Build Different Part 3 I Pastor Joshua Gay

[SPEAKER_00]: High Praise Podcasts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everybody, this is Pastor Josh.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll leave Pastor here at High Praise and I want to thank you for downloading today's podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know that this message is going to encourage and bless you.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I want you to open up your heart and receive with the Lord as for you today.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've been in this, in this series called Build Different.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've been talking about being formed by the Lord being formed into the believer, into the Christian, into the human being that He desires for us to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what that looks like and what that process begins to look at, look like.

[SPEAKER_00]: So tonight, let's start here in First Timothy chapter four.

[SPEAKER_00]: He saw that there for my first Timothy four.

[SPEAKER_00]: Says this, but reject, profane in old wives' fables.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's, I want you to understand that again, exercise yourself towards Godliness.

[SPEAKER_00]: For bodily exercise, profits a little, but Godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come and go to the next part of the community.

[SPEAKER_00]: Meditate on these things, give yourself entirely to them that your progress may be evident to who?

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe evident to all take heed to yourself and to the doctrine, continue in them for in doing this, you'll be saved, you'll be saved both yourself and those who hear you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul writing to Timothy here, go back to verse 7 and he tells him this to exercise yourself toward Godliness.

[SPEAKER_00]: That word carries the idea of training, of practice, of repetition, of intentional preparation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul doesn't say Timothy, just love God and is going to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't say, just, you know, you said a prayer one time, and everything's going to work itself out, you don't worry about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he tells him exercise yourself towards Godliness.

[SPEAKER_00]: That means put the work in that you need to put in to become Godly.

[SPEAKER_00]: that you put the work in, that you need to put in to become godly.

[SPEAKER_00]: We, I'm going to get ahead of myself, but we as the church have to get back to an understanding that the early church had that even early father said that the idea of work in relation to righteousness is not bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you for that overwhelming response.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't earn your salvation, but you can exercise yourself towards Godliness.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't in and of yourself be good enough to earn salvation that is given simply through the mercy of Jesus, but we are called to exercise ourselves towards Godliness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me put it this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Godliness is not automatic.

[SPEAKER_00]: Godliness happens through intentional effort.

[SPEAKER_00]: It comes through putting the work in.

[SPEAKER_00]: It comes through being committed.

[SPEAKER_00]: It comes from being formed.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just gonna happen because you set a prayer one time at an altar at VBS whenever you were six years old.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have to put the work in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you all with me tonight?

[SPEAKER_00]: I said, you have to put the work in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul doesn't say try harder to look spiritual.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says in effort, in essence, what he's saying is, train your life in the direction of Godliness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hear me, you don't accidentally become spiritually mature.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some people aren't just given the gift of spiritual maturity.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that some people get it and some people don't.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have to exercise yourself toward Godliness.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know in this room we have different people who have different skill sets, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Steve, obviously, is a pastor's Steve as a trumpet player, and Pastor's Steve didn't just pray a prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, I would like to play the trumpet.

[SPEAKER_00]: And wake up one day and know how to read music and know how to play.

[SPEAKER_00]: I played the bass, I didn't just wake up one day after a prayer and know how to play bass guitar.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's other people in this room with skill sets and they didn't just magically happen to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what happened?

[SPEAKER_00]: They put in the work.

[SPEAKER_00]: I guarantee I don't know how many hours past their Steve probably put in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I've heard stories about how many hours my dad put in.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't know, he plays trumpet.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you've never heard dad play trumpet, that's an amazing trumpet player.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because he'd be like, I haven't played in a year.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to sound awful.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then he'll pick it up and it's like he never stopped playing.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, that was terrible.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're like, stop it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He don't have to fish for a compliment.

[SPEAKER_00]: That hard.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're giving him two anyways.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I've heard the stories, listen, dad practiced so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just playing y'all know that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dad practiced so much whenever he was a teenager that my grandparents built a practice room for him off of the house.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not telling the truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: They built a practice room for him off of the house because they were tired of hearing it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was so committed that in the morning, I tell him did you get up in the morning and start practicing.

[SPEAKER_00]: For in the morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: he would start practicing that's early right when he's a teenager i can't get my kid out of the bed for the morning for anything or may for that matter come on somebody right he he wanted to be excellent so he put the work in right nothing happens by accident nobody becomes accidentally physically conditioned

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a propiter on the day of Pentecost, but that's all another thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one becomes accidentally fluent in other languages.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody, and in the same manner, nobody accidentally becomes deeply prayerful.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody becomes by accident rooted in Scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one becomes by accident faithful in community.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody becomes by accident humble in service.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody by accident becomes spiritually mature.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't happen that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: You exercise yourself toward godliness.

[SPEAKER_00]: We live in a culture that celebrates inspiration, but scripture readily emphasizes our formation more than inspiration.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's about more than just what you feel about what are you being formed into.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's about what disciplines are you, what are you willing to put the work in for?

[SPEAKER_00]: And once again, in the church, we made work and works a bad word, which is really silly because the Bible, the New Testament specifically, has a lot to say about what you do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not just what you believe, which by the way, if you tell me you believe something and your life doesn't show it, you don't really believe you might say,

[SPEAKER_00]: but you don't really actually believe, because if you actually believe, you're gonna walk it out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, somebody?

[SPEAKER_00]: Scripture, Scripture tells us that you were created for good works.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you were destined for good works, hear me, inspiration might can start something, but practice is what builds something.

[SPEAKER_00]: There can be a moment of inspiration that you go, I wanna do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you don't just sit on your couch and watch it and go, I'm getting better.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to do something.

[SPEAKER_00]: A moment can awaken a hunger, but rhythm gives that hunger moment to grow.

[SPEAKER_00]: You with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so just want to do tonight, we'll do this real fast, I know what time it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll do this real fast.

[SPEAKER_00]: What I want to do is, let me say this first, whenever I was a kid, how many millennials we got, where my millennial peeps had in the room?

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, can tell y'all, I'm a linoz, because you're tired, y'all just went, all right, somebody y'all, you're shoulder popped when you raised your hand.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm, I'm a lino, and I remember as a kid in the 90s, and I think they're popular again.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think Pastor Castle wears one or a version of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever I was a kid in the 90s, what got really popular was these bracelets.

[SPEAKER_00]: and they said, W, W, JD, what would Jesus do?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you holding one up, Nick?

[SPEAKER_00]: Nick's holding one up on his keychain.

[SPEAKER_00]: What would Jesus do?

[SPEAKER_00]: And it became like this thing that everyone wore that you got at the Christian bookstore, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we probably need to ask, it's not a bad question yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't misunderstand me.

[SPEAKER_00]: What would Jesus do?

[SPEAKER_00]: But in order to really answer that question properly, you have to know what Jesus did.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just what would Jesus do and he did something that was morally good.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, what did Jesus do?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you don't know what Jesus did, you can't do what Jesus would do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So what I want to look at because Scripture tells us that we are being conformed to the image of the Son.

[SPEAKER_00]: that were being conformed to the image of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if we're called to be conformed to His image, then the way we're going to be conformed to His image is to follow in His rhythms, is to follow in His disciplines.

[SPEAKER_00]: If there was some, and people do this all the time, I see these, and I don't follow them, but I see them.

[SPEAKER_00]: influencers on Instagram or TikTok that are people who are like in shape and they're like do this routine right and you sell in your couch in scroll past it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you want to have their results then you need to do what they did.

[SPEAKER_00]: The reason I don't look like them is because I'm not willing to do what they do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: If I did I did it enough

[SPEAKER_00]: And I followed the diet plan, and I followed the training regimen, and I got the sleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: I needed to sleep and drank way too much water.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then I would get those results.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we want to look like Jesus, then we can't just scroll past his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: and not follow the training regiment that's laid out.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we want to look like Jesus, then we've got to follow His regiment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then we have to follow His pattern.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to follow His life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we need to stop asking only what would Jesus do and start asking what did Jesus repeatedly do?

[SPEAKER_00]: What were his patterns, what were his customs?

[SPEAKER_00]: And tonight, I want to give you, if I have time, we'll see, I want to give you six that I think are really important for Jesus for becoming made in his image and building different from everybody else, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is this, and each of these is just one more abdominal elaborate.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is this gather, somebody say gather.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, say, gather.

[SPEAKER_00]: Though they're Luke 4 16, it says this.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he, Jesus, came to Nazareth, where he'd been brought up, get this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is important.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the most important part.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the most important part.

[SPEAKER_00]: As his custom was,

[SPEAKER_00]: This is his rhythm, this is his pattern, this is his regiment, this is what he's doing all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus gathered with the people of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus made it part of his habit, part of his custom.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about this, think about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to really, really think about this one for a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he still feels it's necessary to gather with the people of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: If anybody could have been like, I'm in perfect communion with the Father, I don't need anybody else.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus still says, because there are people coming after me that need to be formed into my image.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna give them the regiment.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna give them the way that they need to be like me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the most important things is this, I'm going together with the people of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: And the really big phrase there is this was his custom.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was his custom.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we obviously know that the synagogue is not identical to the New Testament church, but the formation principle here is unmistakable.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus built his life around the gathered worship community.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me put it this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Church was not an occasional event in Jesus' life.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was part of his rhythm.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to think about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: That means this, if it was part of his rhythm, then there were undoubtedly normal days where Jesus went and gathered, and nothing extraordinary happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where Jesus went and gathered with the people of God and nothing extraordinary happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there weren't any miracles.

[SPEAKER_00]: There wasn't some dramatic manifestation

[SPEAKER_00]: Can we put it this way?

[SPEAKER_00]: There wasn't some viral moment, are you all with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: He simply gathered.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus went because mature faith is not sustained only by extraordinary moments.

[SPEAKER_00]: mature faith is not sustained by just extraordinary moments.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to understand something.

[SPEAKER_00]: What you make occasional will never form you like what you make a bit you will.

[SPEAKER_00]: Say it again, what you make occasional will never form you like what you make a habitual.

[SPEAKER_00]: Go back to that workout analogy for a second here, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you go to the gym once every 60 days, you're going to look the same, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you go to the gym once every 60 days, but you go through McDonald's,

[SPEAKER_00]: or hungry, how he's pizza, huh?

[SPEAKER_00]: They line, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or whatever, or your favorite fast food is, every other day, what's going to literally form you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Not the gym, the fast food menu.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, somebody, y'all with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: But we expect to be formed by what we do occasionally.

[SPEAKER_00]: and then what we do consistently for God to just understand.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, but we have to make his rhythm consistent.

[SPEAKER_00]: And one of his rhythms is this, Jesus gathers.

[SPEAKER_00]: He practices showing up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And let me just go here for a moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: The one reason that I believe in America, and we are seeing this and even our church we're seeing growth across the country, what we're primarily seeing in the church is a downturn in church attendance, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We're seeing a downturn in church attendance.

[SPEAKER_00]: But,

[SPEAKER_00]: I think one of the reasons for that is we have allowed such a consumeristic mindset to seep into the church where we go, where if we feel like going, we go as long as there's nothing else happening, we go, if we feel like we're quote-unquote getting something, which by the way, you get something every time you show up.

[SPEAKER_00]: because you're in the presence of Lord and with God's people, whether you feel it or not, you're receiving something.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the gathered community is not just a consume.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't go to consume, we go because we belong.

[SPEAKER_00]: We go because it's where we're called to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: We go because that's our rhythm.

[SPEAKER_00]: We go because that's what's forming us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We go because the people of God are forming us to look like Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to hear me, no, I'm just going to challenge you with this and I know it's Wednesday night and you're here on Wednesday and you all are probably the ones who don't need to hear this, but let me go on podcast and everybody else can hear it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have to make gathering with the people of God, a rhythm, not an option you consider every weekend, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: You have to make it a rhythm, you have to make it a habit, you have to make it a custom, not something you whenever you go to bed on Saturday, y'all are like, are we going to go tomorrow or not?

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look at the weather.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's raining so we can't go.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not raining in the sunshine and so we can't go.

[SPEAKER_00]: That new Netflix show just dropped so we can't go.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing to watch on Netflix and we need to do stuff at the house so we can't go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, we can always come up with a reason.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can always have an excuse, but that's exactly what it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to excuse.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now let me just challenge you with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Decide right now, what kind of family are you gonna be?

[SPEAKER_00]: Decide right now, what kind of, why my kids didn't wanna go?

[SPEAKER_00]: When did they become the boss?

[SPEAKER_00]: And let me just say this too.

[SPEAKER_00]: Quit blaming your kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, praise God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, I wanna make sure I'm going to make sure I'm going to make sure I'm going to make sure I'm going to make sure I'm going to make sure I'm going to make sure I'm going to make sure I'm going to make sure I'm going to make sure I'm going to make sure I'm going

[SPEAKER_00]: This is rhythm, this is custom, this is habit.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is an earning favoritism, this is formation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you're sound like you're just saying, we'd have to do these things to get God to love us.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not what I'm hearing, it's saying it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm saying is this will exercise you towards Godliness.

[SPEAKER_00]: God loves you regardless.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you want to exercise towards Godliness, this is what you do in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Next thing, somebody say pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus built a life of communion, says this on in where we got Luke 5, Luke 5, though it up.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he himself often withdrew into the wilderness and he did what?

[SPEAKER_00]: He prayed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus often withdrew into the wilderness and he prayed.

[SPEAKER_00]: The operative word here is not even prayed.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's so he himself often.

[SPEAKER_00]: He often withdrew himself into the wilderness and he prayed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus did not have a prayer emergency plan.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus had a prayer life.

[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of Christians today have a prayer emergency plan.

[SPEAKER_00]: We pray when things go wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, when things go wrong, you should pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: But let me say this, you can avoid some things going wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you go ahead and pray first,

[SPEAKER_00]: We make bad decisions and then pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you should have prayed before you made the decision.

[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe the spirit would have told you, going down that road wasn't a good road.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what you did is you made the decision without talking to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you went, God, why did this happen?

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on now.

[SPEAKER_00]: How many is, come on, how many I've done it before?

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, some of y'all liars says, all right, they line, come on now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus builds this life of communion with the Father.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if Jesus flourish in a life of communion with the Father, why would we assume we can flourish without it?

[SPEAKER_00]: If Jesus flourish inside a prayer, why would we think that we can flourish outside of prayer?

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: in Luke 612, it says this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, came to pastor of those days that he went out to the mountain and prayed and he continued all night in prayer to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He just prayed all night in prayer, Jesus is God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he continued all night in prayer to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Luke 2239 says, coming out, he went to the mountain of olives.

[SPEAKER_00]: He as he was a custom and his disciples also followed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that just started by him praying.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says, as he was a custom, prayer was not random in the life of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was woven into the very structure of his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, we pray whenever we need it, we pray whenever we feel it, what if you just prayed because it's who you are and it's what you do, what if prayer wasn't something you did because you needed something or something was going bad or something was wrong, but what if prayer was just part of your rhythm of your life that what's what you do?

[SPEAKER_00]: I promise you, you're not half as busy as you think you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can all, and by the way, if your life is too busy for prayer, then you need to be busy your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say again, if your life is too busy for prayer, you need to be busy your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is nothing more important than you having communion with the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if your life is too busy for you to commune with God, you need to get your heart

[SPEAKER_00]: And you need to get your priorities straight.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is when you say, aren't you all good?

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't you know what, you know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: You have to build a prayer rhythm that exists before the crisis arrives.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was when when everything happened with my brother on on Saturday, it just so happened that I was with mom and dad already, which is rare on Saturday, but we just so happened to be together.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I watched, I jumped dad and I jumped in the car and immediately took off.

[SPEAKER_00]: I won't tell you how many risky events my life 360 said we had on the way over.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was 63.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was not driving.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dad was driving, and he was driving as dad in that moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did look at him at one point and I said, Dad, I know you want to get to the hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I would like us both to actually arrive at the hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was conscious of that, like 360, says otherwise.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that's OK.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm playing with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm playing with him a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm going to start with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not just telling you about like 360.

[SPEAKER_00]: I observed that do this immediately, right, in that moment, that moment, the first thing that Dad did was he prayed, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And the first thing he did was he started declaring.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I've been around this man for 40 years, almost 41 years.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that was not the first time I've seen him pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: because it's a rhythm in his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you've been around dad and most of staff could have tested this, if you pass him in the hall going somewhere and nobody's around him, he's normally praying.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's normally praying, what am I saying?

[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just something in the moment, God, I need something, so now I'm gonna pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a rhythm that's already in his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wanna make sure I'm abundantly clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying there's something wrong with praying when something goes wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what you should do.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we shouldn't only pray when things go wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: You should already have a lifestyle of communion and prayer with the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have to keep going, y'all with me, because I'm only 32.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next thing is feed to my say feed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Say, feed, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus was saturated with Scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew 44 says this, but he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, when Satan tempted Jesus, Scripture came out of him because Scripture was already in him, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus quoted Scripture in temptation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus quoted Scripture in teaching,

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus quoted scripture in confrontation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus quoted scripture in worship, and even on the cross, Jesus is quoting scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: The word had formed his vocabulary and had formed his responses, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So as believers, it's not our job to give our opinion about everything or to give people a piece of your mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: My grandpa, I'm my dad, I've heard him say it 100,000 times.

[SPEAKER_00]: Between the two level, you gotta be careful about giving away pieces of your mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you ain't gonna have any left.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, it's not your job to give your opinion or a piece of your mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's your job to declare the word.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's your job to speak the word.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't be formed by a word you rarely consume.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I know, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all

[SPEAKER_00]: I made mention of this, not long ago, there was a political figure recently that stood up at an event and said, you know, like the Bible says, and then quoted a passage from Pope fiction, the Quentin Tarantino movie.

[SPEAKER_00]: And also, I'm curious, it's like I'm glad to see men of God quote in the Scriptures in public offices because they don't know the word either.

[SPEAKER_00]: You all don't look at me in that tone of voice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you all with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, we don't know the word.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we don't know the word, because we don't read the word.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the reason we don't know the scriptures because we won't pick up our bibles and read them.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have more scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have the scripture more readily available to us than any generation that has ever walked the face of there and we are more biblically illiterate than any generation that's ever walked the face of the earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: What a tragedy.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible that you ignore, there's people in countries that cry whenever they get a Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: The scriptures that you so easily discard, they're prohibited from reading.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you treat it like it's nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And these people treat it dearly, Lord forgive us.

[SPEAKER_00]: That are a heart to be turned to your word again.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, let me say this too, just reading doesn't mean reading well.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good place to start.

[SPEAKER_00]: But just reading doesn't mean reading well, read slow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thought about how quick you can read it is about, what are you picking up from it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Read it deliberately.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you're reading it, ask Lord, what are you saying to me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Come to HPSM this year in Pastor Garrett.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna start with New Testament survey one and he's gonna put you in the world of the New Testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you actually know what it's been talked about.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, thank you for that overwhelming response.

[SPEAKER_00]: Next one, I gotta hurry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Next one, withdraw.

[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody say withdraw.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus practiced solitude.

[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew, our Mark one, throw it up, walk 135.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now in the morning, having risen along,

[SPEAKER_00]: uh... while before daylight he went out and departed to a what to a solitary place and there he prayed jesus intentionally removes himself from noise he loved people deeply yet he refuses to let the noise constantly drown everything out now i want to be clear this in no way

[SPEAKER_00]: is in competition with point one together.

[SPEAKER_00]: With draw and gather are not in competition because you know what Jesus still did after he would drew, he gathered and he didn't withdraw on the day that was to go to the temple, by the way, because that was his custom as what it says.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus loved people deeply.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And we are, so he withdrew, he withdrew, but he always reconnected.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need, it amazes, it makes me the world, yeah, I just needed a day to withdraw.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were on your phone the whole day.

[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't withdraw from anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thing that you probably needed withdraw from is that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need to withdraw from the presence of the Lord and the people of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to withdraw from the podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to withdraw from whatever you're watching, jump, you're watching on Netflix.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to come on now, I'm going to step on your toes too much as I write yours to go with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And our generation has almost eliminated silence, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We wake up, phone, check the notifications, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Open up the apps.

[SPEAKER_00]: See what happened to all we were asleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, that's if you're, that's if you're like 45, 50 area younger.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're older than that, it's turned to TV on to good morning America and the 47 viewers that are watching it with you are there.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, you driving the car, music, podcast, the news, whatever it is you do in the car.

[SPEAKER_00]: Work notifications, everything blowing up.

[SPEAKER_00]: evening, TV, video games, bed, phone again, and in the midst of all of this, there's almost no unclean space left for God.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's almost no unclean space for us to be silent and hear the voice of Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's almost no unclean space for us not to be overwhelmed by all the outside voices

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, a lot of us aren't spiritually dry because God's silent.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're spiritually dry because everything else is crowded and it's so loud we can't hear him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you all with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to hear me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Solitude is not isolation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Solitude is not isolation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Isolation runs from people, but solitude withdraws with God so we can return to people whole.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a difference.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus knew when to leave a crowd and went to reiterate.

[SPEAKER_00]: He refused to let urgency become his Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you all with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Two more, you all still with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Give me a couple more minutes.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, we're doing it anyway, five.

[SPEAKER_00]: So my say table, Jesus practiced presence with people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Luke 5, 29th and 32 have been read it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then Levi gave him Jesus a great feast in his own house.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there were great number of task collectors

[SPEAKER_00]: who set down with them and they're scribes and the Pharisees can play against his disciples saying, why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus answered and said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, one of the main things I want you to see here is that Jesus didn't just preach it, people he gathered at tables with people.

[SPEAKER_00]: that Jesus his idea of ministry was not just platform, it was table-based.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was that we are going to have community together, not just come and hear a word together.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, meals are everywhere in the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: After the resurrection, Jesus cooks just disciples, breakfast.

[SPEAKER_00]: Go read it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He cooks them breakfast on the shores of Galilee.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus practiced his presence, not just platform ministry.

[SPEAKER_00]: This matters because formation doesn't just happen in Bible and prayer and solitude.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus forms us in community.

[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all heard us preach it again and again and again.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've heard me say it again and again.

[SPEAKER_00]: We obviously know in Genesis chapter one, God looks at Adam and says, it's not good for man to be alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: He makes woman to be a helper for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we obviously believe God is telling us a lot of things there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's telling us about marriage and he's instituting marriage.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the other thing is this overarching the theological big picture idea of one person can't do is not an island unto themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: a place of perfection where God's presence was with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He still looked at Adam and said, just me and Adam ain't good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: God said, just me and Adam isn't good.

[SPEAKER_00]: He needs somebody else.

[SPEAKER_00]: He needs another person.

[SPEAKER_00]: He needs a family.

[SPEAKER_00]: He needs a community.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus forms us in community, not just in solitude.

[SPEAKER_00]: At tables we listen, tables we forgive, at tables we laugh, at tables we carry burdens, at tables we pray for each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: At tables we practice patience when the person that you took the lunch is annoying you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, y'all, look at me, funny, y'all don't know what I'm talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right y'all gonna say, is that me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we'll never know.

[SPEAKER_00]: just playing.

[SPEAKER_00]: None of y'all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some people who aren't here as you were talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're formed at tables.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't practice the way of Jesus while avoiding people.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't practice the way of Jesus while avoiding people.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't practice the way of Jesus while being an isolationist.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm introverted.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying you've got to be the life of the party.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I am saying you need to sit at the table.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am saying you still need other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't eliminate other people from your life and for being at the table, for being in community and expect to be formed into the image of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Last one, serve.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna go do this fast.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mark 1045 says this, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

[SPEAKER_00]: Service was not an event on Jesus' calendar.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was his posture.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, it wasn't a planning center calendar invite.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing wrong with those pastor castles, like don't talk about Clayton, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing wrong with having those events on your calendar, but it was his posture is who he was, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus touches lepers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.

[SPEAKER_00]: He welcomes children.

[SPEAKER_00]: He feeds crowds of people because they were just hungry.

[SPEAKER_00]: He stopped for the overlooked people and welcomed them in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus repeatedly chooses a towel of service again and again and again.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is why this is important for us because serving will train you away from self-centeredness.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to break in your own life in the church community, consumerism,

[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to break that in your life, show up for grocery giveaway.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you want that in your life, serve on a nursery team.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you want that in your life, be a nusher.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you want that in your life, serve on a media team.

[SPEAKER_00]: Find somewhere to serve.

[SPEAKER_00]: People who are unwilling to serve will grow in pride and arrogance and self-centeredness every single time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every single time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks again for downloading this podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: We trusted this message has blessed and encouraged and identified you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure you subscribe so you never miss a message here from High Braise.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also, you can follow us on social media, on Facebook and on Instagram, and don't forget to go subscribe to our YouTube channel.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be back soon with another incredible message.

[SPEAKER_00]: God bless you and have a great week.