Teaching | How We Change: The Holy Spirit | Practicing the Way Vision Series E10 (From the Archive)

Hello and welcome to the John Mark Homer 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 and it's great to have you with us.

This week, we're moving on from the community element of our working theory of change and shifting gears to talk about the role of the Holy Spirit in the transformation journey. John Mark shows us how the Holy Spirit not only meets us with profound breakthroughs, but also plays an animating role in each step of our formational journey. Here's John Mark.

We're nearing the end of a fall-long vision series on practicing the way of Jesus together in Portland. And really for the last, I don't know, month plus, we've been asking this singular question, how do we change? How are we, in the language of the New Testament, transformed to become like Jesus of Nazareth? Because for most of us, in our apprenticeship to Jesus, there's a gap between who we are and who Jesus is. Between who we are now.

in the present, and who we ache and want and desire to grow and mature into in the future. And apprenticeship is about closing that gap. And so we've been working through our spiritual formation paradigm. And if that language of... spiritual formation is new to you, all we mean by that is the process by which we are formed like an embryo in the womb to grow and mature into the man or woman that God had in mind on the day you were born. And the reality

is to be human, we're all being formed. Every second of every minute of every day, you are being formed into somebody or something. We're being formed, one, by the stories that we believe, the kind of meta-narrative by which you make sense. of reality, by our habits, good, bad, and in between, by our relationships, the people we're around on a regular basis. And all of this happens in our environment, for us, the urban core of Portland, Oregon, and then, of course, our phone world.

And so we've said that...

Discipleship to Jesus, it has to offset all of this. To be formed into the image of Jesus, well, we have to come at it from a whole other perspective. And so in place of the stories we believe, is teaching in place of our habits is practice in place of our relationship is community and in place of our environment is the Holy Spirit now through teaching and practice and community we partner

with Jesus to reach our full potential. And I choose that word partner very carefully. Discipleship is a partnership with God, meaning you have a part. And God has a part. You have a role to play, and so does God. Now, a lot of people get off when they ignore and slide to either side of the extreme. So some people think that transformation is all about self-effort. Do this.

do that, do this more, do that better, more, more, more, better, better, better. Those people are exhausting. I know because I used to be one of them. But honestly, there's very few of you in the room tonight, in particular in a city like Portland, which is essentially a hedonistic Mecca. And then if you're a millennial on top of that, far more people think that transformation isn't about self-effort at all.

All you have to do is just kind of come to church once in a while when you're in the mood and just hang out with Jesus and then do that for a while. And then one day you'll wake up and you'll be like Jesus the second. And that's not exactly how it works. I'm sorry. I hate to break it to you. That's not exactly.

how it works. There's a tension here that we have to live into, a both and. We have a responsibility, and God has a responsibility. As the saying goes, without him we can't, but without us he what? There's this kind of both and partnership. But I've been saying this for a while now that our partnership is not 50-50. I don't know what the like mathematical breakdown is, but it's not 50-50. It's more like every Saturday morning on our Sabbath, my family's Sabbath.

I make brunch for our family. And I'm not much of a chef, but I make a mean brunch, let me tell you. It's just, it's like fine-tuned. It's amazing. So recently, our new thing is my eight-year-old boy Moses wants to cook brunch. And so we cook brunch together, which basically means I make breakfast.

And then Moses does a thing here or there, like usually kind of the scrambled eggs, which means they're really like crunchy lately. Lots of shell in them. It's like it's a new, it's French. It's a new style thing or whatever. But the best part is every Saturday morning. We sit down to the table and Moses immediately, so we're at that stage, we have three little kids and we're teaching them all, you know, please and thank you, which it turns out.

does not come naturally, at least not to my children. And so we're teaching them that, and Moses immediately sits down and says, guys, what do you say? What do you say? Say thank you. Jude, you didn't say thank you. These are the best eggs you've ever had. You literally said that yesterday. These are the best eggs.

eggs ever. Shoot, you need to say thank you. Be grateful. I was like, wow, dude, you like stirred. That's all you did. You stirred. My point is, I think that's kind of our transformation. There's this joint. effort between you and God, but God does all of the heavy lifting.

And I think it's because as I think about my own fatherhood and my own son, I don't want to just make breakfast for Moses. I want Moses to grow up and become the kind of man who can make breakfast for himself and in theory make breakfast for other people.

for his family one day and his friends. In the same way, God doesn't want to just switch, you know, flip a light switch and boom, you wake up one day and you're like, Jesus the second, Mother Teresa, whatever, there you are. God actually wants you to grow and mature, to take on. more and more responsibility to partner with God in this joint effort to become your real true self. But that said, God's the real chef.

Not you. You're the little daughter. You're the little son. God does all of the heavy lifting. That's why in our diagram, put that up again if you would, the Holy Spirit is right there in the center. He's the focal point. Notice he's involved in teaching. He's involved in practice.

He's involved in community. And the end goal is that he becomes, God becomes the environment, the air we breathe, that we live and move and have our being in God in the language of Paul in the New Testament to the extent that we are.

transformed. And the best text I know of to talk about this from is right here in 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Look down at verse 17 and 18. Quote, unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Now, before we can even get into this text, and we'll work through it in just a minute, there are two pieces of backstory you need to know. First, a short word on philosophy and psychology, and then an obscure story from the Old Testament. So give me 10 minutes to nerd out on you. feel like, what does any of this have to do with the Holy Spirit and my transformation? Just trust me, this is going somewhere, I promise, and if you don't like it, it's not that long, okay? Okay?

Great. First, a short word on philosophy and psychology, and if you're thinking you know just enough to be dangerous, I don't disagree. We have a philosopher in our church and a number of psychologists, so wish me luck. One of the things that makes us human, that separates us from the animals, is our will.

A philosopher I read recently from Princeton by the name of Harry Frankfurt coined the language back in the 70s of first-order desires, second-order desires, and second-order volition. Let me walk you through that. First-order desires, and if this framework is new to you,

you. It's quite helpful. First order desires are your base animal-like desires for, say, food, water, sleep, sex, safety, dominance. And beyond that, in the language of the New Testament, your flesh, this part of your body, of your person. that has been warped out of shape by sin. Your desire to flip somebody off in traffic or to gossip or to harbor anger or coerce or manipulate people, whatever. Now, second order desires are your higher human...

desires to want to want something better. For example, let's say after church tonight, you want a late dinner, you're hungry, and so you walk right down 12th, right past, you know, First Prez where we're at next week, and they're on the... corner is Lardo, and you walk past Lardo, and you smell the truffle fries. Have you had the truffle fries from Lardo? I've not been there in a while, but I remember the glory, all right?

So let's say you walk through and just that smell that, and all of a sudden you have this deep primal urge for starchy food. Like you just, in that moment, what's your first order desire? Yeah, truffle fries.

Like, that's your first order desire. Like, is this not resonating with you? Do you not like French fries? Like, who doesn't like French? What's wrong with you people? Seriously. Who doesn't like French fries? Like, that's your first order desire to just take a left-hand turn and instead of, like, walking down to Whole Foods for a salad. Like you go in and you order fries and a burger and a beer and whatever. And that's your first order desire. What's your second order desire?

Yeah, a salad or maybe it's not that. It's to be healthy or whatever. It's to wake up tomorrow morning not feeling gross and foggy and uncomfortable in your own skin. That's your second order desire. Now, second order volition. is your ability to override your first order desires with your second order desires. So let's say you're outside of Lardo. You're walking past it. First order desire. You want to go in and eat fries. And if you do that, by the way, tonight, no guilt trip. Have fun.

But this is a hypothetical situation, all right? But it's two blocks from here. So it is kind of like they're going to be slammed tonight, huh? They're just going to have like all these people walk in at 9 o'clock at night like, whoa, what? It was a teaching from Jesus. Jesus, you know? Your second order desire is to walk past it. Second order volition is when you have the ability to exercise your willpower muscle and keep walking.

And not keep walking to McMinimins. That's the next block. But pass that. Like, keep walking on that. He writes this. Frankel writes this. Freedom. And in context, he's writing an essay on free will. Free will is freedom to do what one wants to do. This is thick, but pay attention. the conformity of his will to his second order volitions then that a person exercises freedom of the will.

Meaning that's free will. If I lost you there, don't feel bad at all. That's pretty dense. What he's saying is that freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want. Contra the sexual liberation gospel and the mantra of the left and all things Portland, it's not the ability to... to give in to whatever urge or desire or impulse you have, sexual or otherwise. That's not freedom. In fact, in the language of the New Testament, that's more like slavery.

Freedom is the ability to want the right thing, to will the right thing, and then to have the willpower to overcome your first order desires, or in the language of the New Testament, your flesh, and to do the right thing. Or in the language of the New Testament, to live the way. Jesus, which means to live in freedom takes willpower.

All right, now we're ready for a little psychology. Your will is like a muscle, meaning it is a finite resource. You only have so much of it. And most of us, myself included, are way out of shape. like oh i have willpower i just run out by about 9 45 in the morning That's why it's easier to use self-discipline, say, to exercise. It's easier, for example, at least for me, to eat a healthy breakfast than it is to eat a healthy dinner. In the morning, really easy. I have my little vegan shake I do.

every morning at night, I'm like, oh man, chips and salsa. Come on. I just like, I want it so bad, you know, because in the morning I have willpower by night. It's all used up. It's why if you ever read like work efficiency stuff, pretty much everybody you ever read. says do the hardest task first thing in the morning. Why? Because that's when your reservoir of willpower is fresh. It's why pretty much every stupid thing that mankind has ever done has happened at night.

How many of the things you regret in your life, you're like, I wish I would not have done that, happened like after 10 p.m. At some point, you're like, oh, like all of college or all of high school. You're like, 10 years of my life. Exactly. Because by night, your willpower, for the most part, shot. So listen, here's what this means. One of the key tasks of discipleship to Jesus is learning how to exercise our will and make it stronger.

So that in that moment of temptation, whatever it is for you, we have, in the language of philosophy, second order of volition. We have willpower to override our flesh, our first order desires, and live the way of Jesus. So how do we do that? How do we actually... Well, this is a bit tricky, so just stay with me, because this, for me, was really helpful. We can't influence our will directly.

So let's say, draw to your mind or imagination whatever a temptation of choice for you and your journey right now with Jesus is. But to borrow from an overused one, let's say it's late at night, it's post 10 p.m., and you're on Instagram. which you shouldn't be at that time anyway, but whatever.

You're on Instagram, and your willpower reserve is low to non-existent, and you feel the temptation to just slide your thumb over to the search bar, click on that, and scroll down and start to look at porn or whatever, the equivalent of it. Now, in that moment, you can't just tell yourself to have more willpower. You can't just say self, like, or whatever you call yourself. I don't know.

JMC, whatever. You can't be like initial yourself or if that's kind of Kanye, I don't know, whatever. You can't just say, have more willpower. How does that work? It's not a trick question. Does that work? No. If it would, then any time you face temptation, all you'd have to do is be like, hey, have more willpower. Oh, great. No problem. And then you would never sin again. It does not work. So you can't influence your will directly. But listen, you can influence. your will indirectly.

How? Through teaching, practice, and community. It's actually all sorts of like super deep psychology stuff I don't have time to get into right now. But long story short, through teaching, which is aimed at the mind, we change the stories that we believe in our mind and our imagination. We get a vision for a new way to be human that is compelling first in our head and then down there into our heart. Then through practice, which is aimed at...

the heart, we change our heart. We come to love and long for this vision of human flourishing. We come to want it more than we want porn or addiction or food or more stuff we don't need or whatever the temptation is. then through community we change, which is aimed at our social world, we change the influences on our life. The people around us become other followers of Jesus.

perfect and messy and in process just like you and me, but who push and pull you to the way of Jesus, who in the language of the New Testament spur one another on to love and good deeds. So do you see that there? So the idea is that in that moment of temptation, we can't... just say we'll be stronger and not gossip or not look at something or not you know whatever we can't doesn't work that way but

Long before that moment, the battle against sin is one hours, if not days, if not weeks before the moment of temptation. The moment of temptation, all that does is expose who you actually are and where you're actually at.

long before the moment of temptation, we can orient our life around teaching, practice, and community teaching. We can come to church and listen to the teaching. We can podcast during the week or read a book, practice. We can orient our life around the spiritual disciplines and spend...

time every morning with our Bible open and a little bit of listening prayer and even carve out a 10-minute block here or there throughout the day to just pause and breathe in and out God's presence. We can practice Sabbath. We can share our money with the poor and with the church. We can

live in community and every Wednesday night share a weekly meal with a group of people around a table. You can devote your life to practice and to community and through that you can exercise your will and make it stronger so that When you get to the moment of temptation, you actually have the willpower to override your first order desires, to override your flesh or whatever you want to call it, to say no to what you want so that you can say yes to what you want.

really want deep in the marrow of your bones. Now that's the good news. You ready for the bad news? You're like do we have to have the bad news? Yes, you have to have the bad news. Here's the bad news. No matter how much willpower you have, it will never be enough to live the way of Jesus.

And that's what I've been getting to. Willpower is fantastic. You need it. Exercise. Your willpower muscle gets stronger in your discipleship. But it will never be enough. Because your end goal isn't just like, oh, she's really nice. Your end goal is Jesus of Nazareth. Right? Willpower will not get you there. I'm all for self-help, but like a book from Powell's or a podcast from like NPR, it will not get you there. It will help.

not a bad thing, it will not get you there. Small changes in our transformation, like say reading a psalm first thing in the morning instead of checking your email, or saying no to an extra glass of wine, or not yelling at people in traffic, or whatever, are doable.

just on willpower alone. Like just exercise your willpower muscle, get stronger, get your life in order. But once you bump up against deeply ingrained patterns that often go back to your family of origin or into your personality that are actually woven into the fabric of who you are that show up on a Myers-Briggs test or an Enneagram test, like once you deal with that kind of stuff, willpower doesn't stand a chance.

I think in my own life, anger that is the byproduct of perfectionism that goes back on my mother's side at least three generations that I know of. And that's really because I don't know anybody before that. My guess is it's there before that. And it's in my personality, it's in how I'm wired, how God even created me, but it's been warped out of shape by sin. Or I think of an eating disorder or gluttony or an unhealthy relationship with food that is actually the byproduct of childhood trauma.

or I think of addiction, or I think of a deep insecurity around your identity. from a relationship with your dad or your mom or a breakup or whatever. Willpower against that kind of stuff, it doesn't stand a chance. And it's not that willpower is bad. Willpower is not a bad thing. It is a good thing. It's mandatory, essential, non-negotiable for you. to grow and mature and to have more willpower muscle. The problem is that it's not good enough.

We need access to a power that is beyond us. We need access to the power of the Holy Spirit. And that's why 2 Corinthians 3 right here is so very important because it's a text about how we get access to the power of the Holy Spirit. in order to be transformed. Okay, so that's the first piece, all right?

Keep that in your mental docket. The second one's really short. With your finger right here, turn back to Exodus 34. This is an obscure kind of short story in the second book of the Bible, Exodus 34. Maybe you've read it. Maybe not. feel bad? If not, let me read it to you. Exodus 34, start off in verse 29.

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw that Moses, his face was radiant, they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them, so Aaron and all the leaders of the... Community came back to him and he spoke to them. 33. When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face.

But whenever he entered the Lord's presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he came out. he went in to speak with the Lord.

So in this story, Moses on a regular basis has an encounter with the living God, with what in Exodus is called the glory of God, which was God's presence that at the time was located in a cloud. And after every encounter with the living God, he's changed. He's transformed to the point that his face is literally like a maglite. He's just on fire, like LED, crazy.

on fire, he has to wear a veil or like a burqa over his face when he goes out to Israel. Now, there's one thing and one thing only that I want you to notice about this story. Who all has access to God's presence in this story? Moses, who else? No one else. Moses and Moses alone, not even the high priest, not Israel, not...

average Joe or Josephine out in the 12 tribes of Israel. Not at all. Moses and Moses alone. Now, keep that right there in your mind. And now back to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Now we're ready to kind of work through this. Notice that this entire chapter, if you go back and read the whole thing on your own time, is written over against the backdrop of that story we just read, Exodus 34. For example, back up to seven. Now, if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on...

So Paul goes off. This is in context as a compare and contrast.

between Moses' relationship to the glory, or God's presence in the Old Testament, and now... our relationship as a follower of Jesus to God's presence via the Holy Spirit here and now. And it's compare and contrast. Now look at this. Look at 12.

Since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We're not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. Meaning after a while, that glow would start to fade and go away, but Moses would still wear the veil. veil. Just religious hypocrisy is nothing new. Even Moses who's a fantastic guy was prone to it. But their minds were made dull.

For to this day, the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. That's Paul's kind of play on words there. It has not been removed because only in the Messiah is it taken away. Even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, that veil is taken away. Now, we come to our text for the night, and let's work through it one line at a time. And we, I'm sorry, 17, now the Lord is the Spirit.

Usually, if you've ever read Paul's writings before, when he writes about the Lord, he means who? Jesus, usually. But right here, he means who?

It's not a trick question. The Lord is the Spirit. So here what he means by the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is... you find that place of God's presence, the Spirit, there is freedom. Now in context, he's writing about how people are set free from bondage. How? When people are set into...

The Spirit of the Lord. And if you're new to the writings of the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is, best definition I know of it, is God's empowering presence. Or put another way, it's the person, the power, and the presence of God. It's the person, so the Holy Spirit is not a force. Don't think Star Wars. I mean, think Star Wars, but not when it comes to the Holy Spirit, right? Honestly, that is the most common heresy in study after study. I read one just a few weeks ago. Huge, massive.

nationwide study of followers of Jesus in America were asked the question, is the Holy Spirit a person or a force? Seventy-something percent said a force. It's gut-wrenching. The Holy Spirit is a he in the language of the Bible. the New Testament, not an it, a person that you are in relationship with, not a force that you wield, as awesome as that would be.

He is a person. He's a power. It was the spirit that empowered Jesus to do the miraculous kingdom work. It's the spirit that does the exact same thing in you, that will empower you, that will empower you. me to live the kingdom of God, and it's the presence of God. We talk a lot about how Jesus is with us, and there's truth in that, but technically, if you read the story, like after Jesus' resurrection, 40 days later, Jesus went

back to the right hand of the Father, and he's there waiting to return one day and make all things new. In the meantime, it's actually the Spirit that is with you, and not only that, but in the language of the New Testament, that is in you. Your body has become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Your body, your mind, all that you are has become a place of overlap between heaven and earth. So the Holy Spirit, where the Lord is, the Spirit is. The Spirit is God.

God's empowering presence. Where that is, there's freedom. And then look at this, 18. And we all, how many of us? All of us. Now he's writing to followers of Jesus, but we all, not just Moses, not just one man, all of us, who with unveiled faces, that's Moses lingo, we're like Moses, we have full-on access to God. All of us. Not just one or two of us. Not just me.

because I'm a pastor, all of you, you're a follower of Jesus, you have the exact same access to God's presence that Moses has, that I have. We all with unveiled vases contemplate the Lord's glory. Contemplate. The word here in Greek is kataparizo. It means to stare at something in a mirror. Corinth was famous in the Greco-Roman world for its bronze mirrors. That was one of the main exports of Corinth. So think of like Portland and coffee.

or something like this. This imagery would have made sense to a first century Corinthian. The idea here is to stare into an image, to stare into the face of Jesus. Put another way, to live into relationship. with the Holy Spirit. Whatever language you like, abide in the vine or practice the presence of God or contemplative prayer, intimacy with God or whatever language you want to wrap around that. The idea is as you and I live into

relationship, deep intimacy, back and forth, communication and communion with the Holy Spirit, watch what happens. We contemplate the Lord's glory. We are being transformed. Transformed. There's our word right there, transformed. In Greek, it's that word metamorpho, where we get the word metamorphism in English. Think of a caterpillar to a butterfly. That's the imagery here. Meaning...

We are transformed. It's complete, radical overhaul of your entire person from the inside out to a whole new state of being. But it's not just self-help or life enhancement. We're transformed into his image. Into Jesus' image. To become like our Rabbi Jesus. With ever increasing glory. I love that phrase. Meaning like every day, every week, every month. We move forward on our journey of transformation. We become.

more and more like Jesus over time, which comes from the Lord. And here's the climax. Here's Paul's point that he's getting to this whole thing. Who is the Spirit? Meaning all of this is the byproduct of the Holy Spirit at work in your life. Gordon Fee has this to say about the passage we just read, quote, through Christ and by the Spirit, we are being transformed so as to bear the likeness for which we were intended at the beginning.

One takes the Spirit lightly in Pauline theology and Christian experience at great risk. Pay attention to that. For herein lies the glory that by the Spirit we not only come to know God, but come to live in his presence in such a way as constantly to be renewed into God's image. image. If you downplay the role of the Holy Spirit in your life, that's right. If you mitigate it or minimize him, if you shrug him off, downplay

the central role of the Holy Spirit in your discipleship to Jesus, you will never be transformed to the degree that you ache for. You'll never realize your full potential. Because willpower will never get you there. Teaching and practice community, you know me. I'm for all of that. It will never get you there. You need more. You need access to a power beyond you through living in a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Now, this transformation comes about in two ways. And give me a few minutes here to walk you through this. There are breakthrough moments and process moments. Breakthrough moments are those rare one-off, usually unplanned, out-of-nowhere moments where God dramatically accelerates your transformation. Most of the time, the normal process of transformation is slow and hard.

Right? We inch forward one day at a time. Breakthrough moments are when we are touched by the Holy Spirit and we leap forward in our growth and our maturity, not from A to Z, but from A to, I don't know, D, E, F. something like that. When what would normally take years of teaching, practice, and community is done in a prayer, in a moment, an encounter with God, at church, on a retreat, on some random encounter at a park in the middle of a summer day.

And there is a God moment in your life, a breakthrough moment. I think of Paul on the road to Damascus, knocked off his horse and literally changed by the Spirit of God in a day overnight from persecuting the church to preaching the gospel of Jesus.

I think in my own life of a moment a couple of years ago. I've only had this happen to me a couple of times in my life at this level. But a couple of years ago, I was at a church in the UK. And at the end for prayer response time, I come forward, ask for prayer. And I was touched. the Holy Spirit and set free from this pattern in my mind and imagination that had plagued me as long as I could remember for all of my adult life had plagued me. I was just set free in that moment to this. day.

This happens here on a regular basis while we invite people forward week after week. I could tell you so many stories. I can't because of confidentiality, but there are so many stories. Sometimes you'll look up and you'll just see somebody weeping, like literally there a few weeks.

ago, Gerald and I prayed for this gal who was weeping so hard she could not even say her name or what she wanted prayer for. And at first I was like, is there a mental illness involved or something like that? And it wasn't. It was God was doing this deep

profound, miraculous work of release. And so we just started to say yes to the Holy Spirit, release spirit, release spirit more. And she was just set free in this beautiful way. That's why we call people for prayer, because we believe in the power. power of the Holy Spirit to transform you from the inside out. Now, the thing is, breakthrough moments are beautiful. There's just one hang up on breakthrough moments. They are rare.

possibly because we don't have enough faith or because we're not a part of a church that is marked by faith or because we quench, in the language of the New Testament, the Holy Spirit through no faith or through sin or just through busyness and distraction.

But usually, I think it's because there are some character traits that can only be forged in the crucible of everyday life. The slow, unglamorous work of discipleship to Jesus. And the boredom and the mundanity of waking up tomorrow morning, reading Hebrews. You guys reading through the Bible? You're like, Hebrews, really?

I don't get it. It doesn't make a lot of sense of eating your meal every Tuesday night with the same 13 kind of weird people who follow Jesus and go to Bridgetown and live in your neighborhood. All right. Three of you are okay. I'm coming to church on a Sunday night. Oh, it's that guy again. He was on vacation last week. It was fantastic. But he's back. Just the slow, on a serious note, the unglamorous work of death to self.

of the spiritual disciplines, of life and community, of repentance over and over again, what Nietzsche called a long obedience in the same direction. You know, most of the time when people tell stories about breakthrough, I started to notice this, they tell stories about freedom and healing.

I was touched by the Holy Spirit. I was set free from a father wound that went back 20 years. I was touched by the Holy Spirit, and I was healed of mental illness or physical illness. I was touched by the Holy Spirit, and I started to receive my identity and my calling from God. I've changed my career, my life. It's like a whole new person. And that is so beautiful. Full stop.

But I've also started to notice that I rarely, if ever, hear stories about breakthrough moments that are about deep character change. So, and that's a part of it. Like freedom and healing is a part of our transformation. But I rarely hear somebody say, you know, I was an impatient jerk.

And then I came forward for prayer this one Sunday night. And now I'm just like the nicest person ever. I'm just so, so patient. I like, I never lose my temper. I never get stressed out. I'm just, it's amazing. Like, if that's your story.

please like come testify at the end of the night. That's amazing. That can happen. It just doesn't happen very often. I rarely hear people say, you know, I was just this lazy, undisciplined, like I could not hold down a job. I'd sleep in every day. I was a ton of debt.

Never read my Bible ever. And then I came forward for prayer. The next morning, I was up at 5 a.m. I read the Bible for an hour, just Leviticus. That's all I read, like three times. Then I prayed and like never for myself, just for other people. Then I went on like a 20-mile run. I had like raw broccoli and water for breakfast and I like got a job that afternoon as a stockbroker and like here I am a year later like like that's just not

We laugh. Now, that can happen. That's not impossible. Anything is possible with God. My agenda here is not to, like, make light or to do anything to shrink your faith. And please don't misread me. My agenda is that breakthrough moments are beautiful. But nine times out of ten, they are about freedom and healing. The deep character change moments are usually the byproduct not of a breakthrough moment, but of what I call process moments.

Process moments are the thousands of regular, planned, ordinary moments where we are slowly but surely changed by abiding in the vine. So we're still changed by the Holy Spirit. It's just not in a moment. It's in a thousand small, ordinary moments. Think back to that teaching that we did early in the series on abiding, which was really like the foundation for everything. Abiding in Jesus is the starting place, the beginning, the end. it's everything in discipleship to Jesus.

We read from John 15. I love this teaching of Jesus. I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. And I love Jesus' confidence in us. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Thanks, Jesus. I would have said like, apart from me, you can do a little bit or something like that. Nope. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Abide in the vine. That's the command. And then we read Paul's next slide. Paul's teaching in Galatians on John 15, where Paul picks up.

that metaphor of abiding and fruit and the vine, and he writes this, but the fruit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit in your life, the byproduct of the Holy Spirit in your life is love, joy, peace, forbearance, or faithfulness, kindness, goodness, faith. faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. And this, I would argue, is one of the most important passages in all of the New Testament. I really encourage you to memorize most of this chapter. It's well worth your time. But remember we made the point, this is not a list of behaviors.

This is a picture of the inner disposition of an apprentice of Jesus who has been transformed. This is what discipleship to Jesus looks like down the path. From the inside out, you become a kind of person who is loving, joyful, at peace. forbearant. I don't think that's a word. Patient is the idea there. Kind, good, faithful, gentle, marked by self-control. You become that kind. This is not a list of behaviors. This is a list of the inner disposition.

that you can sure bet will shape your behavior straight away. And we also made the point, this is not a list of commands. A lot of times we read this, we're like, okay, I need to be more loving. Joy, I need to be more joyful. Peace, I need to be more peaceful.

As if Paul was writing, be more loving, be more joyful, be more peaceful. That's not a list of commands. There's one command, and it's lost a bit in translation from Greek to English, but it's that last line. Let us keep in step with the Spirit. Or it can also be translated walk in the spirit. Or in the language of Jesus, abide in the what? One command. That's it. One baseline command. Devote your entire life to abiding. to walking in the Spirit, to life in relationship with God,

24-7. And the byproduct will be, the fruit in the agrarian metaphor, will be love, joy, peace, will be the inner disposition of Jesus.

This is one of the many reasons that discipline in general, and the spiritual disciplines in particular, are essential to transformation. You will never be transformed. You will never reach your full potential unless you frame your life around discipline, and in particular in the practices of Jesus. Because that is how we get access to the power that is beyond us. I love this from Willard.

The disciplines are activities of mind and body purposefully undertaken to bring our personality and total being into effective cooperation with the divine order. They enable us more and more to live in a power that is strictly speaking. beyond us, deriving from the spiritual realm itself as we yield ourselves to God as those that are alive from the dead and are members as instruments of righteousness unto God, as Romans 6.13 puts it.

Because the disciplines or the practices of Jesus are how we open ourselves up to God and in doing so gain access to the power we need to change. That's our responsibility. If you think back to the paradigm, teaching, practice, community. That's our responsibility. Everything else is God. Our job is simply to create the conditions in our life for the Holy Spirit to do a deep work of change. That's it. Your job is simply teaching.

Read the Bible. Expose yourself to teaching. Practice. Orient your life around the spiritual disciplines. Community. Don't do life like just you and Jesus. Live with another group of people around the way. That's it. That's your responsibility. To create the conditions. To set up an environment. in your life for the Holy Spirit to do his deep work of changing you. That's it. So you have a part to play, but God does all the heavy lifting.

But this needs to be said in the busyness and the chaos and the insanity of the digital age in an urban environment. You're going to school. You're working two jobs. You have a girlfriend. Like, it's crazy, right? Your job is to create the conditions for the Holy Spirit to do the work of change and transformation in your life because it's all God. You simply abide. You simply walk in the Spirit.

Live in that environment. Let the Holy Spirit be the air you breathe, and you will change. Now to wrap up our paradigm.

All of this happens, if you remember, look down at the bottom, over time. Notice that Paul writes in our text, we are being transformed. And in Greek, there's kind of a tense that we don't have in English, but it's this ongoing presence, kind of present tense process.

Like that's what transformation is. It's not an event. It's a process. The writers of The Relational Soul, this book that we highly recommend, have this one line that I love. The truth about significant soul transformation is this. Change is possible, but it is hard. than we want and takes longer than we expect. Have you been following Jesus for any length of time? Would you agree with that statement?

Yes, absolutely. It's harder than we want and takes longer than we expect. There is no silver bullet. There's no killer app. There's not like an Apple new technology that's coming out. It's like, oh, this is the patient's device or whatever. love, joy, peace device. Like it does not exist and it will not in the future. This is hard to swallow in our fast-paced world of FedEx and email and Wi-Fi and air travel and Visa. We want it all. We want it all right now. But Jesus, is that just me?

But Jesus used the metaphor of a vine or a tree. Character is grown. You can't email it. You can't microwave it. You can't fast forward it. Character is grown one inch at a time. And not only does it take a long time, but it takes a lot of time.

double entendre there, meaning it's labor intensive. So how fast you progress in your transformation depends in large part on how much time you devote to the spiritual life, to teaching, to practice, and to community, to your side of the equation. For most of us, This means we need to slow down and simplify our life in order to create margin for the Holy Spirit to do his work as we abide.

But even then, even if you slow your life way down and you cut a ton of stuff out and you let go of that job, whatever, and you downsize your house, whatever, you simplify your life, you slow down. Even if you go through that whole process, still it takes time. The need is for patience. Patience with God, patience with yourself, patience with your strengths, and patience with your weaknesses.

Patience with the process. The need is for patience. This happens over time. And finally, in the language of the prophet, Jay-Z, through the hard knocks of life. Through the hard knocks of life. Ask most followers of Jesus who are mature. There are some in the room tonight. I was watching Doug and Terry. I don't know where you guys are sitting. I was watching you guys during communion. How long have you been following Jesus? Like rough, like round up a decade, you know?

40 or 50 years. These guys have been following Jesus longer than I have been alive. Every day, every Sunday, they're right here, faithful to the way of Jesus. Ask somebody like that. And don't, like, flood them tonight. But ask somebody that you look up to and you respect who has become mature, who's been transformed, by the way. When was the greatest moment of your change, of your transformation, of your growth, of maturity? Nine times out of ten, they will tell you about a time of hardship.

Not always. They will rarely tell you about, there was this sermon series by John Mark at Bridgetown. That was amazing. I keep waiting to hear that. They'll rarely tell you about, oh, this new app on my phone. It just, Evernote, it changed everything for me and my disciples. They will usually say, oh yeah, there was a time of unemployment. Prayed with the guy last hour who's out of work right now. My dad died, and I was really young. It was unexpected. I was diagnosed with cancer.

There was a breakup, and it was gut-wrenching for me. Whatever the example is, usually they will tell you about a time and hardship. Because the reality is, it's the very times that we hate, that we avoid, that we kick our... kick and scream our way through, that we do everything we can from to escape, those are the very times that have the most potential to catalyze you to change and grow and become your true self.

The New Testament writers say this over and over and over again. I'm running out of time, so I will skip forward, but I could read you line after line after line. It's the very times that we want to avoid like the plague that have the most potential to transform you. Some of you are in that kind of a moment right now. I don't know if it's one of you, ten of you.

30 of you, some of you are in that place right now, that defining moment of hardship, challenge, change. Don't run away from it. I don't mean that like a morbid, sadistic, like, present, but... But your job is not to escape. Your job is not to medicate. Your job is not to distract yourself. Your job is to meet God in the place of pain and let patience have its perfect work in you so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

That's it. This moment, I'm not saying it's God's will for your life. I'm not saying God did this to you. I'm not saying any of that. I don't even believe that. I'm saying this moment can be your defining moment where you grow mature in the man that God created you to be. You need perseverance. Patience isn't even enough. You need to join patience with faith and ratchet it up a notch to become perseverance, to stick at it, to not give up, to not give in, to wake up tomorrow morning, another day.

Crack open your Bible, listen to the Holy Spirit, go to school or work or whatever's on your docket, and follow Jesus in faith that the best is yet to come. So to end, I guess what I'm saying is that discipleship is a long, hard journey, but it's worth every step. And it will take a while. It's so frustrating. Am I right?

Just thinking about my own. I was just thinking about this in my own life the last couple of days. And I had a pretty good week. But the first half of the week in particular... I just had a ton of anxiety. So some of you know, I've had this struggle with anxiety on and off ever since I was about 17. And it was horrible when I was in college and much younger. And I just feel...

healed and saved out of that. I feel like a new man, but there's still kind of, I walk with a limp and there are seasons of life when I really deal with anxiety. And this last year kind of on and off has been one of those seasons. to get into all of that. But this last week, I kind of got this email that upset me and threw me off. And then I was just crazy busy and all this stuff. And I just got into an unhealthy place. And so I was really anxious through the week.

And Friday morning, Friday's my day off, I went out. Most Friday mornings, I could take my wife out for brunch. We have a little date. And it was just kind of our catch-up time. And she said, all right, how's your soul? I'm like, well, you know, it's okay. But doing with anxiety. I hate this about myself. Why is this still a problem for me? Do you ever have stuff about yourself where you're just like,

that's just lame. Like, why can't I just be done with it? Why can't I just move on? It's not like I'm not sorry. It's not like I'm like, I'm not trying to change. I'm trying right and left. I'm training. I know it's not about trying. It's about training. I'm training every day, like doing all this stuff. I'm in there.

and I exercise and I don't drink too much coffee and I do all the spiritual disciplines and I Sabbath, like I do all the stuff and I'm way, way, way, way, way, way better than I used to be. But I'm not, like, there yet. And I so badly, like, I just want to be, like, this is, like, my vision. I want to be, like, the old sage. Like, at 36. And still, like, well-dressed and stuff. But I want to be, like...

I want to be like the guru, you know what I mean? Like the village elder who's just like, you know those people that are just rooted and they're not anxious and they're not stressed out by an email or relational conflict or something, but they're not. wrecked. They're not freaked out. You know those people that just, as an act of discipleship to Jesus, they have just become like a rock, like a boulder. And they're just at peace, and they're calm, and they're rooted in abiding.

gosh, I so want to be that man. I'm not that guy yet. There are moments. I have a day or two. I'm like, wow, I had a great four-hour stint. I was like, guru moment, you know? And then I was on email after that and it was gone. I want to grow and I want to mature into that. And the reality is that's going to take a lifetime. I think I will become that man. I believe that.

It might be a few more decades. It might be Doug's age down here. That's what my wife said. My wife had no idea what I was teaching on. She said, honey, Jesus, John 15, abiding in the vine, fruit. You can only grow a tree.

I was like, I'm actually teaching on that Sunday. I think I'll steal that. That's great. I like that. But it's true. So some of you are at that spot. There's a gap between who you are. and who Jesus is, and you're frustrated by it, and you're impatient with it, and you're tired with it, and you don't like your season in life, keep at it.

Follow Jesus. Devote your life to be with Jesus. Become like Jesus and do what he did. In time, you will change. You can change. You will be transformed, but you need access to a power that is beyond you. It's more than tips and techniques. It's more than self-help. It's more than a book or a podcast or even a spiritual discipline. It's the power of the Holy Spirit at work in and through your life to form you and shape you into the image of Jesus. Let's stand and pray.

more of the Holy Spirit. This teaching brought up two really important ideas. The first is what John Mark calls breakthrough moment. When the Holy Spirit comes and touches us powerfully, setting us free from wounding and bondage, it's good for us to trust that God can and does encounter us in this way. But the second is just as key, that even barring a breakthrough moment, the Holy Spirit plays a critical role in the long process of formation, working through teaching, practice and community.

And our role in that process is to simply keep in step with what the Spirit is doing. So to end, I want to ask that God would meet us with breakthrough moments where we need it. and then spend some time listening for any invitations for us to keep in step with the Holy Spirit in your life right now. If you can, take a few deep breaths with me. to center your attention on God's presence and pray with me. Holy Spirit, come and meet us today.

encounter us with out-of-nowhere breakthrough moments. Would you accelerate in us the work of healing and formation in us, that we might better love you and others. But Holy Spirit, We recognize that in both accelerated breakthrough work and the slow, gradual work, our role is to keep in step with you. So right now, show us how we might stay in step with you today.

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. Thanks to Little Thoughts for our show music. 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 Caleb from Portland, Oregon. Carrie from St. Louis, Missouri.

Nick from Houston, Texas, Caroline from St. Louis, Obispo, California, and Abby from UConn, Oklahoma. 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 the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.