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

[MUSIC PLAYING] Hello and welcome to the John Markoma T-Teen podcast. My name is Yinka Dawson and I'm your host. Each week we feature T-Teen's 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 work in theory of change and shifting gears to talk about the role of the Holy Spirit and 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 formation 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. 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 that people were around on a regular basis. And all of this happens in our environment for us, the urban core, 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, 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 into 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? He won't. 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 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 fine tune. It's amazing. So recently our new thing is my eight year old boy, Moses, wants to cook brunch with me, set in quote, unquote. And so we cook brunch together, which basically means I make breakfast. And then Moses does a thing here 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, 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 Moses immediately sits down and says, guys, what do you say? What do you say? Say thank you. Jude didn't say thank you. These are the best eggs you've ever had. You literally said that yesterday. These are the best eggs ever. Jude, 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, 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 and 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 three. Look down at verse 17 and 18. "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. And we all with 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, 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. You will 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 of volition. Let me walk you through that. First order desires and if this framework is new to 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, you are 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 to lay dinner, you're hungry, and so you walk right down 12th, right past, 1st Pres, where we're at next week, and there on the corner is Lardo, and you walk past Lardo, and you smell the truffle fries. If 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, 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, put it in French fries. Like that's your first order desire to just take a left hand turn, and instead of like walking out the whole foods for a salad, like you go in and you order fries, Hannah Berger and a beer, and whatever. And that's your first order desire. Sec, what's your second order desire? - Salad. - Yeah, a salad, or maybe it's not that. It means 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 wanna go in and eat fries. And if you do that by the way, tonight, no guilt trip. Have fun, it's great. But this is a hypothetical situation. All right, but it's two blocks from here. So it is kind of like they're gonna be slammed tonight, huh? They're just gonna have like all these people walk in at nine o'clock at night like whoa What it was a teaching from Jesus Jesus, you know Your second order desires to walk past it second order of volition is when you have the ability to exercise your will power muscle and keep walking And not keep walking to make minimums. That's the next block, but pass that like keep walking on that He writes this, Frankl writes this freedom and he and contacts. He's writing an essay on free will free will is Freedom to do what one wants to do the statement that a person enjoys freedom of the will means that he is free to want what he wants to want More precisely it means that he is free to will what he wants to will and this is thick, but pay attention It is in securing 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 Contr the sexual liberation gospel and the mantra of the left and all things Portland It's not the ability to give in to whatever urge or desire or impulse you have sexual or otherwise That's not freedom in fact in the language and 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 will power 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 the New Testament to live the way of Jesus Which means to live in freedom Takes will power. 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 Most of us like oh, I have will power. I just run out by about 9.45 in the morning That's why it's easier to use self-discipline say to Exercise or it's easier for example at least for me to eat a healthy breakfast Then it is to eat a healthy dinner right 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? 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 I say like 10 years of my life Exactly because by night your willpower for the most part is shot So listen here's what this means one of the key tax 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 Valition 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 exercise our will to make it stronger? Well, this is a bit tricky So just stay with me and 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 a 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 J. M. C. 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 how does that work? Son of a trick question. Does that work? No, if it would then all you any time you face temptation all you'd have to do is be like hey have more willpower Oh great no problem, 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 is 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 story is that we believe in our mind and our imagination We get a vision for a new way to be human that is compelling first and our kind of 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 and 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 who are in 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 will 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 on 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 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 Living community and everyone's a 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 really want deep in the marrow of your bones Now that's the good news you ready for the badness 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 will power you have it will never be enough to live the way of Jesus And this is what I've been getting to will powers fantastic you need it exercise your willpower muscle get 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 will power will not get you there. I'm all for self help But like a book from powells or a podcast from like MPR 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 on any a gram To like once you deal with that kind of stuff will power doesn't stand a chance I think in my own life anger that is the byproduct of perfectionism that goes back on my mother aside 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 on 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 two Corinthians three 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, don't 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 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 an Exodus is called the glory of God, which was God's presence, that at the time was located in a cloud, kind of the precursor to the Holy Spirit in you and me. And after every encounter with the living God, he's changed. He's transformed to the point that his face is literally like a mag light. He's just on fire, like LED, crazy, on fire, so he has to wear a veil or like a burka 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. - 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 two Corinthians chapter three. Now we're ready to kind of work through this. You'll 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 stone, came with glory so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the spirit be even more glorious? So Paul goes off, this is in context as a comparing 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 it's compare and contrast. Now look at this, look at 12. Therefore, 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. 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. So this 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. 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? So I'm a true 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, where asked the question, is the Holy Spirit a person or a force? 70 something percent set a force. It's gut wrenching. The Holy Spirit is a "he" in the language of 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 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'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 of my 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 faces contemplate the Lord's glory. Contemplate, the word here in Greek is cataparizo. 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 I 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. With contemplate the Lord's glory, we are being 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 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." You downplay the role of the Holy Spirit in your life. That's right. 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. 'Cause will power 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 into 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. Break through moments or 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 or something like that. When what would normally take years of teaching practice and community is done in a prayer and a moment and encounter with God at church on a retreat, on some random encounter at a park in the middle of a summer day, like when there is a God moment in your life, a breakthrough moment. I think a 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 by the Holy Spirit and set free from this pattern in my mind and imagination that it 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 the scale 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. So I would call people for prayer because we believe in the 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 an faith or because we're not a part of a church that is marked by faith or because we quench in the language, then you 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. In the boredom, in the mundanity of waking up tomorrow morning, reading Hebrews, you guys reading through the Bible? 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, a living your neighborhood. All right, three of you are okay. 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. Like just the slow, unassuming, unglamorous work of death, the south, of the spiritual disciplines of life and community, 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. They 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 is 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 at this one Sunday night. And now I'm just like the nicest person ever. I'm just so, so patient. I like, I'm never lose my temper. I never get stressed out. I'm just 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 on a certain of debt. Like, oh, I'd never get my Bible ever. And then I came forward for prayer the next morning. I was up at 5 AM. I read the Bible for an hour just Leviticus. That's all I read, like three times. And then I prayed and like never for myself, just for other people. Then I went on like a 20 mile run. Then I had like raw broccoli and water for breakfast. And I like got a job that afternoon as a stock broker. And like, here I am a year later. Like, like, that's just not we lap. Now, that can happen. It'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 at a 10, 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 and you, you will bear much fruit. And then 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. Abide in the vine. That's the command. And we read Paul's next slide of Paul's teaching in Galatians on John 15 where Paul picks up on 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, 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 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, love, I need to be more loving. Joy, I need to be more joyful, peace, I need to be more peaceful. As if Paul is writing, be more loving, be more joyful, be more peaceful. This is not a list of command. 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 way. 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 our members, its instruments of righteousness unto God, as Roman 16, 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. Just 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 set. And the busyness and the chaos and the insanity of the digital age and 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. 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 the Paul writes in our text, we are being transformed in 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 harder than we want and takes longer than we expect. If you've 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. This is the 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, that's 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, there's double in Tondra 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 your 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, you know whatever, you downsize your house, whatever, you simplify your life, you slow down, even if you go through that whole process, still it takes time and 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 the most followers of Jesus who are mature, there's 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? (congregation laughs) 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 your maturity? Nine times out of 10, 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. (congregation laughs) I keep waiting to hear that. (congregation laughs) They'll rarely tell you about, oh, this new app on my phone, it just ever know, it changed everything for me, and my disciples, they will usually say, oh yeah, there was a time of unemployment, prayer to the guy last hour, his sad work right now. There was, 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 in hardship. Because the reality is, it's the very times that we hate, that we avoid, that we 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. At the New Testament writers, say this over and over, and over again, I could run running at a 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 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 patients 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 and 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 and faith at the best is yet to come. So the 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 the limp and there are seasons of life when I really deal with anxiety. And this last year, kinda on and off has been one of those seasons, it's time to get into all of that. But this last week I kinda got this email that have set 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 I was really anxious through the week and Friday morning and Friday's my day off, I went out, most Friday mornings I could take my wife out for brunch, we were 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 anxiety and I just hate this about myself." Like, "Why is this still a problem for me?" Do you ever have stuff about yourself where you're just like, "What's this 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 not trying to change, I'm trying right and left and I'm trying, I know something about trying, it's about training, I'm training every day, like, doing all this stuff, I'm in therapy and I exercise and I don't drink too much coffee and I do all this spiritual disciplines and I sabot, like I do all this stuff and I'm way, way, way, way, way better than I used to be. But I'm not like there yet and I'm so badly, like I just wanna be like, this is like my vision, I wanna be like the old sage, like at 36 and still like well dressed and stuff but I wanna be like, I wanna 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. God, I so wanna be that man. I'm not that guy yet. There are moments I have a day or two. I'm like, wow, that was at a great four hour stint. I was like, guru moment, you know? And then I was on email after that and it was gone, you know? I wanna grow and I wanna mature into that and the reality is that's gonna take a lifetime. I think I will become that man, I believe that. But it might be a few more decades. It might be Doug's age down here. That's my wife said, my wife had no idea what I was teaching on and 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. I said, 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. You're frustrated by it and you're impatient with it and you're tired with it don't like your video. season in life, keep at it, follow Jesus, devote your life to be with Jesus, become light 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. You can't stand and pray for more of the Holy Spirit. This teaching brought up two really important ideas. The first is what John Mark calls breakthrough moments. 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. For the second is just a ski, 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 this 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 come, take a few deep breaths with me to ascend to your attention on God's presence and pray with me. Holy Spirit come and meet us today. Encounter us without of nowhere breakthrough moments. Would you accelerate in us the work of healing and formation in us? 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. Amen. Thanks for listening. This podcast is from practice in the way. We develop resources to help churches and small groups apprentice in the way of Jesus. Thanks to little thoughts for our show music. We are a crowdfunded non-profit 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. Thank you very much. Thank you all very much. To join this friend in the circle learn more about our resources visit practiceintheway.org. Until next time, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.