1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,859 But first, I need to tell you 2 00:00:02,859 --> 00:00:06,787 that this last month has been incredible for me, 3 00:00:06,787 --> 00:00:11,282 not just because I didn't have to do anything, because I did. 4 00:00:11,282 --> 00:00:12,658 It's like I didn't do anything. 5 00:00:12,658 --> 00:00:16,748 But for the last four Sundays, 6 00:00:16,748 --> 00:00:22,215 I get to either sit on the bench and watch, 7 00:00:22,215 --> 00:00:23,956 or even in my car, 8 00:00:23,956 --> 00:00:25,535 I was just driving and listening, 9 00:00:25,535 --> 00:00:33,189 and I got to listen to four people from our community, 10 00:00:33,189 --> 00:00:40,478 but not just listen to them preach, 11 00:00:40,478 --> 00:00:42,665 but to tell their story. 12 00:00:44,284 --> 00:00:47,200 For me, it's one of my favorite things. 13 00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:51,168 I've always loved being able to sit on the front row and 14 00:00:51,168 --> 00:00:55,542 just listen and watch someone who has been part of this community, 15 00:00:55,542 --> 00:00:58,579 get to share their faith journey, 16 00:00:58,579 --> 00:00:59,996 their love for God, 17 00:00:59,996 --> 00:01:03,317 the way that they feel loved by God. 18 00:01:03,560 --> 00:01:08,338 It's absolutely one of my favorite things. 19 00:01:08,338 --> 00:01:14,371 We have more people that signed up for the series stories, 20 00:01:14,371 --> 00:01:18,259 and so instead of just letting it go on for months and months, 21 00:01:18,259 --> 00:01:22,956 we decided to pull back and we're going to sprinkle them in. 22 00:01:22,956 --> 00:01:24,900 So every month or so, 23 00:01:24,900 --> 00:01:26,722 we'll have someone come up and tell their story and 24 00:01:26,722 --> 00:01:29,719 do what we did through the Arsenal stories. 25 00:01:29,719 --> 00:01:32,432 I feel like people liked it, 26 00:01:32,432 --> 00:01:33,728 we got some good feedback from it, 27 00:01:33,728 --> 00:01:35,509 so I want to keep doing that. 28 00:01:35,509 --> 00:01:41,867 But as I listened to those messages and to the stories, 29 00:01:41,867 --> 00:01:47,253 one of the things that I heard four different people, 30 00:01:47,253 --> 00:01:49,196 four very different lives, 31 00:01:49,196 --> 00:01:53,246 very different journeys, very different directions. 32 00:01:53,246 --> 00:01:59,158 There was one word that kept showing up in their talks, 33 00:01:59,158 --> 00:02:02,641 that kept showing up in this room week after week, 34 00:02:02,641 --> 00:02:04,503 and it wasn't a churchy word, 35 00:02:04,503 --> 00:02:07,095 which I was pretty proud of, 36 00:02:07,095 --> 00:02:11,063 but it was the word safe. 37 00:02:11,914 --> 00:02:15,518 Alexis actually titled her whole talk, 38 00:02:15,518 --> 00:02:18,879 "You're safe enough to stop hiding." 39 00:02:19,486 --> 00:02:25,277 Mark told us he used to show up here late, 40 00:02:25,277 --> 00:02:28,314 still does, but I'm just kidding. 41 00:02:28,314 --> 00:02:31,027 I'm kidding. He's early. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. 42 00:02:33,052 --> 00:02:36,332 He used to show up here late and leave early. 43 00:02:36,332 --> 00:02:38,359 When he first started coming, 44 00:02:38,359 --> 00:02:40,712 we had pews here, he would show up late, 45 00:02:40,712 --> 00:02:45,822 leave early for months because he couldn't sing the songs yet. 46 00:02:45,822 --> 00:02:48,945 He couldn't stand up and mean 47 00:02:48,945 --> 00:02:53,852 the words that he's been asked to sing and nobody made him. 48 00:02:53,852 --> 00:02:56,245 Nobody chased him down a clipboard. 49 00:02:56,245 --> 00:03:04,275 He got to not be okay in the room at his own pace. 50 00:03:05,330 --> 00:03:08,696 He told us that when he went looking for a therapist, 51 00:03:08,696 --> 00:03:11,495 he wasn't trying to date the therapist. 52 00:03:11,779 --> 00:03:14,131 Although he described a therapist, 53 00:03:14,131 --> 00:03:15,185 you'd think you would want to date, 54 00:03:15,185 --> 00:03:21,309 but he specifically asked for one that was not Christian. 55 00:03:22,040 --> 00:03:25,244 Sit with how honest that is for a minute, 56 00:03:25,244 --> 00:03:27,799 standing on a stage in a church, 57 00:03:27,799 --> 00:03:31,814 talking about going to a therapist and being able to say, 58 00:03:31,814 --> 00:03:34,896 "I asked for one that wasn't a Christian." 59 00:03:34,896 --> 00:03:38,746 I think he had to know that the room was safe 60 00:03:38,746 --> 00:03:41,945 before he was able to speak that truth. 61 00:03:41,945 --> 00:03:49,762 Then Taryn stood up here last Sunday and said, 62 00:03:49,762 --> 00:03:56,445 "I'm done worrying about whether she's performing her faith correctly." 63 00:03:56,445 --> 00:04:03,411 She's okay being where she's at and she feels safe to not only be there, 64 00:04:03,411 --> 00:04:04,909 but to be able to say that. 65 00:04:04,909 --> 00:04:09,690 So four people, four completely different roads, 66 00:04:09,690 --> 00:04:13,986 and that thing that I haven't been able to stop thinking about 67 00:04:13,986 --> 00:04:17,674 is the thing that this whole series comes out of. 68 00:04:17,674 --> 00:04:23,428 See, I did it. Not one of them got to where they are in their faith journey 69 00:04:23,428 --> 00:04:28,331 by either winning an argument or someone winning an argument with them. 70 00:04:29,304 --> 00:04:32,748 Nobody stood up here and said, 71 00:04:32,748 --> 00:04:37,288 "And then someone finally explained the doctrine properly to me." 72 00:04:37,288 --> 00:04:43,412 My body relaxed. It's not what happened. 73 00:04:43,412 --> 00:04:50,591 What happened in every single story was time and safety 74 00:04:50,591 --> 00:04:57,811 and small things done over and over in a room where nobody was king's score. 75 00:04:57,811 --> 00:05:03,611 Four people, four different stories, and an argument didn't win them over. 76 00:05:06,288 --> 00:05:10,506 I'm going to go back to something that Taryn said. 77 00:05:10,506 --> 00:05:13,953 She was describing the faith that she grew up with. 78 00:05:13,953 --> 00:05:18,212 If you missed it, all the talks are on YouTube and on the podcast, 79 00:05:18,212 --> 00:05:22,430 and we're all caught up. I'm super stoked about that. 80 00:05:22,754 --> 00:05:26,850 I finally figured out how to get Claude to just edit everything. 81 00:05:26,850 --> 00:05:30,014 I was like, "Just please fix these." 82 00:05:30,622 --> 00:05:33,705 But she was describing the faith that she grew up in, 83 00:05:33,705 --> 00:05:36,665 and she didn't describe it with doctrine. 84 00:05:36,665 --> 00:05:39,261 She described it with a T-shirt. 85 00:05:39,261 --> 00:05:44,574 She said it was like I was wearing a T-shirt with an itchy tag. 86 00:05:44,574 --> 00:05:48,021 This ill-fitting faith was always there, 87 00:05:48,021 --> 00:05:51,103 just scratching at the back of my mind, 88 00:05:51,103 --> 00:05:54,835 reminding me that I wasn't enough. 89 00:05:55,767 --> 00:05:59,701 Ill-fitting, hold on to that for a second. 90 00:05:59,701 --> 00:06:02,135 Because a few minutes later in the same talk, 91 00:06:02,135 --> 00:06:06,555 she said I started to find a version of faith that actually fit, 92 00:06:06,555 --> 00:06:09,311 that made sense to me. 93 00:06:10,608 --> 00:06:13,445 Here's what I need you to know. 94 00:06:13,445 --> 00:06:16,525 Taryn had no idea what I was planning to preach this morning. 95 00:06:16,525 --> 00:06:19,240 I really didn't know until probably this morning. 96 00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:21,955 I hadn't told anybody. 97 00:06:21,955 --> 00:06:25,441 One week before we opened this text, 98 00:06:25,441 --> 00:06:29,656 she stood up here and she named the disease using 99 00:06:29,656 --> 00:06:33,951 the exact word that Eugene Peterson uses for the cure. 100 00:06:33,951 --> 00:06:36,545 I'm going to show you Matthew 11. 101 00:06:36,545 --> 00:06:38,929 Jesus is talking. 102 00:06:38,929 --> 00:06:41,838 I love how Peterson translates this in the message. 103 00:06:41,838 --> 00:06:45,516 It says this, "Are you tired, 104 00:06:45,516 --> 00:06:50,163 worn out, burned out on religion? 105 00:06:50,163 --> 00:06:54,729 Come to me, get away with me and you'll recover your life. 106 00:06:54,729 --> 00:06:58,730 I'll show you how to take a real rest. 107 00:06:58,730 --> 00:07:00,791 Walk with me and work with me. 108 00:07:00,791 --> 00:07:02,165 Watch how I do it. 109 00:07:02,165 --> 00:07:06,044 Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. 110 00:07:06,044 --> 00:07:10,358 I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. 111 00:07:10,358 --> 00:07:16,282 Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and light. 112 00:07:16,725 --> 00:07:21,078 I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you." 113 00:07:21,440 --> 00:07:26,276 Is what scripture says as Jesus is talking. 114 00:07:26,276 --> 00:07:30,387 There's three things in this short little passage. 115 00:07:30,387 --> 00:07:32,120 I want to look at them real quick. 116 00:07:32,120 --> 00:07:36,392 One, it says, "Are you burned out on religion?" 117 00:07:36,915 --> 00:07:40,901 I think Peterson put that phrase there on purpose 118 00:07:40,901 --> 00:07:45,289 because Jesus wasn't recruiting people who never tried. 119 00:07:45,289 --> 00:07:49,194 He's talking to the people who tried hard, 120 00:07:49,194 --> 00:07:52,052 who did everything they were told, 121 00:07:52,052 --> 00:07:55,434 and they got tired doing it, 122 00:07:55,434 --> 00:07:59,097 which I think is a lot of us in this room. 123 00:07:59,299 --> 00:08:03,566 Then two, it talks about the yoke. 124 00:08:03,848 --> 00:08:09,441 Underneath this passage in maybe the translation that you read, 125 00:08:09,441 --> 00:08:12,297 it probably says, "My yoke is easy." 126 00:08:12,297 --> 00:08:16,038 The word there is zugos. 127 00:08:16,038 --> 00:08:20,866 In the Greek, it's what a yoke is not. 128 00:08:20,866 --> 00:08:24,003 A yoke is not a weight. 129 00:08:24,003 --> 00:08:29,836 A yoke adds nothing to the load that you're carrying. 130 00:08:29,836 --> 00:08:32,772 It's actually fitted equipment. 131 00:08:32,772 --> 00:08:36,956 It is something that redistributes 132 00:08:36,956 --> 00:08:41,383 a load that the animal is already trying to pull. 133 00:08:41,383 --> 00:08:47,581 It helps to make it less stressful on the body. 134 00:08:51,002 --> 00:08:55,308 There's a backpack that I was going to bring this morning, I forgot. 135 00:08:55,308 --> 00:08:57,320 But I have this backpack. 136 00:08:57,320 --> 00:09:01,465 It's by a brand called Kriga, and I love it. 137 00:09:01,465 --> 00:09:03,558 I've had it for almost 15 years. 138 00:09:03,558 --> 00:09:05,932 Then when we had our motorcycle shop, 139 00:09:05,932 --> 00:09:10,854 I brought the brand in because I just loved how Kriga made their stuff. 140 00:09:10,854 --> 00:09:13,558 But the idea behind this backpack was, 141 00:09:13,558 --> 00:09:17,876 it's a backpack made for people that are riding motorcycles. 142 00:09:17,876 --> 00:09:22,678 One of the reasons is it puts some pressure on your lower back, 143 00:09:22,678 --> 00:09:27,036 and then when you strap it on and you click the buttons together and you tighten it up, 144 00:09:27,036 --> 00:09:29,458 it pulls against your chest. 145 00:09:29,458 --> 00:09:34,421 What the idea is, is that it pulls against your chest and your lower back, 146 00:09:34,421 --> 00:09:37,370 in order to pull the weight off of your shoulders, 147 00:09:37,370 --> 00:09:39,355 so that you don't get tired while you're riding. 148 00:09:39,355 --> 00:09:44,214 It's a way to redistribute the weight onto parts of your body that can hold it, 149 00:09:44,214 --> 00:09:45,915 so you don't get tired. 150 00:09:45,915 --> 00:09:47,738 This is what a yoke is. 151 00:09:47,738 --> 00:09:50,694 It is redistributing that weight, so you don't get tired, 152 00:09:50,694 --> 00:09:55,108 so you can just continue without heaviness. 153 00:09:55,108 --> 00:09:59,279 This Greek word, zugos, it's a yoke, 154 00:09:59,279 --> 00:10:03,774 fitted equipment that redistributes that load. 155 00:10:03,774 --> 00:10:09,246 The only question there about the yoke is whether it fits right or not. 156 00:10:10,260 --> 00:10:14,641 Is it properly fitted for you? 157 00:10:14,641 --> 00:10:18,819 Then the third thing in this passage that we'll get into in a little bit is, 158 00:10:18,819 --> 00:10:21,901 the word that's translated to easy. 159 00:10:21,901 --> 00:10:26,972 The word that's underneath that in the Greek is kristos. 160 00:10:26,972 --> 00:10:29,081 Not kristos, kristos. 161 00:10:29,081 --> 00:10:35,084 It carries the sense of kind, well-made, serviceable. 162 00:10:35,084 --> 00:10:36,748 It's a well-made thing, 163 00:10:36,748 --> 00:10:38,983 but also it's well-fitting, 164 00:10:38,983 --> 00:10:45,810 and also that word became used to describe people of mild, 165 00:10:45,810 --> 00:10:50,077 benevolent character, moral goodness. 166 00:10:50,077 --> 00:10:54,709 It became this word to describe people that were just kind people. 167 00:10:58,489 --> 00:11:03,447 So what Jesus is actually offering in this passage, 168 00:11:03,447 --> 00:11:08,935 what he's talking about, is not just a lighter life. 169 00:11:08,935 --> 00:11:13,733 Read again, he says, "Walk with me, work with me." 170 00:11:13,733 --> 00:11:17,597 So there's still a load, there's still some work happening. 171 00:11:17,597 --> 00:11:22,884 There's still a life to pull, but he's offering one that fits. 172 00:11:22,884 --> 00:11:26,991 Not easier, just a better fitting life. 173 00:11:26,991 --> 00:11:33,498 Now, in this series, I'm going to get into like practices, spiritual practices. 174 00:11:33,498 --> 00:11:38,663 And before we go into this, before we take another step in it, 175 00:11:38,663 --> 00:11:46,311 I want to name something because I can already feel it when I say the word in the room. 176 00:11:46,311 --> 00:11:52,414 The second I say the word practice, some practice, we're talking, sorry. 177 00:11:52,414 --> 00:11:57,662 Don't shake your head like that, that's, come on. 178 00:11:57,662 --> 00:11:59,452 Hey, Ted Lasso's back, season four. 179 00:11:59,452 --> 00:12:04,211 Yeah, anyway. 180 00:12:04,211 --> 00:12:08,400 When I say the word practice, some of you hear assignment, 181 00:12:08,400 --> 00:12:10,026 like this heavy work. 182 00:12:10,026 --> 00:12:13,034 Some of you've been, you've probably braced for it all year. 183 00:12:13,034 --> 00:12:17,912 If you're new here for five months, I've been standing up here saying, 184 00:12:17,912 --> 00:12:20,555 God isn't keeping score. 185 00:12:20,555 --> 00:12:25,433 And part of you has been waiting for like the other shoe to drop. 186 00:12:25,433 --> 00:12:28,888 Like waiting for the catch. 187 00:12:28,888 --> 00:12:29,823 Here it comes, right? 188 00:12:29,823 --> 00:12:34,620 Like week one, Chad's got a list. 189 00:12:34,620 --> 00:12:42,300 So let me like just say as clear as I know how, like, I'm going to make you an offer. 190 00:12:42,300 --> 00:12:53,108 If anything, in these next eight weeks, sounds like a new way to fail, come tell me. 191 00:12:53,108 --> 00:12:57,577 And I mean it, like, I mean like come tell me, don't, that's not just like a pastor being like, 192 00:12:57,577 --> 00:13:02,046 oh, call me out, like find me. 193 00:13:02,046 --> 00:13:06,231 I make gold coffee every morning, right? 194 00:13:06,231 --> 00:13:07,570 Every morning. 195 00:13:07,570 --> 00:13:10,330 Especially this week because the kids start back to school. 196 00:13:10,330 --> 00:13:12,887 So I'll be there because I got to get up early. 197 00:13:12,887 --> 00:13:15,931 Send me a text, interrupt me at HE. 198 00:13:15,931 --> 00:13:22,019 I prefer you not interrupt me while I'm talking up here, but we can discuss. 199 00:13:22,019 --> 00:13:28,107 If one week of this lands on you like it's a scoreboard, like you're having to do something 200 00:13:28,107 --> 00:13:32,287 in order to prove something, I want you to know to come tell me because then I've built 201 00:13:32,287 --> 00:13:34,114 that thing wrong. 202 00:13:34,114 --> 00:13:39,545 I've said it wrong because I think there's a difference. 203 00:13:39,545 --> 00:13:43,310 And honestly, it's this whole series, the idea behind it. 204 00:13:43,310 --> 00:13:48,898 I'm not asking you for performance because performance ask, am I enough yet? 205 00:13:48,898 --> 00:13:49,910 Have I done enough? 206 00:13:49,910 --> 00:13:50,922 Have I got there yet? 207 00:13:50,922 --> 00:13:55,295 Well, I'm asked, practice ask, am I remembering who I am? 208 00:13:55,295 --> 00:14:02,259 Like thinking about if you were an athlete or a musician, practice was where you kind 209 00:14:02,259 --> 00:14:06,996 of went through the different parts of what you're supposed to do in a way that it becomes 210 00:14:06,996 --> 00:14:11,811 muscle memory so that you know what you're doing, so you know who you are and what you're 211 00:14:11,811 --> 00:14:18,852 supposed to do, what the goal is here, how you're operating, who you are. 212 00:14:18,852 --> 00:14:26,257 So this could be like same actions sometimes, may look identical from the outside, but it's 213 00:14:26,257 --> 00:14:29,130 got a completely different engine that's driving it. 214 00:14:29,130 --> 00:14:35,847 And you're going to find out which engine is running the moment that you fail. 215 00:14:35,847 --> 00:14:43,848 Like you skip a performance or you lose, you do something wrong, you lose standing, right? 216 00:14:43,848 --> 00:14:47,201 I'm no longer as good of a Christian as I was, right? 217 00:14:47,201 --> 00:14:51,767 Like, oh, did you read your Bible every day this week? 218 00:14:51,767 --> 00:14:58,514 I can ask you, you do. 219 00:14:58,514 --> 00:15:03,241 If you mess up, if you miss it, you slide down the scoreboard a little bit. 220 00:15:03,241 --> 00:15:08,006 You skip a practice, you just skip to practice, right? 221 00:15:08,006 --> 00:15:13,878 Nothing happened to your standing because that was never anything that you were trying 222 00:15:13,878 --> 00:15:17,328 to produce anyway. 223 00:15:17,328 --> 00:15:19,951 So this whole thing, this isn't me being nice. 224 00:15:19,951 --> 00:15:25,076 It's not me being like, hey, call me out, but really, I'm not going to take it well. 225 00:15:25,076 --> 00:15:27,619 Like tell me, Robert will tell me. 226 00:15:27,619 --> 00:15:29,233 You guys can tell me. 227 00:15:29,233 --> 00:15:30,242 Right? 228 00:15:30,242 --> 00:15:31,251 He'll tell me. 229 00:15:31,251 --> 00:15:34,882 Chad, you missed that one. 230 00:15:34,882 --> 00:15:36,497 But I want that. 231 00:15:36,497 --> 00:15:41,701 That's the whole point of this place is like, come tell me. 232 00:15:41,701 --> 00:15:45,131 And this isn't just me, this is Paul too. 233 00:15:45,131 --> 00:15:50,376 There is a moment where Paul is praying for the church in Ephesus and you've heard this 234 00:15:50,376 --> 00:15:51,384 verse. 235 00:15:51,384 --> 00:15:52,393 I say it all the time. 236 00:15:52,393 --> 00:15:54,773 It's one of my favorites. 237 00:15:54,773 --> 00:15:56,387 Listen to what he asked for. 238 00:15:56,387 --> 00:16:03,952 He says, and I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together 239 00:16:03,952 --> 00:16:11,968 with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and how high and deep is the 240 00:16:11,968 --> 00:16:15,039 love of Christ. 241 00:16:15,039 --> 00:16:20,493 And the beautiful part about this passage and obviously we read it in English and so 242 00:16:20,493 --> 00:16:27,401 we get the translation, but the words rooted and established here in the Greek, I'm not 243 00:16:27,401 --> 00:16:28,452 going to pronounce them. 244 00:16:28,452 --> 00:16:30,754 We'll put them up there. 245 00:16:30,754 --> 00:16:31,764 Those are the words. 246 00:16:31,764 --> 00:16:32,774 They go. 247 00:16:32,774 --> 00:16:33,784 Here's Omenio. 248 00:16:33,784 --> 00:16:44,359 Oh, I think I nailed it. 249 00:16:44,359 --> 00:16:59,569 Both of those words in the Greek are perfect passive participles, which I know we're not 250 00:16:59,569 --> 00:17:05,137 back in school yet, which is next week, but for grammar nerds, that is already done and 251 00:17:05,137 --> 00:17:09,047 it's been done to you. 252 00:17:09,047 --> 00:17:12,594 Already rooted, already grounded. 253 00:17:12,594 --> 00:17:17,349 And somebody else poured that foundation and put you there. 254 00:17:17,349 --> 00:17:22,588 So Paul's not praying that they would get rooted. 255 00:17:22,588 --> 00:17:23,596 Read it. 256 00:17:23,596 --> 00:17:31,979 He's praying that they would have the strength to grasp what is already true of them. 257 00:17:31,979 --> 00:17:35,182 And this is what practice is for. 258 00:17:35,182 --> 00:17:38,751 It's the entire job description. 259 00:17:38,751 --> 00:17:44,076 Nate said it in one sentence in his message a couple weeks ago, pointing at his head and 260 00:17:44,076 --> 00:17:46,618 then his chest. 261 00:17:46,618 --> 00:17:53,920 He said, I believed it up here, but it took a lot longer for me to believe it here. 262 00:17:53,920 --> 00:18:02,754 And the distance between those two points, that's the distance that practice crosses. 263 00:18:02,754 --> 00:18:11,346 A practice doesn't build the foundation, it reminds you you're standing on one, that 264 00:18:11,346 --> 00:18:16,307 you are rooted in one. 265 00:18:16,307 --> 00:18:22,478 And for me, when we started thinking about this in the Christian faith, if you want to 266 00:18:22,478 --> 00:18:28,447 be honest about it, and this is the questions that would get me in trouble, there's a question 267 00:18:28,447 --> 00:18:32,803 underneath, I think even this one, like, okay. 268 00:18:32,803 --> 00:18:37,744 So practice is reminding me that I'm standing on solid ground, that I'm rooted, that I'm 269 00:18:37,744 --> 00:18:38,753 grounded. 270 00:18:38,753 --> 00:18:42,243 But the question is like, why bother? 271 00:18:42,243 --> 00:18:45,491 Why bother crossing the distance? 272 00:18:45,491 --> 00:18:48,154 What's the point? 273 00:18:48,154 --> 00:18:53,459 Because the faith that most of us were handed had an answer and the answer was you're in 274 00:18:53,459 --> 00:18:56,061 a waiting room. 275 00:18:56,061 --> 00:19:03,949 Say the prayer, get your ticket punched to heaven, wait to die, and then go somewhere 276 00:19:03,949 --> 00:19:04,958 else. 277 00:19:04,958 --> 00:19:08,350 Like when we die, you get to go somewhere. 278 00:19:08,350 --> 00:19:13,725 And everything in between the 60, 70 years, 80, whatever years it might be in between 279 00:19:13,725 --> 00:19:19,988 the saying of the prayer and the getting to die and go to heaven is a holding pattern. 280 00:19:19,988 --> 00:19:26,575 Behave, make sure you do everything right, hold on to that ticket, kill time, basically, 281 00:19:26,575 --> 00:19:28,434 try not to lose your ticket. 282 00:19:28,434 --> 00:19:30,838 That's what I was taught. 283 00:19:30,838 --> 00:19:36,638 And if that's the deal, then practices really are just something to do in the waiting room. 284 00:19:36,638 --> 00:19:39,193 They're like the old magazine on the table, right? 285 00:19:39,193 --> 00:19:44,911 That nobody reads anymore because we all have cell phones. 286 00:19:44,911 --> 00:19:55,494 But the old tradition before we got this kind of Europeanized, evangelical, Christian, Protestant 287 00:19:55,494 --> 00:20:01,557 faith that was handed to us to make us work really hard in order to control us. 288 00:20:01,557 --> 00:20:06,038 Before all that, the older tradition, they never believed this idea that, hey, we're 289 00:20:06,038 --> 00:20:07,460 just waiting till we die. 290 00:20:07,460 --> 00:20:13,236 And I mean like much, much older, like Athanasius, who I've brought this book, I've talked about 291 00:20:13,236 --> 00:20:19,297 this book before, Athanasius is a fourth-century theologian, he wrote this book on the incarnation 292 00:20:19,297 --> 00:20:20,314 that is incredible. 293 00:20:20,314 --> 00:20:26,496 In fact, this little green one has C.S. Lewis did the foreword and it's probably just as 294 00:20:26,496 --> 00:20:29,873 the book, it's incredible. 295 00:20:29,873 --> 00:20:44,379 But Athanasius, in this little book, put a sentence that messes every modern reader up. 296 00:20:44,379 --> 00:20:51,684 Athanasius says, "He was made man that we might be made God." 297 00:20:51,684 --> 00:21:03,519 Now, think about this kind of in the same breath that Athanasius did. 298 00:21:03,519 --> 00:21:10,705 Every church father who ever said this sentence also said it and they said the limit to it. 299 00:21:10,705 --> 00:21:17,077 "He became man so we might become God is by grace, not by nature, is by adoption, not 300 00:21:17,077 --> 00:21:22,428 by essence, it was participation, not promotion." 301 00:21:22,428 --> 00:21:30,066 We do not become God, we become like Christ, actually increasingly now, right, in our lives. 302 00:21:30,066 --> 00:21:35,621 The Eastern church had a word for this, they called it theosis. 303 00:21:35,621 --> 00:21:44,214 Theosis is the lifelong project of becoming like Christ, by grace and adoption, participation, 304 00:21:44,214 --> 00:21:52,072 it's not the reward at the end of the Christian life, this is the Christian life, theosis, 305 00:21:52,072 --> 00:21:55,468 the life of becoming like Christ. 306 00:21:55,468 --> 00:22:00,993 It's not a prize at the end, at the finish line, it is the project, it is the life, it 307 00:22:00,993 --> 00:22:02,712 is right now. 308 00:22:02,712 --> 00:22:18,812 The finish line version is this like modern shrinkage of what Christian life should be. 309 00:22:18,812 --> 00:22:28,818 Another fourth century theologian, a desert monk, Evagrius, Evagrius said it maybe even 310 00:22:28,818 --> 00:22:35,394 more bluntly, his line was "The kingdom of heaven is apothea of the soul, together with 311 00:22:35,394 --> 00:22:36,863 true knowledge of beings." 312 00:22:36,863 --> 00:22:41,750 And I know you read apothea and you think, wait, apathy, that's what that means. 313 00:22:41,750 --> 00:22:45,089 It means a settled soul. 314 00:22:45,089 --> 00:22:54,619 The kingdom of heaven is not a location, it's a state of a person and it's available now. 315 00:22:54,619 --> 00:22:59,709 Again, this is not where we go somewhere, it is now. 316 00:22:59,709 --> 00:23:06,429 Origen, second, third century, and I'm paraphrasing here, whoever prays your kingdom come is praying 317 00:23:06,429 --> 00:23:15,583 for the kingdom to rise and bear fruit and to be perfected inside them. 318 00:23:15,583 --> 00:23:22,388 This isn't just some idea that like, hey, I need the kingdom to come down from heaven. 319 00:23:22,388 --> 00:23:25,547 Christian would say, no, no, the kingdom is within you. 320 00:23:25,547 --> 00:23:31,259 So when you pray the kingdom come, I am praying for it to rise and to bear fruit and be perfected 321 00:23:31,259 --> 00:23:36,645 through my life, just like the life of Christ. 322 00:23:36,645 --> 00:23:40,681 And this isn't just the ancient like second, third, fourth century guys, Gustavo Gutierrez, 323 00:23:40,681 --> 00:23:44,153 who is an incredible theologian. 324 00:23:44,153 --> 00:23:48,391 If you haven't read Gustavo, you need to read Gustavo Gutierrez. 325 00:23:48,391 --> 00:23:51,540 He's the father of liberation theology. 326 00:23:51,540 --> 00:23:57,332 He's like 20th century, about as far from like the desert cave of these early church 327 00:23:57,332 --> 00:24:01,046 theologians as you can be as a theologian. 328 00:24:01,046 --> 00:24:07,078 He defined theology itself as critical reflection on practice. 329 00:24:07,078 --> 00:24:10,981 Practice is the first act of theology. 330 00:24:10,981 --> 00:24:13,637 Understanding is the second. 331 00:24:13,637 --> 00:24:17,701 The desert monks, the liberation theologians, 17 centuries apart, they landed on the same 332 00:24:17,701 --> 00:24:18,707 sentence. 333 00:24:18,707 --> 00:24:24,200 You don't think your way into a life, you practice your way into one and then you understand 334 00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:25,206 it. 335 00:24:25,206 --> 00:24:32,952 And I'll tell you where that road goes and then I'll leave it alone. 336 00:24:32,952 --> 00:24:40,191 When you start knowing who you are, you start seeing who other people are and what the systems 337 00:24:40,191 --> 00:24:43,247 around them are doing to them. 338 00:24:43,247 --> 00:24:45,880 It opens your eyes. 339 00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:48,755 That's what liberation theologians would say is like, when you begin to understand who 340 00:24:48,755 --> 00:24:53,398 you are and you begin to see people who they are and then you begin to see the systems 341 00:24:53,398 --> 00:24:58,202 that are harming and breaking people, you can't just sit back and wait till you die 342 00:24:58,202 --> 00:25:00,775 and hope that the kingdom comes. 343 00:25:00,775 --> 00:25:08,533 You have to, you get into practice, you begin to fight because love asks us sometimes to 344 00:25:08,533 --> 00:25:12,871 fight for those that are hurting. 345 00:25:12,871 --> 00:25:19,862 And when we begin to understand that Christian life is not a waiting room, that practice 346 00:25:19,862 --> 00:25:28,942 isn't just killing time, that practice is how you live the life, the actual life that 347 00:25:28,942 --> 00:25:34,948 you've been called to, then it's not a test any further or any more. 348 00:25:34,948 --> 00:25:44,621 And it's, Jesus said this, there's a moment in Mark, religious experts, the Pharisees, 349 00:25:44,621 --> 00:25:47,397 they catch Jesus disciples. 350 00:25:47,397 --> 00:25:49,208 They're breaking the Sabbath, right? 351 00:25:49,208 --> 00:25:53,151 I think in this story, actually, Jesus and his disciples, if I remember right, they're 352 00:25:53,151 --> 00:25:59,346 like walking through a field of grain and they like grab some grain and eat it because 353 00:25:59,346 --> 00:26:05,864 they were hungry, but they were picking grain and that was work on the Sabbath. 354 00:26:05,864 --> 00:26:11,645 And so the Pharisees were like, hey, just saw you guys picking grain on the Sabbath. 355 00:26:11,645 --> 00:26:13,760 We're not supposed to work on the Sabbath. 356 00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:18,998 How are you going to let, you know, you're supposed to be a leader. 357 00:26:18,998 --> 00:26:24,599 And Jesus says an incredible statement to them. 358 00:26:24,599 --> 00:26:32,678 He says the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 359 00:26:32,678 --> 00:26:39,670 The practice was made for the human, not the human for the practice. 360 00:26:39,670 --> 00:26:42,291 There's a shift there. 361 00:26:42,291 --> 00:26:47,814 Sabbath isn't a test that God set to see if you pass it. 362 00:26:47,814 --> 00:26:58,135 It's a gift, not ill-fitted, but fitted to how you were actually built, like the yoke. 363 00:26:58,135 --> 00:27:06,703 Because to Sabbath, to rest, if you step out of the idea of like practice in a performance 364 00:27:06,703 --> 00:27:15,799 religious standpoint and you look at Sabbath to take rest, from a purely scientific standpoint, 365 00:27:15,799 --> 00:27:18,743 it's good for you. 366 00:27:18,743 --> 00:27:24,874 It actually like helps your mind and your body and it puts you back together so that 367 00:27:24,874 --> 00:27:29,835 you can operate at your top level. 368 00:27:29,835 --> 00:27:35,160 So Jesus is saying, hey, the whole point of Sabbath was so that they would rest to be 369 00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:41,131 at their best version, not to prove anything to God. 370 00:27:41,131 --> 00:27:49,038 We turn it into these rules that we must follow, but that's not healthy. 371 00:27:49,038 --> 00:27:53,073 That's not actually healing the body and the mind. 372 00:27:53,073 --> 00:27:57,874 Jesus says the whole point of this was for the human. 373 00:27:57,874 --> 00:28:06,872 It's for them to be better equipped to go love. 374 00:28:06,872 --> 00:28:15,068 And I'll tell you this from a scientific standpoint, there's three pieces of evidence to this and 375 00:28:15,068 --> 00:28:19,145 you can ask people that are much smarter than me on the psychological side of this. 376 00:28:19,145 --> 00:28:20,155 Nate spoke up here. 377 00:28:20,155 --> 00:28:23,223 I think Allison just said something about it. 378 00:28:23,223 --> 00:28:27,987 Talk to Dr. Allison. 379 00:28:27,987 --> 00:28:32,388 Positive affirmations backfire. 380 00:28:32,388 --> 00:28:34,931 The mirror thing. 381 00:28:34,931 --> 00:28:37,112 I'm a lovable person. 382 00:28:37,112 --> 00:28:40,587 Look at yourself in the mirror, repeat it until you believe it. 383 00:28:40,587 --> 00:28:49,196 There's actually a study out of Waterloo, Wood and colleagues 2009 found that for people 384 00:28:49,196 --> 00:28:56,793 with low self-esteem, repeating I am a lovable person made them feel worse. 385 00:28:56,793 --> 00:29:01,845 Worse mood, less interested in doing anything pleasant afterward. 386 00:29:01,845 --> 00:29:07,503 The words bounced off and confirmed how far they were from actually being that. 387 00:29:07,503 --> 00:29:13,407 And the condition that actually helped those same people was the one that let them admit 388 00:29:13,407 --> 00:29:18,179 the statement wasn't fully true. 389 00:29:18,179 --> 00:29:24,083 Now again, asked Dr. Allison, this is a small study. 390 00:29:24,083 --> 00:29:29,865 It was like 68 people don't write a theology on it. 391 00:29:29,865 --> 00:29:32,009 Hold it as suggested, like not settled yet. 392 00:29:32,009 --> 00:29:33,950 There's a lot of studies on it. 393 00:29:33,950 --> 00:29:36,012 Watch the shape of it. 394 00:29:36,012 --> 00:29:39,653 Forcing the words made it worse. 395 00:29:39,653 --> 00:29:44,993 Permission to tell the truth is what made it better. 396 00:29:44,993 --> 00:29:50,212 Now flip that self-affirmation, which sounds identical but it's a different thing and this 397 00:29:50,212 --> 00:29:52,639 one works. 398 00:29:52,639 --> 00:29:54,338 There's been decades of studies on this. 399 00:29:54,338 --> 00:29:59,315 Steel in the 80s, a major review by Cohen and Sherman in 2014. 400 00:29:59,315 --> 00:30:00,933 Look at what it actually is. 401 00:30:00,933 --> 00:30:04,453 Not telling you you're great. 402 00:30:04,453 --> 00:30:08,299 You write about a value you already hold. 403 00:30:08,299 --> 00:30:10,568 Something you already love. 404 00:30:10,568 --> 00:30:15,107 And people become less defensive, more open, more able to change. 405 00:30:15,107 --> 00:30:19,889 So you're not manufacturing a self, you're remembering one. 406 00:30:19,889 --> 00:30:24,954 Here's what I know about me and I'm going to write that down. 407 00:30:24,954 --> 00:30:26,535 You're remembering something about you. 408 00:30:26,535 --> 00:30:31,074 You're not trying to convince yourself that you're something you're not. 409 00:30:31,074 --> 00:30:39,142 This one, which admittedly I'm terrible at, sleep. 410 00:30:39,142 --> 00:30:45,068 There's a huge review published last year, 154 experiments, more than 5,000 people found 411 00:30:45,068 --> 00:30:50,466 that what sleep loss reliably strips out of a person isn't happiness. 412 00:30:50,466 --> 00:30:54,565 It's the capacity to be moved. 413 00:30:54,565 --> 00:30:57,325 A tired person isn't in more pain. 414 00:30:57,325 --> 00:31:01,343 They're less able to be delighted. 415 00:31:01,343 --> 00:31:02,966 Rest doesn't earn you anything. 416 00:31:02,966 --> 00:31:08,532 It restores the equipment of the word that we've been talking about for a year of awe. 417 00:31:08,532 --> 00:31:14,676 This idea, rest restores the equipment that awe runs on. 418 00:31:14,676 --> 00:31:21,594 So you can see things and be delighted. 419 00:31:21,594 --> 00:31:27,372 And because you know I can't help myself, the counter evidence, this is from the stage 420 00:31:27,372 --> 00:31:28,390 for free. 421 00:31:28,390 --> 00:31:35,877 The largest study anyone has done on clergy actually keeping Sabbath, 1,300 pastors, found 422 00:31:35,877 --> 00:31:41,943 no health effect at all once you account for social support. 423 00:31:41,943 --> 00:31:47,357 Gratitude journaling, the darling of the internet, right, barely beats doing any other halfway 424 00:31:47,357 --> 00:31:50,777 decent thing with your evening. 425 00:31:50,777 --> 00:31:52,935 So note the data on this. 426 00:31:52,935 --> 00:31:55,866 It's not necessarily like a slam dunk. 427 00:31:55,866 --> 00:32:00,711 It tells you that this study proves this practice will change your life is selling you a scoreboard 428 00:32:00,711 --> 00:32:03,561 and they have a lab coat on it just to try and... 429 00:32:03,561 --> 00:32:10,606 The honest read of all of this is that the practice that helps is the one that lets you 430 00:32:10,606 --> 00:32:20,299 to the truth. 431 00:32:20,299 --> 00:32:24,169 So why is this series called Unforced? 432 00:32:24,169 --> 00:32:29,342 Out of that whole passage, learn the unforced rhythms of grace. 433 00:32:29,342 --> 00:32:31,745 The word that I chose is unforced. 434 00:32:31,745 --> 00:32:34,677 Unforced is a rhythm word. 435 00:32:34,677 --> 00:32:39,524 A rhythm is this picture I know of how grace actually gets a person. 436 00:32:39,524 --> 00:32:43,881 Like, say with me, because a beat catches you before you decide anything. 437 00:32:43,881 --> 00:32:44,899 Right? 438 00:32:44,899 --> 00:32:47,261 Like, think about music. 439 00:32:47,261 --> 00:32:53,003 There's a study, 2009, researchers played drum patterns for newborns. 440 00:32:53,003 --> 00:32:55,242 Two days old. 441 00:32:55,242 --> 00:33:01,025 And when the patterns set up an expectation, boom, boom, boom. 442 00:33:01,025 --> 00:33:04,771 And then the downbeat went missing. 443 00:33:04,771 --> 00:33:15,354 The brand new brains, these little newborn two-day-old babies, they registered surprise. 444 00:33:15,354 --> 00:33:23,168 And the beat -- there was a pattern, boom, boom, boom, boom. 445 00:33:23,168 --> 00:33:31,063 Something in that newborn's brain said, wait, something's missing. 446 00:33:31,063 --> 00:33:36,272 I was already on the beat. 447 00:33:36,272 --> 00:33:44,449 The idea is you don't learn to be caught by a rhythm to arrive already caught. 448 00:33:44,449 --> 00:33:50,145 One baby is here and already knows, like, music does something, right? 449 00:33:50,145 --> 00:33:56,369 It goes further right now, sitting perfectly still, hands in your laps. 450 00:33:56,369 --> 00:34:04,871 If music with a good beat came on, your motor cortex, the movement part of your brain would 451 00:34:04,871 --> 00:34:11,988 already be active before you tap anything, before you catch that beat. 452 00:34:11,988 --> 00:34:17,437 Your body starts participating without even asking your permission. 453 00:34:17,437 --> 00:34:23,048 And the researchers who study groove, the quality that makes music feel good, they keep 454 00:34:23,048 --> 00:34:25,000 finding the same funny thing. 455 00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:32,278 The music people as most enjoyable is the music they rate as the least effortful. 456 00:34:32,278 --> 00:34:37,361 It's the ease of the music that's the pleasure. 457 00:34:37,361 --> 00:34:38,580 That's the cresstos. 458 00:34:38,580 --> 00:34:40,897 That's the well-fitting thing. 459 00:34:40,897 --> 00:34:42,401 It's a good thing. 460 00:34:42,401 --> 00:34:46,222 It's the same finding, just a different lab. 461 00:34:46,222 --> 00:34:53,497 One more in my favorite, a brain imaging study of people listening to music gives them chills, 462 00:34:53,497 --> 00:35:03,456 found that at the very peak of the musical pleasure, the amygdala goes quiet. 463 00:35:03,456 --> 00:35:05,528 You've heard me talk about the amygdala before. 464 00:35:05,528 --> 00:35:15,843 At the peak of the beauty of the music, the threat system in the brain stands down. 465 00:35:15,843 --> 00:35:18,117 And you guys have heard this before. 466 00:35:18,117 --> 00:35:27,294 There's a version of "Switchfoot Song Meant to Live" by my favorite artist, John Billy, 467 00:35:27,294 --> 00:35:34,237 and J.D.'s laughing because he probably knew that I was about to talk about this song. 468 00:35:34,237 --> 00:35:40,003 In this, the voice, the strings, it was recorded at Abbey Road. 469 00:35:40,003 --> 00:35:45,932 Billy has said publicly that this song "Meant to Live" by Switchfoot is one of the reasons 470 00:35:45,932 --> 00:35:52,916 that he got into music. 471 00:35:52,916 --> 00:35:56,895 And it's one of those songs that I cannot listen to it as background music. 472 00:35:56,895 --> 00:35:57,910 I try. 473 00:35:57,910 --> 00:35:58,925 I love it. 474 00:35:58,925 --> 00:36:05,503 You know, when your Spotify playlist end of year comes out or your Apple, whatever, whatever 475 00:36:05,503 --> 00:36:12,196 Android to listen to it on, my top artist, my top song for like the last three years 476 00:36:12,196 --> 00:36:13,818 has been this song by John Billy. 477 00:36:13,818 --> 00:36:16,049 Because I just, I love it. 478 00:36:16,049 --> 00:36:17,590 Hits me every single time. 479 00:36:17,590 --> 00:36:24,282 And I never once decided that like this is the song that's going to get me. 480 00:36:24,282 --> 00:36:25,296 It just does. 481 00:36:25,296 --> 00:36:31,541 Maddy likes to say when she hears music that like, that she just, that she loves that like, 482 00:36:31,541 --> 00:36:36,246 it makes her ears happy. 483 00:36:36,246 --> 00:36:38,315 And I can look at her and I know when that's happening. 484 00:36:38,315 --> 00:36:43,102 I'm like, oh, and my favorite is when John Billy in music does it because I'm like, oh, 485 00:36:43,102 --> 00:36:46,470 she likes my music too. 486 00:36:46,470 --> 00:36:49,391 Not mine, you know me. 487 00:36:49,391 --> 00:36:51,500 This is the whole series. 488 00:36:51,500 --> 00:36:55,192 It's what we're after, not eight weeks of trying harder, but eight weeks of getting back 489 00:36:55,192 --> 00:36:59,858 into rhythm with something that was already playing. 490 00:36:59,858 --> 00:37:01,967 You don't decide to feel a beat. 491 00:37:01,967 --> 00:37:07,891 It gets you first and then you just catch the rhythm. 492 00:37:07,891 --> 00:37:12,395 And the secret part about all of this is you're already practicing. 493 00:37:12,395 --> 00:37:16,088 Everybody is you reach for your phone before your feet hit the floor in the morning. 494 00:37:16,088 --> 00:37:18,361 That's a practice. 495 00:37:18,361 --> 00:37:24,448 You rehearse the argument in the shower that you're about to have later, but that's a practice. 496 00:37:24,448 --> 00:37:27,816 Getting your failures at two in the morning to yourself. 497 00:37:27,816 --> 00:37:30,048 That's a practice and you've gotten really good at it. 498 00:37:30,048 --> 00:37:35,932 The question this series keeps asking us is not, will you start practicing? 499 00:37:35,932 --> 00:37:41,943 The question is what are you practicing and did you pick it? 500 00:37:41,943 --> 00:37:46,736 So the assignment, one thing before next Sunday, I'm going to give you some homework. 501 00:37:46,736 --> 00:37:48,157 Pick one practice. 502 00:37:48,157 --> 00:37:52,056 And I want it to be the smallest possible version of anything that you can think of. 503 00:37:52,056 --> 00:37:53,803 Not this impressive version. 504 00:37:53,803 --> 00:37:57,621 The version so small you'd be embarrassed to post about it. 505 00:37:57,621 --> 00:38:01,601 Like you don't have to tell Instagram you did it. 506 00:38:01,601 --> 00:38:06,718 Like attention, 10 minutes outside without your phone. 507 00:38:06,718 --> 00:38:08,625 Just once this week. 508 00:38:08,625 --> 00:38:15,804 Rest, take two hours, put it somewhere in the week on purpose and don't try to earn 509 00:38:15,804 --> 00:38:16,899 that back afterwards. 510 00:38:16,899 --> 00:38:18,927 Like just two hours of rest. 511 00:38:18,927 --> 00:38:27,729 Or like a table, a connection, text one person this week that you don't typically text. 512 00:38:27,729 --> 00:38:33,286 And before you try to inflate it, the smallness of the thing is the point. 513 00:38:33,286 --> 00:38:35,274 The smallness of this is the theology. 514 00:38:35,274 --> 00:38:41,644 Like if you can't fail it, it can't become a scoreboard. 515 00:38:41,644 --> 00:38:42,983 That's not like some concession. 516 00:38:42,983 --> 00:38:46,108 That's the design of this whole thing. 517 00:38:46,108 --> 00:38:50,937 Because here's where we started this morning. 518 00:38:50,937 --> 00:38:57,470 Four people stood up here this summer and nobody argued their way into a new life. 519 00:38:57,470 --> 00:39:01,285 They practiced their way there. 520 00:39:01,285 --> 00:39:04,247 Small things over and over. 521 00:39:04,247 --> 00:39:09,299 In a room where it was finally safe to stop hiding. 522 00:39:09,299 --> 00:39:10,780 You're already rooted. 523 00:39:10,780 --> 00:39:13,743 You're already grounded. 524 00:39:13,743 --> 00:39:16,421 Somebody else has already done the work there for you. 525 00:39:16,421 --> 00:39:18,896 The creator created you for this. 526 00:39:18,896 --> 00:39:25,349 So we're going to spend the next eight weeks remembering that. 527 00:39:25,349 --> 00:39:31,314 It's what our whole final statement of every week that I say rides on. 528 00:39:31,314 --> 00:39:33,789 You were made to do this. 529 00:39:33,789 --> 00:39:38,862 You were made to be a conduit and a representation of the love of God. 530 00:39:38,862 --> 00:39:40,891 Made to practice love. 531 00:39:40,891 --> 00:39:41,905 You were designed for it. 532 00:39:41,905 --> 00:39:43,163 That rhythm is already in you. 533 00:39:43,163 --> 00:39:45,354 You just have to catch it. 534 00:39:45,354 --> 00:39:47,099 It's artisanal. 535 00:39:47,099 --> 00:39:48,317 Go do that. 536 00:39:48,317 --> 00:39:51,725 Catch that rhythm and go love well because it's who you're made to be. 537 00:39:51,725 --> 00:39:52,821 We'll see you next week. 538 00:39:52,821 --> 00:39:53,389 Love you guys.