Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] How is everyone tonight?
[00:00:03] Good. Well, I'm glad you're here, you brave souls that came. I was getting ready, and it was, like, getting darker and darker, and the storm was coming, and, like, everything was swirling in my backyard, and I was like, oh, boy, but the troops are here.
[00:00:15] Let's pray tonight.
[00:00:19] Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for how incredibly great you are tonight. I just pray for clarity of soul, clarity of mind.
[00:00:33] What is the most important thing in our life? And how do we organize our life in the kind of way that we can live it to its fullest?
[00:00:45] I trust in you so much. So I just pray that anything dumb, I'm going to say, you just take it away and that your goodness will flow through.
[00:00:53] In your son's name we pray. Amen.
[00:00:56] I'm reading this book, and it's called Practicing the Way.
[00:01:00] And it's very interesting to me because I think in the Christian world, there's a lot of words that are just like, you're kind of expected to know what they mean.
[00:01:14] And one of them we hear a lot is this idea of discipleship. Like, followers of Jesus are disciples of Jesus, but really it's like, such a Christian term that it's like, how do you define what a disciple is? Because you don't really hear it anywhere else. Right? And so I think sometimes in the Christian world, we get, like, caught up in our Christianese talk. And then it's like, if you're new, you're like, I don't know what the heck that even means or how to do that. And so for the past several years, I've been mentoring under my dad, who I think is so good at helping us, like, clarify and understand things better. And so this book that I'm reading, it is all about how to be a follower of Jesus.
[00:02:01] And what's cool about this book is it's simple and it's easy. But what he does is he says, from the very beginning, really, we kind of put discipleship with Jesus. Like, Jesus began this idea of discipleship, but that's not true. There were disciples before Jesus, and it really. To understand it. Oh, my goodness, do I love you. Welcome, you stud. I miss you. Good to see you.
[00:02:29] I have a little add, so it's hard for me to focus sometimes.
[00:02:33] Lucky, this sermon's on being distracted, so it really is appropriate. Anyways, so in this idea of discipleship, the author says, really, one of the best ways to understand it is to go back to the context of, like, the culture that Jesus was from. And he said, really? Instead of saying discipleship. It's really this idea of apprenticeship, and it all began in this early Jewish education.
[00:03:03] So I'm gonna give you a touch of history so we can really understand it tonight. Okay, so follow. Stick with me. I promise it's good. Okay. So when you lived in this Jewish context, in this culture, what you would do is you'd go to school around age 5, and it was very common because this Jewish tradition had an oral tradition where you would pass things on orally, verbally. And so when you were 5 to about 12, your education really was trying to help you memorize the first five books of the Bible, the Torah. So it's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And that is wild, because by the time they were done at 12, 13, they would have had those most likely five books memorized. And then for most of the kids, that would be the end of it. They would go on and work with their families and do what their fathers did and kind of carry on the tradition. But for those kids who wanted to keep going and kind of had the Smarts, from about 12 to 17, 18, they would continue their education, and they would get this.
[00:04:16] Have the entire Old Testament memorized.
[00:04:20] Some of you are like, I'll start with a verse. You know what I'm saying?
[00:04:25] So by the time they were 18, they would graduate with this whole Old Testament memorized. And for the majority, they were done. And they would go apprentice, and they would be done. But for the elite, for the Ivy League, they would continue. And what they would do is they would try to find a rabbi that they could apprentice.
[00:04:48] And so it would be very difficult. They would kind of grill you on what you knew, what you had memorized. And they kind of. If they felt like you had the. Like, the grit to do it, they would say, okay, come and follow me.
[00:05:03] And when you became an apprentice, your whole world was reorganized around three ideas. You were with your rabbi, so you would quite literally sit at the feet of your rabbi. You would eat with your rabbi. You would sleep next to your rabbi. You would follow him wherever he went. Like 24, 7, you were with your rabbi.
[00:05:27] The second thing they would wrap their whole world around was to be like your rabbi.
[00:05:33] And when you were with him and followed him, you would spend time with him, and you would become like your rabbi. And I was studying it, and they say that they would even try to do, like, the same inflection in the voice, and they would, like, really try to mimic them. And I was thinking, could you imagine if I was Trying to mimic my dad up here, like, oh, church.
[00:05:57] And I was like, that's not going to happen. But then the third thing they would revolve their life around was do what your rabbi did.
[00:06:06] And then by the time you were done with that, you would spend several years with your rabbi. And your rabbi would say, okay, it's time for you to go get disciples and go be a rabbi. Now, that's the Sarah version of it. So it's a little watered down, but that's the main idea.
[00:06:25] And so when we look at being like true followers of Jesus, the idea is we are apprentices.
[00:06:36] The idea is we now shape our life around these three main ideas.
[00:06:44] I want to be with Jesus, I want to be like Jesus, and I want to do what Jesus did.
[00:06:56] And so we're going to be in a three part sermon series talking about how do we really live this out.
[00:07:03] And so we're going to kick it off tonight with the idea of being with Jesus.
[00:07:10] Now, I have loved God my entire life. As far back as I can remember, I've loved him.
[00:07:16] I think I've tried a lot of things on my own. I've realized a lot of things don't work.
[00:07:23] And I have been like, in this, like, can we just be real tonight?
[00:07:30] Are we in the nest? Am I safe? I've been in this, like, season of just. I keep trying to figure things out because I've not. It's like, it's like the harder I work, the more discontent I am.
[00:07:45] It's like the busier I am, the less satisfied I am. And it's like I'm exhausted and I just. I keep trying to, like, switch my schedule and figure things out because ultimately I really, really, really do love God.
[00:08:04] And I want my life to be. I want to follow Him. I love this idea of being an apprentice to him.
[00:08:11] And what I have been realizing is that so often my life is disorganized.
[00:08:21] So often I have a million things I'm trying to juggle and I'm distracted easily.
[00:08:32] It's almost like we planned that, you know what I'm saying? But we didn't.
[00:08:36] And so my life is like. I'm like, okay, I'm going to spend some time with God. And then my phone goes off and then I'm lost in emails and texts. And I sometimes can get so busy, like, doing life that what's most important gets really pushed to the side. And whatever's urgent is what I'm living in.
[00:09:01] But God has this incredible plan for us. And every time I look at the life of Jesus, like, I'm so challenged by it, because he was never in a rush.
[00:09:11] Like, when you really look at the life of Jesus, he lived on the earth about 33 years and 30 of them.
[00:09:19] He didn't even start his ministry.
[00:09:22] He had, like, three full years to do everything that he was designed to do.
[00:09:31] And he was never rushed. Every conversation he had, every interaction he had, even when he got interrupted, it was like he was so sure and so steady and so present.
[00:09:45] And I believe he's got just something so much richer for us than this overwhelmed, busy life.
[00:09:55] And I was reading in the book of Luke because I was just thinking about this idea of, like, what does it look like to be with Jesus?
[00:10:04] And in Luke 10:38 through 42, we get this story. Now, it's a normal. It's like most of us have heard this story, and I've so underappreciated it in my life. So I want to look at it with fresh eyes tonight. So if you've heard it, stay locked in. Deal?
[00:10:21] Now, as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.
[00:10:28] And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.
[00:10:34] But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to him and she said, lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve, serve alone? Tell her then to help me.
[00:10:49] But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. I was like, man, you could insert my name there. Sarah, Sarah, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. That line leapt out. It's like I'd never read it before. But one thing is necessary, he said, and Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. Now, I have always read this story, and I get caught up in, like, the kitchen and the cooking. And I was like, I can't relate.
[00:11:27] Mama's a terrible cook. I can't relate. And I think too many times we get caught up in, like, the details of this story, and we miss the deeper picture here. So, like, I vibe with Martha in the sense that Jesus was coming to her house. You know what I'm saying?
[00:11:45] Like, if Jesus is coming to my house, I'm probably going to be anxious. Like, I'm probably going to want it to be perfect. I'm probably going to want the place to look great and there to be good food. And, like, I would want it to be great because Jesus is coming. We had the staff over yesterday, and my kids, we did, like, a staff giving for the staff, and we had, like, re. We had to, like, take our house apart, fit everyone in there, and set up tables, and we wanted it to look good. So one kid's vacuuming. Other kids are moving furniture onto our back porch because we had, like, nowhere else to put furniture. And we're, like, emptying the house. And, like, I just. I understand the idea. I don't blame Martha. She's doing nothing wrong here in the fact of, like, she wants to serve Jesus. Like, that's a beautiful thing. But I was looking at this word distracted, and I was looking up the root word behind it. And the root word for distracted literally means to be pulled apart.
[00:12:49] It literally means to be pulled apart.
[00:12:53] And I think about our life, and I was gonna bring these balls up to do this illustration, but I just. I wanna talk to you about it because I think we are all juggling a million things.
[00:13:06] Like, I think about my life, and I think about my husband as one ball and just how much I love him and how when you love someone, you carry them in your heart. You know what I'm saying? Like, when he's good, it's good. But when he's struggling, it is a weight that I carry.
[00:13:29] I'm a mama. So you can add on three more balls with the kids of, like, I carry them in my heart.
[00:13:39] I want them to be well. I want them to love God. I want them to be safe. And so now I've got just my family just juggling and carrying the weight of these people that I love.
[00:13:53] Can you relate to caring about somebody and caring them?
[00:14:00] I then think about my job and how lucky I am because I love it so much. But my job comes with a million things with it. And so now the things that I'm carrying every day, like, most weeks, I have about eight to 10 meetings. I need to prepare for sermons regularly podcasts. I lead the staff. So I carry them and their wellbeing, and I think about them. I love you people, and I think and I pray about you. And I'm walking around now with a million balls that I'm trying to hold and trying to juggle, but inevitably, what's happening, Balls are dropping.
[00:14:41] And then I feel like a loser, and I feel like I'm not doing enough, or I feel like a terrible mom, or I feel like I could be doing better at work, or. And then what happens is, because I am trying to hold all these things, I'm more vulnerable And I don't know about you, it can come across as like short fused or angry.
[00:15:10] It can come like, I become a little bit more sensitive to things.
[00:15:15] And so things that shouldn't really be a part of the weight I'm carrying. Like someone says something mean, I tuck it in and I keep it tight because now I'm gonna carry that with me too.
[00:15:26] And then every one of us has experienced in life the idea that things are put on us that we've never asked for. Any amen's in the room, okay? We've all had life situations that we never asked for. And now we're carrying around the weight of our life, the weight of our work, the weight of our family, the weight of school. Please, Jesus, take the wheel.
[00:15:51] And then that's my classmate back there.
[00:15:56] You ate up school. Now you're like walking around like this and listen like, it's no way to live, it's no way to function.
[00:16:09] Yet we all do it.
[00:16:12] And there's clues in our soul that we are being pulled apart.
[00:16:21] A lot of times for me, it feels like I'm done.
[00:16:25] I'm done.
[00:16:26] Lex and I have said probably more times than we should this past month. I can't possibly do one more thing because the weight is already too much and we're distracted and we're overwhelmed.
[00:16:50] And then I love this picture that Martha goes to Jesus in this moment. She's pulled apart, she has much to do, she's serving.
[00:17:01] And she went to Jesus and she says, lord, do you not care?
[00:17:08] And I think how many times I've been there of like holding all the things and balls are dropping and I'm like, God, where are you? Do you care?
[00:17:19] And I'm praying for other people to change.
[00:17:24] Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me alone? Tell her to help. Can you change, Mary? Jesus.
[00:17:34] And I'm all over here like, God, can you bring some help into my life?
[00:17:38] Can you change the way this is happening? And I'm holding on for dear life.
[00:17:46] But Jesus says, martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things.
[00:17:55] You know what I find is when I am in the weight of carrying life, when I'm in the weight of trying to hold all the balls and not letting them fall, the faster I go, the harder I try.
[00:18:13] And what happens is the faster I go, the more fear I live in and the more fear I live in, the more self focused I become.
[00:18:27] Because now it's all I can think about is all the things.
[00:18:32] And it causes deep anxiety, causes to be troubled and the sentence that I feel like it hinges on, but one thing is necessary. Jesus says this word for necessary. The idea is, you're lacking something and something is needed.
[00:18:54] And so Jesus is saying there is one thing that is necessary, that we're lacking something, but there's one thing that is needed.
[00:19:05] I love that Jesus simplifies everything for us. There's one thing that is needed and Mary chose it.
[00:19:17] Mary chose what filled the lack.
[00:19:25] And as I think about being with Jesus, the one thing that was necessary was being with Jesus.
[00:19:42] And I want to talk about how do we reorganize how we carry our life?
[00:19:48] How do we reorganize so that the balls aren't dropping and everything's weighing us down and we're grouchy and we're short tempered and we are done and we're able to carry the things in life that God's given to us.
[00:20:04] There's so many practices that I've like learned and picked up along the way. And I think at the very heart of being with Jesus, it's not on just Sundays, right? It's not just Wednesdays.
[00:20:22] The very heart of being with Jesus is that everywhere you go, you are with Jesus.
[00:20:30] I'm at the grocery store, I'm with Jesus.
[00:20:35] I'm in a fight, I'm with Jesus.
[00:20:39] I'm struggling. I'm with Jesus. I'm praising, I'm with Jesus. Like when we are with Jesus, when we are apprentices of Jesus, we are with him.
[00:20:50] We've restructured our life to say, God, you are my home.
[00:20:55] And what I need to do is I need to start training my mind to go back to Jesus, to come home to Jesus.
[00:21:08] And I've got this practice that I want to share with you tonight because it's been the most life changing practice in my life for the past two years, maybe longer, but really the past two years, because I am a controller and I want to help and I want to fix and I want to do all the things.
[00:21:32] I have to often surrender.
[00:21:38] I often have to like literally get down on my knees. This is like a position I take and I seek God.
[00:21:52] And what I try to do is I try to take that passage in First Peter so serious. It says, cast your cares me. Why?
[00:22:03] Because he cares for you.
[00:22:08] And I take an image of my husband and I cast my care to Jesus.
[00:22:19] I say, you love him so much more than I do.
[00:22:23] Will you wrap him in your loving care?
[00:22:27] I'm trusting you.
[00:22:30] Sometimes I take the image of my kids because I just stress and I worry and I just say, you love them more than I can even imagine. And that's hard for me to even think about because I love them so much.
[00:22:43] But you love them so much more.
[00:22:46] Can you wrap them in your career? There's things that are hard for me because they're so deeply rooted and so deeply ingrained into my soul because they happened when I was little.
[00:23:03] And it's ways that I have thought about myself poorly.
[00:23:07] It's poor body image and dumb, stupid things. But I am constantly taking it and saying, my identity is not in this, Father, so I surrender it to you.
[00:23:22] And now the most life giving thing that I have decided to do is to sit in the care of God every morning, as often as I can. Most mornings I wake up, I have to move a little bit because my body's.
[00:23:45] I got energy.
[00:23:48] And then I try to put on a worship playlist and I try to block out the noise of everything else. I started a couple years ago, getting up earlier than normal because this was my quiet time. Like, Jake is already off working out, the kids are normally sleeping. And so, like, I play a worship list and I tune out all the noises in my head.
[00:24:16] I tune out the buzzing of the cell phone and I say, I just want to be in your presence.
[00:24:28] I just want to be with you.
[00:24:35] And I sit and I listen.
[00:24:40] And oftentimes I will. I'll just tell him how much I love him.
[00:24:48] My dad and I have a podcast coming up in January, and we talk a little bit more in depth about what this looks like for both of us. But when you sit and you ask for the presence of God in your life, like, I just want to be with you. We're not taking a list of requests. I think praying and asking God for help is awesome, but this is a different kind of prayer.
[00:25:12] This is a kind of prayer where the reward is Jesus, where the reward is his presence. And let me just be honest with you, Sometimes I get 30 seconds where I feel.
[00:25:27] Sometimes I can spend 45 minutes and not want to move because I just want to be in his presence. And some days I can't really feel it, but the practice remains the same.
[00:25:41] I want to be with Jesus and church. What happens is when I wake up in the morning and I spend that time with Jesus where I just say, I am sitting in your love.
[00:25:56] I'm sitting in your care.
[00:26:00] I just want to be with you. The balls of my life start to reorganize.
[00:26:12] I hand and I surrender and I surrender and I surrender. But when I Sit in the presence of God. I feel like he's got it covered.
[00:26:25] I still have to show up. I still have to do the things that I am asked to do. I still have to be a great mom and a good wife and love this church and go to school for 20 more years.
[00:26:39] I did the math. I'm not joking.
[00:26:44] Thank you for the support, church.
[00:26:50] But when I sit in his care, there's like a peace.
[00:27:00] His presence offers me a reorganization of perspective.
[00:27:07] And now the weight and the dysfunction of what I'm holding and how I'm holding it. I've packed it into his bag, I've wrapped it in Jesus.
[00:27:19] And what happens is now I am available to live. I'm available to show up at work with something better.
[00:27:26] I'm available to love my husband in better and deeper ways.
[00:27:32] I'm able to love people. And it's not just, oh, one more thing I've got to figure out. I can't possibly fit one more thing.
[00:27:42] I have space because I have been cared for, I have been loved.
[00:27:50] I have sat in the presence of Jesus Christ.
[00:27:58] And it's not just in those moments. Those moments are so life giving. So if you do nothing else from the sermon, please, I beg you, try it.
[00:28:06] And maybe you can't sit, maybe you have to move your body too, go on a walk, but seek Him. All I want is you. I just want to be with you and see what happens.
[00:28:20] It's funny because I've been really fighting to figure this out and now it's like so evident in my life when I want to give up, when I'm over, overwhelmed, like I didn't, I didn't sit in the presence of God today.
[00:28:35] I haven't made my mind even wander to him.
[00:28:43] And we're training our mind to go home to God. We're training our mind to think and direct towards him and redirect towards him. And so like, how long has it been since you've just been in the quiet?
[00:29:01] Like, I am a master of filling the quiet.
[00:29:07] There is music playing, there is a movie playing, probably a Christmas movie. You know what I'm saying?
[00:29:14] If you came into my bedroom at any point, there's probably a movie playing on my phone. Like it's bad. I feel the quiet because most often in the quiet is when the chaos really erupts in my mind.
[00:29:29] It's where I play my biggest fears.
[00:29:33] But what if I train my mind to go to God and I say, I have surrendered this to you and I'm going to surrender it Again, what if I train my mind in those quiet moments just to say, I just want to be with you?
[00:29:56] Being with Jesus is the one thing, it's the one necessary thing in our life. And when we reorganize our life to put him in it, to direct our mind to him, to direct our mind time and time and time again to go home to Jesus in our head, to sit in his presence, it shapes us, it changes us, and it can reorganize and help us to live the life that he has called us to live.
[00:30:31] There's 41 days left in the year, and I want to challenge us.
[00:30:41] Will you be an apprentice of Jesus?
[00:30:47] Will you shape your life around just being with Him?
[00:30:54] Like, if nothing else, just, I want to be in your presence to quiet your mind, to quiet your soul, and just to sit in his career.
[00:31:08] I believe that if we spend the next 41 days trying to do this, trying to train our brain to connect to God, to be with him in all situations of life, we are going to end the year way better than we ever started it.
[00:31:25] And I think too often we try to start the year good.
[00:31:30] Anyone follow through on their New Year's resolution? Anyone remember their word for the year? Like, I think we start strong, but we often end and we're like, we'll do that in January. You know what I'm saying?
[00:31:46] We'll start that later.
[00:31:48] But here's a challenge. 41 days to do the one thing that fills the lack, the one thing that Jesus says is necessary to be with him.
[00:32:09] Let's pray.
[00:32:11] Dear Heavenly Father, I love you. I thank you for these awesome people that are here tonight, and I pray that you will just fill them with you.
[00:32:22] I pray that in the brokenness or in the joy or in all that life has, Father, that we will seek to be with you more and more and more.
[00:32:33] I pray that the longing of our heart will just be to be with you.
[00:32:40] And I pray in the next 41 days that your presence is felt like never before.
[00:32:50] In the next 41 days, we get so accustomed to you being our home, Father, that it changes the trajectory of next year year.
[00:33:02] I pray that you will quiet our souls and our minds and that we will be with you wherever we're at.
[00:33:10] And then I pray in your goodness and your great loving care that you will reach out and we can feel you, Father.
[00:33:20] In your mighty Son's name we pray. Amen.
