disparage that. Those are some of the core practices of Jesus that, in my opinion, you never graduate. past. You never move beyond. But all by itself, it's not enough.

We need to step into practice. We need to step into community. And above all, we need to step into relationship with the Holy Spirit in order to be transformed from the inside out to the image of Jesus. Let's stand and pray. To support our work, join The Circle, our community of monthly givers. To give or to learn more about running our resources in your church or small group, visit practicingtheway.org.