Rewired by Love | Rewired by Imitation

It's great to be with you today. It's great to see each of you.

If we haven't met, my name is Josh.

I have the joy of serving as pastor here at the Garden, and I

am guys. I'm psyched both to be together

today and also to get to have the conversation that we're

having as we wrap up this series, Rewired by love.

This morning we're going to be in Mark chapter 3 looking at

Mark 3 · chapter mention

Jesus model of discipleship throughout this series over the

last. Now this will be our 6th week.

We've been really considering this question like how do we how

do we really change not just in terms of what we know, but in

terms of our reflexes, how we respond under stress, under

pressure in relationships. And over the course of the last

few weeks we've been looking at in the first few weeks of the

series, we considered some of the problem.

Despite what we say, we believe so often times our our defaults

are actually formed by our families, firmed by our

experiences. And then we we get into a

relationship with Jesus and want to become like him and, and

learn this new way. And how do we actually do that?

And this is such a an area of passion for me, an area I think

that's so important for every one of us who wants to be a

follower of Jesus. And this morning I'm excited as

we close out the spirit this series to talk about one of the

most important things that we contribute to the change

process, and that is imitation. Before we dive into scripture

this morning and and look at Jesus model of discipleship, I

want to play a little game together.

Is everybody down for that? I know sometimes we sometimes we

are are not always used to using our bodies and our voices in

church, but this is going to be a time for that.

This is going to be an opportunity for you to

participate. So in just a moment, I'm going

to ask you a question, OK? And I want to see how quickly

you are able to answer this question.

OK? It's going to be a simple

question. I promise you know the answer.

So as soon as you hear the question, I want you to shout it

out. OK.

All right, before we do that, I just because it's not it's not

always used to comfortable speaking in church.

So let's warm up our voices. And we're going to do that by

saying the word silk SIL K5 times.

OK, you ready? Say it together with me.

Silk, Silk, silk, silk, silk. What do cows drink?

All right, OK, let's play another game.

All right, let's play another game.

Yeah, but it makes my point so well.

All right, all right, in this game, here's here's what I want

to do. I wanted to take you, take your,

take your right hand and point at me.

You know, just not feels very intimidating.

OK, take your right hand and point at me and take your left

hand and give me a thumbs up. OK, Right hand, you're pointing

left hand, thumbs up. OK, And now when I say switch, I

want you to switch your hands, OK?

All right. So your left hand is going to

point and your right hand is going to be thumbs up.

OK, you ready 123? Switch, switch, switch, switch,

switch, switch, switch as fast as you can.

Switch, switch, switch, switch, switch, switch.

I I know you guys know how to do this, right?

I'm enjoying it so much. Yeah.

All right. All right.

What do you notice? This is interactive.

OK. What do you notice about these

two simple little games that we just played?

Difficult. OK What What about them felt

difficult? Joe, I imagine that you know

what cows actually drink most most often, I would assume.

And have you ever done this motion before?

Have you ever done this motion before?

Yeah. OK.

Yep. Same.

But it it felt hard, right? Yeah.

What else did we notice? I really think about it.

You have to really think about it.

Yeah. OK.

OK. It became difficult because you

had to use, like all of your conscious attention to do that.

Here, do. Let's do.

Let's do one more thing. This is going to be easier.

I promise. OK.

So instead, same same thing with your hands, but at the same

time, I want you to go 22 points, 2 thumbs up.

All right, All right, let's go back and forth.

Point thumbs up. Point thumbs up.

Point thumbs up. What do you notice?

It's a lot easier, isn't it? Why is that?

It's consistent. Yeah, it doesn't.

It doesn't ask your brain to do something that it's not used to

doing. Here's here's here's my point.

In these simple games, the the point is not to embarrass you or

how you showed up is exactly how you're supposed to show up.

How how we naturally show up. And my point is this, what we

have practiced is natural. It's easy.

What we have not practiced is difficult.

It's laborious. The things that we have trained

in, whether it's mental concepts in our head, whether it's

physical movements, if we practice something, it becomes

relatively easy. But if we haven't, it takes a

lot of mental effort, especially if it's going against something

that feels intuitive or like a default for us.

You know what I'm saying? All right, so I want to pivot

and look at what we see here in Mark chapter 3 about Jesus and

Mark 3 · chapter mention

Jesus model of discipleship. We read this text here.

Jesus has already been with his disciples for some time when we

get to Mark chapter 3. But at this moment he he gathers

Mark 3 · chapter mention

them and he he brings them together.

He calls out the 12 who will of course go on to be the

impostles. And we read here in in Mark

Mark 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 and verse 14 that he appointed these 12 that they

might be with him and that he might send them, that they might

be with him and that he might send them.

In Luke chapter 6 and verse 40, we see that the student, when he

Luke 6 · chapter mention

is fully trained, becomes like the teacher.

The point very simply that I want to communicate to you this

morning is that in order to become like Jesus, we need to be

with Jesus and we need to practice imitation.

We need to practice imitation. Of course, many of you are

familiar with the way in which we learn by imitation.

Maybe you've seen a tool called the leadership square in a

corporate setting or somewhere else.

It's, it's really simple. It's I do and you watch, then I

do and you help, Then you do and I watch and then or I help and

then you do and I watch, right. There's a transference that

happens as we observe someone else do something and then as we

get in the game and begin to practice that same thing and

receive support and coaching from them.

There's nothing inspired about this framework, but I think it's

interesting that some of what we find is is is working best out

in the world is exactly what Jesus both taught and modeled

when he chose his own disciples. We see in Mark here that that

Jesus calls these disciples and he says, hey, before I'm going

to send you out, before I'm going to ask you to do a bunch

of stuff, I want you to come and be with me.

And I can. I can't breakdown every piece of

how this plays out across the gospel of Mark, but I'd

encourage you to go read it. What we see is Jesus is leading

and doing ministry. He's showing up in the way of

the Kingdom. He's teaching, and the disciples

are right there by his side. They're looking, they're

watching, they're observing. When Jesus moves towards

outcasts and oppressors, typically these are people that

we would have kept our distance from.

They say, huh, that's interesting.

Jesus is showing up differently. His relationship is different in

chapter 2. Jesus relates to the Sabbath

differently in chapter 2. He shows up confidently and full

of faith. When life stresses everyone out,

when they're in a panic in the boat, the storm is raging around

them. Jesus is calm and confident in

the Father's authority when he confronts spiritual powers,

demons that that have everybody else running.

Jesus, again confident in the Father's authority, is able to

press in and relate to them when he experiences rejection and

threats from the crowds and the religious leaders.

The disciples are there observing and watching how he

responds, how he relates as they watch him deal with and cope

with the demands of ministry. They watch over and over this

pattern, how he steps back, how he steps away to be in the of

the Father and connect with God. And then in Mark 6 we read after

all of this observation is they watch him practice.

Jesus says, hey, your turn and he sends them out two by two.

He says, hey, the stuff that you've been watching me do, just

like I've done it. Now it's your turn.

Now you go do the same thing. This is what we see in Jesus

pattern of discipleship. It's how he apprentices his

followers throughout the gospels.

But I have to think, to be honest with you, when I think

about my own journey, like how I was discipled and even for for

most of us, like if I were to come up to you after the

gathering today, and I would say, Ian, would you be would you

like to be discipled? Right?

I mean, what what comes up in your mind in that moment?

Like, what do you imagine or make up that that could entail?

Probably we all have a little bit of a different picture.

But I think for many of us, we would say, well, you know,

probably, I don't know. I guess we're going to meet up

and study the Bible together, right?

Perhaps we'll go through a workbook.

Maybe there'll be some memorization or reflection.

We're going to talk about ideas. Maybe, maybe we'll get really

nerdy and I'll learn some like systematic theology and some

Greek verbs and things like that.

Like these are the models for discipleship that I think that

many of us have inherited. And look, I'm not saying that

that is bad. I think it's a part of our

journey of following Jesus today, an important part.

I've done a lot of that in my life, but it differs from what

Jesus actually did with his followers in an important

element. There is way less practice,

right? There's way less actually going

out into your life, applying it. There's way less actual thick

relationship where you're watching and observing how

somebody else not just talks about their life, but actually

relates to it across every dimension.

Jesus says the student who is fully trained will be like their

teacher in Luke chapter 6 and verse 40, fully trained, like

Luke 6 · chapter mention

their teacher, not fully informed, not fully inspired,

not fully, not not fully aware, but actually fully trained to

have have the kind of relationships, the kind of

postures, the kinds of defaults that their teacher has.

The word that Jesus used for this kind of discipleship is is

must they taste? We usually translate it as

disciple or student, both of which are perfectly fine

translations, but actually a more accurate like way of

conjuring this idea based on what was practice at the time

might be apprentice or resident. And we're familiar with this

kind of training in certain contexts.

Like we know if you study medicine, at some point you

become a a medical resident and you follow another doctor around

and you learn how they interact with patients.

Of course, there's there's textbook learning as well.

But then you get in the lab and you watch and you imitate and,

and you ask questions and you do same things if you're a a

bricklayer or a pipe fitter. But when it comes to our

spiritual lives, I think so often we rely on this formula

that we've been talking about throughout this series that kind

of assumes that if I just add more information and more

willpower into the formula, then I get more transformation.

And yet this is so different from what Jesus did with his own

disciples. I mean, after all, there were

others, many rabbis at the time who actually just gathered their

students around and they parsed Torah and analyzed the verbs,

right? And they focused on on going

deeper and being more specific and wrestling with this passage

and that passage. Again, not bad, but also not

what Jesus focused on. And look, I know for many of us,

the question comes up immediately.

It certainly does for me of like, all right, well, that's

cool, Josh. Like, you know, if Jesus was

here and he said follow me, right, become my disciple, I

would say yes, but he's not in the room, right?

Like I have a job, I have a family like I have, I have snow

to shovel. Like how what does this actually

look like for you and for me, right?

After all, I don't live in the 1st century and I don't have the

opportunity to just walk around and eat with this guy and sleep

with him and and look well, what we actually see in Scripture is

that this wasn't just a 1st century thing.

Paul in first Corinthians tells the church at Corinth in First

Corinthians 11 in verse 1, he says follow my example as I

follow Christ. Paul is saying, hey, this the

same pattern here of imitation, of apprenticeship, of, of paying

attention, of following, of watching, of looking, of

imitating, of practicing. I'm doing that with Jesus and

you can do it with me. I think this is so beautiful

that that God has not asked us to find our way in the spiritual

life by ourselves like our devotional life, our our time

with God is essential. We can still hear from Jesus,

relate to Jesus, be empowered by Jesus, be guided by Jesus in our

own lives. But I'll tell you what, very

often there's also a piece that in my life, I can tell you, man,

God speaks to me a lot in my relationships as I, as I walk

with and journey with other believers, other disciples,

other people who are out in front of me there.

There's this thing that I knew about like conflict, or there's

this thing that I knew about prayer.

And in my head, it was already up here, right?

I had the information. But then it took observing

somebody do it right, beginning to learn from them, beginning to

walk from them, when it really began to sink in, down to a

heart level, down to an embodied level, down to the level of real

change. I remember in my early 20s, I

had just finished my first graduate degree, and I was kind

of trying to make my way in the world for a bit.

I still had more studies on my mind, but in the season I was

just trying to pay down some debt, earn some money.

So I was working a normal job and, and I had in my backpack,

if you will, a huge amount of gusto and passion and longing, a

huge amount of belief to see the world changed through the power

of the gospel and through the love of Jesus.

Like I, I felt like I had learned some things.

I had all these ideas. I had all these concepts and I,

I wanted to see those translated in a way that made a difference

for my neighbors. There's a problem though, I

didn't know how to be a normal person.

I didn't know how to. I was 1/3 culture kid.

Some of you are like Josh. You still don't need know how to

be a normal person. Arguably true, but I remember

stepping into a a a friend group and connecting with Matt.

Matt was just a couple of years older than me.

Honestly, he seemed kind of socially awkward in some ways as

well, but I respected not only that intellectually he didn't

just know about the Bible, but he had a way of showing up in

his relationships that I had really hadn't really seen much

of before. Like he was just really

intentional with people. He made space for people, he

listened well, he was curious, he was generous, he was funny

often times and like self deprecatory ways and didn't take

himself too seriously. And he also deeply and

passionately loved Jesus. And and I saw very clearly

something that was happening in Matt's life that was not

happening in mine. Like I, I could have a

conversation about faith with somebody who didn't share faith,

but people were not coming to me looking for guidance or answers.

But but everybody was coming to Matt because Matt cared, and he

and he actually showed up with people in the way of love.

And I learned so much in that season of my life about how to

have healthy relationships, how to love people well, how to

start spiritual conversations, how to integrate my life with my

faith, not just in academic or theoretical ways, but in

practical ways. Much of it wasn't novel to me

conceptually, but I experienced Jesus through math as he modeled

it, as he demonstrated what it looked like to follow Jesus and

friends. I can tell you that over and

over and over again in my life when I look at the areas, not

only were I like know some stuff, but where I am different,

where I am more like Jesus, where my reflexes look like

love, I can tell you there are relationships behind it in

almost every case. Studying scripture with Neil.

The caring for people who were in crisis and whose lives were

falling apart without anxiety or or the need to fix it with

Darrell. Like praying with Peter Cha,

practicing hospitality and opening up a home with with

Rhonda. Navigating conflict and intense

conversations in a way that pointed people to truth without

being defensive with Matt, starting finances with Mako,

asking great questions and being caring and curious with Laura.

Like I can go on and on and on, friends.

These were ideas that the Spirit had very often revealed to me,

convicted me of. And I believe that the Spirit

gave me power than to implement what I was seeing.

But also it was modelled. I was apprenticed as I came

under and came alongside sometimes peers, sometimes

mentors who said this is what it means to walk out this life of

the Kingdom in relationships. Let me show you, let me guide

you. Because of that, I followed

Jesus so much better in in weeks two and three of this series.

We talked about how a lot of our our defaults and and reflexes

actually get formed. We talked about survival

strategies and internal working models and a lot of nerdy stuff

around like basically answering the question of like when you

get pushed, what comes out? Like when, when something, when,

when, when the rubber hits the road in your life, how do you

show up? I did my best to explain how

some of that as, as I understand it, both using the lens of, of

scripture as well as neuroscience and attachment

theory, like what we actually see.

And I don't know about you, but I remember when I first learned

about those things, I was like, oh crap, this is scary.

Because like, I, I see that this is true.

Like I have enough awareness to notice that how I show up isn't

always what I intend or want or say I believe, right?

Sometimes I'm just like really afraid of, of anger.

And so I'm super avoidant in conflict, right?

Sometimes I'm showing up in these ways that like I realize

are not good, but I don't know what to do with this is like,

this is the default for me. And I have some good news for

you this morning. And that is, first of all, God

is real. The power of the Spirit is real.

Change is possible. And also the, the, the latest in

science confirms what we know to be true as Christians already.

It gives language and kind of explanation around some of the

mechanisms. Like 100 years ago, people

thought that the brain was relatively static in adulthood,

right? They thought the amount of

neurons that you have are what you have.

The level of intelligence that you have is what you have.

Things are kind of fixed. Well, they've been a lot of

updates and, and discoveries and imaging and, and what we've

learned is that the brain is actually quite plastic, right?

Things can actually be rewired and, and we know this

intuitively. I'm not telling you anything

that you don't know at an intuitive level, but like you

can get better at at doing this if you practice right.

It doesn't take very long. And and before long, see, I'm

still messing it up. I need to practice more if I

want to become good at that. I don't really care about that.

But I do care about how I respond under stress in my life.

I do care about when I'm overwhelmed, whether I go to

prayer. And the good news is, is when we

actually put things to practice, when we actually begin to

develop new patterns and watch others and have some fresh

experiences relationally, that that the brain can actually form

new neurons, new connections, new synapses began to be

created. And it's not just that there are

new possibilities or pathways. And we talked in week 1 about

the difference between knowing that and knowing how.

Like there's lots of stuff that we know at an intellectual

level, like where we live, but then there's things that we know

how, like driving a car. Well, you know this because you

can learn a new skill now, you can learn to drive a car or

things like that. But what actually happens in the

brain, what we see in imaging is that there, there are these,

these white brain cells, these long fibers that become

myelinated through repetition. And, and it's kind of like an

electrical, electrical wire that has this cord around it.

And, and, and the more, the more there is, the faster the signal

goes, the more reflexive the new pattern becomes.

Like we can become different at the, the level of our actual

brain chemistry, the way we're sometimes our, our reactions,

our defaults began to show up in a way that wasn't previously

true. I don't know about you, but this

is encouraging to me. It, it means that even if you're

showing up and you're like, my trauma has got me like my, my

past has got me. I've got these relationships,

I've been harmed, I've been damaged, I've been messed up in

some way. The gospel is real and Jesus

produces trains and change in miraculous and profound ways

that I don't know. That maps entirely onto brain

chemistry. I'm not trying to draw 1 to 1

here between these things. But also neuroscience says,

like, you can actually rewire things with practice.

And look, maybe you're asking this morning a question that is

an area of fascination to me. Like, how do these things to go

together? Like I believe in that the power

of the Holy Spirit to change us, to produce fruits in US.

And also here's all this information about brain

chemistry and wiring and all of these things like what, what's

the relationship? And I'll be the first to tell

you, I don't entirely know. I'm not sure I believe this is

true. And I also suspect that this

stuff is true as well. What I would say is that from

from the very beginning of our faith that we see a posture and

invitation over and over, which basically says trust God.

And also there are parts that you are responsible for, right?

Ignatius of Loyola says pray as if everything depends on you,

act as if everything depends on God.

Paul says work out your own salvation with fear and

trembling, for it is God who works in you, right?

Like, I don't know exactly how these parts work together.

I'm not a neuroscientist, I'm not an expert on this.

What I will say is that God absolutely does a part that we

cannot by way of the Spirit. A lot of the training is

actually going to him. A lot of the training we need to

do is rewiring to to move to him, to receive from him instead

of coping with things in our own ways.

But also, there is a part that is your responsibility.

God will not do it for you, at least in most instances.

I've seen God cure people from addiction just like that

miraculously. But I've seen many, many more

instances. There's a lot of work involved.

There's a lot of awareness involved.

There's a lot of repatterning involved.

And friends, I think this is important for us because I, I

wonder if, if too often we're actually not taking

responsibility for our spiritual lives in the same way that we

take responsibility for our fitness or our relationships or

our finances. Like we intuitively get, if I

don't, if I don't do anything in these other areas of my life,

that things will be in shambles, right.

Like at a certain point, you're a kid, somebody else mostly

takes care of these things, mostly sets up your life for

you. And but as we emerge into

adults, like we're like, OK, I'm, I got to figure this out.

I got to build a meal plan. I got to build a workout

schedule. I got to, I got to figure out

how to budget. I got to figure out how to

navigate these things. What I'm saying to you this

morning is that we have to be every bit as accountable, as

responsible for our own spiritual development.

It doesn't just happen to you. Like I, I love this space.

I think it's important. I think it's powerful.

I'm really glad that you're here this morning and maybe this

morning, like the main thing, or maybe even it feels like the

only thing that you can manage in your spiritual life is just

like, I made it to church on Sunday.

Praise God. I'm so glad you're here.

Seriously, It's wonderful this this space.

I believe critique creates a lot of good fruit.

But there's a problem too. And if I'm being honest, it's a

problem that I don't entirely as a pastor know how to solve.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this, wrestling with this.

And the problem is this, that as good as what happens here on

Sunday is, if you don't translate that into practice and

imitation in community, you're not going to learn to love like

Jesus. You're actually just not going

to to become like Jesus. And I think some of us have been

sold a lie that that that tells us that we're saved by grace.

That's not a lie. That's true, absolutely.

But then that means that there's no, there's no part for us.

Like we said, yes, we're going to heaven, the end.

And, and I absolutely believe that that's how adoption

happens. That's how we get into the

family. We don't have to earn it.

We don't have to to work our way into it or habit stack or like

God, it's just so gracious. He just says you belong.

That's what we talked about in week 4.

But also the point of the Christian life is not to get to

heaven. The point of the Christian life

is for you to become like Jesus. And in order to do that, you

need to just like the disciples did.

You need to be with Jesus, not just for 90 minutes on a Sunday

like you. You need to learn how to be with

Jesus and, and it's not just a solo journey.

You have to figure out who are the people in your life who are

out ahead of you in the faith that you can imitate.

Just like Paul tells the Corinthians, imitate me as I

imitate Jesus. Who are you imitating?

Because I guarantee you that the people that you look up to, the

people that you admire, the people that you are in thickest

relationship with, you are becoming more like them.

Are those habits, Are those relationships forming in you who

you want to be? If not, then pay attention.

Look at that. We've got to change something,

friends, to take responsibility for our own discipleship, not

the part that God does. God is going to do His part with

grace. You can count on Him for that.

God is not the problem in the issue of our lack of

transformation. The problem is us, and very

often I think we're stopping at the level of new insight.

We got a cool idea, it's shiny. You walk away from here this

morning, you're like, oh, I understand something about

neuroscience and about how discipleship works.

Great. That's not the point.

The point is that it has to translate into how we live if

we're going to experience the change that God has for us.