"Rhythms of Grace: Words that Form Us" Pastor Nick Tawa October 11, 2026

So the scripture today is Hebrew 4.12 in the program.

It's wrong.

So anyway, I was panicked.

I had the wrong thing.

So our reading is from the NIV, from the King James Version, it would be in the Pew Bibles on page 1027.

I'm going to be reading from the NIV version.

For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword.

It penetrates even in dividing soul and spirit, joints and arrow.

It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Well, good morning again.

My name is Nick.

As Pastor Kevin earlier, I'm one of the pastors on staff.

Grateful to be a part of the team here.

In case it's a little bit confusing, Pastor Kevin Wu is our executive pastor.

Kevin Yat is our worship director.

And Hannah Martinez is our worship or our children's ministry director, who you rarely see in here.

She plays a really critical role in the life of this church community.

So we just started a new series a couple weeks ago called Rhythms of Grace.

And I thought this was appropriate following our sermon series through the book of Revelation, where the main thrust for believers, for those who follow Jesus in chaotic times in uncertain economic and political environments, is not to hoard money, not to amass weapons, not to align ourselves with a particular political party.

The thrust in the book of Revelation for those who follow Jesus is simply to remain faithful to Jesus as the slain lamb who gave his life for the sins of the world.

In trust that God will bring justice and redemption in his time.

And so there is this invitation to the way of Jesus that I wanted to spend some time diving into.

And so we're calling this series rhythms of grace.

What are the practices that we are invited into in order to experience the grace of Jesus on an everyday sort of rhythmic pattern that over time shapes who we are?

The invitation of Jesus is that we would experience deep transformation.

But this is a transformation that is not microwave, it's not marketed.

This is something that God does in us over time, and oftentimes it takes a lifetime.

And so these are simple yet profoundly transformative practices that in many ways are countercultural to our microwave, fast-paced society, yet they go back centuries.

And so there's a precedence here.

So last week we talked about solitude and silence and how pivotal that is, how central that is to our experience of God.

This is something that Jesus modeled.

Time and time again, we see Jesus in the Gospels entering into these busy public seasons of ministry, and then it's followed by sort of this one line of, and then Jesus often withdrew to solitary places and prayed to his father.

There's this intimacy that we see that Jesus enjoyed, relied upon constantly with God the Father.

Something that's easy for us to ignore because it's less public, less visible.

I was thinking about how Jesus tells his disciples, when you pray, don't do it on street corners with loud words.

Go into your room, close the door, and simply pray like this.

And so these are some of the rhythms that we're going to be looking at over the next few weeks.

This is not exhaustive by any means.

These are simply some basic practices that have been formative for me and for Pastor Kevin, and I hope will be formative for you.

In fact, I know for many of you who have walked with Jesus for a long time, these are not new.

Yet these are sort of practices that are so important to rethink and to revisit and re-anchor ourselves in from time to time.

And so there's an invitation here.

Well, dot here.

The reason we're calling it rhythms of grace is that it is this linguistic reminder that we're not climbing a ladder.

In every sort of religious circle or human institution, there's inevitably this sort of looking around and comparison being.

But how are they doing it?

Am I doing it right?

And the reminder of Jesus is don't worry about what other people are doing.

This is how I'm speaking to you.

This is the invitation that I have for you.

So this is not a ladder.

There's no religious hierarchy to climb.

This is a way to live into the grace that is already ours through Jesus.

And this is what we talked about in week one when we looked at Ephesians 2, 8 to 10.

That this is all a gift.

It's not something we earn, we can't boast about it, we show trophies.

This is a gift in order to live into the calling that Jesus has already given to us.

And so this week we're going to be looking at scripture and the role that it plays in our formation.

And I want you to think about the simple word or phrase, Word of God.

Now, I know as Protestants, oftentimes the automatic thought is it's the Bible.

And yes, that is absolutely true.

There's something immensely beautiful about the written word, something that is concrete, something that doesn't change, something that we can study and hold and analyze.

But the word of God as an idea is actually far bigger than what we understand as the library of Scripture.

In fact, in Scripture itself, it begins to talk about the Word of God.

Something that God speaks that then makes a difference in the world, makes a difference in our lives.

Jesus Himself is called the Word made flesh.

What does that mean?

That a person is the Word of God.

Here's another thought experiment.

When we look at the book of Hebrews, which Lynn just read the passage from, the New Testament wasn't yet formed.

And so when he says the word of God is living and active, what does that mean?

What is he referring to?

Well, from an objective standpoint, it would refer to the Old Testament, especially for Jewish Christians.

But I think he's getting at, or she's getting at, we don't know who wrote the book of Hebrews, something much more profound.

That God speaks and it changes things.

If you think about the way that humans are different from other species on earth, it's this ability to form ideas which then are communicated in words.

And these words profoundly shape our institutions, our families, and our individual lives.

And that's not a religious thing, that's a human thing.

I want you to pause and just think about a particular time or a moment when someone's words profoundly shaped the course of your life.

On one hand, this could be a negative thing.

This can be a moment in time where someone said something.

It could have been flippantly, it could have been intentional, but it brought you to the clip.

It tore you down, it created this wound in you.

And they're just words.

But it speaks to how powerful words are.

On the other end of the spectrum, would you consider a time when someone's words created a foundational peace that then impacted the rest of your life, perhaps?

Maybe it was a teacher, or a parent, or a peer that saw something in you and in a particular moment in time gave you words that then empowered you to live differently, to be somebody different.

That's the power of words.

And those are just human words.

Think about what it means to hear the word of God.

We live in a heavy culture.

As Westerners, we are the product of Greek thought and logic.

And this is something that's hard for us to get away from.

In fact, my whole life and profession as the minister, in many ways, is based on doctrine and creeds and study and scholarship.

I'm actually just going back to school to study more.

And so I'm not knocking that.

I'm not saying that that's not valuable.

But when we look at the breadth of Scripture and the way that we are invited to be formed by the Word of God, there's more to following Jesus than knowing stuff.

And this has been, to be honest, a lifelong struggle for me as a pastor's kid growing up in the church.

It's this invitation and sometimes this jarring reminder that there's a difference between knowing stuff intellectually in our heads and experiencing it in the depths of our souls.

Because it's on the soul level that God begins to produce fruit.

When the Apostle Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, these are things that we can't manufacture.

These aren't virtues that we try really hard to do.

That is the fruit of a deep soul-level transformation.

And whether we are transformed or not, these are things that begin to leak out when life happens in our marriages, in our parenting, on our board, in our small groups.

We are imperfect people, loved and saved by grace in process.

And so this fruit or lack of fruit is the result of what God is doing on the soul level.

I'm reminded of Jesus' response to the religious leaders, when they're cornering him, trying to ask him, what is the greatest commandment?

And I love Mark's version in the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus responds by citing Deuteronomy.

He says, the most important one, answered Jesus, is this.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind and with all of your strength.

And then he does something profoundly genius.

He says, the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.

So he lumps them together.

Say, how do you love God?

You love them by seeing the image of God in other people.

And loving them well.

He merges these two commands, both from the Old Testament scriptures, but the way that Jesus presents it is profane.

But I want to go back to that first one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.

So I think we have the mind part down in a lot of our Protestant evangelical service.

If you want to grow in your faith, if you want to enter into leadership, there's oftentimes some sort of theological doctrine training that we ask you to go through.

And I think that's important.

But there's more to it than that.

There's a deeper formation.

So this week I'm going to talk about kind of the soul transformation.

Next week I'm going to talk about the strength side.

What does it mean to honor God with our bodies?

To follow Jesus with the bodies and the physical, the physical bodies that God has given us.

What does that mean to worship God with all of our strength?

So that's next week.

So I'm going to do something this morning that's a little unique.

And it's a little bit scary for me because it means I'm going to stop talking as much, which is what I've been trained to do.

So there's this tension here for me.

We're going to practice something called Lectio Divina.

Just out of curiosity, how many of you are familiar with this ancient practice?

Okay.

So this dates all the way back to pre-Constantine years of Christianity, before there was any incentive to be a Christian, before Christianity was influenced in any way by the state and by power.

And this is something that Christians have practiced for centuries.

And it is a way of experiencing the Word of God that is not in contradiction to cognition, but transcendent of and in relationship with the intellect.

So the question that I'm asking today, that we're praying this morning, is what does God have to speak to you this morning?

It's a simple yet profound and provocative question.

Is that if the word of God is living and active, if it pierces the soul with a certain precision and cutting sort of effectiveness, that it's not a dead document, but the word of God means something in your life, the simple question is, what is God speaking to you this morning in your context?

In whatever it is that you're carrying with you today, whatever questions you have, whatever burdens that you're carrying today, what is God speaking to you?

And so, because of my training, I'm not gonna generally the way you do Lexia Divina is that you turn off your desire to analyze and to judge based on your theological framework.

And so, because that goes against my training, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you a piece of scripture, I'm gonna give you the objective meaning first so you don't have to worry about it, and then I'm gonna invite you into a way of reading, uh, which I'll give you instructions as we go.

And you get to do this in real time.

So it's a little bit of an experiment, but my hope, my prayer, is that God will meet you in this space.

So, with Lexus Divina, the idea is to take a short passage of scripture.

I like taking uh passages from the Gospels, and so we're going to be looking ironically at Matthew chapter 9, an earlier part of Matthew chapter 9.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention Matthew 9 · chapter mention

And what's going on here is that Jesus is doing his usual sort of provocative, challenging the status quo, and he's gathering his disciples, and he's not choosing from the cream of the crop, doesn't go to the local seminary and take the brightest students.

In this particular instance, he goes to a tax collector.

So in our worldview, that would be the crooked, white-collar criminal, the IRS agent who is skipping money off the top in order to get rich.

So there's a wealth here in a world which is largely marked by poverty.

And so here's someone who is rich off the backs of the people.

He's a traitor, in many ways, an outcast, and for good reason.

And what Jesus does is that he invites him to be one of his disciples.

And then he goes to eat at his house with other sinners and other tax collectors.

And reasonably so, the pastors of the day, the local ministers, begin to ask, what the heck is Jesus doing?

What are you doing, Jesus?

Why would you eat with them?

Do you not know who they are?

And then Jesus responds with this stirring, troubling statement, and we'll get there.

And he quotes from the prophet Hosea.

And so that's the objective sort of stage that I want to set for us.

Alright, so are you ready?

So maybe if you can sit up straight, take a deep breath.

And I want you to start with where we ended last week.

With silence.

Psalm 4610 says, be still.

Know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in all the earth.

So take a moment to just be still.

And it's helpful.

You can sneak your breath with a simple state.

Like, Lord, here I am.

Speak the Lord.

I'm gonna read this passage slowly, three separate times, and each time I want you to pay attention to something different.

And so for this first reading, the invitation is, again, not to analyze, not to judge, but to ask God for a single word or phrase that he wants you to focus on.

Matthew chapter 9, verse 9.

Matthew 9:9

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew, sitting at the task collector, follow me, people.

And Matthew got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors, and the sinners came and ate with him.

His disciples.

When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors?

And sinners.

On hearing this, Jesus said, it is not healthy, we need a doctor.

But go and learn what this means.

I desire mercy.

Matthew got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, and he tax collectors and sinners came.

And ate with him and his disciples.

When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

On hearing this, Jesus said, it is not healthy.

And learn what this means.

I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

For this final reading, I invite me to respond to the God who is present.

After I read, I'm going to provide some time for you to simply be honest with God.

How are you responding, reacting to this particular word or phrase?

Matthew chapter 9, verse 9.

Matthew 9:9

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth.

Follow me, he told him.

And Matthew got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.

When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

On hearing this, Jesus said, It is not healthy for me to doctor with the sinner.

But go and learn what this means.

I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

So I invite you now to spend just a few moments dialoguing with God.

This is a time for honesty, not about having the right words.

Would you be present with whatever you may be feeling or experiencing?

Is there joy, sorrow, anger, fear, love, resentment, anxiety?

What is present within you?

And so would you dialogue with the Lord about that?

In the same passage from the book of Hebrews, there's this profound statement.

For anyone who enters God's rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.

Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest.

And so, God, we recognize that you give us these foretastes, these glimpses of your kingdom, through your Sabbath rest, which is more than a day, more than practice.

It is an invitation to rest in your gospel, to remember Jesus, your life, your death, and your resurrection into new life.

And so as I close, I'm probably going to ask them to come lead us in some song.

But as you sit and as you contemplate this rest as a gift, the last invitation of Lexia Livina is to resolve.

What is God inviting you into regards to your Monday to Saturday life?

What difference perhaps does this word or this phrase have on your actual life?

The way that you think about God, the way you think about the people around you, the way you think about your profession.

What is the transformation that God is doing slowly within you?

So, Jesus, we thank you for these words.

We thank you for the written word.

We thank you for your word that continues to be living and active in our souls today.

I ask that you would seal this.

Allow us to remember the words and the phrases that you've spoken to your beloved children this morning.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.