Formed: E6 Formed through the Spiritual Practices

Jacob Creighton: What's up everybody? Welcome back to the Formed Podcast for episode 6. Episode 6, here we go. Yeah, we're in a little different location. Welcome to our office. This is where we work, and play. Chris and I, you know. ⁓ has read every ⁓ word of those books in the background. ⁓

Chris: we go, episode six. Got some different digs here, don't we, Jacob? That's right. Every day, almost. Every book. Every book. Yeah, they all have pictures. That's why it's like illustrations and all these all these bindings.

Jacob Creighton: They all have pictures. Every word of those commentaries Chris knows. actually, he's working on his own set of commentaries. ⁓

Chris: You Yeah, I mean, yes, I am. Yes.

Jacob Creighton: Welcome to the Forms Podcast. This week we're talking about being formed through practice.

Chris: Yeah.

Jacob Creighton: we talking about practice? We're talking about the spiritual practices. From the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6, 1-18, speaking of maybe practicing forming something.

Chris: Practice, we're not talking about practice. We're not talking about the playoffs. Spiritual practices, spiritual practices.

Jacob Creighton: topic if that's the topic. What's something Chris that you have created that you are super proud of or that you hang your pit hat on?

Chris: Mmm hang my pit at H2P. I would say something that I have created that I'm really proud of is I have dabbled in my lifetime in carpentry. And so it was our first house that Racheline purchased. We put in a built-in toy box and desk and win the seat with the toy box underneath it and what not. So it turned out really well. I was really proud of it. And so we... bought another house, moved there, and there was this big hallway with empty space. And we were like, man, it would be so cool to have a built in with places for us to put jackets and drawers to put big drawers to put shoes and storage up top and it a little desk for mail and other things we could set right there important stuff. And so I was like, yeah, sounds good. So I went to the drawing board, did it ⁓ out like all the plans and stuff. then ⁓ made this this beautiful built in. We each had like a locker to put our jackets. I even had a gun safe in the back of mine to be able to lock the guns up and big drawers for shoes and like where they could even get aired out. I had it all planned out. It was beautiful. Came out beautiful. And then about six months later we moved. We got called up here. So no, I couldn't bag it in the car. It was a selling point for the house.

Jacob Creighton: That's cool. I bet you did. You didn't pack that in the car? That probably wouldn't fit in a Pittsburgh house. That's true. Yeah. That's good. That's good for them. Now you can do the same thing here.

Chris: but I didn't get to take it with me. So someone else is enjoying my craftsmanship right now. Yeah, so what's something you have created and hung your hat on?

Jacob Creighton: Well, ⁓ something that I've created, I'm a musician. It's what I love to do. It's what I do is write songs and produce them. And I love every step of the process except the last like 10 % when the song is like about ready to be put out. so I've been working on a pile of tunes over the past couple of years that I'm really proud of. I can't wait until they're finally out, but we are in that last... ⁓

Chris: Yeah, premiere party in the church, baby, here we go.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're in that last 10 % right now for what seems like it's been for a really long time. So once it's finally done, I'll be really proud. But as of right now, the grind of the practice is frustrating. So not there yet. It's never it's never ⁓ there you know? Yeah, so anyways, we are in the Sermon on the Mount.

Chris: It's not quite there yet. Not quite there yet. We gotta take it to the finish line.

Jacob Creighton: Matthew 6, 1-18, looking at the spiritual practices. Chris, why don't you tell us a little bit about the Sermon on the Mount.

Chris: Yeah, so in this particular ⁓ sermon, Form Through Practice, we jumped in, like you said, in the Sermon on the Mountain. I Sermon on the Mountain is just incredible. It's one of those passages, it's essentially Matthew six, seven, or sorry, five, six and seven. And if you were to read it a million times, every single time you would pull out another nugget, it is just so rich and deep and real and beautiful. it's, essentially Jesus like initiating his ministry. public ministry, he goes up onto the mountain and he opens his mouth and he begins to speak saying, and Matthew five is basically him like giving heart to the law that the audience had been practicing. He says blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the poor spirit, blessed are those who are persecuted. And then he goes on says, for the law says, ⁓ It's written in stone, but I say, and he talks about the heart. And it's just this like beautiful, almost like demonstrating the fulfillment that he's gonna bring to the law. And it's incredible. And then he ⁓ over into Matthew ⁓ and to talk about these practices, these things that in the like religious world. practices that were being done, but they were being done in a way that was drawing attention to those who had power, those who had the prestige to be able to do these things. it wasn't being done necessarily for the heart piece, the piece that I think he was going for here in this passage. And so ⁓ it kind of us a point that we had to wrestle with. within the Sermon on the Mount, and with kind of just in our general life now as people who are being formed as followers of Jesus, that the that are being offered, these practices that can draw us into formation is actually drawing us into a deeper relationship with God, a more intimate relationship with God, where God's actually receiving the glory from this. We're actually getting to know Him better, and He's being glorified in the process. We're not the ones receiving the glory. Now what happens

Jacob Creighton: Yeah.

Chris: as we're formed and shaped and that pours out of us as salt and light, as we'll actually talk about in the next podcast. But happens from there, that's just gravy on top. But ⁓ beautiful thing is as we're formed and shaped through practice, we actually enter into this like better relationship, this deeper relationship with the Father.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah, yeah. That's really good. And of the things formation is that if you were to pick an illustration from the Bible, about formation. There's about 50 to pick from, maybe more. I love the one that you honed in on for this specific topic of the spiritual practices. You looked at Isaiah 64, so I'd love for you to just tell us about that illustration and what it is.

Chris: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, I I was really trying to, I've been wrestling this whole series, know, as this is like, you know, as you preach a series, it's like you plan for it, but then as you fly the plane, you start, like there's adding pieces and, know, preaching is not a neutral thing. It's not like I'm just disseminating information to the congregation. It's like blowing me up all week long and then they get, you know, 30 to 40 minutes of it, you know, one time a week. I'm just blasted all week long. Anyway, one of the things that blasted me as I was preparing for this was ⁓ from Isaiah 6 before eight, is ⁓ verse is, yet you Lord, you're our father and we're clay and you're the potter. And so we are the work of your hands. ⁓ I was thinking as we're being formed and shaped, we're wrestling with ⁓ okay, what do we do here? Cause we can use the wrong language here like. like doing or we got to be better or whatever it is. And so I think the clay is a great illustration here because no one walks into a room filled with clay and is like, yeah, this is just incredible. This is just beautiful. Like all this clay is just magnificent. It's like, no, it's lumps of clay. And here the author and Isaiah is saying, we're clay.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Yep.

Chris: We're kind of an ordinary substance that comes from the earth and that kind of follows after, you know, the Genesis narrative actually, but. We're this ordinary clay, but when we're in the hands of the potter, the one who makes these lumps of clay beautiful and usable and magnificent, it's incredible what can happen. So I was thinking, was like, man, what does the clay have to do to be formed into a that can be beautiful and hold beautiful flowers and whatnot, or a pitcher that can hold water that gives ⁓ drink to someone who's thirsty or.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah.

Chris: a bowl of someone that's filled with food for someone who's hungry, what does that clay have to do? It simply has to be present in the hands of the potter. And so, I think the practices here that we're gonna talk about today is a chance for us to purposely put ourselves on the potter's wheel to be present in the hands of the potter.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah, yeah. Man, are some of those practices? are some of those practices if you were to take the jump ⁓ just say, hey, application from Isaiah 64, being on the potter's wheel, being a lump of clay on the potter's wheel, and on the mount, what are those ⁓ practices?

Chris: Yes, I list. Yeah, I listed out several, let's see, I think it's six of them, or I think directly from the Sermon on the Mount, I added more, not because I'm adding the scripture, but because it's just kind of some general practices that have been accepted through ⁓ Christendom and even ⁓ culture, you know, ⁓ a longstanding thing. But to them real quick, and I'll go back through them real fast, is generosity, prayer, silence, solitude, fasting, Sabbath, scripture, community.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris: service and then witness are the ones that we listed here. And there's some more that we could go back to, but the ones that I think that Jesus really expounded upon in the Sermon on the Mount were generosity, prayer, and solitude, forgiveness and fasting. And as I was kind of processing through these, like how do these practices put us on the potter's wheel? So generosity is where he starts at the beginning in verses two four. And you think he's like, He says in verse two, so when you give to the needy. So there's this kind of thing within all of us. I think there's this moral bend within us, this ethical bend that I believe is the image of God within us. That we, ⁓ ⁓ there's wanting to do the betterment for ⁓ So we see people who are in need and we give. ⁓ Jesus doesn't say if you give, he says when you give, don't do it for your glory. Do it where you're, and he uses the illustration of like, Do it where your left hand doesn't know what your right hand is doing. So do it in quiet, give in secret so that you're giving maybe in secret, then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. ⁓ And don't think that reward is as in like we give and we ring the bell ⁓ and says, ooh, they gave and we get glory now. It's more of this piece where it's like when we give, when we offer to those that are in need or

Jacob Creighton: Yeah.

Chris: those that may need of our time or our talent or our treasure, we're opening our hands ⁓ up something. Maybe that's hard for us, maybe we give up, we give sacrificially, maybe it kind of cuts into a piece of our margin sum. But the practice is, the illustration there is we're opening our hand, which then opens our hand to be able to receive as well as we ⁓ give. also have open hands to receive, which... puts us on the potter's wheel, that puts us in a place where we can be shaped, where we're giving away something that maybe we value, and maybe receive some formation from the Father as He shapes us. If you kinda keep going in Matthew 6, verses five through 13, I mean, that's the Lord's Prayer is where he kinda hits this up. But I wanted to kinda hit up in here the practices of not just prayer in the Lord's Prayer, but also, the silence and solitude piece that he kind of hits up before he gets to the Lord's prayer where, you know, don't just babble words, don't just pray out in the open, but go into your room, pray in the quiet place, the silent place, in dark place where your Father who is in heaven will see you and will hear you and will listen to your heart. And your can also listen to him. It's not just saying things that he's asking for.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris: you know, putting on the potter's wheel and then us directing the potter what to do, that's not what the clay does. The clay puts himself on the wheel and he's quiet and he does, you know, he allows the father to shape him. And so you find the silence and solitude piece there, but then you also see the Lord's Prayer. And we could do, how many sermons could we get from the Lord's Prayer? I mean, it would be, I mean, how many studies could we do as a congregation on the Lord's Prayer? I it would be almost endless.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah.

Chris: But if you look at the Lord's Prayer and you just kinda just like, if you say it and just almost embody what it's saying, our Father who is in heaven, you know, we're putting him in his place, hallowed be your name, blessed be your name. It's hard to say these things like this, like you're grasping for something or you're trying to fix something. It's like, no, I'm giving him his due so my hands again are open here. Your kingdom come, not my kingdom, but your kingdom come, your will be done, not my will, will be done. Give me this day, my daily bread. Forgive me ⁓ my and also forgive, allow me to forgive my debtors. Look at these, ⁓ these are being opened here and leave not in temptation. Now let me do what I want to do or what my flesh wants to do, but deliver me from the evil one. Again. I'm placing myself on the potter's wheel to be formed and shaped as I sit in his presence and quiet and silence and solitude and through prayer and asking, give me this day my daily bread. And then ⁓ was one, verses 14 through 15. And we talked about forgiveness the previous week, I in what episode five, I think is forgiveness. They're all running together now, but.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Yep.

Chris: you know, practice of forgiveness. What does it look like for us to forgive? Because when we don't forgive, we hold on to something, we forgive, we open our hands again, we place ourselves on the potter's wheel to say, hey, God, you are good. You are the potter. I am the clay. If people have things or have done things against me, I'm gonna let those go. I'm gonna let you shape me and form me and not the wrong that people have done to me. ⁓ And then going into fasting was the last one. We said fasting, a lot of times fasting has to do with like not eating, but I think it also can include just giving something up for a spiritual purpose. I think a lot of times fasting from social media can be productive thing in our world or fasting from like a news consumption can be a positive thing ⁓ for spiritual purpose. But a lot of times in this, apparently in this culture, people would fast and ⁓ you know, they were going hungry and going out food and they would put on their worst face and worst clothes and sackcloth and ashes and be like, ⁓ it's just so bad. Hey, what's wrong with you? I'm fasting. I'm being super spiritual here. And it's like, ⁓ they're super spiritual. That's awesome. And that's all the reward they get. But here is saying, hey, when you fast, when you go without something for a spiritual purpose, you put on your good face, like live your life. And every time that pain rises, ⁓

Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris: Instead of everyone knowing it, you look to me and I will satisfy you. Again, we're opening our hands, we're putting ourselves on the potter's wheel to be shaped and informed for his glory.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah, yeah. Man, what I love about these spiritual practices is that it's so counter the way the world works. these practices invitations ⁓ to with God and let Him form you. Specifically, I of ⁓ this so with prayer and silence and solitude. When something like bad happens in the world, ⁓ And you see the comments of like, man, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, whatever. lot of times a response from the world is ⁓ ⁓ about it. Do something about it. But is saying like, no, this is the end game. Sit with me regularly and like, you know. process of ⁓ Lord's Prayer being routine of like, ⁓ God this is your kingdom come, your will be done. It's just the space that ⁓ you already processing those things with God and He's doing something about it. So, yeah, I love these spiritual practices and that picture of these are routine spaces to sit with God and allow Him to do his work within you. And it's different than, all right, I'm gonna go ⁓ something on my own, show the world what I'm doing. So,

Chris: Yeah, I mean, you look at these things and you see just like what, there's so many more ramifications to it. But I mean, one of the biggest is that deep relationship with the father. And so it's like, no matter what comes, no matter what circumstance happens, you still have developed this deep relationship. It's just like me and Rachel, No matter what comes, what circumstance that swirls around us, she is still my bride.

Jacob Creighton: Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris: and I love her no matter what. And 19 years in the marriage and I'm still loving her in a deeper way and learning to love her in a deeper and more intimate way. And it's just incredible. No matter what happens around us, ⁓ just dealt with the death of my father. I Rachel even more because of the way she cared for me and loved me and gave me grace in the moment and allowed me to grieve and she grieved with me. And it's really cool. And even the midst of hard things, man, the intimate relationship, it just gets even deeper.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah, you gave this quote when you preached this. Spiritual practices don't prepare us for what we expect. Spiritual practices don't prepare us for what we expect. They us for what we don't. So it is that of, it's, talking about practice. We don't practice out of, ⁓ sometimes might practice out of like seeing something bad go in the game, be like, ⁓ I gotta go fix that. But the best practice kind of happens preemptively of like, we're preparing for this. And so, yeah, I'm curious, how have you seen? these practices are maybe one specific of the ones that you've listed. Have you seen these practices actually help grow your intimacy with God like you were talking about? Yeah.

Chris: No, yeah, mean, think, you know, one of them I shared that I just think is so profound to me is, and this is actually one of the practices I didn't get a chance to go through here, but I went through in the sermon is scripture, dealing with scripture on a regular basis where you're reading it, you're meditating on it, you're memorizing it, whatnot. And in 2011, I had a stirring and even some encouragement from some of my guys that I was in discipleship group with to memorize large chunks of scripture. And so it was a... I am not good at memorizing things. Like I struggle, I struggle with memorizing. I remember being in middle school and having to memorize a poem and just falling apart because I just could not memorize it. And so it was very tedious task for me to memorize. anyway, so I took the challenge. I was like, right, the spirit's leading, you know, whatever it is, it's the end, like the last, I August and and then 20. 11, and so I started memorizing some large chunks of scripture. And man, went, was going through it. Of course it was hard. I got better at it as did it, but it was so cool to sit and just, like, we sometimes verses, and we read verses in its entirety, and we don't really pay attention to the different nuances within it or the different words that are used. And ⁓ there were some like, ⁓ Nuggets that would just come off the page at me and I would just sit in them and I would just say I'm over and over and over again anyway, I kept going I kept memorizing these these chunks of scripture and and and sitting in them and and then 2012 happened 2012 was Probably to this day one of the hardest years of my life and and not just because it was all bad There were a lot of really good things that happened It was just like this almost whiplash that was happening in 2012 and I remember sitting there and and from one place to another, going to work in the morning, just sitting in the when I woke up early and just couldn't sleep or when I was running some miles or whatnot, and this scripture just playing on repeat in my head. One that still comes up over and over again is Romans 8.1. I was able to memorize Romans 8, and therefore there's now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. or the ending of it, whether it be either death or life or angels or principalities or things to come or things present or or death or any other creative thing can separate me from the love of my God through Jesus Christ my Lord. ⁓ how many times those things have just played over over and over in my head as I've dealt with tough things. And even 16 years or 15 years later, I don't have it all memorized where I can just recite it versus one diverse whatever.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris: But man, like the that come out sometimes just in prayer, that's just like written on my heart is just overwhelming at times.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah, yeah. Man, awesome.

Chris: What's something you've, you had experience like that?

Jacob Creighton: Yeah, this is maybe gonna be kind of funny because this is pretty quickly after I started like following Jesus. I started following Jesus like my between probably my junior senior year. I would say it was like when I was really walking in step with Jesus, but I basketball. I'm a basketball player, played basketball through high school ⁓ and Before following Jesus, my pregame would be listening to the most hype music to go out there and crush it and do all that, do high school basketball thing. But when I got my senior year right before our season, some really hard things were happening in the life of some of my teammates. I was even processing through that kind of stuff. I don't even know what prompted it other than probably the spirit in the moment. But I felt like what I wanted to do pregame was just like lay in the locker room on a bench and just like have my headphones on, either listening to music or not, but just spending time in prayer and silence and solitude. Not to just not to like get an outcome from the game that wasn't the heart of it at all it was just like man, this is just time that I'm spending with God and there were so many like highs and lows during that senior year and season and You know, I think the the lasting impact of that was that like man this type of access and love and care that I'm getting from God is just there for me always to come to. so something that just, I think, really impacted me from the spiritual practices. wasn't, didn't like I was doing it to, ⁓ you come back to my teammates and be like, look at what I did. You know, that wasn't the heart of it at all. It was just like, I felt like I was just at such peace and like floating there on. was awesome. So.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's such a cool flip when you like really experience it. I mean, inviting people into that. I'd to hear some of our listeners' stories. If you have some stories to share, man, put them in the comments. I'd love to hear. Listen, and I don't know about you, Jacob, I feel like I stumble into these things a lot of times. That's not okay. That's not okay. There's so many things I just want in my maturity to grow in.

Jacob Creighton: Yeah. Yep. ⁓ for sure. Yeah. It's not...

Chris: But man, I do take concertive efforts to do these practices, ⁓ so good. ⁓ so hard to discipline myself to do them sometimes. So just know, listener, if you're listening to this and you're like, ⁓ these guys are super spiritual, trust me, I'm not. Come talk to me. There's things I don't wanna share on the airwaves. I'll share with you in person, though, just come ask. ⁓

Jacob Creighton: It is good. It is good. It is good. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, me, trust me. Yeah, I know. And to be honest, this is what a 27 minute podcast so far on the spiritual disciplines. ⁓ We might and could do an episode on each one of these. if, you know, if there's more you want to hear on these spiritual practices, yeah, drop them in the comments and any questions you have, topics you want us to hit, let know. We'd love to hear from you. So with that. ⁓

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. 100%. We would. It was real. talked about practice, not the playoffs, not a game. We talked about practice.

Jacob Creighton: We did talk about practice. Go to practice. Go to practice. Yeah, so that's all we got for today. Thanks for joining us on the Formed Podcast. We'll see you next week for the last episode of this specific series, right? Yeah. So, we'll see you next week.