The After Sermon /// Are you moving too fast to follow Jesus?

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

And this time it's none other than Doug Miller.

What's up, guys?

How are you?

Thanks for being here.

Yeah, good, good.

Excited to unpack the sermon a little bit.

All right.

So uh we're in the way, our series on the way of Jesus, part three.

Uh, tell us just a little bit about kind of where you went, and then I've got some questions for you.

Yeah.

So as we were talking about the series and just trying to really kind of unpack some more, what does it mean to follow Jesus?

These two words have been emerging in my life a lot lately, this idea of pace and space.

And so, am I going at a pace that allows me to live aware of Jesus?

And am I creating space to make sure that I have opportunity and time to spend with him?

And so I felt like that's what we needed to deal with today.

No, I love that.

So uh Jesus being um a rabbi, uh, his disciples followed his way, they did everything that they did.

And I love that idea that you um you brought this quote to the table where it said Jesus was like a three mile an hour rabbi, and yet a lot of us live our lives at 70 miles an hour and it makes it really hard to follow.

Um, but you said that uh Jesus' pace, his presence was their pace.

You brought that up.

What do you think that hurry does under the surface to this idea of withness?

I think it prioritizes the details of our day and the things that we need that we feel a deep obligation to accomplish instead of cultivating uh a different kind of slower pace inside of us that that helps facilitate a connection throughout our day to our God who is always present.

Yeah.

I also thought it was important that you mentioned like being accomplishing things, like being a person that like is a go-getter, like is not a bad thing.

Yeah.

Can you kind of unpack that a little bit more for us?

Because you briefly mentioned it during your sermon, but I think that there's more underneath that of like it's not a bad thing to accomplish things.

No, yeah.

Um, and so often we can feel this like weight of like, oh my gosh, I gotta like kill my calendar and like just be this like slow like mump in some way.

But how do how do we balance that?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's the elusive challenge of all of our lives, right?

Like, what does it look like for me to to not fill it to full so that I have no space in time for God?

Um, but to cultivate this idea of remaining connected to Him throughout the course of our day.

So even when you're busy, you can still be in God's presence.

And but sometimes busy takes over, and that pace is some, I believe the enemy uses that oftentimes in our lives to cause a distraction to be uh what we experience more than the presence of God that's that's always there.

Yeah.

So another thing that I really thought was so interesting, you took us on this like grand journey across the Bible, um, nearly start to finish, and showed the arc of God's withness.

What would happen?

How does that change our perspective of scripture in general when we look at it as like this overarching?

Because so often we can kind of feel like a grab bag of like, oh, like I need a verse from God, or I I know these like stories that are very familiar, but when we look at the entire arc of scripture as God's desire to be with us, what changes in how we engage scripture?

Well, I think once you start paying attention to it, you'll see it more often.

Yeah.

And that that happened to me over the last couple of weeks as I was writing this message.

Once you kind of, oh yeah, that makes sense.

And then you start finding it and trying to remind yourself of the stories or while you're reading, or whatever, you start to see this is really the heart of God, is why he came.

It's why he did everything that he did, is because he desires to be with us.

And so I think kind of like I used that illustration of my relationship with Beth and my wife in the early days, where when it became clear she wanted to spend time with me, that did something inside of me, and I wanted to spend time with her.

And so I think the same is very true with God.

And and it's uh feels less tangible, obviously.

But the reality is when you see this arc of his presence throughout scripture, you're like, what?

He really does want to be with me.

And then that should in turn do something in you and I where we are then are drawn to our time with him in a different kind of way because we're like, it's just mind-blowing that somehow the creator of the universe notices little Doug over here and wants to hang out with me as like a beautiful thing.

Why wouldn't I prioritize my life to live more aware of his presence in my everyday?

So another word that we use for prioritization is this idea of rearrangement.

Um how do we and again, it's gonna look different for every person.

I know I know that, but like what give us some handles on like what rearrangement can look like.

Yeah.

I so I think first of all, I love the word rearrange because it means it's arranged elsewhere and it needs to be addressed.

And so I think the first step for all of us is to just really sit back and thoughtfully ask the question, how have I arranged my life?

Whether intentionally or not, it's arranged somehow.

And so when we take a closer look at the rhythms that we're living, the pace that we're living, the the calendar that we live, the all of the stuff, then we ask ourselves the question, is this arranged the way I want it to be?

And am I creating enough opportunity to to be aware of his presence in my life?

And I love too that in the message, I I just feel like the Lord is really speaking to me over the last couple of weeks about this.

Like, get around him and watch what happens.

Like, seriously, dare you to do it and watch what happens.

When you spend time with him, it it begins a process of this rearrangement that only he can do.

You can't manufacture this stuff, and you need the spirit of God at work in your life to make it happen.

But it's beautiful when we when we prioritize that well, rearrange well, you almost start to get addicted to the rearrangement.

You're like, gosh, I I love being around Jesus and I love what he's doing in me.

And other people are starting to see the change that he's making in my life too.

And that it's just a beautiful thing.

Sounds like change lives, changing life.

A little bit, a little bit, a little bit.

Um, okay.

Last kind of note here that I've got is I really loved how you positioned withness as the point.

It's not how I can slow my pace down.

It's not uh if I can just practice hard enough or you know, create enough space for this transformation to happen.

It's none of that.

It's really just this withness.

What does that change, do you think, in our posture as we approach life when we when withness is the point and all of the other things are not?

Well, I think sometimes we we approach these practices with like um my kids used to have me on Snapchat.

It's like, can we get a streak, Dad?

Can you know, can we like, is there a way to have a how many street, how many days are in our streak?

And and when that becomes the motivation, I mean, that seems like way off base to me.

It's not about a streak, it's about having the connection with him.

And I fear, because I grew up in a in a whole kind of denominational world where this thing was really more legalistic than anything.

And following Jesus became more about behavior management than it did a true relationship with him.

And I don't want that to be what we're doing.

And so I don't want our folks, regardless of where they've come from in their past, to get to a place where they're like feeling some sense of spiritual accomplishment because I've done this.

I read the follow guide this week, I went to a prayer practice, I did these things, and then we get like kind of uh almost self-righteous about the practices that we're doing.

Sure.

The the motivation behind we don't practice for the sake of practicing, we practice because that puts us in the presence of God.

And when we're in the presence of God, it's transformative and it changes us.

And so they're so important, but not for the sake of the practice.

They're important because they're helping us rearrange our lives around a cultivation of a spirit that says, I'm gonna connect with him while I'm doing this, not check a box, I'm gonna connect with the creator of the universe, and when I'm with him, he changes me, and it's beautiful.

So it's it's way more than just practicing for the sake of practice, that's for sure.

I love that.

Glad that you're mildly passionate about rearranging for sure.

It's beautiful.

All right.

Well, you guys know the drill.

If you want to watch the sermon that this entire conversation was based on, you can head to our YouTube channel or listen wherever you get your podcast.

Until next time.

Thanks so much.

See you guys.