Summary
Coming soon!
Transcript
Good morning, church. Good morning, man. It is such a good Sunday. I'm so happy to be here with you today. My name is Jonathan, Lead Pastor here at Destiny Church. Man, it is going to be a good Sunday. It's already been a great Sunday. Even if we just dismissed and left now, it was worth it that you came this morning. Worship was so good this morning. Man, I love being able to spend time with the presence of God. Hey, before we get into today's message portion, I wanted to give you an update last week. At the end of service, we collected a special offering. We're in the process of raising funds to replace the floors in our Destiny Kids building next door. And we're in the journey of raising $, to replace that flooring. And I just wanted to connect with you because I think this is pretty awesome. We raised right at , last weekend, which is pretty amazing.
(Applause) Super exciting. Once we hit that ,half-ish threshold, we'll go ahead and order supplies and we'll get that process rolling and we'll just continue to raise money as we go. If you missed last week and you're like, "Wait, what are you talking about? I wasn't here," and you're like, "I want to give money towards carpet or flooring," because actually carpet is going to be the same kind of flooring. We just put it in the other half of the building when we redid that. But you can still give. You can either do it two ways in offering envelope. You can just, in that line mark building, you can put whatever in that amount and you can drop it out of the box. Or you can give online, and when you give online, at sctures.com slash give, there's a category that says building, and that all goes towards this project during the season. So if you missed it, that's great. I'm excited. I'm thanking God for his favor and his generosity. I know it's going to happen and it's going to be really cool. So it's going to look so good in there. I can't wait. But hey, do this for me. Let's go ahead and stand up for the reading of God's words. Actually, I'm going to read two different scriptures today.
The first is our scripture for the theme of this particular series we're in on spiritual formation, and then the second one is for something today. Romans , verse , it says this, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will." And then John , verse , Jesus says, "I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing."
Father God, we just thank you so much for this day. We thank you for this time for us to come together in community and to worship, to fellowship, to learn, to grow, to be challenged.
Lord, but most importantly, we want to be led and have an encounter with your Holy Spirit today.
So today, for each and every man and woman who's in this place, Lord, I pray that your spirit begins to move in their hearts and minds, to begin to stir and to open up places for them to be able to experience. And to receive your goodness and a touch from you this morning.
And that you will show us as our great shepherd, Father God, where in our lives we need to open up to you and experience your goodness and the good things that you have for us.
It's in your Holy Name we pray, amen.
All right, you may be seated. You may be seated.
So we're continuing our series on spiritual formation. I believe this is week , and it's been going really well. Many of you have been going through the spiritual formation classes midweek, which have also been just really great and fruitful, has been a lot of fun. And today, we're kind of shifting gears. You know, the last two weeks, we talked about a couple of different kind of heavier subjects. Two weeks ago, we talked about meeting God and pain and suffering, and how those moments of difficulty and trials in our life are opportunities to see God even in those hardships. And then last week, we talked about healing from sin and looking at what sin looks like in around us, things that were done to us, around us, or by us, and how we deal with some of the processes and find healings at the different levels in our lives. If you missed any of those or any of the series, I encourage you to go back and listen to the podcast or watch the YouTube. But it's a really good opportunity for us to kind of move to this next place, because part of what we've been talking about in this spiritual formation journey is what does it look like to open ourselves up to Christ, to grow in relationship with Him? You know, some of the language we've said is talking about being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus, and doing as He did. Or in our language that we use here at the church all the time is knowing Jesus so we can show Jesus. How do I continue to know Jesus more in my life so the way that I live and the way that I reflect Him looks more like Him and I show Him more and more clearly in my daily life. And so that's kind of what we've been talking about. We've covered it from different angles. And today's message is kind of the goal is to offer kind of some practical tips or some practical ideas of how we can allow ourselves to create space for this spiritual journey, this spiritual formation process to happen. Because here is the thing that is a reality that I see in myself, I see in my family, and I see in the church and among believers. If you were to sit down and have a conversation with people and you say, "Hey, do you want to grow spiritually?" Maybe not everyone, but most everyone would say, "Yes, I do want to grow spiritually. I want to have that happen in my life. I want to experience more of Jesus in my life, or I want freedom from this, or I want to stop or start doing that." Like we have that goal, and that's a desire. But if we were to also look at the way that our lives are, and this is true of me and has been true of me in different seasons, and we were to look at the way that we prioritize our time and the plan, we realize that we haven't actually in our lives created any space for God to do the things that God desperately and deeply desires to do in our lives, that He desires to bring healing and health and wholeness and renewing and all sorts of things in our lives. And the truth is, He is the one who's in control of our formation and our growth, period. I may go to God and say, "God, I know what I want to work on this month. This is the month that you and I, we defeat anger in my life." And maybe God will do that, but actually, I have no say in what God decides to work in me or through me or out of me. That is all His role in the Holy Spirit. The miracle of spiritual formation and change and transformation, that all comes from the Holy Spirit. There's really only one thing that we do in our lives, and we just read this, which is this concept that Jesus said, which is abide.
And abide is this beautiful, deep, rich word. And we're going to allow our imaginations to kind of walk through, and we're going to look at how other people have imagined and thought about this verse, because part of abiding is this idea of not just staying connected to the vine. Of course, that's what Jesus says, but abiding in Jesus is creating space.
How are we creating space and time in our hearts and our minds and our lives to allow ourselves to abide in the presence of God? You see, anything that we value in our life, like if I were to sit down and talk with you and I were to say, "Hey, what are the most important things in your life?" Like, of course, I know you'll say God and family, but let's talk. What do we value? Things that we value in our life, we always have some form of a plan. We have a plan for it, right? So you value money to some degree, so more than likely, you have some form of a budget, right? That's your money plan, okay? Maybe some of you are like, "We need a better budget." That's a whole different story. That's right. Like some of you just wrote it down on a napkin, and that's okay. Like, that's fine, right? You value your time.
That's why you have a schedule.
Your schedule, your calendar, that is your time. You value your time. Some of you realized you became an adult the moment you needed a calendar.
Do you remember the time where you could no longer just be like, "Hey, yeah, we're going to hang out." And like, I'm sure I'm free, and then all of a sudden you realize like, "I can't do that anymore because I actually don't even remember what I have going on in my life. There's too much stuff." Some of you are too young, you haven't gotten there yet. Some of you are too old, you don't do it anymore. But some of you are right in that place of life. You're right in that, we call it the calendar place.
You need that, but you have a schedule, right? Some of you have a plan for your career, some of you have a plan for vacation. Like you plan vacation, some of you plan vacations to the minute you know where you're going to go with it because it's valuable. Not because it's bad, because it's valuable. You have a plan for your diet, you have a plan for your exercise, you have plans for different retirement goals. Like you have things and that you create a plan for. And as you create a plan, you're creating time and space and resources for those things to happen.
And the question that we get to ask ourselves is, what kind of planning, preparation, what kind of space am I giving for my relationship with God and my spiritual formation into His image?
Do I have a plan?
Now remember, no matter what your plan is, God's the one who's in control. You can make a plan with God or dancer steps. Like that's what the Bible says. But am I even creating something, a context in my life in which I say, there is a value that I want to invest in,
in this relationship, in this friendship with God that I am invited to, which even that concept is mindblowing. Am I creating a space and a time and a way in which that can happen?
And if we were to look at, based on this verse in John chapter , early church leaders and followers of Christ, they came up with this idea, it's kind of this ancient language, and we've talked about it several years back, but they came up with an idea of how do we create a time or a concept, what is the biblical idea of creating something in our life that we can partner in spiritual formation with God and doing the very minimal part that we can in this journey, which is basically making ourselves available to God. Bless you.
And it's this, that the language was this thing called a rule of life.
A rule of life. And a rule of life is a schedule or a set of practices and rhythms that we create in our lives with the intention to become more like Jesus and do what he did.
Now, right away, I want to address a couple of things. When I say a rule of life, some of you, like you hear it and you're like, I love that idea.
But immediately, when I said rule, there are some people who right away push back, just immediately rose up in your spirit. Some of you, it's because you're rebels.
Okay, like we'll just get those jack group out there. You're rebels. And if I say rules, doesn't matter what the rules are, what they're, you don't like rules. You push back against rules. And if there is a rule, you figure out what's the furthest I can push this rule without maybe just even blatantly breaking it. Like that's just, you're just an antirule person. That's okay.
Right? The second group, the second group is you think a rule of life, I got to create rules for my relationship with God. Like I can't do that. I'm too spontaneous of a person.
I'm a romantic at heart.
I don't need to plan these things. That removes all spontaneity in my life. I just want to experience God at the drop of a moment and like just have this incredible encounter. And if I create this rule or I create too much rhythm or so like some kind of set thing, the spontaneity, the leading of the Holy Spirit, it's all gone. And I don't want that.
We're going to address that too.
And then the third group, and this is important, you maybe came out of a background, whether it was within your family or within your church origin story, that you came from a very legalistic rulesbased society that was like, do this, don't do that. If you do this, then you're okay. If you don't do it, then you're going to get punished and you're going to be shunned. And like, you're like, I'm not going back there.
Good news. I'm not asking you to give up your rebellion against the man. You can still be a hippie at your heart. Okay. And in fact, I'm not asking you to give up spontaneity. In fact, I think we'll discover that when we create space, it actually is creating space for the move of the Holy Spirit in your life.
And I'm definitely not telling you that we're about to institute a new system, the rules and regulations that will bring you back into bondage because that's not what Christ came for.
Because a rule of life is not any of those things. The rule of life, it's singular. It's not a list of rules. It is a singular rule of life in which we live by. It is this rhythm or routine that we do.
And the reason that it comes from, that it actually comes from the Latin word "regula," which is this whole idea of like, "straight," right? And that's where we get like, regulation. We get some different rules, like things. But here's a big way in which it was used.
It was also referring to a regular was also a, like, a straight piece of wood.
And regulars are what they used and vineyards to build trellises.
A trellis.
Now, what's a trellis?
Maybe you already know this because maybe, you know, no one hears wine enthusiasts, I know, but you're grape enthusiasts.
And so, the awkward laughs, and you can calm down. But here's what happens with grapes, okay?
Grapes grow out of the ground. They're a vine. There's this vine that grows up. And then the vine branches out with leaves. And then the leaves, and that further section is where the grapes go. But here's what's interesting about grapevines, whether they're in the wild or they're cultivated in a vineyard. The thing is, if the branches that come out of the vine go and they rub and they lay on the ground, though they may grow and their length may extend, they will never produce fruit.
Never.
It doesn't happen. So, in the wild and in nature, the way that they produce fruit is those vines would grow up along other things, other trees, other branches, other things. They would grow up, and it is the branches that are elevated off the dust of the ground that produce fruit. Well, if you look at any modern vineyard, if you look at vineyards today, you'll see they intentionally create trellises. They create, sometimes they use wood. Sometimes in modern days, they use like cable and different things, in which these vines can naturally grow up, and these vines can grow up and stay off the ground and can produce fruit in their life. So, they can produce fruit.
You see, the trellis, the regular, the rule of life is the thing in our life. It is the framework that we create that allows the vine of Christ to continue to grow in our life. It's this backdrop, this thing that allows us to grow. So, just to put it in context, we read John chapter verse . Let's go back and read a little bit of a bigger section. We're going to read verse through , and if you get a chance, you should read all because it's great, but for time, we'll stop at . This is what Jesus says. He says, "I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser." Other versions say gardener, okay? Like he's the one who takes care of the vine. So, Jesus is the vine. He is the one who is rooted into the ground. He is planted in the ground, and his father is the one who cultivates the garden. This is how they're working together. And it says, "Every branch in me," okay? So, every branch that's connected to me, that does not bear fruit, he takes away.
And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so it may bear more fruit.
This is actually, when you start to realize this, this is talking about life, this is like sometimes this is a bummer because it says, "Hey, if there's something inside of you that's connected and it's not producing fruit, guess what? God's going to trim it away. And maybe you've gone through a season in your life where God's trimmed a few things away.
Sometimes it's like relieving, and sometimes it's painful.
But he trims it away, and you're like, "That's great because I wasn't giving fruit anyways." But it actually says like, "Hey, but those branches that you've been really proud of, and boy, you've been making some fruit, he's going to prune those too so that you can make more fruit."
And sometimes, "But God, I was doing good in that area. Did you not see how good I was loving my wife this week? What do you mean you're going to prune me and make me love her better?
We're good right now at the status quo.
I don't need more. I feel comfortable here."
But he prunes that. He prunes this and this. He says, "You are already clean because the word of God, which I spoke to you, abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine. So neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do some things."
One of the first steps in our spiritual journey that you really have to come to grasp with is, apart from him, you can do nothing.
And that for some of us, not for all of us, for people like me, that's really hard.
Like, of course I can do something, God.
I'm not a total loser.
Surely there's something that I could still have accomplished without you, right, God?
Apart from him, you can do nothing.
And for some of us, that's until we realize,
"Oh, well, if apart from God, I can do nothing, then that means I just need to be fully reliant on Him,
and I don't need to rely on myself."
And in fact, when I find myself relying on me,
I realize I'm focusing on the wrong thing.
If my first thought is, "I'm pretty sure I can do that,"
I probably just need to slow down.
Because apart from him, I can do nothing.
Now here's where it gets real crazy. If anyone does not abide in me,
so this is someone who's not connected to Jesus,
he's thrown away as the branch and it dries up, and they gather them and they cast them in the fire that they are burned. That's a bummer. We're not going to talk about it this morning.
It says, "If you abide in me and my word abides in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, so prove to be my disciples. Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you, abide in my love. If you keep my commands, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and abide in His love. These things I've spoken to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full. This is my commandment, that you would love one another."
That you would love one another. You know what's great?
Even in this, verse , it says, "That any branch that doesn't bear fruit, he cuts off." It's actually not a great translation. If you go and you study the Greek there, what it actually says, it says, "Any branch that does not bear fruit," it says that he lifts up.
He doesn't cut it off. He lifts it up.
What's the picture? You may have some areas, some branches in your life that have fallen in the dirt,
and they're not producing fruit because they're in the dirt. Like we said, it's not connected to the trellis so it's in the dirt. It's not growing fruit.
He actually takes those. He lifts them up. He cleans them. He lifts them up and he ties them back up to the trellis so that they can begin to be fruitful in your life.
This is what the Master Gardener does. You see, this idea of a trellis does a couple things because for the vine, the trellis lifts up the fruit and allows it to grow. It guides the fruit in the direction that it should grow and it guards the fruit from wind or storm or other animals or different things. Like the trellis has this whole process. And when we realize that we are connected to Jesus,
what early believers said is they took this idea of like, "Okay, we're gonna abide. Jesus is always there and Jesus is growing and I wanna be connected to Jesus and abide. But what I also know that as much as I want to abide, sometimes, just like Paul says, I wanna do the right thing and I do the wrong thing and I don't wanna do the wrong thing and so I do the right thing." Like we have this problem that sometimes we find ourselves pulling and putting things in priority places that shouldn't be there and not prioritizing the very thing that we know is the best for us.
And so what we come up with is this idea of a rule of life as a way to schedule into our daily life
this time and this habits that align with our deepest desire.
To become like Jesus.
To become like Jesus.
And you may say, "I don't know. I don't have time for this. I'm very busy. I don't have time for this." Here's the thing, like so many other things, you already have a rule of life.
It already exists.
You already have a routine. You already have rhythms. You already have things that you've given preference to and you've given moments of your time and you already have a way in which you wake up in which you live. You already have a rule of life. The question is not, "Do you need a rule of life?" The question is, "Is the rule of life that you're currently living under taking you to the place that you want to be?"
Is it leading you where you want to go? Is the rule of life that you're currently actively walking in? Is it actually meeting the deepest desires of your heart or is it just the things that were kind of there?
I woke up and my phone was there, so that was the first thing I decided to go to. And wouldn't you know it, by some kind of like miracle, Instagram was the first thing I touched. I don't know how I could do it even when my eyes are not open
and then I move it and yet I can still memorize it really fast.
Do I create these ideas that I already have a rule of life,
but it may not be taking me where I want to go?
And when I create a rule of life that instead is based on what I deeply desire which is to become like Christ, I change some things in my life. And I don't do it out of obligation. I don't do it because I have to. I don't do it out of guilt. I look at it, the Bible talks about it a couple of different ways. It's like an athlete.
There was a time many years ago that I was an athlete.
It's not true anymore.
But back in the day, I was an athlete.
And when I was an athlete, we practiced and we wanted to practice.
And I didn't want to practice just for practice sake.
I wanted to practice for the competition because I wanted what came from winning the race. I ran track.
I wanted what came from winning the race. So I eagerly went and showed up every day and ran really hard and threw up and lifted weights and got embarrassed and did different stuff. I changed my diet, gave up different things. I did it every day, not because I had to, but because I had a desire that was bigger that I wanted to work towards and I knew that if I put in the effort here, it would show up somewhere else. And it wasn't out of obligation. Like I knew this is what it takes to get where I want to be.
I didn't just practice for practice sake.
I practiced because there was a race that needed to be run.
I also love music. I love playing music. And you know what? When you play music, people who practice music, you don't practice your instrument just because like practicing instrument is great. It's because you want to be able to play music.
And so the thing of practicing your instrument is not just like, well, I put my hour and a half of practice. So therefore I'm a musician. No, I want to be able to be in a band and play music.
I want to be on that track and run and run races. I'm not practicing so I can check it off my list is because that is the thing that is the process by which I get to be who I want to be.
And so I make those sacrifices of time and investment.
So that you can get there.
And that's how the Bible paints this picture of our spiritual formation.
We get to make these investments in this time and opening ourselves up to God and the way that we organize and categorize our life and the space that we give him so that we can become like him and become who we want to be. And run the race that we're called to run.
We're going to talk about some of these spirits like these practices that we can put out in our daily lives and routines. But I'm not reading the Bible for minutes a day. So I can say I'm a Bible reader minutes a day. I'm reading the Bible minutes a day so that when things happen in my life that are difficult, what I respond with is scripture and what I believe about myself is scripture. And the identity I walk through is what I received from the word of God, not from what is out around me and in the natural and in the media and social media and news, that is not what's going to define me. God's word is. And so I regularly go to his word so that it can speak his truth over me so that I become a person who carries truth. I'm not reading it so I can check off I read minutes of scripture today because I'm a Bible reader.
That's not the purpose.
I'm reading minutes of scripture so I can find out how God sees me and who Jesus is and as he is so am I so that that's therefore what I'm spending time in scripture.
And every practice of these nine classical practices that we'll talk about here in just a second.
That's the whole thing. The whole end goal is not to check them off. The whole end goal is to become better friends with Jesus and have him and his love transform who you are.
My trellis, my rhythm, my rule, the things that I put into practice.
Those are things that should make me become more like him.
And by the way, when you allow the Holy Spirit to take you exactly where you are not doing what you think you should do but what the Holy Spirit tells you to do, it is not even a burden.
It is a joy.
Now it may be challenging at times.
It may be challenging because most of us like I mentioned earlier are already far too busy.
You're far too busy.
You have far too many things going on. From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, it is jam packed and there is no margin. There's no space.
And ultimately, that's not good for your soul.
It's not good for your mind. It's not good for your heart.
And many of what God's asking you to do is actually he's not asking you to do more. Most of what a trellis actually looks like is you actually doing less.
Saying no to some things so that you can say yes to a few other more things that actually lead you where you want to go.
And the nine practices, the nine things, there's nine things.
And we're going to actually cover all these over time but just for today's sake I'm going to read them relatively quickly. The nine classical practices are generosity, prayer, Sabbath, fasting, solitude, scripture, service, community, and witness.
And a rule of life takes some of these nine and some others by the way because we mentioned that many other things can become a spiritual practice in your life, a way in which you connect and deeply encounter God.
And we intentionally craft our day, our week, our month, our season in a way in which we can say, "God, I want to be connected to you and I want to open myself up regularly in these ways to you. And where your spirit takes me and what spontaneous adventures we go on and what you decide to do through me or in me or around me, that is up to you. But I just want to regularly bring myself and organize my life in a way in which I say you are actually my priority, not my job, not my fitness, not my diet, not my vacation, not that any of those things are wrong, all those things are fine, but I want to make sure that the first priority, the first place I have is the rule of life in which I live in connection with God because that is actually what will make me be the person that I desperately desire to be.
A person who's ruled by peace, a person who's a nonanxious person in a world that's full of anxiousness, someone who can slow down and is comfortable with silence, someone who's patient, who brings love, who walks in joy, someone who doesn't worry about if there's going to be enough but instead sees God's abundance everywhere. Those are the kind of things that I want to be and those are the fruits of dwelling and abiding in the vine of Christ.
And in my personal life, I'm not there yet.
And so I create some of these things in which I say these are the priorities of my life because they make a difference and I just open myself up to God and God then begins to do what only He can do.
And the lead and the guide and the change and the transform and to speak new life and to bring dead things back to life, like He's doing the miracle.
I'm just opening myself up to receive His grace in my life.
And there's a couple different ways that we can look at this. And I have a homework assignment for you today. I don't usually do it. But I think everyone should take a look and ask yourself in a real reflectagain, this is not meant to bring guilt or condemnation or judgment. The first step in any process of growth is being honest with where you are at today.
Where am I at today? Maybe you're here and you alreadywhether you had that terminatedyou had that terminology or not, you have a role in life and you've already got principles and practices and things that are going and you're really threatened and it's really great, that's awesome.
Or maybe you're here and you're like, "I've just been winging it.
That was me for a really long time.
Just winging it."
And even in winging it, God does incredible things because that's how good He is. That's how merciful He is. That's how wonderful He is.
But if you're on Bible projector sorry, if you're on the U version, there's a link in there. Also, if you scan that QR code, there's a link under the sermon notes that you can go to. There's this little tool that the book that we've been using to study in our spiritual formation class called Practicing the Way, they have a link and it helpsit's this builder. It's just a really simple tool that can help you create a rule of life. Very simple. And by the way, you should start reallywherever you're at, you should start really simple. And it just creates an opportunity to look at certain things and say, "These are certain things that I'd like to do daily. These are certain things I'd like to do weekly. These are certain things I'd like to do monthly or on some kind of seasonal basis.
And this is the way in which I want to craft my life and how I do it."
And there's so much that we don't have time in to go into, but if you do this rule of life and at the end you're just like, "Oh man, this feels like a really heavy burden," you did it wrong.
That's not what Jesus is asking you. He actually says the exact opposite. "Come to me, you who are a heavy burden, and I'll give you rest because my yoke is easy."
You can spend time in the presence of God and it'd actually be fun and joyous. In fact, it should be fun and joyous most of the time. Will there be times and seasons where you have to walk through something that's hard? You don't have to look for that. That finds you.
If you say, "Would it be okay if I go on a walk for minutes and listen to praise and worship music?"
Is that spiritual formation?
Yeah. But what if I really like it? Even better.
Sometimes we have this idea that our process of spending time with God should be this struggle or this battle or this challenge. And listen, sometimes there's moments that this is the case, but that is not what God is calling you to. He's calling you to joy. His love draws you in and brings you to repentance.
He brings you to repentance. So listen, here's the thing. For me, I have certain things that I do in this journey, right? So I have things that I do daily, like daily I pray, daily I try to spend some time in solitude and to read the scripture.
And I try to live in a way in which I get to see God's abundance or his generosity every day.
And some days I do better than others.
And it's hard sometimes because it requires sometimes to slow down. I started a practice where every day before I get out of bed, I say three quick prayers.
I say the Lord's Prayer, I say Psalm , and I say the Shammah every morning.
And it's hard because sometimes I wake up and I think of all the things I need to do. I just want to get them going because that's me.
Like I'm out and let's go.
And these are not long, by the way. This takes three minutes.
But there's a moment in time which I get to stop in the morning and remind myself that today is ordained by God.
That I get to pray in a pledge of allegiance to my God. That today God, you are my God. You are one.
And I'll love you with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind and all my strength today.
That you are my shepherd.
That you're my father. I get to pray these days. It takes just a minute. But it's a reset for my mind that I say this is the first thing that I'm doing and the first thing you do in the morning will transform how you see that day.
And then usually I go and I have this spiritual practice of making coffee, which is a spiritual practice by the way.
And the Lord meets me there.
Not at Starbucks, but he meets me in real coffee, a good coffee.
And I spend that time.
And I spend that time. And then I have weekly things like my family and we weekly practice Sabbath.
I weekly have a day in which I fast.
I weekly gather in community at least once and share meals.
These are the things that we get to put into practice. And like, it's like, this is how I want my life to be organized.
This is how I want my time to be. Now, listen, is the vast majority of the minutes of my day, I've already account for the minutes of my day, how many minutes are going towards God and how many minutes are going towards everything else? Guess what? More minutes are still going to everything else. Because I'm still a dad and I still work and I still do groceries, I still have to fold out. I'm still doing all those things. But wouldn't you know it, that when I see myself trust to Him, all of a sudden He's in all those other things.
And He's in with me at the grocery store. He's in with me while I'm folding laundry. He's in with me when I'm taking care of kids. And He's in with me. Like all of a sudden I realize I'm doing it. I'm abiding.
I'm abiding.
And He's with me.
Sometimes I just need that trellis.
You know, another great analogy, word picture that I heard, actually just this morning, I thought it was great. Another visual.
Because maybe grapes are not your thing.
Your rule of life is an anchor.
And whether you've been in a lake or in a boat, you know, the anchor is what keeps the boat from drifting other places. But when you are over the top of the anchor and the water is calm and life is good, you don't even feel the anchor because you're where you're supposed to be. The anchor is only pulling against the boat when the storm or by choice you've drifted somewhere else. But it's keeping you grounded to where you need to go so that you can say, I'm pulling away from where I actually want to be.
And so now I drift back.
And no storm in life can take you away. And no even poor choice in your navigation skills will remove you because you are anchored and you are connected.
Whether you use that tool or not, here's the thing I want to reflect on. What is my life? What is my rhythm? What am I giving God in the time?
Where am I at today?
And guess what? Wherever you're at today is great.
And then you say this, you just invite the Holy Spirit,
where would you like me to be tomorrow?
Where would you like me to be tomorrow?
You are too good for me to leave me here. So what would you like to see in my life tomorrow? What can I do? And this and whatever it is, start small. This is not a New Year's resolution.
Okay, this is not like, I'm going to change everything. Watch me. I'm going to do all nine every day, all day. And they're like, I made it . days and then I quit all of them. That's not what we're doing.
That's not what this is.
Because following Jesus, it's not a formula. It's a friendship.
And he'll invite you into something.
And maybe you'll find it in one of these nine classical disciplines or all these nine classical, or maybe you'll find it somewhere else. Maybe God will say, hey, can you two times a week go on a walk with me? Can you go ride your bike with me? Can you go to the gym? Can you sit down and listen to music and just worship? Can you just be still and silent for minutes once a week?
Can you give me the first minutes of your day?
I don't know what I'll ask you. But whenever he asks, I know it will equip you with so much love and so much joy, it will transform you. And let me tell you what happens. You will not see you. After one week, you're not going to be like, I'm a totally different person. That's not how it works. Fruitfulness is something that takes times and seasons and growth and pruning and new fruit and growth and pruning and new fruit. That's how things happen. But I will tell you this because maybe it's because I'm getting old now. Because I'm now.
I know most of you are like, that young? No, that's great. Here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
All of a sudden, I sometimes look at my life and I think, God, I wish I was further along.
I wish I was better. I wish I was learning better or faster. But let me tell you what God's allowed me to see.
All of a sudden, maybe I still look at myself and I still know all my flaws and I still know all my shortcomings and I still know it. And I still am taking them to Jesus and trust Him.
But God's given me the opportunity where I've had other people tell me how they see me.
And it blows my mind that I could be seen that way.
That is the greatest miracle.
That other people are seeing me the way that Jesus has been telling me He sees me. That I've never seen Him myself.
That other people are seeing characteristics inside of me. That only by faith I could ever believe that that would be inside of me. And yet other people are seeing it.
And it didn't happen overnight.
It didn't happen. I wish I could tell you it was just like,
but intimacy with Jesus slowly over time transforms you into His image.
And we can create space for Him.
And it may mean you needing to give up something that you kind of like doing.
God's asked me to give up things in the past. I thought, "No, God, but I love it."
And most of the time it was really stupid.
Like some video game on my phone that I had a really high level of streak on.
And the Lord asked me to stop.
And I was sure it was Satan.
Because God only wants good things for me.
And you laugh, but we all have our thing. That we waste too much time.
And what's wild is God doesn't need much time to do miracles.
That's the kind of God He is.
And what I found is what was once like, "Okay, I'm going to be dedicated. I'm going to give you time." Now I find myself when my time runs out and I think it can't be over yet.
It can't be over yet. Why did my kids just wake up? Oh no, I have to take care of them.
Lord, it was just getting good.
And that's not where I was.
This is something you can do. So use the tool, don't use the tool, but no matter what it is, take some time. Think this week. Reflect on it.
What's the rhythm? The daily, the weekly, the monthly rhythm that you can help me, that can help me anchor into the person that I want to be, that can reflect the deepest desires in my heart.
Start small.
Invite the Holy Spirit in the process and begin a journey that will transform you.
And maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, but some point,
maybe five, six, ten years into this journey, all of a sudden someone will be like, "I can't believe this is how you are. How did you get to be this person?" And you'll be shocked like, "Wait, you're talking about me?
Did you just call me patient?
Did you just say I was loving and kind?
I went to many years in my life that no one would have ever described me that way."
But that's what time in the presence does, abiding in the vine.
It transforms you.
Let's pray this morning. Father, we thank you for today.
You are good and your mercy is endured forever.
Lord, help us abide.
If it's pursuing some of these nine classical disciplines, Father God, help us abide in you.
If you have something that's better that's more individual for us, Father God, Lord, help us find it and put it in the proper category of our life, Lord, so that our lives can be organized and can flow into you.
Help us slow down and remove our overly busy and overly highpaced lives to be able to just come into the moment in which we can carve out that time for you to do what only you can do.
So that when we have to step into that pace of life which is fast and frenetic and unyielding at times, as opposed to feeling alone, we realize we've carried you with us into that world.
And you become our source.
We love you so much, Father.
Bless our day. Bless our time today. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen and amen. Well, hey, listen, church. You can give God some praise this morning. That's good.
If you need prayer for anything, our prayer team is going to be down here. They would love to pray with you about anything, whether it's questions you have about your relationship with God, healing, anything else that is available. If you're here and you've never had the opportunity to meet me or my wife, or you would just love to tell us the story, we would love to shake your hand and hear a little bit about your story. If you go through those doors and to the left, that's our green room. That's where I will meet you. My wife will attempt to get there. It's , whether she makes it or not. But, you know, that's just reality. We love you. You're dismissed. Have a great rest of your Sunday.
