The Be.Attitudes of Following Jesus Series - Part 5: How? A Rule of Life | Andy Yeoh

Hello, and welcome to the Generations Church podcast. We're so

excited to have you here today. It is our prayer

that God's word will inspire and help you grow in

your faith. Now let's get right into it.

So let's get straight into it.

This is part five, but week nine or ten or

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Good.

So, today's part five. We have covered what it means

to be a disciple. We have talked about how discipleship

is the lifelong process of becoming like Jesus is an

intentional process. It's also relational process, not just a program.

It's relationship, but it's a process and it's life long.

You won't get it just tomorrow or even next year.

It's lifelong.

Right.

We talked about how we name this series called the

Bee Attitudes of Following Jesus, meaning the bees and the

attitudes of this thing called discipleship, and some book calls

it practicing the way. So in the ancient times, they

actually did not call the disciples Christians. They called them

followers of the way. Yeah, so this is where it's from.

We are all followers of the way if we are disciples, amen.

And the way is Jesus is the Way, the truth,

and the life. We have also learned that being an

apprentice another word for disciples, someone who learns from the master.

Being a follower of Jesus is therefore being someone who

has or will organize our life around three goals. Every

single day were living to achieve these three goals, which

is to be with Jesus, to become like Jesus, and

to behave like Jesus, in other words, doing as Jesus did. Okay,

you can understand it from this chart. Being with Jesus,

abiding in him his words, abiding in us, spending time

with him.

That's at the very core of our lives. And as

we do that, it affects all the other parts of

our life, as we try to become like Jesus and

behaving like him.

We have also described this whole process of spiritual formation,

so that process of becoming like Jesus is called spiritual formation.

We learned that we are already being spiritually formed right now,

even if this is the first time you're hearing this

message or this word, you have already been spiritually formed.

You are a type of person, right. You didn't just become, say,

an impatient person today. It was formed in you over

all kinds of things. Friends, you have, books, you read, things,

you do, experiences, you have all sorts of things. We

are saying that if you want to be like Jesus,

we cannot just be unintentional and just leave it be.

We have to be intentional and make sure that we

are in the process of being formed to become like Jesus.

So the process is called the process of being formed

into a person of love in Christ.

Right. We've also learned last week.

We concluded last week that in terms of behaving like Jesus,

doing as he did, there's the three part framework that

guides us. Simply, it's called making space for the gospel,

preaching the gospel, and demonstrating the gospel.

Okay, I want to know what it is. Check out

the podcast. Today.

We're gonna sort of land this plane and the next

two weeks we'll still be within the series, but we're

gonna do things a bit differently.

Next two weeks.

Okay, maybe I'll tell you more about it later, but

today we're gonna talk about it. How how do we

do it? What does a day today look like for

an apprentice of Jesus that does all these things we

have learned in the last four hundred ninety six parts. Okay,

what does it look like?

So? How?

And we want to we want to introduce to you

something called a rule of life. Don't do your neighbor and

say a rule of life? Okay, all right, don't don't

get too caught up or afraid already against the word rule.

I know we are like, ah, but bear with me.

It's gonna be awesome. It's gonna beautiful. Now.

A key theme in this whole series, this whole time,

what we've learned about this upporship is we need to

increase our intentionality in partnering with God.

Amen. We are not in control of our formation.

You're either being formed by the Holy Spirit or being

formed by some other spirit.

Either way, you're being formed. We're not in control of that.

What we can control is our intentionally, how we partner

with God.

So that He forms us. Amen.

If we spend no time with God, then he is

not able to form us. When we spend a lot

more time with God, then he forms us. What we

can be in control of is how much time we

spend with him.

Amen.

So this whole theme, this whole series, is about how

can we increase, not decrease, our intentionality, our conscious decisions.

To partner with God so that he can form us

to be like his son. Yeah.

Peters Cazzero said this, nurturing a growing spirituality with depth

will require a thoughtful, conscious, intentional plan.

Somebody say, plan.

Not at hark, not to come, not see how plan

a thoughtful, conscious, intentional plan for our spiritual life.

Not this.

It is a plan for our spiritual lives. Not plan

our spiritual lives. It is impossible to plan your spiritual

life because you can't do nothing to your spiritual life.

God does the word. Of course, the question is which God?

Oh it is Jesus. So for weish, I have no.

Other gods before us except the living God. Amen.

But we are intentionally, thoughtfully, consciously making a plan for

our spiritual lives.

Amen.

It's just like you can't really control, you can't lead,

you can actually lose.

Weight, per se, you can't like just we can't say

I'm gonna grow dinner. But you can make a.

Plan for losing weight, and so if you do all

the right things, then you might lose weight.

Follow me.

Okay, So we can't transform, Sorry, we can't control our transformation.

We can only control our trajectory. Which direction are we

hating that we can control? But we can actually control transformation.

That's why some people like maybe Mark and I are

doing the exact same things, but he transforms a week

earlier than me. That's not frailitism, that's just how God

works in people's life.

Right.

But as long as we're both hating the same trajectory,

so all of us here, if you want to be disciples,

we are hating the same direction.

Remember it's not.

About perfection, it's about consistency and persistence. Yeah, so some

of us will be you know, after a week. Some

of us are ten steps ahead, some of us are

just two steps. But that's okay, as long as we're

in the same trajectory. Understand, tragictory is right, So we

can't control our transformation. We can only control our trajectory.

We can't control transformation. But oh yeah, so we Therefore

we must make a plan for spiritual lives. If all

we can do is set the direction we move in,

then it cannot just be left by itself, because then

the win of the world and the winds of life

will just blow you where it wants follow me. We

must make a plan. Somebody say, make a plan. Discipleship

therefore is a call. It's an invitation.

That's what I'm doing.

I'm standing up here and say, hey, church, here's the

call from Jesus. Come on, bring more intention, intentionality and

decisions to our lives with God. Don't leave your spiritual

growth to add hog or chance. Make a plan. How

do we make a plan for spiritual lives? How do

we do that? So as we think about how to

make a plan? May I so, and there's plenty of

you go to a Caneline bookstore, you go online in

such all kinds of ways to be disciple. Right before

we do any of that, can I invite us to

just take a trip down history and let's learn what

did the first century disciples do? What Peter, James and

John and all of their disciples and follow us? What

did they do? So they came up with this concept?

They were the ones who came up with this thing.

Called a rule of life, not this. So what I'm

saying is when when when the disciples heard Jesus say,

follow me, and then they and then Jesus did, and

they watched Jesus did, and they help, and then Jesus

asked them to do and he helped, and then they did,

and Jesus watched when they went through the whole process,

and they heard the words of Jesus. I'm the Vineyorda

branches of Barty Me and Ryan and you you know,

when he heard all that, and they had to right

now come up with a plan, come up with a

way to.

Live this life.

They decided, you know what, we need this thing called

a rule of life.

Guys, don't worry. It's simple than you think.

And by the way, it's part of the practicing the way,

because I think in the next few lessons you'll do

this in more detail. But a rule of life. But

notice that it is rule of life, not rules of life.

Do you notice that is a rule, not rules, Just

like fruit of the spirit, not fruits of the spirit,

fruits of the spirits like okay, someone, we have patience. Also,

fruit of spirit is a result of walking in the spirit.

The focus should be how to walk in the spirit,

not how to be more patient. You know why it

doesn't work for us because from Sunday School we learn

all these fruits sometimes already something grapes, right, or the

grapes once their cle is patient. One circle is kindness, right,

and we try to be more patient. We try to

be more kind. That's why we fail because as we're

trying to be more kind, we missed out on patience.

We miss out on gentleness when it's supposed to be.

One fruit is a result, good tree, good fruit. Right,

And if you read the verses before and after, it's

all about walking in the spirit.

And we have learned what walking in the spirit means.

It's directing our consciousness towards God all of the time.

Amen.

So it's a fruit. So this thing is called a

rule of life, not rules. So it's not to be

understood as Oh so now to be a disciple to

come up with a list of things to do, and

I must comply to it, and if I fail, then

I'm going to be not a disciple. Oh my gosh,

this is so much work. Can I go to another church? No,

it's not a list of rules to comply it's a

rule of life. And now explain it comes from this

original word in Latin. Yeah, I speak Latin, just one word, ah, and.

It's the word okay.

By the way, a rule of life is an ancient language,

not a modern one. They came up with this in

the first century. The word regular is where.

We get words like anybody want to guess regular regulation,

and also rule and ruler.

You know that wooden't stick that has numbers on it

and lines, that's a rare gula in Latin. And the

word ruler comes from that word originally. So the disciples

back then ancient times, when they when when they came

up with a rule of life, they're using the word regular.

And many scholars also argue that this word regular in

Latin was also the same word use by ancient Mediterranean

farmers to describe.

What we will call a trellis. I don't even know

what a trailist is. It's the name of a band. No,

just kidding, Uh. Trailist is how they grow grape friends trellists.

So so you've got so these this some treadist looks

like this, it's like and then the vines will grow

around it. Some trainist looks like an arch and they

grow on top of it a trellis. So this is

also regular a rule of life, a trellist of life.

That means we are trying to build a this thing

for your life. You are trying to build this for

your life.

Amen. And some of it looks like this.

It's some kind of a structure so that the vines

can grow on it, can wrap around it, and there's

a direction to it.

Follow me. This is what it looks like for grapes.

Sometimes you got this kind of stars or you know,

have you seen it like the rotan and it's like

more crosses. So grapes just don't just grow on the

ground wild and uncontrolled, or.

They don't grow upside up up the side of a rock.

Grapes are put on trellises in order to get them

up off the ground and to index their growth in

the right direction towards what life and light, light and

life and space, so they can grow in order for

the vine to bear maximum amount of fruit. Is designed

to do that. Yeah, without a traillis without these things.

Maybe I'll show you this other picture. Without a traillis

you won't get wine. So you're like, oh, without a

trellis of vine may just die because they may not

get enough sun, they're not off the ground, they're not

getting lined, they're not hitting.

The right direction. Or they may not even live in

the first place.

They die very quickly, or it may it may live

for it be incredibly vulnerable to disease, damage from wild

animals easy to get to, or being trampled food. So

it's very damaging, destructive to not have a trellis. What

is the rule of life for a disciple, a disciple

that has a trail list?

What is your traillis?

So that you can index your growth and your life

can go towards the light and life amen In a

similar way, that's what Jesus used.

He used the word pictures that he used. It's no coincidence.

It wasn't just because you were speaking from from winery

or something. It's all his pictures were understandable to the listeners.

So Jesus is, I'm the true vine. My father is

the gardener. He's a vine dresser. Every branch in me

that that's not beare foe. He takes away.

He prunes the cuts.

By the way the word prune, the word prune, Yes,

it's cut but sometimes it's also the same Greek word

also means lift up because maybe too low, not getting

in the sun to dark, so with the gardener lifts

it up.

So pune doesn't just mean cut because later there's a cut. No, So.

Amen following so far, yes, so I know why your

branch is abiding me. Stay on my trellist, stay on

this rule of life.

If you want to grow, if you want to get

what you want, if you want to be somebody that

is more like me. Amen.

So the early Christians, they heard the word of Jesus,

they sort the examples of Jesus, and they took it

to its logical conclusion.

Now, wait a minute.

If Jesus is the vine and we're the branches, and

the goal is to actually bear much fruit, uh huh,

we need a trellis because that's how grapes grow. And

Jesus is using that word picture to tell us what

our life should be like. So we need we need

an organizing structure to go underneath our life, something that

supports our life. Follow me, We need some support structure

to get us going in the right direction, to open

us up to the spiritual equivalent of sun and rain

and oxygen.

And lights.

And we also need this structure to protect us from

wild animals from getting trample on. We need an organizing

structure to go underneath us, something that carries our life

basic clear follow Like I said, I promise you it's

simple that it sounds. A role of life is just

simply is a schedule and a set of practices, A schedule,

practices and relational reedoms that organizes our life around the

three goals that you already know about now, yeap. That

means it's a schedule that makes you be with Jesus,

become like Jesus, behave like Jesus. It's a set of

practices things you do that makes you become bev Jesus,

Become like Jesus, behave like Jesus. It's a relational readm

the way you hand the relationships that makes you be

with Jesus, become like Jesus, behave like Jesus. Makes sense

when you have a rule of life and it enables us. Therefore,

when it without it, it disables us. With it, it

enables us, enables us to live in alignment and congruence.

So you're you're saying, I want to be more like Jesus.

But you don't have a churlis. It's not congruent, it's

not in alignment. You're actually hating a different direction. But

if you want to be more like Jesus, a true disciple,

then you gotta have a rule of life, a schedule,

a set of practices, a relational reedom that makes it

aligned and congruent with your actual deepest desire, which we

have learned our heart actual desires for God to be

with him, to be like him, and to behave like him.

Amen.

All right, So what is the rule of life? It's

all about participation with God. God is working, he is moving,

he is doing something in our lives. We either participate

with him or it just happens without us.

And we don't want to lose us out. Now.

If the journey of discipleship is about aiming our life

according to a deepest desire, which is to be like God,

be with God. If that's discipleship, then a rule of

life is two things.

A reference or a map. It's a way to live

today drawing.

So when you go on Google Maps and you put

your location, it's set right if you take a wrong road.

He recal Clason still brings you back to the place.

But now you have a reference. Now you know how

far how close you are to your destination. A rule

of life is a reference, a man drawing a line

between me and in the midst of God and who

I want to become like amen. It's also how we

say yes to Jesus. So basically, when you have a

rule of life, you have a way of saying, yes, Jesus,

I'm following you. Yes, Jesus will spend time with you.

Yes Jesus, I will give where you want me to give.

Yes Jesus willself here. Yes Jesus, I will stop doing that. Yes,

Jesus our fast. A rule of life is your way

of saying yes to Jesus. It's not a list of

rules or some brilliant idea on how you squeeze the most.

Out of your spiritual life.

But it's paying attention to all of God's invitations to you.

Come spend more time with me, come be with me,

Come think like me, come walk with me.

All right. In other words, it's saying yes to God's

work within us. When we have a rule of life.

For example, maybe part of the rule is I pray

every morning that waking up, going to the corner and pray,

you're saying yes to God's work working within you. When

you miss that prayer time, while God wants to work

within you, he's not able to because you were not there.

But when you wake up and you go to that

place and you spend time with God, you're saying yes, God,

work within me, work within me. Amen.

Because you are not in control of your transformation, Nothing

you do will transform you.

You can only be in control of your trajectory. So

you go to that place, you sit there, or you

stand there, or you lay there or whatever it is,

you spend time with God and let God's work within you. Amen.

You're asking this question, how can I live today inhabiting

God's invitation so that I can create the most room

in my inner world with my whole body, with my

whole life for God.

What transformation in me?

Basically, it's just like, how can I say yes to

God when he says spend time with me? When he

says stop that, when he says lesson that? How can

I How can I make say as many yes as

possible to create as much room as possible Forgot to

work within me?

Yeah? Wow?

Pastor isn't there a lot of work? News flash, Life

is work? Have you not noticed? Marriage is work? Boyfriend girlfriend?

Relationship is work? Work is work. Raising children is work.

I know they always say, ah, don't make just feel

like work, But yes, it's when I say, well, I say,

in the purest sense, have you not noticed the when

God created the world, he rested one day he worked

the audio rest or six days? Life is work? And uh,

there's multiple verses in the world. It says a worker

is worthy of his wages, which also suggests if you

don't work, you're not worthy of your wages. So if

you're like, how come I'm not blessed her? How come

I'm not getting healthier? How came I'm not growing up

because you don't work, you don't put in the work.

Because a worker is worthy of his wages, a non

worker is not worthy of his wages or the rewards,

or the gifts, or the blessings or the feeling the blanks.

Life is work, Marriage is work. Spiritual life is work.

News flesh, we already have a rule of life. Oh yes,

we do. We already. We are already working in our lives.

You think you're not working, you're already working in your

life to become a type of person. The type of

person you are is because of the rule of life

that you already have. You just may not be intentional

or you may not be aware what it is. But

how you wake up, how are you going to sleep,

how are you interview people? The kind of relationship you're

keeping your life, that the happiness that you keep, all

that is forming you.

You already have a rule of life. We already have

some schedule, some set of practices, yes or no, and

relational riadoms that we live by. You already do. The

question is not do you have a role of life?

The question is do you know what it is? Are

you aware what is making you to become?

Most of us are not. I was not.

I just started learning this and go, okay, I'm noticing.

No wonder, I'm so anxious, no wonder, I'm impatient, No wonder,

I'm like this.

No wonder.

This irritates me because something has found me to become this.

But I don't want to be this. I want to

be like Jesus. So I gotta change my rule of life.

I gotta change the previous version. I can't if I

keep the previous version, I want to be this version.

So do you know what your rule of life is

and the rule of lie that you have already right

now existing?

Is it working for you or against you?

Is it based on long term desires of your heart

or instant.

Gratification quick fix?

Is it based on wisdom or foolish assumptions? Is it

making you more and more a person of love? Or

is it making you more and more anxious and angry

and bitter and hurt and so on and so forth.

Whatever your rule is right now, what's it making you

to be? Have you stopped and asked that question? Is

it grounding you deeper in relationships or pulling you away

from connection from relational connection?

Is it making you more like Jesus or like someone else?

We already have a role of life.

So Jesus is not calling us to do something we're

not already doing. He is calling us to do something

we're already doing. But differently, we can all do the

typoship because you're already doing it, but Jesus saying, don't

do it the way you're doing right now, do it

my way. So, as an apprentice of Jesus, we aim

our lives at because we're only in control of our trajectory.

We aim our lives at being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus,

and behaving like Jesus. In other words, saying yes to

Jesus invitation when he says forgive the guy it's okay.

He's inviting you to be like him, and you say,

man is difficult. Man is difficult. He was nasty to me,

He wasn't kind. You know, he's all kinds of rumors

about me. You know, he did reply my messages. He

blocked me on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. He brought me from

from the postman as so I can't even send him

like a snail man like, wow, this is serious.

Well how do you do that? I don't know, but yeah, seriously,

he brought me from from memory. Even he went to

some kind of like I don't know, some scientific places

lab in Europe and remove memory. I don't know, Wow,

how to forgive? But Jesus is forgive, and we say yes, yes.

And the more yeses we say to Jesus, the more

we are formed into him. By the way, sometimes in

Christendom we like to romanticize and say things like, oh,

God just wants your heart, but the news is so

much worse and so much better at the same time.

He actually doesn't just want your heart. He wants all

of you.

He wants your heart, your mind, your body, your emotions.

He wants your belief system. He wants your habits.

He wants your budget, he wants your time, he wants

your phone, he wants your.

iPad, he wants everything.

He wants all of us, because he's either a lot

of all or not at all. If there's some part

in your life, okay, God, you are God in everything,

except when it comes to my relationship, because that one

I know better. God, I know I like your God.

You never dated before, so you don't know. It's okay,

let me handle this.

If there's such even such a thing, such a an

inch of that, he's no longer God of your life.

He's not a god of all or not at all.

No this Jesus never used the phrase spiritual life. He's

not interested in your spiritual life. He's interested in you,

your whole life. He doesn't go like, oh that's school, Okay,

I'm not there. Go do school and see you in church.

Oh that's your work, okay, go go go, go go

and bribe going, it's okay, I'll see you on Sunday.

Make sure your die. No, he's he's not just interested

in your Saturdays or Sundays or once a Friday. He's

interested in you, your life, your whole life.

Amen. So what is a rule of life supposed to

do to me? If I have this child list, what's

he gonna do to me? Now?

See some of you, are you sign up for some

kind of fitness program or your bise supplements?

You eat them or you know, you just do it.

You don't actually know how it actually works. You just

know what it's supposed to do to you, Like, oh,

if I eat this gin singer, then I wore this.

But you don't actually know how the gen sing properties

actually interact with your.

Neurons and your hormones and your kidney and what. You

don't actually know, or you know it's what's supposed to

do with me? Or maybe healthy? Is it? Maybe more friend? Okay, cool,

I'll do it. So same thing here a rule of

life you may not fully understand exactly. Oh if I

pray three minutes, I'll be more patient. If I pray

form minutes, give me patient and loving?

Oh wow, No, you just know that praying does something

to you. So what is it supposed to do? Okay,

this one is interesting. I hope I can explain it. Well, okay,

here it goes. It slows you down. And this if

I stop here, all of you are gonna leave this place,

all kinds of ideas. Ah, next week you block out

the next rest of the year planning center. What does

they slow down? Ma, So I'm not serving anymore, I'm

taking a break or whatever version are like, Okay, you

go back to your wife and say, hey, we can't

take so much anymore, need to slow down. These are

the kind of statements and can people take to extremes

and actually, wa they do that. They're just trying to

fit to their already pre assisting agenda And yeah, I.

Tell you, do you? I do you? No, it does.

Slow you down, but listen carefully this way I'm trying

to explain. But wait, it slows you down, not in

the sense of speed, but more inderstent of pace. Can

you see how running has changed my life?

Yeah? God, difference are it's not the same.

Explain speed is distant distance measured over time, and pace

is time measure over distance.

Woke Boom what is mean okay?

Like speed like when you're okay, when you drive somewhere

and you say I'm driving fifty kilometers per hour, that

means in that one hour you telve fifty kilometers. Pace

is five minutes per kilometer. There mean is how much

time did you take to so never I'll try explain them,

so don't worry about running and cycling and driving. Speed

is how much you can do in a set amount

of time. So in one hour, I can do twenty things.

That speed that kills you pay is how much time

you need to do.

A set amount of things. So I have to finish

my Masters. I'm super stressed because I will have two

more modules to complete by the end of this year.

But I don't graduate because I have to do my

Theological Foundations. That's eleven courses, eleven different subjects. It is

possible to do all eleven next year. I do it

over three tremesters, four subjects, three subjects, four subjects. I'm

doing one module every two months now and I'm dying,

so I cannot imagine doing four subjects in three months.

But it's a possibility. So I can do that in

one year. I do eleven courses, or I pace myself

and do four subjects a year. I'll finish lower, but

I'll finish and maybe not die while doing it. But

if I'm all about speed, I will do all eleven

subjects in one year.

Nothing wrong with that. You'll be very fast. What was

it doing to me?

So when I say a rule of life will slow

you down, I'm saying, oh.

Slow down.

So now I come just once a month now because

four times the money is a lot.

It's not slowing down. Then you're thinking speed.

I'm not talking about how much you can do in

a set amount of time. Is how much time you

need to do a cert amount of things?

Amen? Yeahm so.

So it's it's not like, oh how much can I

serve in a year to become suppersportital and holy, It's like,

how long will I need to serve before I become

more patient?

More time or loving more? Wise? Okay?

Man, So a rural life will slow you down, meaning

it will pace you. It will help you decide how

much time you need to do a cet. You don't

change the things you need to do. You need to serve,

you need to give, you need to worship, you need

to quieten down. You need to practice severalth, you need

to fast sometimes, you need to read your Bible.

You need to do all those things. But how do

you paste it out? Makes sense? Pace yourself.

Pace yourself, so slowing down or pacing in the sense

that you become more conscious and aware of it. Because

when you speak peace, peace, peace, speed, you're not actually

aware of yourself.

You don't even know.

It's everything okay, it's everything, alright, it's my muscle's doing

all right. You don't know because you're all about speed.

But when you pace yourself, you become more aware. Oh,

this is happening, this is happening, this is happening. Ah,

I don't need this right now. I need that more

right now. Pace when you have a rule of life

that paces you. And that's what I meant by slowing down.

Pace there is a reference. Now, there's a ruler, there's

a trellist that measures. You can measure yourself against me

by man. So there are two categories of spiritual disciplines

as we pace ourself. That is the discipline of engagement,

which is stuff that you do, and there's a discipline

of abstinence, stuff that you don't do.

We need both.

So in a spiritual discipline, what do you have to

do and what do you have to not do? For example,

rest simple engagement. Doing is you gotta preach the gospel

that doing go do more preach. Ebstinence will be fasting,

don't do, don't eat, or don't watch TikTok so much

so from watching six hours a day.

Solid uh, you do less.

So disciplines of engagement serve, give or disciplines of ebstinence fast, sabbath, solitude,

quiet time, read or we can be both.

Both are important.

We need a healthy blend of abstinence and engagement. Imagine

two sets of muscles, the do muscle and the don't muscle.

We have both that like like your two but chicks.

Sorry no, not no ver accurate. It should be your

biceps and triceps. M So they're just being chicky. The

button the list doesn't work. But your by saying tricep,

that's what. That's what there's what more what it means

your do muscle and your don't muscle at any given

time one's contracting. So once contractor and once relaxed at

any given time.

So you need both.

You can't just have triceps and no biceps or have

bicets no triceps. You can just build your biceps and

ignore your triceps. You gotta build both. So we all

have to discipline muscles. It's called the dow muscle and

the don't muscle.

I HM.

So like a farmer culveted cultivating cultivating a piece of land.

Having a rule of life means there are things you

need to remove from the land before you put into

the land to grow something.

You can't have thorones in there. You can't have like

poison toxics in there.

You have to remove certain things, maybe rocks, and then

you put in the seed or you put in the

plant so that it can grow.

You need both.

Okay, it's both, my friends, both doing less and also

doing more, depending on where you're at. Some of us

need to do more of something and someone need to

do less of something. Amen, because I need to say

it because as you go to the practice the way

it cause it's gonna sound like what they're saying is

just do less les less less less as less. But

that was written in the culture where it's doing doing, doing,

doing doing, so it says a cultural nuance to it.

So I'm trying to bring the balance.

For some of you, you need to do more, not

doing enough, and so you you need too much. So

you need to know where you are. Without a trailist,

it's impossible to know. So reminder, a rule of life

is not another spiritual practice. The rule of life is

not a spiritual practice to add to your already as

a spiritual practice.

Think of your rural life as a container.

You have a container in which to decide what do

I fit into my role of life? And what do

I take out? Because it can only contain so much.

You can't do everything, my friends, but you can do

a lot, but we can't do everything. So a role

of life is giving yourself a container. And in this

container I can only fit this, this, this, this, this is,

and the rest of we have to take.

Bam. Yeah, So what fits into a role of life?

The crux of what the practices, and by the practices,

there seteen nine of them that you also discover in

your practicing the way it costs later, and I'll share

them with you soon. But the crux of the practices

of the spiritual disciplines is they are basically how much

we do what we can do so that the Spirit

of God can do what we cannot.

Do in us. So you do everything that you can

do and then you leave the rest. Got a right, Okay.

So, for example, there's something called direct change, and in

direct change, direct changes are change that is within the

realm of your willpower. So you're supposed to take less sugar.

It's within the realm of your willpower to reframe from

taking sugar.

Yes, no, I mean you can. You may be tempted,

you may be. It may be very difficult.

Or maybe you go six days without sugar and it's

the seven day cheap day. You can little bit, and

then Monday you say, never mind, I will try to

stop sugar again. It's within the realm of your willpower.

Go ahead and use the wheel power and wake up earlier.

Take less sugar, exercise more.

Indirect change is significant change that is beyond the realm

of your wheel power. Yeah.

For example, okay, all direct change. Stop cussing, you don't

cust Okay, stop cussing.

You can do that.

You can say, okay, I am going to stop using

bad words with my the same lips, the phrases God,

because that's like using the spoon to scoop price and

pook at the same time, So I won't do that anymore. Uh,

and me miss one or two times and you come

back to it a game. But it's the kind of

change that you can use so willpower to effect.

And uh, okay.

Indirect change will be things like I want to be

a loving husband.

I really want to. It's not a leg power, it's

not no today, I want to be a bad husband.

Nobody has that.

We wake up every day one thing willing to be

a good husband. But sometimes we have bad habits. Sometimes

we have all habits. Sometimes we learn from our previous generation.

You know, this is how you deal with your wife,

and it just sometimes comes without beyond our control. That

will be indirect change. That will be very hard to

say that if you just control. Ah, So you need

a little bit more. Because it's not a switch. You

can't just flip a switch and not worry. The bobble says,

do not worry. Hey, how many of you want to worry?

Nobody wants. But it's not within the remo. You will

power to no worry nobody. He's just beyond that. So

it's not a switch. I'm worrying right now, off Ah,

No worried. But you can't flip the stwits and say

no worry. But you can practice sebo. You can practice prayer,

you can practice scripture, serf gift.

That what you can do.

In other words, you know what, I cannot control my worry,

but I can control what I do with my my

next five minutes, My next five minutes. I'm gonna go

into the quiet room and I'm gonna speaking tongues.

I can do that. I can control that. It's within

my will power.

And as I pray in tongues, I believe that God

is doing something in me that makes me not worry

too much.

That I can do. That is what you need to

be intentional about. Amen.

So it's it's useless, pointless, powerless to try to don't

worry so much, don't be loved to us food, to

be so angry, pointless because it's indirect change. It can

only happen if you spend more time with God, spend more.

Time in worship, fasting, reading scripture. Amen. Who again, we

can control transformation. We can only we can. We can

just do our.

Best to open our lives to God for his transformation.

In us, Jacques Philip said, the primary task of a

disciple of Jesus is learning how to open deeper and

deeper parts of ourselves to what to grace. Grace means

God does the work. Remember the barber analogy. Your hair

won't cut yourself. You can't cut your own hair. You

have to bring you yourself to the bibble and then

let the bubble do his magic. You have to bring

yourself to God, surrender and let God do his magic

or miracle.

Amen. And that's what the practices do.

The practices are not an end in itself, but they

can and does open us to grace. The more you

practice prayer, the more you practice fast thing, for example,

the more you open yourself to grace the work of God,

and grace can change us into the kind of person who,

over time is increasingly more and more loving, and less

and less worried, more and more like Jesus.

So what does a rule of life do for us?

It does four things? Rule of life.

So in the practicing the way, because you might read

the first line, ask it will slow you down?

I prefer it paces you. It paces you. Yeah.

That sometimes means you have to speed up. If I

want to finish my next half marathon in less than

three hours. I have to run faster than I did

the last time, but not in a way theyccuse myself.

So in some in some parts you have to be faster.

In another ways you have to be slower, so it

paces you. A rule of life also what breaks the

addiction to hurry? And when I say hurry and don't

just mean do more and more things. Some people are

just workaholics, right, I also mean in the internal sense,

like being patient with your change. I know you want

to change. Oh you know, I know we want to

change tomorrow. But something you have to be. Okay, we've

got just working in you for a longer period of time.

A rur right also helps us practice the pace of

love and peace.

How do I.

Approach this situation with love? How do I approach that

circumstance with peace? And finally, a rule of life focuses

on transformation rather than on real power. Okay, what are

the practices which you will see in your guide?

Anyway? Is this nine things?

Sabbath, solitude, prayer, fasting, scripture, community, generosity, service, witness.

I will quickly explain them.

I won't go too deep into them because we're gonna

learn it throughout GGS anyway is that okay? Basically, see,

I arrange them tot like that intentionally because the first

three is where we if the more we do, the

more we be with Jesus. It's saba solitide prayer. Sabath

is a spiritual journey that begins with rest. Subriginally begins

with rest.

I don't know. Over busy people are not loving.

Overly busy people as also overly busy people are not

living peace and joy. So sab if you go to

the cost that we actually ask you to sell us

a day where you put away your phone, you turn

off the TV.

There's different ways to do it.

So I won't go into those details because you will

go to it in the cost and you can you

can learn it on your own.

But basically it's.

An intentional day slash time where you put away distractions,

your phone, your work, maybe whatever it is that takes

you away from just being with God and God alone solitude,

as the word suggests, it's rest but alone. You don't

talk to people, you don't listen to people, you're not

around noise. That's why this this is not things written

by some amla. They can like just go through some

mountains somewhere and then the weather is cool and they

sit there and fish for three hours and come back.

We all are do I go, are everywhere, gam go

to some people.

Everybody is there, So you have to find your own

other ways to do it. But understand the principle a

time to be alone. Jesus did it too, and I

think I think Jesus shows a very practical way. You

know why he woke up three in the morning to

go and do it because the disciples will wake up

at five, so he better go do it before they

wake up. So his sacrifice he made so that he

can connect with his father. Those days in Jewish, those

days they start work at six am. So that's why

we go at three am. Did you know the March

of the two when he finished praying, everybody is looking

for you. Six am. People looking for him. Come hear me,

touch me, talk to me. So he has to go earlier.

You see how he sets a rule of life for himself.

I'm not saying you have to pray at three am.

Whatever your three am is, You got to have a

three am. That's the point prayer, Okay, you know what

prayer is. We define prayer as spending time with God

with without talking. And then the next three practices is

to become like Jesus, fast thing, reading scripture, and community

or focus on community at the end a lot more

because this is we are not meant to follow Jesus alone.

There's literally part of the Bible you cannot even practice

if you do it.

If you are alone. You can forgive one another, you

can love one another, you can serve one another if

you're all by yourself. So friends, good news, so bad news.

We have to do this in community. Amen.

That one is behave like generosity, giving away our time,

our resources.

Service.

When we serve, it has the power to fix things,

change this world. We can summarize the world's problems into

one word, selfishness. People are selfish, so they're wrong, They still,

they kill, they cheat, they lie, they they bribe selfishness

to reverse that servitude give amen. And finally you got

witness making space for the gospel, preaching the gospel, demonstrating

the gospel.

Amen. Okay, so in your guide you will see things

like that. Okay. So basically they put the nine practices

on the top, and then they put a daily, weekly,

monthly by the side. Uh. And then you can put there.

Okay, seth is something I do weekly, maybe once a week,

and then prayer is something I pray daily. Solitude maybe

every day, I spend five minutes alone something like that. Okay,

obviously you can't read. I'm not eating you too. It's

in your guide, so go check it out. I'm just

giving you a sample they purposically give you. Like example,

this is a sample of someone who is a graduate

student in the twenties. You can see how they designed theirs.

And then this is a mother with a young son

who works as a teacher. This is what looks like. No,

everyone here doesn't have to look the same, but what

we're saying is we all got to have one.

What is yours?

I've recently only started in the early in the morning.

Look as versus one word one verse verse run put

into my ear a sermon or some kind of podcasts

as I run a fifty. At the same time, I'm

keeping fit while feeding my brain, my mind, my heart

that I come back. There was a time where I

was boiling promaganate juice. My father taught me so it

takes ten minutes to boil. So in ten minutes, I'm

sitting on a toller ball. I'm pooping and reading the Bible.

I do three things and go. When I finish pook

reading the Bible, then my my drink is ready.

The drink has to cool down. I can't drink it hard,

so what is cooling down? I go shower.

After I finished hour, I come down the nicest. The

drink is just nice enough to drink.

I drink it.

Then I take my oh anden I watched that my

wife wakes movie, and then I think my supplements about

seven eight pills. Then I go and send my son

to school, and then my day starts. Amen, something like that,

something that there's something I do daily, still working on

my weekly monthly ones.

Okay, how do you craft a rule of life?

There are two thousand disciplines upstream once downstream easy ones.

Think of yourself as a second one. Okay, swing as hard, write,

swim downstream is easier. Now we need both kinds of disciplines. Okay,

we need both downstream ones are like, okay, I running

in the morning used to be an upstream for me.

Now is most of the time downstream, Like I actually

enjoy it. Sometimes we feel like when we enjoy doing something,

it's like it's not spiritual enough. Through we feel like,

oh no, no, we must must much fast as fast oxygen

don't need I holy.

Not really like we're all beginning this journey.

I think it's smart, practical wise to start with a

lot more downstream disciplines. Like now I can wake up

in the morning and run, so I use that as

my time to spend time with GOT.

Those days I try things that doesn't work.

Okay, after I send my son to school, I sit

down somewhere, I see'st and I talk for one hour

because I go to the semi nose frequently. The Indian

lady there is my friend. Now, how are you good?

Morning? House? Your day?

I'm like, I just want to city, ask about how

are you? She tells me her life story.

Are you that day? Oh my gosh? So can It

doesn't work, So ask yourself, Hey, what do you do

that you enjoy? That? You can also.

Use that as a time where you spend time with GOT. Okay,

maybe you like you're like you talk to me not

you like to read? Great read some of us maybe

very hard to read. So put on the audiobook listener.

I when I listen to music, I can't run imagine

corn comes tell your faster. So I listened to podcasts run.

I find out when I listen to podcasts is more

engaged and my thinking is a podcast. I was not

thinking about running better. So whatever works for you, La.

When I listened to this practice in the way they

were talking, like they're talking about fly fishing, La, hiking

the mountains, I'm like, Okay, this is Malaysia where they

can do two pm, hide a mountain, we hide two pm,

we come down, rust can. So you gotta figure out

what it is for you, it said, Okay, but must

be balanced. Don't just do all the easy easy ones.

There must be some because it's triceps and biceps one.

Some hard onest one for me will be I've told

my wife I haven't started yet, but I want to

do a full week water first, once or twice a year,

seven days just water.

That's hard. That's why I haven't started.

So I start easy one for as st La, fast

your sugar here, fast, bell rise.

You know what I'm saying.

But I want to do that because you know it

resets my body helps me. So hey, spiritual disciplines, we

do that for all kinds of things we do to

train for hiking mountain bahloo lah. You know we do

that for wedding. La loose spaces so I can fit

into the jacket law. All kinds of things you do,

we can do this one.

We can just being intentional with your spiritual disciplines. Amen.

So as we listen to rule, there are two reactions

to rules. Some of us are aspirational. We see this

rule of living, go yeah. Those of us maybe guys

are like more competitive, more like tubs o reented.

Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna wake up

in the morning.

Don't be expirational, because a rule of life is not

meant to be something you chase. If you're chasing it,

something's off somewhere. Secondly, don't also be appracid or rules.

I cannot unless spontaneity. I'm a creative when I'm inspired

to read the Bible.

I read now.

When I'm not inspired, sy La, it's just so happened

the last six years. Not inspired one by one day,

cannot bro you try to have your Americans today. I

do feel like coming home. So Darling, you eat yourself,

but you haven't come for us six months.

I know.

Because I just don't do well with edoms and rules

are you stay married long? But now either it's good.

Don't be like, oh this is a goal, I am I

gonna do it because you become like it's all about.

Success and failure. It's not a rule of life should

not be expirational. Okay, I'll give you a picture. A

rule of life is like an anchor. An anchor is

to a ship. When an anchor drops into the ocean

and the ship is on top of the anchor, if

it's not stormy whatever. Right, you actually don't even realize

that there's an anchor. Right, that's what the rule of

life should be. You should treat it like an anchor.

You wakeme in the morning and you read the Bible

first thing in the morning, because that's what you do.

That's what you do. When you're thirsty, you drink. When

you got diarrhea, you poop. Okay, it's just you know, like,

oh I got that right now, m poop must poop.

Come on, poop, come on like it. No, no tree

is out there now stressing hour, trying to push the

food out of the branch. They just be a tree.

I'm a tree. I bear fruit. Duran's gonna come out

of me soon. It's an anchor. But because it's an

anchor of your life, sometimes when life drifts you away,

you'll feel the tug pull back. Oh I feel it now.

One day miss the run, I feel it. Or it's

literally one day I miss a passage of scripture. I

feel it because it's like the tug of the anchor anchor.

Here you're drifting pulling back. So do make some explirational workout, pogram.

I gotta do this. It's like part of your life.

That's why it's okay to start with more downstream ones.

What's what's easy for you to meet you God? Do

that first, then you can do.

Your forty day fast thing and all that.

Okay, it's just chill. It's this container that has all

these practices. Fit in a lot more downstream ones and

a few upstream ones. Because life will give you upstream

ones where do you like you or not. You'll give

you a difficult boss, a crazy girlfriend I don't know,

a reb driver, or an unreasonable lecturer is going to

happen anyway. So you're gonna get those upstream onths anyway.

So build a lot of downstream onths. I can wake

up I can do this. I can read. I can

read five verses a day, or I can read three.

Go for that amen. But hey, don't be apprehensive towards

rules or rule because every relationship of substance is built

on rhythm and spontaneity. We need both to maintain a

healthy relationship. Rhythms carve out time and space for you

to be with Jesus, to become like him and to

be with him. Remember Moses, Moses had a rhythm. Every

day he goes to the part of the desert, he

probably circled the bush a million times. It says that

us coming to service every week for the last thirty years,

ten years, for three years.

Whatever. You've been in church since you were a kid

Sunday school.

You heard all of our stories, and sometimes nothing sparticularly happens.

And in one fine day, same old desert, same blood, sheep,

so same same poop, sheep, ship poop, same everything. Suddenly

the bush comes alive and there's a fire burning, and

the bush is not burned, and a voice comes out

of it, and suddenly Moses is now a savior of

three million people, only to go back into the desert

for four years.

Anyways, So how about David. David.

Every day, Papa say bring this cheeses and break to

your brothers. The brothers they aren't having fun. Dead were

shooting the gun. They get the hold of gun. They

don't spear a sword lastic. Oh, they are doing the

real thing. I'm thinking of sheep at the back of

the mountain.

Nobody's ease. They have to bring sheep, brand and cheese

to my brothers. Where's the action, where's the action? Imagine

that one day he said, piggy La, someone else can

play the drums. Someone else can play key on Pigila.

Someone else do the color Piggyla, someone else give ties

an offering every time.

Me me, me, me that one day you imagine David said,

forget it, no more, Jeez and Bray.

You can settle yourself. He will not have met go liar.

There will be no killing of Giant, there will be

no entering Saul's cards, there will be no king David.

So yeah, when you carve out a redom, you're actually

making space for God to do the spontaneous. Actually the

burning bush, the colarth, and then the blind man at protest,

the pool bro he has been hanging out at the

pool for the longest time, nothing happens, nothing happens. I'll

change pool. Then that day he changes pool. Jesus shows up.

So marriage is the same right that Jay and I

are learning.

So many of you try to to to stick to

to somehow spontaneity okay, doesn't work.

So now we have a calendar. She sends me Google calendar.

So we have a set time where we do it.

But then we have another set time where we go

on dates. We don't talk about church or work, although.

It's quite hard, not truel because we love it just

so much, but we try to make that our marriage time.

This does not mean we never miss it.

We're always perfect, but at least we have a readom

then to allow for spontaneity to have an A two

D we met long or eight Nena instill doing this

this day, we over the weekend now, but you start

with a freedom amen. Okay, Yeah, how do you live

a rule of life?

Start small?

Start your day with intentionality, make it about celebration and joy.

Where do I deeply enjoy God, memby the downstream disciplines,

and do it in community with accountability. So we will

talk more about this next week and the week to come,

and next week I won't it won't be like this anymore. Okay,

it won't be one hours some one's anymore. I don't

worry for a long time. It will be hard to

talk from next week onwards because we want to drive

some real issues. But this part is important. We need

to do discipleshit in community. A lot of the stuff

that we learned over the weeks, it's all about oh,

me and Jesus, me, prayer or it's all good.

It sets a base, but need to be expressed with

someone else.

This is where you have someone who disciples you, and

then you disciple someone. And also when you do it

together with others steps where Jesus are so important and man,

the Bible says, go therefore and make disciples. I mean

Jesus asked you to go make disciple. If people do

want to be disciposed by someone else, how is she

going to make disciple?

Clearly, this picture.

Of someone discipling someone discipling someone is something designed by God.

And I know that it's not always been done well

by Christians or churches. Some do it very badly, some

doing to push to advance other agendas. But we have

learned what is the agenda here to become like Jesus.

So if I'm discipling you, I'm my goal is to

help you be more like Jesus, not more like me.

But we have the same base. We understand what it

means to be a bye, understand what it means to

be have to have spiritual discipline, understand how spiritual information works.

We have a base.

That's why Paul was so Paul boldly say things like

imitate me, emitting me as I also imitate Christ. We're

all trying to be like Christ. So somewhere along the

way these shar has got to find some way. And

we're thinking, now, gg is the way. If you have

questions next week, let's let's talk about it. But we

need to have someone to process it with. Even the

world who is non Christian don't have the biblical values,

even they know the value of having a mentor or coach,

a trainer, someone to lead. I think we can do

it well, Amen, Timothy said, uh, what you have heard

from me, posity Timothy in the presence of many witnesses,

and trust it to faithful men and who will be

able to teach others also, so you see a progression.

Here I teach you, you teach them, so on and

so forth. So I endways. This picture Trellis, you see,

Trelie is like a it's not a it's a structurer.

You know you've done that. That that that game before

where we all have to hold hands and combine hands

and someone sits on it. Yeah, that's what we need

to shutther. We don't join hands, we know hold each other.

We need to work together. If we don't do that,

there's no way to grow. Amen.

We may step on store sometimes this past week yourself,

I've had so many mis come with different people. Trellis,

join hands, Let's work together. The person de separating another

person is not greater or smart, the or more wholia.

We're doing someone's discipling me, and I'm discipling you, and

someone's you're going to disable someone.

We are all in this together, amen. So it's not

a hierarchy thing. It's not position.

What matters is said, we're all being intentional in becoming

more of Jesus am.

I thank you for joining us on The Generation's Church podcast.

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