The After Sermon /// What is your life arranged around?

Welcome back to the after sermon where we get to sit down with our communicator from the weekend.

And this time it's Eric J.

Parks.

Boom, roasted.

How you doing, buddy?

Good.

Good.

All right.

Give us a little snippet of where you went in your message, and then we've got tons of questions for you.

Well, I'm gonna go way back in time because truth is like this message was born I think accidentally.

Because this is funny.

This is funny.

Um, there is sometimes um we look strategic and it's really just the Holy Spirit, I think.

Oh, yeah.

Because the phrase that we use for discipleship came very late in the game.

Like it came during a talk where I just randomly said, you know, Jesus is right about God and life and the soul, and you know, it makes sense.

You rearrange your life around him.

You know, it's like one of those like impassing things.

And I think it was you that were like, dude, that's like a really important saying.

And it became the last, probably accidentally, the last thing in the guide, uh, this phrase.

And what it it's turned into is like a guiding principle.

Yeah.

Because I think it says everything you need to say.

It's like, look, if Jesus was right, so it forces you to answer the question, is he right?

Dallas said that you know Jesus is the most brilliant person that's ever walked the planet, so you have to decide first.

Like, is that true?

Absolutely, right?

And if it's true, um, is he it if he's brilliant, is he brilliant about God, about life, the soul?

So it speaks to like his lordship, the kingdom, all the things that he preached without laying out a long dissertation.

Yep.

And then it says that if he's right, it makes sense to rearrange your life around him, which I mean, there is repentance, and I mean, repentance is rearrangement, it's a different direction.

It's like it's the whole story, right?

It is that we would give our lives to him, follow him, enter into the kingdom, all the things that Jesus said from sacrifice to uh carrying our cross to what happens in this life and the next.

I mean, it's all right there.

So um that was with the phrase that we're unpacking uh for the next, well, I mean, honestly, the next long time.

The next long time.

It's like lots of weeks.

So no, I yes, I just I think it's so interesting because like I can tell how excited you get about this phrase, and I get super excited about this phrase as well.

And yet at the same time, like there's a lot of weight behind that phrase because rearrangement isn't easy.

I also don't think it's natural for us because we like to have like our space and it becomes comfortable.

And you said something uh kind of to kickstart your message.

You gave this illustration of uh a room, your room.

You called it my room.

It was my old it was my room.

It's your room, and then you said, you know, you guys found out that you're gonna uh you're you're pregnant, and now like where are we gonna put this baby?

And you get this crib and it's sitting in the middle of your room, and in the middle of your room.

My room.

Talk to us a little bit about that and how it illustrates kind of where we're going um with this term rearrangement.

So here's the thing.

Dallas talks about the idea of transformation when it comes to humans, that there is this process, right?

He used the phrase vision intention means, which gets short for an acronym Vim.

I think we lose sight of the vision piece.

And what Dallas was getting at was there comes a point in our all of our lives when we have an epiphany of the life we're living and what life could be, what life in the kingdom could look like.

Like where you're like, okay, this life that I'm currently living isn't, there's a there's a different life.

Yeah.

And I thought about the epiphany that I had when we set the crib up in the room, right?

Where the crib goes in the room and all of a sudden I had the epiphany.

We're gonna have a baby.

Like it's not make believe, it's really happening.

And as soon as I had the epiphany, I wanted to move all of my stuff out of that room.

Yeah.

And I just wanted it to center around what was coming, this baby.

Yeah, it's uh for me, it is how it works with Jesus.

Like all of us have a moment, I don't know how it comes, uh, where we have a a vision about what life could look like, and we we begin to read his words or we look at our lives in this vision about what life could look like.

Uh, it's as if um we see the crib in the room.

It's like, whoa, I see Jesus in my life.

Yeah.

And I think what I want to be sure as a community we journey towards is, hey, that moment's really important.

What happens next is equally important because it's not enough, though, to just have a vision of a crib in the room.

You gotta then go buy the crib, put the crib together, then you have to rearrange everything around that crib.

Jesus really isn't meant to be a tiny little miniature crib sitting on what is otherwise an unarranged like room.

That's not, but that is too often the reduction of faith where we get a vision of what it could look like, and then for whatever reason, we don't build the crib.

We have like a little miniature version, we sit on a shelf, and then sometimes I'm tempted to wonder why is life not working that well?

Is this Jesus thing really?

Is it it?

Is this it?

And I think it comes back to this word, if and rearrange.

Like, well, first learn what he said about life, and then rearrange your life around all of it.

Just start to rearrange the room around all these things that Jesus said.

Ultimately, this is the arrangement of because he makes all kinds of claims about himself.

I look, it is for me the simplest, most profound idea.

Because it's like, I'm not gonna tell you all the things that he said.

There's 93, basically, in Matthew, and then you can move over to you know Mark and then go to Luke and then go to John and then keep reading because the apostle Paul lays out a bunch of stuff that Jesus said about us, and just keep going.

You're gonna find all kinds of things, and what you begin to realize is that the rearrangement never ends.

Um, we're constantly moving things around, but what's at the center never changes, it's always Him.

Well, okay, so this is something I want to rustle through is because rearrangement can feel or become to feel like this behavior modification track.

And that's actually not what it is, but behavior modification can actually become very tiresome.

And when you think about it as oh my gosh, like I'm just never ending, like changing my behavior, changing my behavior.

That's a hamster wheel that no one wants to get on.

What's in your opinion, what's the difference between behavior modification and rearrangement?

Okay.

First and we have one more minute for you to describe all of that.

So what I'll say is go read The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas.

Dallas wrestles through this concept.

Um, or you could do a starter version, The Life We've Always Wanted by John Wortburg.

Um it is a it is a it is as complex as wrestling through a triune God.

It really is, because Dallas said it this way um, without Jesus, you can do nothing.

Yeah.

But if you do nothing, it will be without Jesus.

So like they they they I use this analogy.

I'll use an analogy.

It's like sailing.

I don't know that much about sailing, but enough.

Um sailor, you know, can go out and uh he can tie all the knots and put up the mast and do all the things that you need to do.

But if the wind doesn't blow, the boat doesn't go.

On the other hand, the you can have gale force winds.

And if the same sailor doesn't go out, put up the sail and tie all the knots, the boat doesn't go.

Like we're the sailor, the wind is God, it is our participation, it isn't about earning, uh, you know, because grace isn't opposed to to effort, it's opposed to earning.

And so, like it there it there is work to be done.

Yeah, but that work isn't gonna get you into heaven.

This work, though, is important in terms of our sanctification and to becoming this person, like, and so this it's this great partnership, this great beautiful dance, and and I mean that in and of itself, we could do a whole series of uh podcasts around it.

Maybe we will in the follow podcast also series around discipline, but absolutely yeah, I know I just thought it was important to like at least mention that because I know that a lot of times like that can be the sticking point.

It's like, okay, well, rearrangement sounds like just another thing I gotta do.

Yeah, and um, we just want to make sure we're clear that yeah, and I think that's I mean, uh again, there is something you have to do, yeah.

Um, and and yet there is this beautiful partnership with the Holy Spirit where we have these grace-inspired actions.

Uh Richard Foster talks about uh much of the spiritual disciplines or these indirect efforts, you know, these indirect things that we can do that opens up the door for the spirit to do what the spirit can do.

And so that's a beautiful thing.

I just would encourage you, go read one of those books, and I think it'll begin to open your eyes to the reality of how this whole thing works.

I love that.

Okay, I got two more things.

Great.

Two more things.

I mean a million more things, but one thing you touched on in your message, but I'm wondering if you could expand a little bit on it, is you started talking about the disciples and what it meant to follow a rabbi.

And so there's this saying, like, may you be covered in the dust of our rabbi.

Could you talk to us about like expand on that concept?

Because I think something that kind of gets lost is like, oh, like they were disciples following Jesus, and like that's just kind of like a nice little package of like that's just the way it works.

But like, tell us a little bit about that relationship.

Yeah, I mean, first century uh rabbis, there the rabbis took disciples.

Jesus wasn't the only rabbi, he wasn't the only one to have disciples, and uh disciples gave their lives to the teachings of this rabbi.

The goal was to learn, like if a yeah, if a rabbi had authority, he had what was called a yoke, and um, you would learn that yoke, you would take on that yoke.

That's what Jesus meant by my burden is easy, my my my yoke is light, my burden is easy, right?

When when he says that in scripture.

Um, and so that's what would happen is you would take it with a rabbi and you you didn't just learn his yoke of what he taught, it's the way that he lived and what he ate.

I mean, it was full rearrangement.

Yeah, you this is why these guys didn't go back to fishing.

And I think the call is similar these days, and and I think a journey back to that is needed, yeah.

Where we take seriously uh the things that Jesus said, the way in which he lived, we begin to arrange our lives regularly around this.

Um, look, you are being formed all the time.

Yeah.

And um so something sets at the center of your life.

And if we're honest, most of us it won't take long to figure out what that is.

Yeah, but I think we're just returning back to to there's a reason why Jesus came when he came, worked within the system that he worked, showed us a way, and I think this way we need it now more than ever because we are being discipled by all kinds of other things because it grabs our attention.

And the idea of taking our attention and pointing it to this, this is it, is like, hey, how and and I I look, um it's it's practice, you know, it's the old Alan Iverson thing.

Practice, we're talking about practice, but look, we we just begin to practice rearrangement and we start small, yeah you know, and over time we build those muscles and we just keep practicing, practice rearrangement through discipline and through the disciplines, and over time we find ourselves more and more centered on the things that Jesus said.

So again, I could talk about that for a long time too.

Well, another podcast we have time, like you said, we have a long time to get through all that, but um, you said something that I think tees up our next guide really well.

Yeah, and you said you can't rearrange your life around words you haven't read.

Yeah.

And um talk to us a little bit about the words of Jesus guide, yeah.

Um, from the book of Matthew, and just uh help cast a little bit of vision as we get to that series.

Well, uh the you know, these formation guides uh are at the center of how we as a church have determined uh teaching rearrangement should be centered around these things.

And so about a year and a half ago, we started a project just looking at all that Jesus said, starting in Matthew, and we broke it down to 93 unique ideas and thoughts that Jesus said.

And what I think is so cool about this guide is oftentimes you know, when you do a 30-day study, you read a lot and then you just journal a few questions.

That's not how this one works.

This one is really simple.

On one side of the page is the words of Jesus, a tiny little thought about it, and on the other side, you write.

The whole goal is we sit with it, and uh we just sit with what he said because I I know for me, so the journey of writing the guide was exceedingly formative because it forced me to wrestle with everything in Matthew that Jesus said.

I had to sit with it and be like, I remember saying, like my pastor Doug going, oh man.

This is what Jesus said.

I have to do something now.

Like I I can't unsee it.

Now I understand what he's saying.

It it will collide with your life, it will it will strike like a sword sometimes.

It'll be some of the things that Jesus said will be tender and sweet and loving and kind and invitational, and some will be confrontational and will challenge you.

But honestly, my hope is that this guide will kick start for all of us, a journey of just regularly returning to the words of Jesus.

This is interesting, and and I want to say, look, I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't read all of scripture and read the Apostle Paul's letters.

These are all uh important, but I was reminded, I told this story last night, I didn't today, but of Dallas was in the later years of his life.

I think he had cancer when this happened.

He was at a conference speaking, and someone came up to him and said, uh, hey, what are you reading right now?

You know, and which you kind of want to know.

I mean, he is one of the most amazing.

Brilliant guy.

Yeah, yeah.

And he just sweetly looked at the guy and just said, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John over and over on repeat.

And I thought, yeah, there's something in that, isn't it?

Like, just to sit with these words over and over, let them um saturate us, full saturation.

What we need is full saturation.

Yeah.

So I'm yeah, man, I'm super stoked.

Super sat.

That's awesome.

All right.

Well, that is all the time we have on this podcast, but there's another podcast called the Follow Podcast, which you should subscribe to if you want to listen to the entire message that this conversation was based on.

You can head to our YouTube channel, get it wherever you get your podcast.

Until next time, we'll see ya.