In Portland As It Is In Heaven

Tanya Cushman Reviewer's Name Reviewer's Name

Enter through the narrow gate.

For wide is the gate, and broad is the road that leads to destruction,

and many enter through it.

But small is the gate, and narrow the road that leads to life,

and only a few find it.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Just a couple of years ago now,

I saw an indie film called The Worst Person in the World.

I didn't know anything about it,

but I do have a weakness for old movie theaters

and a guilty pleasure relationship with popcorn,

and so that's how Kay and I ended up spending this Friday night

reading the subtitles

of a foreign individual's book,

Independent Film While Crunching Nutritional Yeast-Drenched Popcorn Kernels.

And the film documents the young adult life of Julie.

It covers all of her 20s and early 30s as she falls in and out of love,

she falls in and out of purpose,

in and out of identities that she tries on like outfits,

in and out of meaning,

finding it briefly only to lose it as quickly as she thought she had it.

Julie's young adult life is in most ways entirely unremarkable.

It's normal, common.

Probably not so unlike mine or yours.

The film is abrasively titled The Worst Person in the World

because it so quietly, so justifiably documents Julie living selfishly,

wedged between desires for self-fulfillment and self-protection.

She manages to dabble in loves and career paths and communities and lifestyles,

but never commit, never give of herself, never lose herself,

that she has.

That's what she does.

That's what she thinks she might find herself.

And so she ends some 15 years later basically exactly where she began,

objectively cool, fashionably uncommitted,

completely alone, and entirely unfulfilled.

The Worst Person in the World is an okay movie by entertainment standards,

but it is a brilliant piece of art

because it is showing us a profound truth of the human condition,

that all of us are becoming a certain kind of someone right now.

We are being shaped.

We are being shaped, molded, formed by the choices and conditions of our lives.

And we will all awaken one day to look that person in the mirror.

Will I like who I see?

Is he or she who I aim to become, who I mean to become,

who I want to become, or who I accidentally became somewhere along the way?

And maybe for a few of us, we'll become the certain kind of someone we've become

through some dramatic twist of fate, or, you know, we'll become the certain kind of someone we've become through some dramatic twist of fate,

or defining event that happens in our lives.

But for the vast majority of people,

it'll happen a lot more like it did to Julie.

Slowly, quietly, cumulatively,

over thousands of tiny decisions,

we become a certain kind of father,

a certain kind of mother,

a certain kind of wife,

or a certain kind of husband,

a certain kind of son,

or a daughter,

brother, or sister,

or a certain kind of friend,

a certain kind of co-worker,

a certain kind of neighbor,

and it will not be your best intention that chooses.

for you. It won't be your willpower or your discipline or your circumstances. It will be

your rabbi. Yes, your rabbi. Because everyone is a disciple, which is just ancient biblical

language for everyone is aiming their life at someone or something. Everyone is directing all

of their attention and affection in a particular direction. And whoever or whatever sits at the

end of that direction is forming you into its image with every step you take along the path

toward it. When Jesus walked the earth for 33 years, his primary invitation was not listen to

me, consider my teaching, or even believe in me. It was follow me. To two groups of brother

fishermen, follow me. A tax collector working for the empire, follow me. A demonized sex worker,

follow me. A priest who sneaks his questions in at midnight,

follow me. A man making funeral arrangements for his father, a wealthy young success story,

a future betrayer, and a restored betrayer, follow me. In the first century, this was called

discipleship. And disciples are people who are committing their entire selves to live under a

rabbi's life and teaching. So they definitely listen to that rabbi and take in all of their

ideas and learn their philosophy, but they would also follow that rabbi,

in the most literal sense. They went everywhere the rabbi went. They ate what they ate,

slept where they slept, they lived how they lived. The aim was to take on the rabbi's whole life,

to embody their person, to become them. The English word that we have for it today that

probably best captures this idea is apprentice. An apprentice is someone who's trying to learn

everything from a master, which of course does involve study and sitting and talking and

cognitive learning. And so, when you're a rabbi, you're a master. You're a master. You're a

learning. But it also involves practice and doing. If you're going to learn a trade, like say to become

a mechanic, then that will involve understanding the engine and watching the master take it apart

and put it back together. But if you want to become a mechanic, of course, at some point,

you're going to have to get your hands greasy and do the work yourself. You're going to have to

practice. And Jesus was a first century Jewish rabbi with disciples, and he definitely sat with

and taught his disciples. And he taught his disciples. And he taught his disciples. And he

taught his disciples. But he also made them participants alongside him. He eventually

sent them out with authority due to the very things they'd seen him doing, and then brought

their reports back when they came back to him. And then eventually he blessed and commissioned

them to go and make disciples of their own. In a word, that's discipleship. And that is the

invitation of Jesus. It's an invitation that still stands for you and me today. And so,

apprenticeship to Jesus in our modern context might sound something like

the way of Jesus together in Portland. And that is our mission. It's the foundation of the house

that you walked into today. It's who we are. It's what we value most and what we're most about around

here. And we define that ancient invitation through these three imperatives. Be with Jesus,

become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did. And so today, on back to school Sunday, if you will,

we're going to return to those foundations.

Invitation to join or to rejoin that mission as we engage this next year together. So first,

be with Jesus. Mark chapter 3. He appointed 12 that they might be with him and that he might

send them out to preach and have authority to drive out demons. So Jesus is going to teach

his disciples everything he knows. He's going to send them out to preach. He's even going to fill

them with the very power that fills him to do the very things they've seen him doing. But first,

he called them that.

Be with Jesus. Mark chapter 3. He appointed 12 that they might be with him. There's nothing more

meaningful, nothing that communicates more deeply from one to another than the simple four-letter

word with. In life's great celebrations, weddings, and birthdays, and graduations,

we think of who we want to be with us to mark the occasions. And in life's tragedies,

heartbreaks, and hospital visits, and funerals, we think of who we want to be with us to write

out the grief. Life is filled with demands and activities, work and errands, career and

obligations. But on your deathbed, it will not be your resume, your to-do list, or your agenda

that you're thinking about, but it will be relationship. The people that you got to spend

your days with. Be with Jesus. That is where discipleship starts. The New Testament author

John famously wrote,

God is love. And you know, there's a whole lot in the Bible that doesn't play well as a soundbite

in today's post-everything Western culture. But God is love? That worked then, and it still does

now. You could slap that on a bumper sticker and put it on the back of a Portland Prius,

and no one would bat an eye. But of course, John's not printing bumper stickers. He is

summarizing discipleship. He is defining the one that you and I are invited to be with.

And God is love.

God is not love as an abstract concept. God is not love as you or I might define love.

God is love as he revealed it to be. And God has shown himself to us as Father in heaven,

as Son who came to dwell among us, and as Spirit who even dwells within us. In other words,

God is Trinitarian love. Among his last words, Jesus prayed, Father, I want those you have given

me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me,

because you loved me before the creation of the world. Now, what was that glory? What was

before the creation of the world? Well, there was a Father, Son, and Spirit in perfect union.

There was a God in community, a Trinitarian kind of love, a God who at the very core of his being,

in just a one-word descriptor of his personality, is called love. And that means that the entire

motive behind Genesis' creation is sharing that love with God. And that's what God is doing.

That love with another. Think of a happily married couple saying, you know, the love that we share

between the two of us is so good. And what would amplify that love is to bring a child into the

world so that we could together direct this love that we already have toward that other. In this

prayer, Jesus is saying, you and I are that other. We are the one that the God of communal love is

directing every ounce of that other. And that's what God is doing. And that's what God is doing.

That love toward. And then he prays on, I have made you known to them and will continue to make

you known to them in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in

them. So why did Jesus come in his own words? In order that the love that created the world

might be in you and me. That means that discipleship, according to Jesus, is a relational

category. It is a journey. It is a journey. It is a journey. It is a journey. It is a journey.

It is a journey deeper and deeper in to this God of communal love until I find that my whole being

is found in him. And that's really important because in the modern church, we tend to think

of discipleship through a post-enlightenment westernized lens, not in a relational way,

but rather in a linear way. When we use the word disciple these days, it's almost always as a verb,

right? Who are you discipling? Are you being discipled?

By which we usually mean some version of one-to-one mentorship involving a weekly meeting and a

typically pretty vanilla book study. And there is relationship cultivated in that paradigm between

mentor and mentee, but the primary focus is the passing on of information, right? It's the exchange

of a set of facts or ideas about the biblical story and the identity of God and all that that

means for me. And that's great, but it's not the way discipleship works. It's the way discipleship

works. It's the way discipleship works. It's the way discipleship works. It's the way discipleship works.

Discipleship is used biblically or throughout most of church history. Historically speaking,

disciple is a noun, not a verb. It was not a class that you would take, and the primary aim was not

information. It was a relational identity that you took on. Who you are entirely redefined

in relationship to another. In fact, the opening scene of John's gospel is a couple of potential

disciples approaching Jesus to ask a question. Rabbi, where are you discipling? And the primary

question is, where are you staying? Now, the English word staying in this passage in the original

Greek is meno, which can be translated stay, but elsewhere, John's gospel translates the same word

into English as abide or remain. So in John 1, the disciples are coming to Jesus saying, Rabbi,

can we meno you? Can we stay with you? Can we remain with you? Can we abide in you? Can we be

with you?

And on the other side of Jesus' three-year ministry, after all the miracles and the teachings

on the last day that the disciples are going to see him this side of the cross, he says back to

them what they asked him in the very beginning, remain meno in me as I also remain in you.

At one end of the story, we have disciples asking to be with Jesus, and at the other end of the

story, Jesus says back to us, I promise to always be with you. And at the other end of the story,

this is what sets Jesus apart first from every other rabbi, that his commitment to you will

always outpace your commitment to him. Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you. His love,

I'm talking about the love that birthed all of creation, that is pointed directly at you,

and it is both the most valuable thing you've got and the most unlosable thing that you've got.

And believing that, believing it enough to build a life on it and to live this,

day like that is true, that is the first battle of discipleship and the one that you will never

stop fighting. Nothing in your life will ever be as formative or as contested as God's irrevocable

love for you. Nothing in your life will ever be as formative or as contested as this simple

four-letter word, with, meno. So be with Jesus and become like Jesus. If I had to summarize Jesus's

message in just a phrase, I would go with this,

a broad invitation and a narrow way. Jesus was a rabbi with a very unusually broad invitation.

I mean, first century Jewish discipleship, the world that he spoke and lived within,

it worked this way. There were three primary levels of temple education, Beit Sefer, Beit Talmud,

and Talmudim, which were kind of like high school, undergrad, and grad school for ancient

Jewish communities, only there were way fewer schools making this whole thing,

much, much, much more competitive. Only the very best and the brightest, think summa cum laude at the

most exclusive Talmudim, could even get a rabbi to glance at their resume. So to become a disciple

of a rabbi was like getting a full ride to an Ivy League school, or landing a dream residency right

out of college, or being on the Forbes 30 under 30 list of ancient Israel. And then Jesus shows up

in Mark chapter 8 saying things like,

Hold on. Whoever? I mean, that's what he said. And his disciples included more than just the 12,

by the way. I mean, he did have the inner ring of the three, and then the large group of the 12.

There were the 72, and then there's what the gospel authors term the crowds, which was a much

broader group that included male and female disciples, peasants and the privileged, political

liberals and conservatives of their day. Whoever wants to be my disciple,

and just to point out the obvious, whoever means whoever, there are no qualifications or

disqualifications for entry into apprenticeship with Jesus. You, no matter who you are,

no matter if you've done something so horrific you cannot forgive yourself, or if you have lived so

in between the lines you're not sure you've ever really lived, no matter if you hold such a low

view of yourself that you deem yourself unlovable, or such a high view of yourself that you think

you're the only one who's lovable. You, no matter who you are, are invited. Whoever means whoever.

The invitation of this rabbi is that broad. But a question remains. What's on the other side of that

very broad invitation? Well, that takes us back to our teaching text. If you would, look back with

me at your Bibles, returning to Matthew chapter 7, beginning in verse 13. For wide is the gate,

and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through.

but small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.

Now, the English word road here is the ancient Greek hodos, which can also be translated as

way. You will find this word over a hundred times in the New Testament. The vast majority

of instances come straight from the lips of Jesus. It's one of his favorite words.

So according to Jesus, and this is a theme throughout his teaching, there's more than

one way on offer. And plenty of people are on the broad road, which is very easy to walk,

but ultimately leads to death. It's chipping away at my true inner person with every step

that I take, minimizing my sense of joy, dignity, and freedom. But there's also a narrow way,

which does require much more intention to walk, but it leads to more life with every

step that I take, increasing my sense of joy and dignity and freedom.

And it was just that, the narrow way that Jesus's earliest followers were known for.

They were even named by it. Hodos is the very same word that we read four times in the book

of Acts when the church is referred to as the way and Jesus's early disciples called by the

outsiders, followers of the way. That's how central the narrow way of Jesus was to his

earliest followers. They were known by the counter-cultural lifestyle they took on,

that looked distinctly unlike anything in their world, but distinctly like their rabbi.

The invitation is broad. It's as broad as whoever. The way is narrow, but it does lead to life.

And the technical word for the life of Jesus is salvation. Salvation is a biblical word that

encompasses our past, present, and future. Biblically, salvation is all about what Jesus

has done for us.

He's doing for us and will do for us. However, in recent times, salvation is often described

as purely the past work of Jesus, ignoring the present and future dimensions. It's not

about what you do for God. It's about what God has done, past tense, for you. You ever

heard an explanation like that? Yes, that's absolutely true, but it's also incomplete.

You see, many of us, when we heard Jesus' invitation, it sounded more like, if you

accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, you will receive his grace and go to heaven when you

die. Beautiful, true, and incomplete. The obvious oversight in this explanation of

Jesus' invitation is life. Your entire life, which I'd argue is a pretty significant

oversight. Jesus is not only teaching us how to die, he's also showing us how to live.

Put as simply as possible, this explanation on its own divorces the truth of Jesus from

the way of Jesus. It creates the possibility of receiving Jesus' life without ever becoming

Jesus' disciple, a way of intellectually affirming Jesus' life without actually taking on Jesus'

lifestyle. And that, over time, can turn transformation into nothing more than a transaction. It

can minimize the full, expansive invitation of Jesus into just a fraction of that invitation,

and reimagine heaven as a future destination that I'll arrive at, rather than a present

invading reality that I'm experiencing now in increasing measure.

What happens when we hold the truth of Jesus, but we forget the way of Jesus? We never actually

grow up into the life that we're reborn to live by that truth. Hebrews chapter 5 says,

anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about

righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves.

Therefore, let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward

into maturity. Now hear me on this. Grace and grace alone is the generative force that

gives new life. And new life is meant to mature. It's meant to grow up. Think about the way

of human development, right? A baby is born into this world and then fed, cuddled, and

cared for.

By unconditional parental love. And that love never goes away. It never expires. But that

love is also meant to grow an infant up, to safely enable him or her to learn to feed

themselves, dress themselves, and cooperate with others without supervision or the threat

of discipline. And eventually, we're meant to have children of our own and direct that

same unconditional love we received toward another. And the way of spiritual development

is identical to the way of human development. We are reborn by grace, nourished in God's

unconditional love. And that never goes away. It never expires. It's the most valuable and

unlosable thing you've got, remember? That love is meant to grow us up, though. It's meant to tame

our desires and curate our appetites toward creativity rather than destruction. And ultimately,

that love leads me to a sacrificial, self-giving way of loving others. Jesus' call is both broad

and narrow.

The broad invitation is called grace. It is wide open. Everyone's invited. Come on in and be with

Jesus. And the narrow way of growing up in that grace, it's an offer of participation, meaning it

does require effort, intention, and practice on our part to become like Jesus. And if you're

beginning to squirm because that sounds like it's just a hint legalistic to you, you should know

I'm just the messenger here.

I mean, Jesus himself ended his most famous sermon with the very direct proposition,

therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who

built his house on the rock. This is a foundation that's going to hold through life's triumphs and

trials alike. And then Jesus goes on, but everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put

them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. That's a foundation

that cannot withstand these trials and storms. They're guaranteed to intrude on our lives in a contested

world. Jesus himself very directly tells us if you take my truth without practicing my way, you won't

discover my life. Eugene Peterson says the Jesus truth only when it is wedded to the Jesus way

produces the Jesus life. Or the apostle Peter who walked day in and day out with Jesus as one of

those core three, he said, for this reason,

make every effort to add to your faith and then list the virtues that come along with walking the

narrow way. Make every effort. It sounds a whole lot like that famous line from Dallas Willard,

grace is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning. And likewise, the apostle John says that

walking the narrow way is how we communicate love back to God because it's the way that we show

active trust in him. Now, I know that this isn't popular, but just to jar you awake with

what I'm actually saying, let me put it this way. Jesus is interested in behavior modification.

He actually does want you to walk an admittedly narrow path. The unique thing about Jesus is not

that he has no interest in behavior. That's not loving, right? If I had no interest in my own

children's behavior, I would knowingly and willingly let them act in a way that is destructive

both to themselves and to others. That's not love. The unique thing about Jesus is that he's not

God. The unique thing about Jesus is that it's grace that fuels maturity rather than fear. Behavior

is modified by love, not fear. That's what sets the way of Jesus apart. Jesus could not be less

interested in legalism. He's not grading your moral behavior, but he's relentless when it comes

to your transformation. He is redeeming you and inviting you to work alongside him in that

redemption. And he knows that transformation is a long,

difficult journey. And that's why he's so patient, so gentle, so kind, and so present with us

for every step of the walk along the narrow way. According to a 2013 survey from the Barna

Research Group, 84% of young adult non-Christians said that they know a Christian personally.

But only 15% of those said the lifestyle of that belief is not Christian.

This is the sobering diagnosis of generations of disciples reborn into the Jesus truth

who have never grown up by the Jesus way. Or the anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann, who spent

years investigating the praxis of various religious communities around the globe and

then published this fascinating book called How God Becomes Real. Her review of the Christian

church reads like this.

When you pay attention, you can see that the church services are about reminding people to take God

seriously and to behave in ways that will enable God to have an impact on their lives. To pray,

to read the Bible, to be Christ-like. That's a fair description, right? It's a fair summary of

what we're doing here. I think it's a pretty beautiful description even. Read on. And then

people say that they go back home and yell at their kids and feel foolish because they've

forgotten that they meant to be like Jesus. They report that they run out of time, that they're

out of time to pray. They confess they do not behave as if God can help them. They worry that

they do not really understand or commit as they should. Ouch. That's much less beautiful. But is

it any less accurate? I can remember this one morning recently. This was just within the last

two weeks when I was on a run in downtown Portland early one morning, running along the river, and I

was so captivated by the majesty of the sunrise.

That it stopped me in my tracks. And I just stood there drinking it in. I snapped a photo of it on my

iPhone. And I was just gazing at this sunrise. And I was so taken by it, I started talking to other

strangers passing by. I was like, are you seeing this? This is mind-blowing. Unbelievable. And I

spent the rest of the jog home like staggering in this prayerful stupor at the God who wastes

his masterpieces on the hours that most of us snooze away.

And even those of us who are awake, we tend to gaze more into the glow of like a pocket-sized

screen than we do at what he's painting across the sky. And then I got home just lost in that

state of prayer. And I went inside and I made a single-origin locally roasted pour-over. And so

at that point, I've got endorphins, I've got a spiritual high, and I've got caffeine all working

together. And I've got caffeine all working together. And I've got caffeine all working together. And I've got

caffeine all working together within me. It was pure magic. And I walked out onto the porch where

I have a kind of outdoor prayer closet with a candle that I light that represents the presence

of God and this special pen that doesn't write. It glides across my journal, you know. And my

Bible and everything's sitting there. I'm a particular kind of person, you know. And so

I walk out there, only my candle's gone. The pen has glided somewhere else.

The pen completely glided anything else. And so I start looking around, I

know exactly what's happened. Amos, my two-year-old, he has taken a recent fascination in his

father's little prayer closet and so eventually I found the candle in our mailbox. Half the

beeswax peeled off of it, never recovered the pen nor the matches to light the candle.

And at this point, I was so agitated that I walked in to talk to Kirsten who had just

walked up or woken up, to say, how could you let this happen to my one space, my one wellness,

to be Gates of legislative child with the faith you can use. And then when he got home and he茶 etwas,

one space. And then I gave Amos a little talk about not touching daddy's special things.

The wonder of the sunrise

washed away

in just an instant at something as small as a beeswax candle that's gone missing.

So here's the question. How do I pull the majesty of the sunrise down onto the porch with me?

How do I pull it into my parenting, into my husbanding, into my relating and my becoming?

How does my life bear the fruit of prayer after I say amen? And why does all of my being with Jesus

not seem to seamlessly lead to my becoming like Jesus? The common experience in the life of the

everyday believer is not life and life to the full, but something more like this vicious cycle,

the cycle of the

normal Christian life, which goes something like inspiration, try harder, guilt, and then

disillusionment. I'm inspired. And so I commit myself that I'm going to try harder to live in

the way of Jesus in the days to come, inevitably leading to my stumbling and failure at some level,

which just produces guilt within me. And I grow disillusioned, wondering if this thing is even

possible until I'm re-motivated by another.

compelling vision that inspires me. And the cycle just repeats itself in my life again and again

and again. Does that feel familiar to you at all? Now, the critical error in this cycle occurs in

step two, try harder. We often think enough messing around. This time is going to be different

because this time I really mean it. I'm going to try harder. And that method never works. And

there are two primary reasons it doesn't work. The first is because willpower is a depleting

resource. This is why most people find it easier to say no to a donut in the morning than they do

a glass of wine with dinner or a scoop of ice cream before bed at night, because their willpower

has been worn down throughout the day. Willpower is a depleting resource, and that means it cannot

be the resource that fuels spiritual maturity. And the second reason is because we mature by

training, not by trying.

Right? If you want to learn to play the violin or to publish a novel or to run a six-minute mile,

trying harder won't help. Gritting your teeth and really trying this time is not going to

harmonize those squeaky strings. But training or practice will. Trying, I really mean it this time,

leads to more failure, giving way to more guilt, perpetuating disillusionment. But practice

converts that moment of

inspiration into freedom and life in the days to come. And practice, as opposed to gritted teeth,

is an open-handed invitation to the Spirit of God who lives within me to be the power source

of my transformation. It's not merely a spiritual improvement plan. So I want to replace that false

cycle of spiritual maturity with a true one. See, practice, blessing.

So first,

see, this is all about the wonders of God. It's often called revelation, because God reveals

something new to me about Himself or about my true self or His invitation to me in this

particular season of my life and all that it's presenting me with. And whenever something new

is revealed to me about God and His invitation, it should be converted into practice. Right?

Every new glimpse of who He is, who I am, and what the good life is can and should be

converted into practice, some tangible way that I can live in step with that revelation

in my ordinary life in the days to come. And that can certainly look like one of the classic

spiritual disciplines, like a commitment to a rhythm of prayer or Sabbath or fasting or

Scripture. But it can also look very unique and personal to me, like a commitment to simplify

my possessions by cleaning out my closet, or prioritize a particular friendship, or begin

to get eight hours of sleep every night or start a Saturday nightPIPE.com. Here we go,

this is what I've been doing in the past. I've been really participating with people and

start a Saturday morning hiking ritual. The practices themselves aren't powerful. The aim

of every spiritual practice is the life that that practice frees me to live over time. Spiritual

practices are, this is my definition at least, intentional temporary expressions of something I

want to become naturally, constantly true of me, right? No one practices the piano so that they can

find middle C quicker than anyone else in class, right? You practice the piano so that you can

throw your head back and get lost in the music like Ray Charles. I do not practice silence and

solitude because I want to grow in stamina until I can sit in silence and solitude for longer and

longer periods of time.

Without becoming distracted. That would be to make the practice an end in itself. The reason I

practice silence and solitude is because I want to become a naturally less hurried, more present,

less anxious, more peaceful person in the stressful flow of ordinary life. And that makes practice

this intentional time-bound expression of something I'm hoping to become naturally and

constantly true of me, not an end in itself, but rather a means to a greater end. What is

that end? What is that end? Blessing. Because once something's been seen by God and then inhabited

by practice, he can partner with my simple participation alongside him to simply say, God,

I'm going to hold myself in this place day after day, inviting your spirit to transform within me,

to bring about the peace that I can't seem to give myself, the slowing that I can't seem to

bring myself to, the unhurried nature by which I want to confront the stressful situations,

of my life? Will you free me to abundant life as I practice the simple posture of stillness?

Do you see the difference there? I love the sober honesty of Pete Gregg, who says,

anyone who says that it's easy to follow Jesus is a liar. He himself says that the way is narrow,

but nothing we forego in the cause of Christ. Wealth, popularity, kudos, not even our very

lives can come anywhere close to the return. The price we pay for following Jesus, whatever it may

be, will acquire for us the most astounding bargain of our lives. And that's Jesus's invitation.

It's a broad invitation, a narrow way, and the bargain of a lifetime. So be with Jesus,

become like Jesus, and then lastly, do what Jesus did. This is where we're going to spend the

entirety of the day.

We're going to spend the fall together, exploring the multifaceted ways that all spiritual formation

is ultimately for the sake of others. And so for today, I'll simply say this. The aim and

destination of the spiritual journey is not lifestyle balance or personal peace or even

my own character formation as an end in itself, but it's rather to become love. The love that

created the world in the first place, that's been channeled directly to me through the God

of Trinity.

This is how God renews the world. And practically speaking, there are three ways or three categories

of ways that Jesus invites us to become channels of that great love. Spoken love, supernatural love,

and sacrificial love. Spoken love is all about proclaiming the message of Jesus. And I should

just say right out of the gate that I am very aware that evangelism is not just about the love of God,

but about the love of God. And I know that evangelism is terribly out of style. I know that it evokes the

image of a bullhorn preacher or a turn or burn sign on the street corner. I know that no one likes to

be evangelized to, whether it's about a timeshare in Tahiti or an essential oils pyramid scheme that

your friend's investing in or Jesus of Nazareth. I know that the most outspoken evangelists are

often speaking love in a way that somehow feels highly confrontational and entirely unloving.

And I also know that evangelism is about the love of God. And I know that evangelism is about the love of God.

I also know that preaching the gospel is a central priority of Jesus. He's the good shepherd who

leaves the 99 to go after the one. He's the son of man who came to seek and save the lost. And he

commissioned all of us, his followers, to go out speaking the message of the gospel. I know that it

can be uncomfortable to be someone who walks around sharing Jesus's gospel through my speech.

And I know that if I walk around as Jesus's disciple not sharing his gospel through my speech,

something has gone horribly wrong.

And so here is where most of us live in this tension between out-of-style evangelism

and the priorities of Jesus. And so maybe I could relieve a little bit of the tension

that you feel just by reminding you that everyone is preaching a gospel, right? The gospel of

anti-racism or sexual liberation, the gospel of democratic socialism or American nationalism,

the gospel of keto dieting,

or Wim Hof cold plunging, or CrossFit weights, or Gwyneth Paltrow crystals in the bottom of your

water bottle, right? All of these are gospels. They're messages about where hope lies, where

the fullest kind of life is found, where you can form a sense of community, and where you can be

made into a better person. Everyone is preaching a gospel. Jesus's disciples are simply the people

in this world preaching his gospel. And Jesus's gospel goes something like this. There's a

God so infinitely loving who offers you life so full that you've only ever tasted it in drops.

And his great passion is to so fully heal and redeem you that one day you will be swimming

in an ocean of what you've only tasted in drops. And he has actually supplied you even now with

everything you need for the fullest kind of life and everlasting relationship with him.

And he will not stop until he has renewed every square inch of his creation to be reunited with

heaven.

I mean, look, as far as news goes, I would say good is a pretty conservative descriptor of that

message. So there's spoken love, then there's supernatural love. There's no denying that the

way that Jesus showed up was more than just with an eloquent message, but that he also had

supernatural demonstrations of power to put that message on display in our world, right?

He's healing the terminally ill, delivering the demon-possessed,

the handicapped, or standing up and tap dancing with a single word from his lips.

Jesus' supernatural ministry, it's not a haphazard magic trick so that he can hold

your attention for the message. His miracles are signs of his message. They are the in-breaking

kingdom of God demonstrated among us. And in this way, Jesus' teaching and his power are

intertwined. And that matters for us because near the end of his life, Jesus started talking a whole

lot about leaving and sending, right? I'm going away, but it's for your good.

It's for your good that I go because unless I go, I can't send you the gift of my spirit so that you'd

be filled with the very presence and power that you've seen in me. And then it's after his death

and resurrection when Jesus appears to his disciples in the upper room in John chapter 20

that he breathes on them and says, receive the Holy Spirit. And if you're tracking with the story,

most of the New Testament from there is essentially just ordinary people doing the very stuff that

Jesus did, right? It's a supernatural people filled with the Spirit of God. And if you're

a follower of Jesus, expressing the supernatural love of Jesus, you, if you are a follower of

Jesus, are filled with his supernatural presence and power. And part of apprenticeship to Jesus

is learning to be a steward of that supernatural presence and power in your ordinary world.

And then finally, there's sacrificial love. On his last night, Jesus has said to his disciples,

greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.

What's he talking about? What does it mean to lay down my life for my friends?

It means patiently sitting by the bedside of the suffering one who wasn't granted a miracle

healing story. It means quietly serving the overlooked people group in our city or the

overlooked person in your Bridgetown community. It means expanding your dinner invitation this

coming Friday night to include the lonely one or the forgotten one or the one who might not have

plans. It means forgiving the offense, even the one she seems totally unaware that she committed.

Without making her pay for it first. It's absorbing the cost. It's laying down my life

in an attempt to give more life to another person. Jesus was a supernatural miracle worker, but of

course his most powerful miracle came not by spectacle, but by suffering. Not by wowing the

crowds, but by dying before them. And it didn't happen under a spotlight, but on a cross.

Sacrificial love, Jesus says that's the most potent kind. The aim of our apprenticeship to

Jesus is to, just like our rabbi, become a gift of love for others, to be poured out like a drink

offering in the language of the Apostle Paul. So spiritual formation does benefit me, certainly.

It's life and life to the full. But the way to know and live that life is by giving it all away

in love. The very love that created the world channeled directly to me that I might become a

living expression of that love here in this world to him or to her. Spiritual

formation is for the sake of others. So be with Jesus. Become like Jesus. Do what Jesus did. That's

our mission. That's what we're about around here. That's who we're trying to become. And we believe

the church is family. So if you're new around here, we just want you to know the family that

you've stepped into. We want you to know who we are and what we value, because you are invited.

No matter who you are, no matter if it's your first Sunday with us or you've been here for decades,

you are invited to join or to

rejoin us in the broad invitation and narrow way behind Rabbi Jesus. That's the purpose of our

discipleship pathway. It is our attempt to map what we offer to you as Bridgetown Church onto

the ancient and present invitation of apprenticeship to Jesus, allowing you to find yourself within the

story and then identify what your next step may be. So as you move through the layers of this

pathway from gatherings to courses to community and to covenant,

you will always be interacting with the same nine core practices for apprenticeship to Jesus that

serve as our foundation here as Bridgetown Church. What changes as you move along the pathway is

simply the level of depth and commitment by which you're engaging those practices. For example,

the Practicing the Way course is an introduction to each of these practices one at a time over

the course of four weeks with zero commitment that you're ever going to do anything with it.

You're never going to do anything with the information. But to join a Bridgetown community is a way of

saying, I want to live the way of Jesus with others. So there's more commitment there and

there's also more depth available there. And our covenant community is more like, I want the way

of Jesus to be the defining shaping agent in my life. And for that to be true, I know that I'm

going to need daily habits and a community of people with that exact same desire to link arms

with over the long term. And I'm going to need daily habits and a community of people with that

exact same desire to link arms with over the long term. And I'm going to need daily habits and a community

of people with that exact same desire to link arms with over the long term. And I'm going to need

daily habits and a community of people with that exact same desire to link arms with over the long

haul. It's the deep end of the pool. So you're swimming in the same water as you move down the

pathway. You're simply wading deeper into both commitment to practice and commitment to people

as you go. And finally, if you're beyond considering Jesus, but you truly call yourself a

disciple or an apprentice of Jesus, and you call this community of Jesus's apprentices around you

family, those that you are following behind him after, then there's five things that you can do

five things that we ask of you around here, five commitments we ask everyone within the family.

The first is to practice the way of Jesus. It's simply that everything that I've been talking

about would be the rhythm of your life, that the core aim of your life would be to be with Jesus,

become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did. And the second is to live in community. We organize our

church in smaller Bridgetown communities that meet midweek around the table. If Sundays like

this around the stage are about seeing, glimpsing a new revelation of

God, midweek around the tables are about that seeing being worked into practice that it might

become the blessing of God in our lives in the days to come. And if you're not in a Bridgetown

community currently, the way in is through Basics, a course that we offer three times a year,

and it's coming up in early October. Registration is open right now to sign up online.

Then third, gather on Sundays. We actually do ask that you would prioritize the Sunday

worship gathering because we believe that we're formed by coming together.

Now look,

we know you're going to travel and all that kind of stuff, but when you are in the city,

in the flow of normal life, we believe that it should be a high priority for you to gather with

the families, that we are one church with three gatherings, 9 a.m., 11 a.m., and 5 p.m.,

all of which are here on the east side. And as you heard beginning tonight with middle school

ministry serving exclusively on Sunday evenings. Fourth, serve. The vast majority of what we do

is volunteer run. It takes all hands on deck to be the church. So if you're not going to be

serving, you can check out opportunities to serve on our website. And if you join one of our

serving teams, our ask is simply that you would serve in one way once a month. And if you're

already serving, thank you so much. And then finally, give. We're a church in the most ancient

sense, and that includes being a people of financial generosity. We exist entirely. Every

last thing that we do on the generosity of this local body. Ten percent of your income or tithing

is the biblical watermark. But if you're not giving at all, one percent as a regular practice

would be a phenomenal place to start. And if you've been giving an automated withdrawal of

ten percent that you never even think about it or feel it in any way, then maybe this is a good time

to prayerfully discern if God's calling you to a more radical way of generosity toward the local

church and or the poor and the needs around us. And look, this is honestly the stickiest one for

me to name as a pastor. I'm not a pastor. I'm not a pastor. I'm not a pastor. I'm not a pastor.

I'm fully aware of that. But at the same time, I believe in the generosity of the local body.

I believe every aspect of discipleship to Jesus leads to life and life to the full.

And I live this myself. And I will never call you to anything that I don't live myself.

So practice the way of Jesus. Live in community. Gather on Sunday. Serve and give. And please hear

me on this. This is 100 percent invitation. No obligation. No compulsion. No PR.

One day, sooner than you think, you're going to wake up and look in the mirror

to discover that somewhere along the way, you became a certain kind of parent,

certain kind of spouse, certain kind of co-worker, certain kind of neighbor, certain kind of friend.

And it probably won't be a dramatic, decisive event that decides who you become.

It'll probably be a lot of work. It'll probably be a lot of work. It'll probably be a lot of work.

It'll probably be a lot more like Julie, just a thousand of tiny decisions

on thousands of ordinary days. But either way, it won't be your best intention that chooses for you.

It won't be your willpower or your circumstances or a stroke of good or bad luck. It will be your

rabbi. Do you know who your rabbi is? Do you know where you are aiming the primary attention and

affection of your soul?

Do you know where you are aiming the primary attention and affection of your soul?

Because whoever or whatever that is, is forming you into its image.

We are a community of disciples, intentionally and unapologetically,

lining up behind Jesus as our rabbi to follow him, and you are invited.

You, whoever you are, wherever you are, are invited on this journey with a broad invitation,

a narrow way, and the bargain of a lifetime.

We are a community of disciples, intentionally and unapologetically, lining up behind Jesus

concerning the Light of God the Lord of all things.

And you are beginning your journey.

Happy Holidays!