WEBVTT
00:00:13.130 --> 00:00:17.250
Hello, my name is Eric, and I am one of the pastors at the Village Church.
00:00:17.251 --> 00:00:21.410
The following podcast is a ministry of the Village Church.
00:00:21.940 --> 00:00:31.519
We hope that it inspires you, that it drives you closer to Jesus, and it opens your eyes to the possibilities of living in the kingdom and joy.
00:00:31.660 --> 00:00:32.600
And God bless.
00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:45.420
Please join me in my prayer, Lord God, above you are Lord of all things.
00:00:46.520 --> 00:00:57.619
And you have raised up Jesus to sit at your right hand at your throne and put all things beneath his feet, including us and every aspect of us.
00:00:57.621 --> 00:01:04.659
And we pray that we would be able to, in your power, in the power of your spirit, be able to submit all things to you.
00:01:05.909 --> 00:01:07.620
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
00:01:09.469 --> 00:01:25.219
So we're in a series called Radical Discipleship, and it's, we're in month three of this, and we've been in it since the very beginning of January, I think literally the first day of January, because, uh, January 1st was a Sunday.
00:01:26.310 --> 00:01:29.540
So we have been at this series for a very long time.
00:01:30.079 --> 00:01:35.340
And one of the things that I'm gonna try to do this morning is summarize everything that we've done thus far.
00:01:36.030 --> 00:01:38.659
So buckle in, okay?
00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:48.939
I'm calling what I'm presenting to you today, radical integration, partially because I want to integrate all the various sermons that have been preached so far this year.
00:01:51.939 --> 00:02:09.479
So we're in this series called Radical Discipleship, and I want to ask you a question that you can think about for a moment here, and we've been trying to inform you of the answer to this question all the way through, which is, what is a disciple?
00:02:11.349 --> 00:02:11.349
Okay?
00:02:11.350 --> 00:02:14.310
So think for a moment, what is a disciple?
00:02:17.659 --> 00:02:17.780
All right?
00:02:17.781 --> 00:02:19.379
Now, if you have answers, shout'em out.
00:02:20.840 --> 00:02:22.310
Someone who follows Jesus.
00:02:22.340 --> 00:02:22.830
Okay?
00:02:22.830 --> 00:02:23.789
That's a great answer.
00:02:23.949 --> 00:02:31.509
Other, other answers, someone who follows Jesus with intention.
00:02:31.710 --> 00:02:32.349
That's good.
00:02:32.350 --> 00:02:32.909
I like that.
00:02:34.020 --> 00:02:34.590
A learner.
00:02:35.509 --> 00:02:38.789
Excellent practicing Discipline, someone practicing discipl.
00:02:39.469 --> 00:02:39.710
Excellent.
00:02:39.711 --> 00:02:43.990
Yeah, very e etiological there, Mike.
00:02:43.991 --> 00:02:44.349
Good.
00:02:44.789 --> 00:02:44.789
Okay.
00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:45.629
Awesome.
00:02:45.631 --> 00:02:46.909
These are all great answers.
00:02:47.550 --> 00:02:47.550
Okay.
00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:49.389
To whom are we?
00:02:49.469 --> 00:02:53.430
Disciples treats this answer kind of Artie includes that.
00:02:53.750 --> 00:02:55.909
All right, you can all shout it out, Jesus.
00:02:55.979 --> 00:02:56.710
Okay, good.
00:02:56.711 --> 00:02:57.310
Right, right.
00:02:57.479 --> 00:02:59.639
Do you feel like the little kid's out in front, right?
00:02:59.870 --> 00:03:02.560
A little catechism time, right?
00:03:02.830 --> 00:03:03.680
Well, you should.
00:03:03.681 --> 00:03:05.800
This is part of the basics, right?
00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:15.039
Of our faith, of our practice, why we gather here in the morning, and there's just why we wanted to do this sermon series, but what makes it radical?
00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:16.560
Okay?
00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:18.800
Because we affixed this word.
00:03:18.949 --> 00:03:23.360
I kind of forced Eric in this, uh, he likes to tell this story that we had.
00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:28.159
There was a couple things that he wanted to talk about that had the word radical in front of it, like radical hospitality.
00:03:28.161 --> 00:03:30.960
And then I said everything, the whole thing should be radical.
00:03:31.590 --> 00:03:32.520
I stand by it.
00:03:32.710 --> 00:03:33.199
Okay?
00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:34.080
All right.
00:03:34.129 --> 00:03:36.800
So what makes it radical, this radical discipleship?
00:03:37.389 --> 00:03:45.580
Well, so we have this key theme, and it appears in three of the four gospels.
00:03:45.750 --> 00:03:49.860
So the, all three of the synoptic gospels have this quotation from Jesus.
00:03:50.979 --> 00:04:04.409
So Matthew chapter 16, verse 24 says, then Jesus said to his disciples, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
00:04:06.889 --> 00:04:14.030
And also in the book of Mark, the, one of the other gospels in chapter eight, verse 34, we have this quotation.
00:04:14.620 --> 00:04:26.310
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, whoever wants to be my be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
00:04:30.199 --> 00:04:37.790
So the verse that's been anchoring us this whole time, all three months of this so far, has been out of Luke chapter nine, verse 23.
00:04:37.790 --> 00:04:41.629
And it should look really familiar to you based on what I've just read.
00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:53.269
So it says in Luke, then he said to them all, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
00:04:54.300 --> 00:05:07.110
I think we lose a lot of the power of this because we, um, we've made, crosses into a symbol, I mean, rightly so, we've, we've kind of transformed the idea of what a cross is as Christians over the last 2000 years.
00:05:07.209 --> 00:05:13.189
But if we go back to the time that Jesus is saying this, I wanna kind of rephrase it for you in a couple different ways.
00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:20.149
Whoever wants to follow me, Jesus said, must take up his grave, digger's, shovel and follow me.
00:05:21.449 --> 00:05:27.439
Whoever wants to follow me must take up his electric chair and follow me.
00:05:29.610 --> 00:05:37.389
Whoever wants to follow me must carry on them a loaded gun prepared to give it to anybody for their own execution.
00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:43.490
This is, this is all the sense of what Jesus was saying.
00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:53.290
He's saying, you need to pre be prepared on a daily basis to die to yourself in order to follow him.
00:05:54.278 --> 00:06:01.278
It's really radical, which is why I stand by the title Radical Discipleship.
00:06:02.528 --> 00:06:06.959
So we've been looking at all these various aspects of following Jesus in a radical way.
00:06:06.961 --> 00:06:08.959
The first one that we talked about was courage.
00:06:10.528 --> 00:06:16.829
And Eric gave this sermon and he started out by asking, what or who are you avoiding?
00:06:18.769 --> 00:06:20.889
Which I thought was a really great question.
00:06:22.129 --> 00:06:32.569
Um, if we jump way ahead to the sermon I gave on submission, I wanna say what you're avoiding is typically your strongholds, but I'm kind of giving away a lot of my integration that's supposed to happen later.
00:06:32.569 --> 00:06:32.889
Okay?
00:06:32.891 --> 00:06:41.290
So radical courage should say, is anchored by confidence in God and what God has done.
00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:44.410
That's the radical part of radical courage.
00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:48.850
It's confidence in God and what God has previously done for us.
00:06:48.850 --> 00:06:52.610
So he used the example of a character named Caleb in the Old Testament.
00:06:52.930 --> 00:06:59.250
Caleb was a scout ahead of the Israelites as they were wandering through the desert and going to enter the promised land.
00:07:00.129 --> 00:07:08.170
Caleb checked out the promised land, it was full of giants, really scary people, well fortified cities, and all of the scouts except for Caleb.
00:07:08.170 --> 00:07:11.129
And this one other guy said, they're gonna beat us up.
00:07:11.130 --> 00:07:12.129
There's no way we could do this.
00:07:12.130 --> 00:07:14.449
And Caleb says, we can do it.
00:07:15.209 --> 00:07:16.740
I have confidence in God.
00:07:17.470 --> 00:07:20.019
So that's our example of radical courage.
00:07:21.279 --> 00:07:32.660
And what Eric drew our attention to is that Caleb was aware of what God had already done for the Israelites and who God was, what Ga God was capable of doing.
00:07:33.230 --> 00:07:35.019
He had brought them through the Red Sea.
00:07:35.021 --> 00:07:38.740
He had g visited the plagues upon Egypt and got them out of slavery.
00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:46.939
And so what we need to do in order to be anchored in confidence and have courage radically, is to tell our stories.
00:07:47.639 --> 00:07:53.740
And he challenged us all to tell the stories of us entering into God's kingdom one at a time.
00:07:53.740 --> 00:08:06.649
Bring aside people in the church and tell your story because then you will rehearse to yourself the confidence that you can have in God and and take courage.
00:08:06.829 --> 00:08:16.160
And then other people are prepared to tell you back your own story to remind you when you're struggling in your faith, take courage, right?
00:08:16.459 --> 00:08:25.990
You can have confidence in God and what God has done for you personally as a whole church historically in the Bible.
00:08:27.709 --> 00:08:29.730
And that's the radical part of radical courage.
00:08:29.730 --> 00:08:32.210
Then we went on to talk about waiting.
00:08:35.580 --> 00:08:45.759
The radical part of waiting, Eric was explaining to his is that waiting in the Bible, in the Hebrew word is active, not passive.
00:08:46.409 --> 00:08:51.080
We tend to think of waiting as like waiting in a doctor's office or a dentist's office.
00:08:51.081 --> 00:08:53.200
I am constantly waiting for doctors.
00:08:53.909 --> 00:08:58.159
I hate it that they tell me to arrive early, like 15 minutes early.
00:08:58.160 --> 00:09:03.759
And I'm like, no, I'm not arriving early because you're gonna be 15 minutes late and then I'm gonna be waiting a half an hour.
00:09:04.639 --> 00:09:04.639
Okay?
00:09:05.340 --> 00:09:08.360
But my wife hates being late for anything.
00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:11.480
So we're we're early and then we wait even longer.
00:09:11.700 --> 00:09:29.600
And I think of it like probably a lot of us think of it as empty time in which to do nothing and just veg out or play on my phone or scan Twitter or whatever it is, whatever it is that fulfills your time while you're waiting because it's just empty time.
00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:31.799
So you might as well entertain yourself, right?
00:09:32.600 --> 00:09:35.279
Distract yourself from the boredom of it.
00:09:36.428 --> 00:09:42.370
But that is not the sense of waiting that we see in especially the Old Testament.
00:09:42.740 --> 00:09:44.928
Waiting is an active thing.
00:09:44.929 --> 00:09:49.049
That's the radical part of waiting that Eric was trying to draw our attention to.
00:09:49.740 --> 00:09:54.289
So we wait in a weird way.
00:09:56.250 --> 00:09:56.250
Okay?
00:09:56.539 --> 00:10:06.129
So although if you're maybe a mother, a mother who's done breastfeeding, this may mean make more sense to you if you haven't, it's maybe a a a strange way to think about it.
00:10:06.789 --> 00:10:12.289
But what he said is, the way that we wait actively is like a weaned child.
00:10:13.980 --> 00:10:24.889
So unweaned children who are still getting fed by bottle or breasts are very anxious and they constantly need things, right?
00:10:25.039 --> 00:10:28.490
They have no ability to stay content on their own.
00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:34.090
They need to be, uh, fed, they need to be changed, they need to be rocked and so on.
00:10:34.149 --> 00:10:42.889
But a weaned child is one that has a capacity to be attentive to what the parent is doing.
00:10:43.980 --> 00:10:57.889
So it's the focus shifts from the baby being all about his or her immediate physical needs to being weaned and being able to pay attention to what the parent is doing to receive instruction.
00:10:58.549 --> 00:11:05.330
And I actually really like what Emily said as a picture of this, besides a ween child was a well-trained dog.
00:11:05.331 --> 00:11:09.210
I had to put the well-trained part because my dogs are not, my dogs don't do this.
00:11:09.211 --> 00:11:10.850
They're not well-trained, okay?
00:11:11.058 --> 00:11:17.409
So not just my dog is just, when they wait, they wait lazily just flopped out on the floor or the couch, okay?
00:11:17.410 --> 00:11:19.889
Like I typically wait at the doctor's office.
00:11:19.890 --> 00:11:34.428
But a well-trained dog, if you tell it to sit or lie down, it will stay extremely attentive because it is waiting for the next command that it will receive from its master.
00:11:36.600 --> 00:11:38.570
Have you seen a well-trained dog do this?
00:11:38.571 --> 00:11:43.450
Like they'll be there, but their ears are up, their eyes are looking around, right?
00:11:43.451 --> 00:11:49.409
And as soon as you say, let's go, they're just immediately ready and they just bolt alongside their master, right?
00:11:49.410 --> 00:11:50.330
Like right in line.
00:11:50.750 --> 00:12:05.200
And that is the way that we're called to wait radically looking for what Jesus, our master is ready to tell us and instructing us to do and following him.
00:12:07.139 --> 00:12:08.769
So that brings us to following.
00:12:09.100 --> 00:12:13.769
So Jesus calls us to be his followers, his disciples.
00:12:13.770 --> 00:12:26.690
So this is, uh, this is probably the most important sermon, I would say of the whole series, um, because that is the most important part of being a disciple as you follow.
00:12:28.350 --> 00:12:32.049
And before we talked about following, Eric talked about being zombies.
00:12:32.850 --> 00:12:37.690
Um, and he even did some like pantomime and some moaning things that I don't feel.
00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:40.570
I feel too dig dignified to do that up here.
00:12:40.909 --> 00:12:42.889
But, uh, but it was great.
00:12:42.919 --> 00:12:44.129
I really enjoyed that moment.
00:12:44.130 --> 00:12:47.210
You should go back and listen, by the way, I listened to all of these sermons.
00:12:47.820 --> 00:12:54.409
So if you have the, the time and capacity, I would heavily encourage you to re-listen to all the sermons.
00:12:54.410 --> 00:12:58.049
They're all on the Village podcast, the Village Sermon podcast.
00:12:58.820 --> 00:13:03.289
So, uh, we can help you get set up with that, or I can help you get set up with that if you want to.
00:13:03.299 --> 00:13:11.289
It was a great way to kind of relive all of this and um, do a better job of filling my time when I was waiting.
00:13:11.970 --> 00:13:29.250
Um, but he talked about us being as zombies before we come to Christ, before we enter into the kingdom, that we, we have no purpose, no direction, no minds, no capacity to actually do anything intentionally or for good.
00:13:29.710 --> 00:13:38.289
And then we're animated, we're brought alive in Jesus, and we're actually able to be human beings the way we were meant to be.
00:13:38.899 --> 00:13:42.970
So as we follow Jesus, there's an temptation to go back to our zombie-like ways.
00:13:44.350 --> 00:13:50.009
But if we follow Jesus, we live out the authentic experience of being truly human as he is.
00:13:51.070 --> 00:14:00.370
And there are types of followers, they're kind of like dominant ways that the New Testament especially describes following Jesus in these really powerful metaphors.
00:14:00.629 --> 00:14:07.730
And we kind of joked about it maybe being like a personality test that you could take and we might actually make this personality test.
00:14:07.730 --> 00:14:08.850
I'm kind of excited.
00:14:08.850 --> 00:14:15.049
Eric was saying he was working on his book the other day and he is like, yeah, and there's gonna be a quiz and I'm gonna, anyway, so maybe we'll actually do this.
00:14:15.110 --> 00:14:16.808
But there were some follower types.
00:14:17.220 --> 00:14:23.610
So there was a way that you might follow as a soldier was one of the ways the New Testament describes following.
00:14:23.610 --> 00:14:25.690
Jesus says that Jesus is your commander.
00:14:25.691 --> 00:14:30.169
You're a soldier under his command or as an athlete, he's the coach, the trainer.
00:14:30.590 --> 00:14:34.490
You are the athlete trying to follow his instructions and live out of that.
00:14:35.139 --> 00:14:37.529
Or as a student, he is the teacher.
00:14:37.950 --> 00:14:42.009
You listen to his instruction, you take it on board or as a servant.
00:14:42.010 --> 00:14:42.850
He's the master.
00:14:42.950 --> 00:14:51.440
You follow his decrees, his instructions to take care of things, to do things around a household or as a citizen.
00:14:51.470 --> 00:14:55.500
He's the Lord, he's the king and you are the subject.
00:14:57.279 --> 00:14:58.539
And those are all great.
00:14:58.639 --> 00:15:01.539
And I loved the way that he brought those out.
00:15:01.541 --> 00:15:13.259
And if you think about the New Testament and you kind of go and you take a long survey of it, you'll see a lot of these different expressions being put forward by Paul and Peter and the gospels of Jesus himself.
00:15:14.600 --> 00:15:17.419
And then I got to talk about radical evangelism.
00:15:19.590 --> 00:15:28.570
And the part that I tried to make clear to you was radical about evangelism in the New Testament is that evangelism is actually discipleship.
00:15:30.909 --> 00:15:41.250
And I looked at the example of Paul who says, follow me as I follow Christ, which is a really, really bold statement.
00:15:43.909 --> 00:15:49.809
And so I gleaned out of that the idea that we need to lead like we follow.
00:15:50.460 --> 00:15:56.529
So if you follow Jesus as an athlete, you need to be a coach to somebody else.
00:15:56.659 --> 00:16:09.090
If you follow Jesus as a student, you need to teach others who are coming up behind you on the path and so on, that you have really good things to offer as a citizen.
00:16:09.091 --> 00:16:11.169
You have a community, you have an ethic.
00:16:12.309 --> 00:16:21.090
And so if you are a citizen type follower of Jesus, then you need to instruct us about the rule of Jesus as a lesser Lord.
00:16:23.279 --> 00:16:29.740
And then I ask this question, looking at the example of Paul who was chained to his Roman guards while he was in prison.
00:16:30.230 --> 00:16:34.299
To whom are we ourselves chained to?
00:16:34.301 --> 00:16:43.620
Because that is who sh you should be leading in discipleship, which is evangelism, radically speaking.
00:16:45.649 --> 00:16:47.830
And Eric went on to talk about hospitality.
00:16:49.470 --> 00:16:53.460
He warned us that he had talked lots and lots about hospitality previously.
00:16:53.559 --> 00:16:56.139
And so this was gonna be a new take, a different take.
00:16:56.140 --> 00:16:56.980
And indeed it was.
00:16:56.980 --> 00:17:06.460
I don't think I had heard him say these things quite the same way before he brought out the radical part of hospitality in that rasp radical ho.
00:17:06.940 --> 00:17:18.579
Hospitality cares for the unwanted guests, not just the guests that you would really like to have at your house, but the guests that you kind of would prefer aren't there in some part of your soul.
00:17:20.529 --> 00:17:32.210
Also, it cares for people at inconvenient times for you, you're on your way to do something and something someone calls out for hospitality.
00:17:32.358 --> 00:17:43.608
That's radical hospitality is when you're on your way, you're in the middle of something and you are inconvenienced.
00:17:44.059 --> 00:17:50.339
So he told us to expect inconvenient opportunities out of interruptions in our lives.
00:17:53.059 --> 00:17:57.440
And he gave us the example of Jesus who was on his way to heal a child.
00:17:58.099 --> 00:18:01.519
And he pointed out just how much Jesus cares for little children.
00:18:01.520 --> 00:18:20.009
And so clearly it was very important and clearly a good thing for Jesus to be doing, to be on his way to heal a child who was about to die and in fact did die while he was interrupted by this woman who also needed healing and did it in a kind of sneaky way.
00:18:22.069 --> 00:18:38.640
But he stops everything and r offers her radical hospitality in healing her addressing her conversing with her in a culture in which she would've been an unwanted guest.
00:18:39.019 --> 00:18:47.130
And we're to follow Jesus' example as disciples of him and we're supposed to do ministry.
00:18:48.579 --> 00:18:53.890
He talked about radical ministry that recognizes that you yes, you right.
00:18:53.891 --> 00:19:00.210
Just imagine little Uncle Sam poster kind of, yeah, you too are a very important pastor.
00:19:03.099 --> 00:19:11.368
So in one Peter, chapter two, verse nine, it says that we're a, a royal and holy priesthood that each one of us is a priest.
00:19:11.710 --> 00:19:17.089
And Eric said a lot of us don't really have a whole lot of interaction with priests in our daily lives.
00:19:17.559 --> 00:19:19.529
It's not really a lot of our background.
00:19:19.530 --> 00:19:26.690
So if you're have a background like me and like Eric, it's maybe easier to think of a pastor and what a pastor does.
00:19:27.220 --> 00:19:32.089
So you all are very important pastors and need to be acting like pastors.
00:19:32.390 --> 00:19:34.769
You need to do the kind of things that pastors do.
00:19:34.770 --> 00:19:54.349
And that by that I don't really mean, he didn't really mean up here preaching, like standing in front of a large crowd of people and saying stuff, but no meeting with people, assessing their health and their needs and then praying for them and seeking their healing and health.
00:19:55.829 --> 00:20:04.599
That is the most important role of a pastor, is to be aware of the people around you, what they need, and start attending to those needs.
00:20:06.220 --> 00:20:11.279
And he gave us some criteria and different areas about how you might diagnose people's health.
00:20:12.049 --> 00:20:18.140
And a lot of people really, really, uh, caught on to the whole environmental health aspect of things.
00:20:18.279 --> 00:20:20.618
But you can go back and listen to all that.
00:20:21.358 --> 00:20:22.900
And then he talked about parenting.
00:20:23.589 --> 00:20:27.740
There's a few things that were pretty radical in that to me, I'm gonna pick out one of'em.
00:20:28.269 --> 00:20:43.140
He said that radical parenting disciplines, for some of you that might not seem too radical, but I think in the current way that we understand parenting in our culture this day and age, we're very afraid of disciplining our kids.
00:20:44.279 --> 00:20:48.240
Part of the reason is that we just don't enjoy it, right?
00:20:48.400 --> 00:20:51.480
We don't like giving our children pain and consequences.
00:20:52.789 --> 00:21:04.069
And he looked at Proverbs and Hebrews and he told us about the rod of discipline and how it drives out foolishness.
00:21:04.070 --> 00:21:07.829
And that it, your children will not die when you discipline them.
00:21:09.539 --> 00:21:19.329
And going from Hebrews that if you don't discipline your kid, you're basically saying to them that they don't belong to you.
00:21:20.410 --> 00:21:24.108
Disciplining your children, claims them as yours.
00:21:27.740 --> 00:21:32.660
And so it drives out foolishness and it produces righteousness and peace.
00:21:33.670 --> 00:21:35.579
So you need to do it, you need to discipline.
00:21:35.690 --> 00:21:39.579
It's a radical step to take, but it's very, very necessary.
00:21:41.358 --> 00:21:49.108
And then I talked about submission and I pointed out that radical submission is deep, not just broad.
00:21:49.109 --> 00:21:58.509
So there's not a lot of people that it's, it's not just that there's a lot of different people that you need to be in obedience and submission to as a follower of Jesus.
00:21:58.779 --> 00:21:59.670
That's true.
00:21:59.671 --> 00:22:12.440
But also that you need deep in your soul, in your heart to be submitted to Jesus in things that are you would rather protect, um, because they're vulnerable to you.
00:22:15.339 --> 00:22:20.210
So it surrenders strongholds, and I talked about strongholds as this, I masistic, right?
00:22:20.211 --> 00:22:46.849
This pictorial representation of these, these promises that we've made against God, these demands that we have that God never interfere in certain aspects of our life, that we are going to continue to take control and have control and build up walls around hurts and pains and traumas and things that we insist upon being our own and not touched by others and by God.
00:22:49.000 --> 00:23:01.329
So we need to following James chapter four, resist the devil, wash ourselves and mourn as a way to repent and submit.
00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:11.529
And then Eric talked about gender And he said that God created humans with bodies.
00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:13.730
That's all of us.
00:23:13.730 --> 00:23:14.450
That's all of you.
00:23:15.309 --> 00:23:19.029
You're human with a body, male and female.
00:23:20.150 --> 00:23:24.099
So either you're male or female and you have a body outta Genesis.
00:23:25.160 --> 00:23:30.309
And maybe that seems like kind of a yaa thing to you.
00:23:30.310 --> 00:23:38.190
But as I go around the world and I talk with people and I read news and I scroll through social media, this is quite a radical thing to say.
00:23:41.880 --> 00:23:50.559
And then he said this even more radical statement that even I wins at the Creator.
00:23:51.190 --> 00:23:54.279
That's God defines his creation.
00:23:56.019 --> 00:23:58.710
I don't get to choose my identity and my purpose.
00:24:00.250 --> 00:24:01.589
God does that for me.
00:24:01.590 --> 00:24:03.108
He gives it to me.
00:24:03.890 --> 00:24:20.200
And my role is to consider whether I can accept that in submission or whether I'm gonna pretend that I fabricate it myself, which is quite radical.
00:24:20.858 --> 00:24:29.660
And we talked about marriage, marriage actually, and singleness as both gifts, radical gifts from God.
00:24:31.069 --> 00:24:40.460
So if you're married and the way that we do marrying marriage ceremonies and the way that we talk about marriage, we tend to talk about marriage as a gift, right?
00:24:40.461 --> 00:24:42.460
Your spouse as a gift to you, right?
00:24:42.461 --> 00:24:50.849
And this is a very familiar way of talking, but we hesitate the way that we typically think to think of singleness as a gift.
00:24:51.420 --> 00:25:14.339
So I found this quite radical, and maybe you did too, Because there's some things that single people are available to do as followers of Jesus that marry people are not as easily able to, uh, I think I have a repeat of my slide, so that's my fault.
00:25:14.400 --> 00:25:22.299
But here's what I wanted to say as out of a sermon that Eric gave a long time ago, but uh, I remembered as he was talking about singleness.
00:25:23.299 --> 00:25:28.539
Um, I apologize to those of you who are not as familiar with military, but I'm gonna do it anyway.
00:25:28.540 --> 00:25:28.819
Okay?
00:25:28.820 --> 00:25:34.460
So he said that single people are the special forces of the church.
00:25:37.740 --> 00:25:45.130
So the rest of us, the normal everyday grunts, okay, who are married, we're, we're slow to move.
00:25:46.180 --> 00:25:51.170
We bring a lot to bear when we show up, but we're not very quick on our feet, right?
00:25:51.171 --> 00:25:53.329
We don't have a whole lot of mobility.
00:25:53.330 --> 00:25:57.890
We don't have all this freedom in our lives to just get there and do things.
00:25:58.150 --> 00:26:02.608
But the special forces are lean, mean, fighting machines, right?
00:26:03.799 --> 00:26:15.460
And they have all these resources that are available to them to get to where they're needed immediately as quick as possible, and to spend enormous amounts of time, especially in crises.
00:26:16.440 --> 00:26:18.500
And single people are like that.
00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:23.579
You get to do the work of the kingdom in ways that married people just can't.
00:26:26.279 --> 00:26:27.250
That's a gift.
00:26:27.559 --> 00:26:28.450
That's great.
00:26:28.451 --> 00:26:29.170
That's amazing.
00:26:32.829 --> 00:26:40.150
So I am speaking to you today about integrating all of this integration.
00:26:41.690 --> 00:26:43.400
So what's so radical about this?
00:26:45.240 --> 00:26:52.779
Well, I want you to think about how many things does all include, right?
00:26:52.780 --> 00:27:16.410
So I, I read to you out of Ephesians earlier, and I tried to bring out these aspects of Paul's writing to the church in Ephesus that emphasize all of the aspects that Jesus is over and in charge of and above and has authority over.
00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:18.410
Okay?
00:27:18.411 --> 00:27:19.368
So think about this.
00:27:20.509 --> 00:27:22.210
How many things is all?
00:27:24.799 --> 00:27:33.910
So I've been told that there are microscopic particles called corks and gluons, I don't really know what they are, but there's a lot of'em.
00:27:34.430 --> 00:27:35.759
They make up everything.
00:27:37.539 --> 00:27:40.650
There's these really b big things called galaxies.
00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:48.029
I kind of understand that a little bit better cuz I think I can sometimes see representations of them, right?
00:27:48.269 --> 00:27:49.829
In sci-fi movies and stuff.
00:27:52.059 --> 00:27:54.039
And there's everything in between, right?
00:27:54.040 --> 00:28:03.890
There's ants, there's elephants, there's little kids, there's grown adults, there's me, and then there's every aspect of me.
00:28:03.891 --> 00:28:09.559
There's my body, there's my soul, there's my mind, there's my thoughts and my feelings.
00:28:09.560 --> 00:28:15.980
There's my plans and projects, there's my hobbies, there's my family, there's my friends.
00:28:20.250 --> 00:28:28.839
Oh, and Jesus Christ is the Lord, the ruler, the king of all, all that.
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:37.858
And more, somehow I didn't include angels and demons and whatever spiritual things exist in the world that I can't even comprehend.
00:28:39.220 --> 00:28:40.890
So a definition of integration.
00:28:41.829 --> 00:28:48.569
Integration is bringing different things together as a whole, which is what I've been trying to do this morning so far.
00:28:48.750 --> 00:28:57.789
I'm taking all these different things and we're trying to unify them right into one thing under one Lord Jesus Christ.
00:28:59.680 --> 00:29:05.869
So all things under Christ radical discipleship is following Jesus in all things.
00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:13.359
Emphasis all, all things following involves discipline and submission.
00:29:13.650 --> 00:29:22.569
So I loved the parenting sermon because it brought my attention to discipline and the purpose of it, the benefit of it, even though it's difficult.
00:29:23.849 --> 00:29:49.309
And you may have heard when he talked about, when Eric talked about following, um, the athlete, type of follower who, and, and I've recognized even in my own life, and I look around to other people who are runners and power lifters and dancers, just how much, much discipline is involved in following a trainer, a coach, a sport, right?
00:29:50.910 --> 00:29:52.519
A particular school of dance.
00:29:53.410 --> 00:29:57.559
It involves discipline to follow Jesus and submission.
00:29:57.560 --> 00:30:01.759
There's not really any way to follow anybody without a certain kind of submission.
00:30:01.760 --> 00:30:17.000
I was thinking about this, like there's absolutely no point in me following Jake, for example, on a trail if I'm not submitted to the idea that Jake kind of knows where he's going, at least a little bit, right?
00:30:18.190 --> 00:30:20.319
I mean, just think about this for for a minute.
00:30:20.320 --> 00:30:24.759
Like, if I go to ask someone to teach me how to play pickleball, right?
00:30:25.779 --> 00:30:38.420
I'm submitted to them in their greater knowledge and understanding of the game pickleball, and I have to be listening to what they tell me and in obedience to their instruction.
00:30:38.990 --> 00:30:41.099
It just doesn't make sense any other way.
00:30:42.410 --> 00:30:48.809
And so following Jesus is like that, except I can trust him.
00:30:49.539 --> 00:30:54.559
No offense Jake more than Jake, okay?
00:30:54.560 --> 00:30:56.519
So I was thinking, I'm, I've been working on this idea.
00:30:56.589 --> 00:31:01.160
I, I'm, I'm really big into history and I love the Middle ages, medieval things.
00:31:01.289 --> 00:31:10.000
If you guys love Lord of the Rings, I know many of you do, you probably got thinking about all kinds of like fantastical worlds that are medieval times inspired.
00:31:10.579 --> 00:31:12.960
And so there are these things called vassals.
00:31:14.130 --> 00:31:14.619
Okay?
00:31:15.109 --> 00:31:17.660
So I have to explain a little bit what a vassal is.
00:31:17.660 --> 00:31:22.980
A vassal is somebody who's underneath a greater authority.
00:31:23.990 --> 00:31:28.980
So underneath a king, there might be various dukes and duchess, right?
00:31:29.900 --> 00:31:31.579
Um, various kinds of knights.
00:31:32.420 --> 00:31:36.470
So it, there's a Lord and then there's a vassal underneath.
00:31:36.471 --> 00:31:39.869
And that vassel might in turn have vassals underneath him.
00:31:40.130 --> 00:31:45.029
And from this perspective of those lower vassals, the person above is a Lord, okay?
00:31:46.490 --> 00:31:58.230
But we, and I think myself like to think of ourselves as allies, which puts us on an even playing field with the person that I'm in relationship to.
00:31:58.230 --> 00:32:07.430
Like if I'm your ally in something, it means we together as equals are working towards something or on the same team.
00:32:08.759 --> 00:32:12.069
If I say vassal though, that means I'm clearly underneath you.
00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:17.619
But Christ is over all.
00:32:20.140 --> 00:32:24.380
We're not equals, we're not allies with God.
00:32:26.289 --> 00:32:33.809
I mean, not just we're subjects, we're VAs to the Lord.
00:32:34.609 --> 00:32:36.759
We have to keep things in the proper perspective.
00:32:38.119 --> 00:32:43.450
So like I like think of my own little personal fiefdom, my personal kingdom, my land, right?
00:32:43.451 --> 00:32:50.690
My power and authority, and then God's over there and I say, yeah, I guess I'll help out in this aspect, in this limited circumstance.
00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:53.019
But it's not like that.
00:32:53.020 --> 00:32:54.539
He's over all of it, right?
00:32:54.670 --> 00:33:01.779
If he wants to come and crush my little sandcastle stronghold at any time he can, I it belongs to him.
00:33:02.009 --> 00:33:03.180
I belong to him.
00:33:03.269 --> 00:33:05.299
He created me, he defines me.
00:33:05.869 --> 00:33:07.059
My purpose is his.
00:33:08.450 --> 00:33:11.269
And he may lead me alone, allow me to do my own thing.
00:33:11.270 --> 00:33:17.859
But that's not to my benefit actually, which is what I talked about with my sermon on radical submission.
00:33:17.990 --> 00:33:23.859
Because we have these things that I called strongholds that we love to keep to ourselves within our soul.
00:33:24.539 --> 00:33:27.980
And we permit, we do not permit God or others to come in.
00:33:29.390 --> 00:33:37.579
So radical integration, ens involves bringing all and every aspect of ourselves together under Christ.
00:33:38.940 --> 00:33:52.259
So we integrate ourselves, we take our strongholds, and we decide that too is part of me, and that also is under the Lordship of Christ, and that I also bring before him.
00:33:54.099 --> 00:33:57.160
And this takes courage and waiting.
00:33:58.250 --> 00:34:01.799
So I'm trying to integrate these different ideas of this sermon series, right?
00:34:02.670 --> 00:34:15.219
Because as others, some of you pointed out when I talked about submission, if you surrender or dismantle or allow your stronghold to be demolished, you're vulnerable.
00:34:15.710 --> 00:34:18.179
Where's your moat to protect you now, right?
00:34:18.900 --> 00:34:24.809
Where those walls to protect you from all the hurt, the pain that could come your way.
00:34:25.710 --> 00:34:27.210
And that's scary.
00:34:28.909 --> 00:34:34.429
Courage is the ability to overcome, to deal with fear.
00:34:35.090 --> 00:34:37.269
And we need that from Jesus.
00:34:37.400 --> 00:34:39.309
We need to rehearse our stories.
00:34:40.139 --> 00:34:57.969
We need to rehearse the stories of what God has done for us in order to confront our fear, to know that God will keep us safe the way we need to be protected, the way that we need to be in him.
00:34:58.230 --> 00:34:59.849
And also, this takes time.
00:35:00.760 --> 00:35:01.670
It takes time.
00:35:01.670 --> 00:35:15.630
So then we're gonna require waiting, actively looking to him, not just entertaining ourselves, not distracting ourselves, but actually anticipating what God is going to do.
00:35:18.269 --> 00:35:25.079
So it includes our marriage and our singleness, our bodies, our gender, our sexuality.
00:35:27.420 --> 00:35:29.570
It includes our children and our parenting.
00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:39.489
It includes our possessions, our time, our plans, our agendas, our money, both the money that we have and the way that we make it.
00:35:41.849 --> 00:35:46.840
It requires ministry, hospitality, evangelism, and discipleship making.
00:35:50.989 --> 00:35:55.690
And once again, it's our money, our possessions, our time, and our agendas that are at stake here.
00:35:55.829 --> 00:35:56.849
And we don't like that.
00:35:56.851 --> 00:36:00.409
I don't like that at least sometimes.
00:36:00.750 --> 00:36:07.480
But I wanna remind you of what Paul says As he talks to the church in Corinth.
00:36:07.969 --> 00:36:13.639
He and Timothy writing to them say, the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.
00:36:13.889 --> 00:36:17.360
On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
00:36:17.690 --> 00:36:22.960
We demolish arguments and every pretense that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.
00:36:23.059 --> 00:36:27.880
And we take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.
00:36:29.449 --> 00:36:31.250
So I just wanna point out how radical this is.
00:36:31.251 --> 00:36:39.940
He talks about taking every thought captive just as there are many, many little subatomic particles.
00:36:40.179 --> 00:36:44.340
There are many, many thoughts in my mind all the time.
00:36:48.090 --> 00:36:59.730
So it includes our philosophy, our thoughts, our feelings, our attention and our attitude, our politics, our histories, our pain, our traumas, and our secrets.
00:37:00.230 --> 00:37:06.150
All of these need to be integrated and brought to Jesus.
00:37:10.289 --> 00:37:13.650
Uh, and then I messed up my slides, but okay, so take heart.
00:37:13.760 --> 00:37:14.849
Here's a little courage.
00:37:14.960 --> 00:37:18.690
Here's the promise that Jesus gifts to all of us, his followers.
00:37:20.199 --> 00:37:31.300
Take my yolk upon you, learn from me, for I am gentle and humble and heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
00:37:35.409 --> 00:37:48.400
So some personal questions that you can think about that I don't want you shouting out answers to, but What part of yourself or your life remains separate from the lordship of Christ.
00:37:48.420 --> 00:37:49.400
Unintegrated.
00:37:52.800 --> 00:37:59.909
How will you personally radically submit this thing that you consider to Christ?
00:38:01.760 --> 00:38:04.940
And then some more public things that we could talk about.
00:38:05.659 --> 00:38:07.900
Um, what has stood out to you most in this series?
00:38:08.650 --> 00:38:11.460
What's something important that I didn't manage to review today?
00:38:13.019 --> 00:38:19.110
And how do we radically submit all things to Christ?
00:38:20.480 --> 00:38:23.630
So we may have some time for questions, but maybe not a lot of time.
00:38:27.559 --> 00:38:28.050
Yeah.
00:38:28.050 --> 00:38:29.849
Backwards to the personal questions.
00:38:29.851 --> 00:38:31.489
Sorry, I went a little fast there at the end.
00:38:31.559 --> 00:38:35.760
What part of yourself or your life remains separate from the Lordship of Christ?
00:38:36.360 --> 00:38:48.940
And these are things that, I mean, I guess if you wanna be really bold, you could talk about in front of all of us, but, and how will you personally radically submit this particular thing that you bring up in your mind to Christ?
00:38:50.599 --> 00:38:51.320
Did that give you enough time?
00:38:52.340 --> 00:38:52.829
Yeah.
00:38:52.831 --> 00:38:53.110
Okay.
00:38:54.170 --> 00:38:54.170
All
00:38:54.250 --> 00:38:54.250
Right.
00:38:54.251 --> 00:38:57.650
Hey, I, uh, I I just really, I really like this.
00:38:57.650 --> 00:38:58.050
Thank you.
00:38:58.050 --> 00:38:58.530
Yeah.
00:38:58.670 --> 00:39:17.570
And then it struck me when you were talking just in integration, like during therapy, when people are getting therapy, like in order to help you like, um, heal from your trauma or really negative experiences, they use that word a lot integration.
00:39:17.829 --> 00:39:26.690
And so it just made me curious a little bit, I don't know, like what, is there a parallel there or Yeah, I don't know.
00:39:26.690 --> 00:39:33.090
I just wanted to bring up that idea and think about like what is, there's like a healing component to integration.
00:39:33.090 --> 00:39:40.730
Because like when something's separate and you're living your life over here and ignoring this thing over here, it actually is making you sick.
00:39:40.731 --> 00:39:44.210
It actually, it, it, it, it's an oppressive thing.
00:39:44.420 --> 00:39:48.170
So anyway, I don't know if that brings up any other thoughts for you, but
00:39:48.969 --> 00:39:54.130
To that idea, I don't know that I need to say much more because that's exactly right in my opinion.
00:39:54.199 --> 00:40:09.610
I mean, that is part of what I'm drawing on to use this word integration, is that when we have hurt and trauma happen to us, we often create this kind of disassociation and we cease to recognize certain parts of ourself as ourself.
00:40:12.150 --> 00:40:13.849
But Christ too is Lord of that.
00:40:18.309 --> 00:40:21.869
Uh, um, I wanted to answer the last one.
00:40:22.750 --> 00:40:29.309
Radically submitting, I rely a great deal on my imagination connected with Romans 8 38.
00:40:29.311 --> 00:40:32.909
Is it God will work all things out for the good of those who love him.
00:40:33.039 --> 00:40:38.110
So maybe the trauma in my life, he's gonna work out for good in somebody else.
00:40:38.239 --> 00:40:50.389
So I like to imagine every day that moment when I'm standing with him and seeing the phenomenal thing he did with all the stuff and how gorgeous it is.
00:40:50.391 --> 00:40:56.750
And I don't know what it's gonna look like, how he's gonna do it, but just sitting in that helps me be willing to submit.
00:40:57.699 --> 00:40:58.829
That's beautiful.
00:40:58.829 --> 00:40:59.269
Thank you.
00:40:59.380 --> 00:41:04.389
I wanted to say that I don't know about podcasts, but all the sermons are also on the website.
00:41:04.929 --> 00:41:05.349
Yes,
00:41:05.349 --> 00:41:05.750
True.
00:41:05.751 --> 00:41:12.309
And you can just say to Google village villages online.com sermons, bang,
00:41:12.829 --> 00:41:13.150
They got it.
00:41:20.889 --> 00:41:22.130
Two summits right there.
00:41:23.570 --> 00:41:28.329
, uh, while we're plugging that, there's also transcripts available.
00:41:29.849 --> 00:41:29.849
,
00:41:30.949 --> 00:41:37.280
The transcripts are quicker than the whole sermon and wonderful sermon again, Michael,
00:41:37.670 --> 00:41:41.320
Unless you listen on triple speed, but keep going.
00:41:41.559 --> 00:41:42.320
Ah, right, right.
00:41:42.639 --> 00:41:45.079
, um, wow.
00:41:45.269 --> 00:41:50.440
I mean, just, but, but what's something I didn't re review today?
00:41:50.440 --> 00:41:56.880
The whole thing you said about like that train dog, his only agenda is what the master wants.
00:41:58.159 --> 00:42:06.159
That is so convicting to me because it just reveals how almost a hundred percent of my time is on my own agenda.
00:42:06.489 --> 00:42:07.960
So thanks for that challenge.
00:42:08.570 --> 00:42:20.400
So, so one quick response to that is that I, I have this fear, and maybe you share it, that if I make only my agenda what Jesus' agenda is, then I get no good things.
00:42:21.230 --> 00:42:29.280
Like I imagine those things that I'm holding onto, that I keep apart from Jesus are the good things, and the other things are like bad or scary.
00:42:30.440 --> 00:42:38.400
Um, but when you look at trained dogs, you realize how joyous and how many good things they get.
00:42:39.110 --> 00:42:39.599
Yeah.
00:42:39.601 --> 00:42:40.119
Anyway,
00:42:43.280 --> 00:42:53.280
Um, uh, typical of my father to steal my thunder, but I, I wanted to talk about the same thing, but what stood out to me about the, the dog, I love that.
00:42:53.710 --> 00:42:54.480
I love that.
00:42:54.840 --> 00:42:58.159
Um, picture is with regards to hospitality.
00:42:59.719 --> 00:43:11.039
Um, and I think of the times where I've been intent on the glamorous Martha Stewart hospitality, and I've missed out on what God was offering and inviting me into.
00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:29.559
Um, so I, I just thought, yeah, that that's what I long for, is to have that alertness and that readiness as I'm going about my day looking for the interruptions and seeing them as some, as good things that Jesus is offering me.
00:43:29.949 --> 00:43:53.360
Yeah, I, I wanted to share like, just very briefly, and you can maybe ask me about it later, but some of the most positive things that have happened to me over the last two years, um, as a follower of Jesus have become, been because I was willing to be interrupted and inconvenienced.
00:43:55.400 --> 00:43:55.400
So,
00:44:02.730 --> 00:44:13.929
Uh, I don't know what question this is answering, but I think, but uh, if I think about the question, what's radical about following Jesus?
00:44:15.409 --> 00:44:36.159
Um, I guess another way that I look at it is that it's Jesus that makes it radical cuz uh, you know, we can talk about the radical part being, you know, the completeness of submitting and, and following and everything, and the breadth and the depth and everything.
00:44:36.800 --> 00:44:47.519
Uh, and we could try to do that with other leaders, you know, Confucius or Mohamed or Thomas Jefferson or whatever.
00:44:48.380 --> 00:44:55.159
But, uh, Jesus is the only one who can actually handle being followed.
00:44:55.210 --> 00:44:55.880
Totally.
00:44:57.170 --> 00:44:57.519
So
00:44:58.789 --> 00:44:59.280
Yeah.
00:44:59.280 --> 00:44:59.480
Thanks.
00:44:59.760 --> 00:44:59.880
That helps.
00:44:59.880 --> 00:45:01.360
That's really, no, that's very helpful.
00:45:02.159 --> 00:45:05.039
That's a, that's a good counterbalance to the emphasis I gave.
00:45:05.041 --> 00:45:05.880
That's really great.
00:00:13.130 --> 00:00:17.250
Hello, my name is Eric, and I am one of the pastors at the Village Church.
00:00:17.251 --> 00:00:21.410
The following podcast is a ministry of the Village Church.
00:00:21.940 --> 00:00:31.519
We hope that it inspires you, that it drives you closer to Jesus, and it opens your eyes to the possibilities of living in the kingdom and joy.
00:00:31.660 --> 00:00:32.600
And God bless.
00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:45.420
Please join me in my prayer, Lord God, above you are Lord of all things.
00:00:46.520 --> 00:00:57.619
And you have raised up Jesus to sit at your right hand at your throne and put all things beneath his feet, including us and every aspect of us.
00:00:57.621 --> 00:01:04.659
And we pray that we would be able to, in your power, in the power of your spirit, be able to submit all things to you.
00:01:05.909 --> 00:01:07.620
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
00:01:09.469 --> 00:01:25.219
So we're in a series called Radical Discipleship, and it's, we're in month three of this, and we've been in it since the very beginning of January, I think literally the first day of January, because, uh, January 1st was a Sunday.
00:01:26.310 --> 00:01:29.540
So we have been at this series for a very long time.
00:01:30.079 --> 00:01:35.340
And one of the things that I'm gonna try to do this morning is summarize everything that we've done thus far.
00:01:36.030 --> 00:01:38.659
So buckle in, okay?
00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:48.939
I'm calling what I'm presenting to you today, radical integration, partially because I want to integrate all the various sermons that have been preached so far this year.
00:01:51.939 --> 00:02:09.479
So we're in this series called Radical Discipleship, and I want to ask you a question that you can think about for a moment here, and we've been trying to inform you of the answer to this question all the way through, which is, what is a disciple?
00:02:11.349 --> 00:02:11.349
Okay?
00:02:11.350 --> 00:02:14.310
So think for a moment, what is a disciple?
00:02:17.659 --> 00:02:17.780
All right?
00:02:17.781 --> 00:02:19.379
Now, if you have answers, shout'em out.
00:02:20.840 --> 00:02:22.310
Someone who follows Jesus.
00:02:22.340 --> 00:02:22.830
Okay?
00:02:22.830 --> 00:02:23.789
That's a great answer.
00:02:23.949 --> 00:02:31.509
Other, other answers, someone who follows Jesus with intention.
00:02:31.710 --> 00:02:32.349
That's good.
00:02:32.350 --> 00:02:32.909
I like that.
00:02:34.020 --> 00:02:34.590
A learner.
00:02:35.509 --> 00:02:38.789
Excellent practicing Discipline, someone practicing discipl.
00:02:39.469 --> 00:02:39.710
Excellent.
00:02:39.711 --> 00:02:43.990
Yeah, very e etiological there, Mike.
00:02:43.991 --> 00:02:44.349
Good.
00:02:44.789 --> 00:02:44.789
Okay.
00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:45.629
Awesome.
00:02:45.631 --> 00:02:46.909
These are all great answers.
00:02:47.550 --> 00:02:47.550
Okay.
00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:49.389
To whom are we?
00:02:49.469 --> 00:02:53.430
Disciples treats this answer kind of Artie includes that.
00:02:53.750 --> 00:02:55.909
All right, you can all shout it out, Jesus.
00:02:55.979 --> 00:02:56.710
Okay, good.
00:02:56.711 --> 00:02:57.310
Right, right.
00:02:57.479 --> 00:02:59.639
Do you feel like the little kid's out in front, right?
00:02:59.870 --> 00:03:02.560
A little catechism time, right?
00:03:02.830 --> 00:03:03.680
Well, you should.
00:03:03.681 --> 00:03:05.800
This is part of the basics, right?
00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:15.039
Of our faith, of our practice, why we gather here in the morning, and there's just why we wanted to do this sermon series, but what makes it radical?
00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:16.560
Okay?
00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:18.800
Because we affixed this word.
00:03:18.949 --> 00:03:23.360
I kind of forced Eric in this, uh, he likes to tell this story that we had.
00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:28.159
There was a couple things that he wanted to talk about that had the word radical in front of it, like radical hospitality.
00:03:28.161 --> 00:03:30.960
And then I said everything, the whole thing should be radical.
00:03:31.590 --> 00:03:32.520
I stand by it.
00:03:32.710 --> 00:03:33.199
Okay?
00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:34.080
All right.
00:03:34.129 --> 00:03:36.800
So what makes it radical, this radical discipleship?
00:03:37.389 --> 00:03:45.580
Well, so we have this key theme, and it appears in three of the four gospels.
00:03:45.750 --> 00:03:49.860
So the, all three of the synoptic gospels have this quotation from Jesus.
00:03:50.979 --> 00:04:04.409
So Matthew chapter 16, verse 24 says, then Jesus said to his disciples, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
00:04:06.889 --> 00:04:14.030
And also in the book of Mark, the, one of the other gospels in chapter eight, verse 34, we have this quotation.
00:04:14.620 --> 00:04:26.310
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, whoever wants to be my be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
00:04:30.199 --> 00:04:37.790
So the verse that's been anchoring us this whole time, all three months of this so far, has been out of Luke chapter nine, verse 23.
00:04:37.790 --> 00:04:41.629
And it should look really familiar to you based on what I've just read.
00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:53.269
So it says in Luke, then he said to them all, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
00:04:54.300 --> 00:05:07.110
I think we lose a lot of the power of this because we, um, we've made, crosses into a symbol, I mean, rightly so, we've, we've kind of transformed the idea of what a cross is as Christians over the last 2000 years.
00:05:07.209 --> 00:05:13.189
But if we go back to the time that Jesus is saying this, I wanna kind of rephrase it for you in a couple different ways.
00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:20.149
Whoever wants to follow me, Jesus said, must take up his grave, digger's, shovel and follow me.
00:05:21.449 --> 00:05:27.439
Whoever wants to follow me must take up his electric chair and follow me.
00:05:29.610 --> 00:05:37.389
Whoever wants to follow me must carry on them a loaded gun prepared to give it to anybody for their own execution.
00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:43.490
This is, this is all the sense of what Jesus was saying.
00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:53.290
He's saying, you need to pre be prepared on a daily basis to die to yourself in order to follow him.
00:05:54.278 --> 00:06:01.278
It's really radical, which is why I stand by the title Radical Discipleship.
00:06:02.528 --> 00:06:06.959
So we've been looking at all these various aspects of following Jesus in a radical way.
00:06:06.961 --> 00:06:08.959
The first one that we talked about was courage.
00:06:10.528 --> 00:06:16.829
And Eric gave this sermon and he started out by asking, what or who are you avoiding?
00:06:18.769 --> 00:06:20.889
Which I thought was a really great question.
00:06:22.129 --> 00:06:32.569
Um, if we jump way ahead to the sermon I gave on submission, I wanna say what you're avoiding is typically your strongholds, but I'm kind of giving away a lot of my integration that's supposed to happen later.
00:06:32.569 --> 00:06:32.889
Okay?
00:06:32.891 --> 00:06:41.290
So radical courage should say, is anchored by confidence in God and what God has done.
00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:44.410
That's the radical part of radical courage.
00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:48.850
It's confidence in God and what God has previously done for us.
00:06:48.850 --> 00:06:52.610
So he used the example of a character named Caleb in the Old Testament.
00:06:52.930 --> 00:06:59.250
Caleb was a scout ahead of the Israelites as they were wandering through the desert and going to enter the promised land.
00:07:00.129 --> 00:07:08.170
Caleb checked out the promised land, it was full of giants, really scary people, well fortified cities, and all of the scouts except for Caleb.
00:07:08.170 --> 00:07:11.129
And this one other guy said, they're gonna beat us up.
00:07:11.130 --> 00:07:12.129
There's no way we could do this.
00:07:12.130 --> 00:07:14.449
And Caleb says, we can do it.
00:07:15.209 --> 00:07:16.740
I have confidence in God.
00:07:17.470 --> 00:07:20.019
So that's our example of radical courage.
00:07:21.279 --> 00:07:32.660
And what Eric drew our attention to is that Caleb was aware of what God had already done for the Israelites and who God was, what Ga God was capable of doing.
00:07:33.230 --> 00:07:35.019
He had brought them through the Red Sea.
00:07:35.021 --> 00:07:38.740
He had g visited the plagues upon Egypt and got them out of slavery.
00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:46.939
And so what we need to do in order to be anchored in confidence and have courage radically, is to tell our stories.
00:07:47.639 --> 00:07:53.740
And he challenged us all to tell the stories of us entering into God's kingdom one at a time.
00:07:53.740 --> 00:08:06.649
Bring aside people in the church and tell your story because then you will rehearse to yourself the confidence that you can have in God and and take courage.
00:08:06.829 --> 00:08:16.160
And then other people are prepared to tell you back your own story to remind you when you're struggling in your faith, take courage, right?
00:08:16.459 --> 00:08:25.990
You can have confidence in God and what God has done for you personally as a whole church historically in the Bible.
00:08:27.709 --> 00:08:29.730
And that's the radical part of radical courage.
00:08:29.730 --> 00:08:32.210
Then we went on to talk about waiting.
00:08:35.580 --> 00:08:45.759
The radical part of waiting, Eric was explaining to his is that waiting in the Bible, in the Hebrew word is active, not passive.
00:08:46.409 --> 00:08:51.080
We tend to think of waiting as like waiting in a doctor's office or a dentist's office.
00:08:51.081 --> 00:08:53.200
I am constantly waiting for doctors.
00:08:53.909 --> 00:08:58.159
I hate it that they tell me to arrive early, like 15 minutes early.
00:08:58.160 --> 00:09:03.759
And I'm like, no, I'm not arriving early because you're gonna be 15 minutes late and then I'm gonna be waiting a half an hour.
00:09:04.639 --> 00:09:04.639
Okay?
00:09:05.340 --> 00:09:08.360
But my wife hates being late for anything.
00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:11.480
So we're we're early and then we wait even longer.
00:09:11.700 --> 00:09:29.600
And I think of it like probably a lot of us think of it as empty time in which to do nothing and just veg out or play on my phone or scan Twitter or whatever it is, whatever it is that fulfills your time while you're waiting because it's just empty time.
00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:31.799
So you might as well entertain yourself, right?
00:09:32.600 --> 00:09:35.279
Distract yourself from the boredom of it.
00:09:36.428 --> 00:09:42.370
But that is not the sense of waiting that we see in especially the Old Testament.
00:09:42.740 --> 00:09:44.928
Waiting is an active thing.
00:09:44.929 --> 00:09:49.049
That's the radical part of waiting that Eric was trying to draw our attention to.
00:09:49.740 --> 00:09:54.289
So we wait in a weird way.
00:09:56.250 --> 00:09:56.250
Okay?
00:09:56.539 --> 00:10:06.129
So although if you're maybe a mother, a mother who's done breastfeeding, this may mean make more sense to you if you haven't, it's maybe a a a strange way to think about it.
00:10:06.789 --> 00:10:12.289
But what he said is, the way that we wait actively is like a weaned child.
00:10:13.980 --> 00:10:24.889
So unweaned children who are still getting fed by bottle or breasts are very anxious and they constantly need things, right?
00:10:25.039 --> 00:10:28.490
They have no ability to stay content on their own.
00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:34.090
They need to be, uh, fed, they need to be changed, they need to be rocked and so on.
00:10:34.149 --> 00:10:42.889
But a weaned child is one that has a capacity to be attentive to what the parent is doing.
00:10:43.980 --> 00:10:57.889
So it's the focus shifts from the baby being all about his or her immediate physical needs to being weaned and being able to pay attention to what the parent is doing to receive instruction.
00:10:58.549 --> 00:11:05.330
And I actually really like what Emily said as a picture of this, besides a ween child was a well-trained dog.
00:11:05.331 --> 00:11:09.210
I had to put the well-trained part because my dogs are not, my dogs don't do this.
00:11:09.211 --> 00:11:10.850
They're not well-trained, okay?
00:11:11.058 --> 00:11:17.409
So not just my dog is just, when they wait, they wait lazily just flopped out on the floor or the couch, okay?
00:11:17.410 --> 00:11:19.889
Like I typically wait at the doctor's office.
00:11:19.890 --> 00:11:34.428
But a well-trained dog, if you tell it to sit or lie down, it will stay extremely attentive because it is waiting for the next command that it will receive from its master.
00:11:36.600 --> 00:11:38.570
Have you seen a well-trained dog do this?
00:11:38.571 --> 00:11:43.450
Like they'll be there, but their ears are up, their eyes are looking around, right?
00:11:43.451 --> 00:11:49.409
And as soon as you say, let's go, they're just immediately ready and they just bolt alongside their master, right?
00:11:49.410 --> 00:11:50.330
Like right in line.
00:11:50.750 --> 00:12:05.200
And that is the way that we're called to wait radically looking for what Jesus, our master is ready to tell us and instructing us to do and following him.
00:12:07.139 --> 00:12:08.769
So that brings us to following.
00:12:09.100 --> 00:12:13.769
So Jesus calls us to be his followers, his disciples.
00:12:13.770 --> 00:12:26.690
So this is, uh, this is probably the most important sermon, I would say of the whole series, um, because that is the most important part of being a disciple as you follow.
00:12:28.350 --> 00:12:32.049
And before we talked about following, Eric talked about being zombies.
00:12:32.850 --> 00:12:37.690
Um, and he even did some like pantomime and some moaning things that I don't feel.
00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:40.570
I feel too dig dignified to do that up here.
00:12:40.909 --> 00:12:42.889
But, uh, but it was great.
00:12:42.919 --> 00:12:44.129
I really enjoyed that moment.
00:12:44.130 --> 00:12:47.210
You should go back and listen, by the way, I listened to all of these sermons.
00:12:47.820 --> 00:12:54.409
So if you have the, the time and capacity, I would heavily encourage you to re-listen to all the sermons.
00:12:54.410 --> 00:12:58.049
They're all on the Village podcast, the Village Sermon podcast.
00:12:58.820 --> 00:13:03.289
So, uh, we can help you get set up with that, or I can help you get set up with that if you want to.
00:13:03.299 --> 00:13:11.289
It was a great way to kind of relive all of this and um, do a better job of filling my time when I was waiting.
00:13:11.970 --> 00:13:29.250
Um, but he talked about us being as zombies before we come to Christ, before we enter into the kingdom, that we, we have no purpose, no direction, no minds, no capacity to actually do anything intentionally or for good.
00:13:29.710 --> 00:13:38.289
And then we're animated, we're brought alive in Jesus, and we're actually able to be human beings the way we were meant to be.
00:13:38.899 --> 00:13:42.970
So as we follow Jesus, there's an temptation to go back to our zombie-like ways.
00:13:44.350 --> 00:13:50.009
But if we follow Jesus, we live out the authentic experience of being truly human as he is.
00:13:51.070 --> 00:14:00.370
And there are types of followers, they're kind of like dominant ways that the New Testament especially describes following Jesus in these really powerful metaphors.
00:14:00.629 --> 00:14:07.730
And we kind of joked about it maybe being like a personality test that you could take and we might actually make this personality test.
00:14:07.730 --> 00:14:08.850
I'm kind of excited.
00:14:08.850 --> 00:14:15.049
Eric was saying he was working on his book the other day and he is like, yeah, and there's gonna be a quiz and I'm gonna, anyway, so maybe we'll actually do this.
00:14:15.110 --> 00:14:16.808
But there were some follower types.
00:14:17.220 --> 00:14:23.610
So there was a way that you might follow as a soldier was one of the ways the New Testament describes following.
00:14:23.610 --> 00:14:25.690
Jesus says that Jesus is your commander.
00:14:25.691 --> 00:14:30.169
You're a soldier under his command or as an athlete, he's the coach, the trainer.
00:14:30.590 --> 00:14:34.490
You are the athlete trying to follow his instructions and live out of that.
00:14:35.139 --> 00:14:37.529
Or as a student, he is the teacher.
00:14:37.950 --> 00:14:42.009
You listen to his instruction, you take it on board or as a servant.
00:14:42.010 --> 00:14:42.850
He's the master.
00:14:42.950 --> 00:14:51.440
You follow his decrees, his instructions to take care of things, to do things around a household or as a citizen.
00:14:51.470 --> 00:14:55.500
He's the Lord, he's the king and you are the subject.
00:14:57.279 --> 00:14:58.539
And those are all great.
00:14:58.639 --> 00:15:01.539
And I loved the way that he brought those out.
00:15:01.541 --> 00:15:13.259
And if you think about the New Testament and you kind of go and you take a long survey of it, you'll see a lot of these different expressions being put forward by Paul and Peter and the gospels of Jesus himself.
00:15:14.600 --> 00:15:17.419
And then I got to talk about radical evangelism.
00:15:19.590 --> 00:15:28.570
And the part that I tried to make clear to you was radical about evangelism in the New Testament is that evangelism is actually discipleship.
00:15:30.909 --> 00:15:41.250
And I looked at the example of Paul who says, follow me as I follow Christ, which is a really, really bold statement.
00:15:43.909 --> 00:15:49.809
And so I gleaned out of that the idea that we need to lead like we follow.
00:15:50.460 --> 00:15:56.529
So if you follow Jesus as an athlete, you need to be a coach to somebody else.
00:15:56.659 --> 00:16:09.090
If you follow Jesus as a student, you need to teach others who are coming up behind you on the path and so on, that you have really good things to offer as a citizen.
00:16:09.091 --> 00:16:11.169
You have a community, you have an ethic.
00:16:12.309 --> 00:16:21.090
And so if you are a citizen type follower of Jesus, then you need to instruct us about the rule of Jesus as a lesser Lord.
00:16:23.279 --> 00:16:29.740
And then I ask this question, looking at the example of Paul who was chained to his Roman guards while he was in prison.
00:16:30.230 --> 00:16:34.299
To whom are we ourselves chained to?
00:16:34.301 --> 00:16:43.620
Because that is who sh you should be leading in discipleship, which is evangelism, radically speaking.
00:16:45.649 --> 00:16:47.830
And Eric went on to talk about hospitality.
00:16:49.470 --> 00:16:53.460
He warned us that he had talked lots and lots about hospitality previously.
00:16:53.559 --> 00:16:56.139
And so this was gonna be a new take, a different take.
00:16:56.140 --> 00:16:56.980
And indeed it was.
00:16:56.980 --> 00:17:06.460
I don't think I had heard him say these things quite the same way before he brought out the radical part of hospitality in that rasp radical ho.
00:17:06.940 --> 00:17:18.579
Hospitality cares for the unwanted guests, not just the guests that you would really like to have at your house, but the guests that you kind of would prefer aren't there in some part of your soul.
00:17:20.529 --> 00:17:32.210
Also, it cares for people at inconvenient times for you, you're on your way to do something and something someone calls out for hospitality.
00:17:32.358 --> 00:17:43.608
That's radical hospitality is when you're on your way, you're in the middle of something and you are inconvenienced.
00:17:44.059 --> 00:17:50.339
So he told us to expect inconvenient opportunities out of interruptions in our lives.
00:17:53.059 --> 00:17:57.440
And he gave us the example of Jesus who was on his way to heal a child.
00:17:58.099 --> 00:18:01.519
And he pointed out just how much Jesus cares for little children.
00:18:01.520 --> 00:18:20.009
And so clearly it was very important and clearly a good thing for Jesus to be doing, to be on his way to heal a child who was about to die and in fact did die while he was interrupted by this woman who also needed healing and did it in a kind of sneaky way.
00:18:22.069 --> 00:18:38.640
But he stops everything and r offers her radical hospitality in healing her addressing her conversing with her in a culture in which she would've been an unwanted guest.
00:18:39.019 --> 00:18:47.130
And we're to follow Jesus' example as disciples of him and we're supposed to do ministry.
00:18:48.579 --> 00:18:53.890
He talked about radical ministry that recognizes that you yes, you right.
00:18:53.891 --> 00:19:00.210
Just imagine little Uncle Sam poster kind of, yeah, you too are a very important pastor.
00:19:03.099 --> 00:19:11.368
So in one Peter, chapter two, verse nine, it says that we're a, a royal and holy priesthood that each one of us is a priest.
00:19:11.710 --> 00:19:17.089
And Eric said a lot of us don't really have a whole lot of interaction with priests in our daily lives.
00:19:17.559 --> 00:19:19.529
It's not really a lot of our background.
00:19:19.530 --> 00:19:26.690
So if you're have a background like me and like Eric, it's maybe easier to think of a pastor and what a pastor does.
00:19:27.220 --> 00:19:32.089
So you all are very important pastors and need to be acting like pastors.
00:19:32.390 --> 00:19:34.769
You need to do the kind of things that pastors do.
00:19:34.770 --> 00:19:54.349
And that by that I don't really mean, he didn't really mean up here preaching, like standing in front of a large crowd of people and saying stuff, but no meeting with people, assessing their health and their needs and then praying for them and seeking their healing and health.
00:19:55.829 --> 00:20:04.599
That is the most important role of a pastor, is to be aware of the people around you, what they need, and start attending to those needs.
00:20:06.220 --> 00:20:11.279
And he gave us some criteria and different areas about how you might diagnose people's health.
00:20:12.049 --> 00:20:18.140
And a lot of people really, really, uh, caught on to the whole environmental health aspect of things.
00:20:18.279 --> 00:20:20.618
But you can go back and listen to all that.
00:20:21.358 --> 00:20:22.900
And then he talked about parenting.
00:20:23.589 --> 00:20:27.740
There's a few things that were pretty radical in that to me, I'm gonna pick out one of'em.
00:20:28.269 --> 00:20:43.140
He said that radical parenting disciplines, for some of you that might not seem too radical, but I think in the current way that we understand parenting in our culture this day and age, we're very afraid of disciplining our kids.
00:20:44.279 --> 00:20:48.240
Part of the reason is that we just don't enjoy it, right?
00:20:48.400 --> 00:20:51.480
We don't like giving our children pain and consequences.
00:20:52.789 --> 00:21:04.069
And he looked at Proverbs and Hebrews and he told us about the rod of discipline and how it drives out foolishness.
00:21:04.070 --> 00:21:07.829
And that it, your children will not die when you discipline them.
00:21:09.539 --> 00:21:19.329
And going from Hebrews that if you don't discipline your kid, you're basically saying to them that they don't belong to you.
00:21:20.410 --> 00:21:24.108
Disciplining your children, claims them as yours.
00:21:27.740 --> 00:21:32.660
And so it drives out foolishness and it produces righteousness and peace.
00:21:33.670 --> 00:21:35.579
So you need to do it, you need to discipline.
00:21:35.690 --> 00:21:39.579
It's a radical step to take, but it's very, very necessary.
00:21:41.358 --> 00:21:49.108
And then I talked about submission and I pointed out that radical submission is deep, not just broad.
00:21:49.109 --> 00:21:58.509
So there's not a lot of people that it's, it's not just that there's a lot of different people that you need to be in obedience and submission to as a follower of Jesus.
00:21:58.779 --> 00:21:59.670
That's true.
00:21:59.671 --> 00:22:12.440
But also that you need deep in your soul, in your heart to be submitted to Jesus in things that are you would rather protect, um, because they're vulnerable to you.
00:22:15.339 --> 00:22:20.210
So it surrenders strongholds, and I talked about strongholds as this, I masistic, right?
00:22:20.211 --> 00:22:46.849
This pictorial representation of these, these promises that we've made against God, these demands that we have that God never interfere in certain aspects of our life, that we are going to continue to take control and have control and build up walls around hurts and pains and traumas and things that we insist upon being our own and not touched by others and by God.
00:22:49.000 --> 00:23:01.329
So we need to following James chapter four, resist the devil, wash ourselves and mourn as a way to repent and submit.
00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:11.529
And then Eric talked about gender And he said that God created humans with bodies.
00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:13.730
That's all of us.
00:23:13.730 --> 00:23:14.450
That's all of you.
00:23:15.309 --> 00:23:19.029
You're human with a body, male and female.
00:23:20.150 --> 00:23:24.099
So either you're male or female and you have a body outta Genesis.
00:23:25.160 --> 00:23:30.309
And maybe that seems like kind of a yaa thing to you.
00:23:30.310 --> 00:23:38.190
But as I go around the world and I talk with people and I read news and I scroll through social media, this is quite a radical thing to say.
00:23:41.880 --> 00:23:50.559
And then he said this even more radical statement that even I wins at the Creator.
00:23:51.190 --> 00:23:54.279
That's God defines his creation.
00:23:56.019 --> 00:23:58.710
I don't get to choose my identity and my purpose.
00:24:00.250 --> 00:24:01.589
God does that for me.
00:24:01.590 --> 00:24:03.108
He gives it to me.
00:24:03.890 --> 00:24:20.200
And my role is to consider whether I can accept that in submission or whether I'm gonna pretend that I fabricate it myself, which is quite radical.
00:24:20.858 --> 00:24:29.660
And we talked about marriage, marriage actually, and singleness as both gifts, radical gifts from God.
00:24:31.069 --> 00:24:40.460
So if you're married and the way that we do marrying marriage ceremonies and the way that we talk about marriage, we tend to talk about marriage as a gift, right?
00:24:40.461 --> 00:24:42.460
Your spouse as a gift to you, right?
00:24:42.461 --> 00:24:50.849
And this is a very familiar way of talking, but we hesitate the way that we typically think to think of singleness as a gift.
00:24:51.420 --> 00:25:14.339
So I found this quite radical, and maybe you did too, Because there's some things that single people are available to do as followers of Jesus that marry people are not as easily able to, uh, I think I have a repeat of my slide, so that's my fault.
00:25:14.400 --> 00:25:22.299
But here's what I wanted to say as out of a sermon that Eric gave a long time ago, but uh, I remembered as he was talking about singleness.
00:25:23.299 --> 00:25:28.539
Um, I apologize to those of you who are not as familiar with military, but I'm gonna do it anyway.
00:25:28.540 --> 00:25:28.819
Okay?
00:25:28.820 --> 00:25:34.460
So he said that single people are the special forces of the church.
00:25:37.740 --> 00:25:45.130
So the rest of us, the normal everyday grunts, okay, who are married, we're, we're slow to move.
00:25:46.180 --> 00:25:51.170
We bring a lot to bear when we show up, but we're not very quick on our feet, right?
00:25:51.171 --> 00:25:53.329
We don't have a whole lot of mobility.
00:25:53.330 --> 00:25:57.890
We don't have all this freedom in our lives to just get there and do things.
00:25:58.150 --> 00:26:02.608
But the special forces are lean, mean, fighting machines, right?
00:26:03.799 --> 00:26:15.460
And they have all these resources that are available to them to get to where they're needed immediately as quick as possible, and to spend enormous amounts of time, especially in crises.
00:26:16.440 --> 00:26:18.500
And single people are like that.
00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:23.579
You get to do the work of the kingdom in ways that married people just can't.
00:26:26.279 --> 00:26:27.250
That's a gift.
00:26:27.559 --> 00:26:28.450
That's great.
00:26:28.451 --> 00:26:29.170
That's amazing.
00:26:32.829 --> 00:26:40.150
So I am speaking to you today about integrating all of this integration.
00:26:41.690 --> 00:26:43.400
So what's so radical about this?
00:26:45.240 --> 00:26:52.779
Well, I want you to think about how many things does all include, right?
00:26:52.780 --> 00:27:16.410
So I, I read to you out of Ephesians earlier, and I tried to bring out these aspects of Paul's writing to the church in Ephesus that emphasize all of the aspects that Jesus is over and in charge of and above and has authority over.
00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:18.410
Okay?
00:27:18.411 --> 00:27:19.368
So think about this.
00:27:20.509 --> 00:27:22.210
How many things is all?
00:27:24.799 --> 00:27:33.910
So I've been told that there are microscopic particles called corks and gluons, I don't really know what they are, but there's a lot of'em.
00:27:34.430 --> 00:27:35.759
They make up everything.
00:27:37.539 --> 00:27:40.650
There's these really b big things called galaxies.
00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:48.029
I kind of understand that a little bit better cuz I think I can sometimes see representations of them, right?
00:27:48.269 --> 00:27:49.829
In sci-fi movies and stuff.
00:27:52.059 --> 00:27:54.039
And there's everything in between, right?
00:27:54.040 --> 00:28:03.890
There's ants, there's elephants, there's little kids, there's grown adults, there's me, and then there's every aspect of me.
00:28:03.891 --> 00:28:09.559
There's my body, there's my soul, there's my mind, there's my thoughts and my feelings.
00:28:09.560 --> 00:28:15.980
There's my plans and projects, there's my hobbies, there's my family, there's my friends.
00:28:20.250 --> 00:28:28.839
Oh, and Jesus Christ is the Lord, the ruler, the king of all, all that.
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:37.858
And more, somehow I didn't include angels and demons and whatever spiritual things exist in the world that I can't even comprehend.
00:28:39.220 --> 00:28:40.890
So a definition of integration.
00:28:41.829 --> 00:28:48.569
Integration is bringing different things together as a whole, which is what I've been trying to do this morning so far.
00:28:48.750 --> 00:28:57.789
I'm taking all these different things and we're trying to unify them right into one thing under one Lord Jesus Christ.
00:28:59.680 --> 00:29:05.869
So all things under Christ radical discipleship is following Jesus in all things.
00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:13.359
Emphasis all, all things following involves discipline and submission.
00:29:13.650 --> 00:29:22.569
So I loved the parenting sermon because it brought my attention to discipline and the purpose of it, the benefit of it, even though it's difficult.
00:29:23.849 --> 00:29:49.309
And you may have heard when he talked about, when Eric talked about following, um, the athlete, type of follower who, and, and I've recognized even in my own life, and I look around to other people who are runners and power lifters and dancers, just how much, much discipline is involved in following a trainer, a coach, a sport, right?
00:29:50.910 --> 00:29:52.519
A particular school of dance.
00:29:53.410 --> 00:29:57.559
It involves discipline to follow Jesus and submission.
00:29:57.560 --> 00:30:01.759
There's not really any way to follow anybody without a certain kind of submission.
00:30:01.760 --> 00:30:17.000
I was thinking about this, like there's absolutely no point in me following Jake, for example, on a trail if I'm not submitted to the idea that Jake kind of knows where he's going, at least a little bit, right?
00:30:18.190 --> 00:30:20.319
I mean, just think about this for for a minute.
00:30:20.320 --> 00:30:24.759
Like, if I go to ask someone to teach me how to play pickleball, right?
00:30:25.779 --> 00:30:38.420
I'm submitted to them in their greater knowledge and understanding of the game pickleball, and I have to be listening to what they tell me and in obedience to their instruction.
00:30:38.990 --> 00:30:41.099
It just doesn't make sense any other way.
00:30:42.410 --> 00:30:48.809
And so following Jesus is like that, except I can trust him.
00:30:49.539 --> 00:30:54.559
No offense Jake more than Jake, okay?
00:30:54.560 --> 00:30:56.519
So I was thinking, I'm, I've been working on this idea.
00:30:56.589 --> 00:31:01.160
I, I'm, I'm really big into history and I love the Middle ages, medieval things.
00:31:01.289 --> 00:31:10.000
If you guys love Lord of the Rings, I know many of you do, you probably got thinking about all kinds of like fantastical worlds that are medieval times inspired.
00:31:10.579 --> 00:31:12.960
And so there are these things called vassals.
00:31:14.130 --> 00:31:14.619
Okay?
00:31:15.109 --> 00:31:17.660
So I have to explain a little bit what a vassal is.
00:31:17.660 --> 00:31:22.980
A vassal is somebody who's underneath a greater authority.
00:31:23.990 --> 00:31:28.980
So underneath a king, there might be various dukes and duchess, right?
00:31:29.900 --> 00:31:31.579
Um, various kinds of knights.
00:31:32.420 --> 00:31:36.470
So it, there's a Lord and then there's a vassal underneath.
00:31:36.471 --> 00:31:39.869
And that vassel might in turn have vassals underneath him.
00:31:40.130 --> 00:31:45.029
And from this perspective of those lower vassals, the person above is a Lord, okay?
00:31:46.490 --> 00:31:58.230
But we, and I think myself like to think of ourselves as allies, which puts us on an even playing field with the person that I'm in relationship to.
00:31:58.230 --> 00:32:07.430
Like if I'm your ally in something, it means we together as equals are working towards something or on the same team.
00:32:08.759 --> 00:32:12.069
If I say vassal though, that means I'm clearly underneath you.
00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:17.619
But Christ is over all.
00:32:20.140 --> 00:32:24.380
We're not equals, we're not allies with God.
00:32:26.289 --> 00:32:33.809
I mean, not just we're subjects, we're VAs to the Lord.
00:32:34.609 --> 00:32:36.759
We have to keep things in the proper perspective.
00:32:38.119 --> 00:32:43.450
So like I like think of my own little personal fiefdom, my personal kingdom, my land, right?
00:32:43.451 --> 00:32:50.690
My power and authority, and then God's over there and I say, yeah, I guess I'll help out in this aspect, in this limited circumstance.
00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:53.019
But it's not like that.
00:32:53.020 --> 00:32:54.539
He's over all of it, right?
00:32:54.670 --> 00:33:01.779
If he wants to come and crush my little sandcastle stronghold at any time he can, I it belongs to him.
00:33:02.009 --> 00:33:03.180
I belong to him.
00:33:03.269 --> 00:33:05.299
He created me, he defines me.
00:33:05.869 --> 00:33:07.059
My purpose is his.
00:33:08.450 --> 00:33:11.269
And he may lead me alone, allow me to do my own thing.
00:33:11.270 --> 00:33:17.859
But that's not to my benefit actually, which is what I talked about with my sermon on radical submission.
00:33:17.990 --> 00:33:23.859
Because we have these things that I called strongholds that we love to keep to ourselves within our soul.
00:33:24.539 --> 00:33:27.980
And we permit, we do not permit God or others to come in.
00:33:29.390 --> 00:33:37.579
So radical integration, ens involves bringing all and every aspect of ourselves together under Christ.
00:33:38.940 --> 00:33:52.259
So we integrate ourselves, we take our strongholds, and we decide that too is part of me, and that also is under the Lordship of Christ, and that I also bring before him.
00:33:54.099 --> 00:33:57.160
And this takes courage and waiting.
00:33:58.250 --> 00:34:01.799
So I'm trying to integrate these different ideas of this sermon series, right?
00:34:02.670 --> 00:34:15.219
Because as others, some of you pointed out when I talked about submission, if you surrender or dismantle or allow your stronghold to be demolished, you're vulnerable.
00:34:15.710 --> 00:34:18.179
Where's your moat to protect you now, right?
00:34:18.900 --> 00:34:24.809
Where those walls to protect you from all the hurt, the pain that could come your way.
00:34:25.710 --> 00:34:27.210
And that's scary.
00:34:28.909 --> 00:34:34.429
Courage is the ability to overcome, to deal with fear.
00:34:35.090 --> 00:34:37.269
And we need that from Jesus.
00:34:37.400 --> 00:34:39.309
We need to rehearse our stories.
00:34:40.139 --> 00:34:57.969
We need to rehearse the stories of what God has done for us in order to confront our fear, to know that God will keep us safe the way we need to be protected, the way that we need to be in him.
00:34:58.230 --> 00:34:59.849
And also, this takes time.
00:35:00.760 --> 00:35:01.670
It takes time.
00:35:01.670 --> 00:35:15.630
So then we're gonna require waiting, actively looking to him, not just entertaining ourselves, not distracting ourselves, but actually anticipating what God is going to do.
00:35:18.269 --> 00:35:25.079
So it includes our marriage and our singleness, our bodies, our gender, our sexuality.
00:35:27.420 --> 00:35:29.570
It includes our children and our parenting.
00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:39.489
It includes our possessions, our time, our plans, our agendas, our money, both the money that we have and the way that we make it.
00:35:41.849 --> 00:35:46.840
It requires ministry, hospitality, evangelism, and discipleship making.
00:35:50.989 --> 00:35:55.690
And once again, it's our money, our possessions, our time, and our agendas that are at stake here.
00:35:55.829 --> 00:35:56.849
And we don't like that.
00:35:56.851 --> 00:36:00.409
I don't like that at least sometimes.
00:36:00.750 --> 00:36:07.480
But I wanna remind you of what Paul says As he talks to the church in Corinth.
00:36:07.969 --> 00:36:13.639
He and Timothy writing to them say, the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.
00:36:13.889 --> 00:36:17.360
On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
00:36:17.690 --> 00:36:22.960
We demolish arguments and every pretense that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.
00:36:23.059 --> 00:36:27.880
And we take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.
00:36:29.449 --> 00:36:31.250
So I just wanna point out how radical this is.
00:36:31.251 --> 00:36:39.940
He talks about taking every thought captive just as there are many, many little subatomic particles.
00:36:40.179 --> 00:36:44.340
There are many, many thoughts in my mind all the time.
00:36:48.090 --> 00:36:59.730
So it includes our philosophy, our thoughts, our feelings, our attention and our attitude, our politics, our histories, our pain, our traumas, and our secrets.
00:37:00.230 --> 00:37:06.150
All of these need to be integrated and brought to Jesus.
00:37:10.289 --> 00:37:13.650
Uh, and then I messed up my slides, but okay, so take heart.
00:37:13.760 --> 00:37:14.849
Here's a little courage.
00:37:14.960 --> 00:37:18.690
Here's the promise that Jesus gifts to all of us, his followers.
00:37:20.199 --> 00:37:31.300
Take my yolk upon you, learn from me, for I am gentle and humble and heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
00:37:35.409 --> 00:37:48.400
So some personal questions that you can think about that I don't want you shouting out answers to, but What part of yourself or your life remains separate from the lordship of Christ.
00:37:48.420 --> 00:37:49.400
Unintegrated.
00:37:52.800 --> 00:37:59.909
How will you personally radically submit this thing that you consider to Christ?
00:38:01.760 --> 00:38:04.940
And then some more public things that we could talk about.
00:38:05.659 --> 00:38:07.900
Um, what has stood out to you most in this series?
00:38:08.650 --> 00:38:11.460
What's something important that I didn't manage to review today?
00:38:13.019 --> 00:38:19.110
And how do we radically submit all things to Christ?
00:38:20.480 --> 00:38:23.630
So we may have some time for questions, but maybe not a lot of time.
00:38:27.559 --> 00:38:28.050
Yeah.
00:38:28.050 --> 00:38:29.849
Backwards to the personal questions.
00:38:29.851 --> 00:38:31.489
Sorry, I went a little fast there at the end.
00:38:31.559 --> 00:38:35.760
What part of yourself or your life remains separate from the Lordship of Christ?
00:38:36.360 --> 00:38:48.940
And these are things that, I mean, I guess if you wanna be really bold, you could talk about in front of all of us, but, and how will you personally radically submit this particular thing that you bring up in your mind to Christ?
00:38:50.599 --> 00:38:51.320
Did that give you enough time?
00:38:52.340 --> 00:38:52.829
Yeah.
00:38:52.831 --> 00:38:53.110
Okay.
00:38:54.170 --> 00:38:54.170
All
00:38:54.250 --> 00:38:54.250
Right.
00:38:54.251 --> 00:38:57.650
Hey, I, uh, I I just really, I really like this.
00:38:57.650 --> 00:38:58.050
Thank you.
00:38:58.050 --> 00:38:58.530
Yeah.
00:38:58.670 --> 00:39:17.570
And then it struck me when you were talking just in integration, like during therapy, when people are getting therapy, like in order to help you like, um, heal from your trauma or really negative experiences, they use that word a lot integration.
00:39:17.829 --> 00:39:26.690
And so it just made me curious a little bit, I don't know, like what, is there a parallel there or Yeah, I don't know.
00:39:26.690 --> 00:39:33.090
I just wanted to bring up that idea and think about like what is, there's like a healing component to integration.
00:39:33.090 --> 00:39:40.730
Because like when something's separate and you're living your life over here and ignoring this thing over here, it actually is making you sick.
00:39:40.731 --> 00:39:44.210
It actually, it, it, it, it's an oppressive thing.
00:39:44.420 --> 00:39:48.170
So anyway, I don't know if that brings up any other thoughts for you, but
00:39:48.969 --> 00:39:54.130
To that idea, I don't know that I need to say much more because that's exactly right in my opinion.
00:39:54.199 --> 00:40:09.610
I mean, that is part of what I'm drawing on to use this word integration, is that when we have hurt and trauma happen to us, we often create this kind of disassociation and we cease to recognize certain parts of ourself as ourself.
00:40:12.150 --> 00:40:13.849
But Christ too is Lord of that.
00:40:18.309 --> 00:40:21.869
Uh, um, I wanted to answer the last one.
00:40:22.750 --> 00:40:29.309
Radically submitting, I rely a great deal on my imagination connected with Romans 8 38.
00:40:29.311 --> 00:40:32.909
Is it God will work all things out for the good of those who love him.
00:40:33.039 --> 00:40:38.110
So maybe the trauma in my life, he's gonna work out for good in somebody else.
00:40:38.239 --> 00:40:50.389
So I like to imagine every day that moment when I'm standing with him and seeing the phenomenal thing he did with all the stuff and how gorgeous it is.
00:40:50.391 --> 00:40:56.750
And I don't know what it's gonna look like, how he's gonna do it, but just sitting in that helps me be willing to submit.
00:40:57.699 --> 00:40:58.829
That's beautiful.
00:40:58.829 --> 00:40:59.269
Thank you.
00:40:59.380 --> 00:41:04.389
I wanted to say that I don't know about podcasts, but all the sermons are also on the website.
00:41:04.929 --> 00:41:05.349
Yes,
00:41:05.349 --> 00:41:05.750
True.
00:41:05.751 --> 00:41:12.309
And you can just say to Google village villages online.com sermons, bang,
00:41:12.829 --> 00:41:13.150
They got it.
00:41:20.889 --> 00:41:22.130
Two summits right there.
00:41:23.570 --> 00:41:28.329
, uh, while we're plugging that, there's also transcripts available.
00:41:29.849 --> 00:41:29.849
,
00:41:30.949 --> 00:41:37.280
The transcripts are quicker than the whole sermon and wonderful sermon again, Michael,
00:41:37.670 --> 00:41:41.320
Unless you listen on triple speed, but keep going.
00:41:41.559 --> 00:41:42.320
Ah, right, right.
00:41:42.639 --> 00:41:45.079
, um, wow.
00:41:45.269 --> 00:41:50.440
I mean, just, but, but what's something I didn't re review today?
00:41:50.440 --> 00:41:56.880
The whole thing you said about like that train dog, his only agenda is what the master wants.
00:41:58.159 --> 00:42:06.159
That is so convicting to me because it just reveals how almost a hundred percent of my time is on my own agenda.
00:42:06.489 --> 00:42:07.960
So thanks for that challenge.
00:42:08.570 --> 00:42:20.400
So, so one quick response to that is that I, I have this fear, and maybe you share it, that if I make only my agenda what Jesus' agenda is, then I get no good things.
00:42:21.230 --> 00:42:29.280
Like I imagine those things that I'm holding onto, that I keep apart from Jesus are the good things, and the other things are like bad or scary.
00:42:30.440 --> 00:42:38.400
Um, but when you look at trained dogs, you realize how joyous and how many good things they get.
00:42:39.110 --> 00:42:39.599
Yeah.
00:42:39.601 --> 00:42:40.119
Anyway,
00:42:43.280 --> 00:42:53.280
Um, uh, typical of my father to steal my thunder, but I, I wanted to talk about the same thing, but what stood out to me about the, the dog, I love that.
00:42:53.710 --> 00:42:54.480
I love that.
00:42:54.840 --> 00:42:58.159
Um, picture is with regards to hospitality.
00:42:59.719 --> 00:43:11.039
Um, and I think of the times where I've been intent on the glamorous Martha Stewart hospitality, and I've missed out on what God was offering and inviting me into.
00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:29.559
Um, so I, I just thought, yeah, that that's what I long for, is to have that alertness and that readiness as I'm going about my day looking for the interruptions and seeing them as some, as good things that Jesus is offering me.
00:43:29.949 --> 00:43:53.360
Yeah, I, I wanted to share like, just very briefly, and you can maybe ask me about it later, but some of the most positive things that have happened to me over the last two years, um, as a follower of Jesus have become, been because I was willing to be interrupted and inconvenienced.
00:43:55.400 --> 00:43:55.400
So,
00:44:02.730 --> 00:44:13.929
Uh, I don't know what question this is answering, but I think, but uh, if I think about the question, what's radical about following Jesus?
00:44:15.409 --> 00:44:36.159
Um, I guess another way that I look at it is that it's Jesus that makes it radical cuz uh, you know, we can talk about the radical part being, you know, the completeness of submitting and, and following and everything, and the breadth and the depth and everything.
00:44:36.800 --> 00:44:47.519
Uh, and we could try to do that with other leaders, you know, Confucius or Mohamed or Thomas Jefferson or whatever.
00:44:48.380 --> 00:44:55.159
But, uh, Jesus is the only one who can actually handle being followed.
00:44:55.210 --> 00:44:55.880
Totally.
00:44:57.170 --> 00:44:57.519
So
00:44:58.789 --> 00:44:59.280
Yeah.
00:44:59.280 --> 00:44:59.480
Thanks.
00:44:59.760 --> 00:44:59.880
That helps.
00:44:59.880 --> 00:45:01.360
That's really, no, that's very helpful.
00:45:02.159 --> 00:45:05.039
That's a, that's a good counterbalance to the emphasis I gave.
00:45:05.041 --> 00:45:05.880
That's really great.
