Episode 32
The Elimination of Hurry (Part 4): A Movement of Apprentices
The HeavenEarth Church Podcast Exists to Amplify The Conversation Happening at HeavenEarth Church.
This conversation centers around the vision to be a church that make a lasting impact in our community by building relationships with all kinds of folks, helping people know and live like Jesus together.
You can help the HeavenEarth Church Podcast share and amplify this conversation by:
- Following or subscribing to the HeavenEarth Church Podcast,
- Give a five star rating to the HeavenEarth Church Podcast,
- Writing a review about your HeavenEarth Church Podcast Experience.
Please follow, rate and review at the following channels:
Addressing the pervasive issue of 'hurry sickness' in contemporary society, the conversation draws upon themes from John Mark Comer's book, 'The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.' Ross Stackhouse articulates the detrimental effects of a hurried lifestyle on our spiritual and emotional well-being, urging listeners to recognize the importance of acceptance and community in overcoming this affliction. The episode serves as a clarion call to reevaluate our priorities, emphasizing that the path to healing and spiritual renewal is not only spiritual but also profoundly practical. Through Jesus' example, we learn that a life well-lived is characterized by intentionality, rest, and a focus on core relationships. The episode culminates in a powerful reminder that embracing a life of apprenticeship to Jesus not only enriches our individual lives but also has the potential to transform our communities, fostering environments of love, acceptance, and spiritual growth.
Takeaways:
- Heaven Earth Church was established to cater to individuals who feel disconnected from traditional religious settings, inviting them to share their unique narratives.
- The essence of our community revolves around acknowledging and valuing the diverse stories of its members, as each narrative embodies an aspect of God's greater story.
- In our discussion, we emphasize that true discipleship of Jesus extends beyond mere belief, encompassing the adoption of his teachings and lifestyle in our daily lives.
- We address the pervasive issue of 'hurry sickness' in modern society, advocating for a deliberate and mindful approach to life that prioritizes spiritual rest and connection.
- It is crucial to recognize that Jesus did not aim to create a mass following of believers, but rather a community of learners who embody his way of life.
- Our ongoing series encourages acceptance of personal limitations while fostering an understanding that authentic change is often gradual and requires spiritual and practical commitment.
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
Welcome to Heaven Earth Church.
Speaker A:My name is Ross Stackhouse.
Speaker A:I'm the founding pastor of Heaven Earth Church.
Speaker A:From the beginning, our heart was to be a church for people who don't fit neatly into church.
Speaker A:Our heart is to meet people where they are, to learn their stories, to honor their stories.
Speaker A:Because in every human story is God's story.
Speaker A:In this podcast, you'll hear more about the people who now call Heaven Earth Church home.
Speaker A:Their stories, in many cases of misfits who are discovering or rediscovering faith.
Speaker A:If you want to know more about us, you can go to heavenorthchurch.org Otherwise, we invite you now into the story.
Speaker B:Hello, good people.
Speaker B:Brad Miller here, the producer of the Heaven Earth Church podcast.
Speaker B:One of the main benefits of being a part of the Heaven Earth Church community is our Sunday morning conversations taught by founding pastor Ross Stackhouse.
Speaker B:You can watch and participate in the Sunday morning conversation this Sunday morning, 9:30am Eastern time at YouTube.com heavenerthchurch.
Speaker B:The audio version of the Sunday morning conversation is available here on the podcast, which you can find at Apple Podcasts, Spotify and on the website, which is heavenearthchurch.org now here is Heaven Earth Church pastor Ross Stackhouse with part four of his message series, Eliminating Hurry, a movement of apprentices.
Speaker A:Lord, help us to hear your voice.
Speaker A:We could work hard and strive so hard and yet we would not receive the things that you have to give us if we just sit with you and receive what you have to reveal to us.
Speaker A:So help us to do that.
Speaker A:Help us to not just be a scattered bunch of individuals in a room.
Speaker A:Help us to be a community.
Speaker A:Community of people giving special attention to you.
Speaker A:I ask specifically that you would give us rest.
Speaker A:Rest in Jesus name, Amen.
Speaker A:Have you ever lived with someone, had a roommate partner, and as you were living with them, their way of life, their rhythms of life and your way of life collided?
Speaker A:You had a roommate that was maybe difficult.
Speaker A:Don't look to the person next to you.
Speaker A:Some of you are like, I've been married for 30 years, we're still colliding.
Speaker A:So I live with a great group of guys.
Speaker A:When I was a sophomore at Purdue, we played in a band together.
Speaker A:Yeah, we did that thing well.
Speaker A:Great buddies though we were, none of us were very clean in our way of life.
Speaker A:My stepmom Patty, saying, amen if you went to our house sophomore year, we called it the Animal House.
Speaker A:It was not good.
Speaker A:But we had one roommate.
Speaker A:God love him, he.
Speaker A:He didn't want to contribute so much to tasks around the house.
Speaker A:And one day I was like, hey man, could you maybe help like take out the trash?
Speaker A:And he said, I just don't do that, man.
Speaker A:So his way of life, his, his, his way of living was colliding with mine and it was encroaching upon my peace.
Speaker A:And so I said, you know, I think I want to show him what it's like to have your peace bothered.
Speaker A:And so I took, there was a, there was, there were dishes that had stacked up in the sink and it had spilled out onto the counter.
Speaker A:So I took all those dishes and while he was at class, I placed each one of them in his bed.
Speaker A:Now some of you are going, ross, how is that a Jesus like thing to do?
Speaker A:I didn't say it was okay.
Speaker A:I was 20 years old.
Speaker A:But we laughed about it later on.
Speaker A:I don't think, I think he won actually.
Speaker A:I don't think he ever took out the trash.
Speaker A:I don't think he ever did the dishes.
Speaker A:So checkmate.
Speaker A:He got me.
Speaker A:But I want to share with you today how Jesus is not just when he came.
Speaker A:His goal was not just to create a mass of believers.
Speaker A:That was not his goal.
Speaker A:Yes, belief is a part of it, so hang with me.
Speaker A:But his main goal was to create a movement of apprentices who learn his way of life, who fully take in his way of life, who learn his life saving, soul restoring way of life.
Speaker A:And they practice it now for this life and for the life to come.
Speaker A:I want to talk with you about that today.
Speaker A:How.
Speaker A:And I'm going to show you through.
Speaker A:I'm not just making this up.
Speaker A:It's in all of the gospels how Jesus.
Speaker A:I will show you how Jesus made it very clear what he came to do.
Speaker A:And the reason I bring that up is because I don't know if you're like me, but in the Christianities that I grew up with, I was a bit of a church theological mutt.
Speaker A:Spent some time in a Methodist church, went to Baptist Bible studies, then later on, oh, Church of Christ Church Camp Presbyterian for a little while.
Speaker A:And there was this kind of idea that Jesus goal was to make you and me believers.
Speaker A:That his goal was that you would believe something so he would give you this deliverance for when you die, for after you die.
Speaker A:And some of you are going, ross, you're always talking about this.
Speaker A:Well, we got to keep talking about it.
Speaker A:That his goal was to make you believe something, invite you, call you to believe something.
Speaker A:So after we're done here, you have salvation.
Speaker A:And while belief is a huge part of it and the afterlife.
Speaker A:Hey, there's good news.
Speaker A:There is more to our existence than what's happening right here, right now.
Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker A:That's good news if all that we got is this earth.
Speaker A:But it's not quite like we've heard.
Speaker A:And I want to show you that today because we've been in a series called, based on this book, the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer.
Speaker A:We've been talking about eliminating hurry.
Speaker A:We've been talking about how we have a hurry sickness.
Speaker A:Not just that we're fitting too much into too little of a space with our lives.
Speaker A:It's more than that.
Speaker A:It's that distraction is becoming the norm of our existence.
Speaker A:And distraction itself is a form of hurry.
Speaker A:We're distracting and escaping to run away from our pain, to not deal with our trauma, to not deal with our ailments.
Speaker A:Even when we try to pursue change in our lives, we're doing it in a hurried way.
Speaker A:Our first week of this, we had a couple of therapists chime in about that, how sometimes their clients, like they're three meetings in, and it's like, why aren't I better yet?
Speaker A:When we want change, we want the fast track, we want the gimmick, but all change.
Speaker A:Science points to all of my experience of change with people, says that the most lasting change is of the slow and steady and persistent kind.
Speaker A:We have a hurry sickness.
Speaker A:We've been talking about the solution.
Speaker A:Last week we talked about how acceptance is the beginning of the solution.
Speaker A:Accepting that we have a problem, we have hurry sickness, and our willpower ain't gonna be enough to fix it.
Speaker A:Isn't that exciting?
Speaker A:But actually that's the beginning, is that we need a power greater than ourselves.
Speaker A:So the solution is a spiritual one.
Speaker A:We need this Jesus to restore us from the inside out.
Speaker A:But the solution is also a practical one.
Speaker A:We talked about accepting our limits last week.
Speaker A:How actually, despite what you've been told, you can't do everything you put your mind to.
Speaker A:I'll say it again, you can't and you shouldn't do everything you can put your mind to.
Speaker A:Some of you are like, oh, I don't like that.
Speaker A:That hurts my feelings.
Speaker A:Actually, we Talked about how 99% of Jesus life was spent in like a 5 mile radius.
Speaker A:90% of his life was not an active ministry.
Speaker A:Almost all of his life was spent with a small group of people.
Speaker A:Jesus was limited.
Speaker A:But if you're paying attention, I'm telling you today that the solution to this problem, oh my gosh, I'm Going to watch.
Speaker A:I'm going to see if some of you roll your eyes is to be a Christian.
Speaker A:Darn it, Ross, you're playing into the same thing.
Speaker A:The church always spiritualizes everything.
Speaker A:I'm hungry.
Speaker A:I'm going to pray for you.
Speaker A:I lost somebody.
Speaker A:Just trust God.
Speaker A:I'm not doing that to you today because what I'm saying is that I'm not talking about that kind of Christianity where you just believe something.
Speaker A:I'm talking about how Jesus gives us a way of life.
Speaker A:Yes, it's spiritual, but it's also highly, highly practical.
Speaker A:I believe if atheists looked at Jesus way of doing life and they just practiced it, they would go, wow, I feel more peace.
Speaker A:I have more serenity, I have more love.
Speaker A:No, wait, let me back up.
Speaker A:I believe if Christians actually practice Jesus way of life, we would have more love and peace.
Speaker A:Somehow we became Christians without following Jesus.
Speaker A:We became Christians and studied all the letters of Paul, became experts in all the doctrines.
Speaker A:I want to show you his way of life.
Speaker A:How it's the cure if I didn't offend you too much.
Speaker A:And you're still with me.
Speaker A:So first I want to ask you when you think of Jesus way of life, like how he lives day to day, what do you think of what does he do?
Speaker A:What does Jesus day to day life look like?
Speaker A:What's his way of living look like?
Speaker A:Crystal.
Speaker A:He is always going to a deserted place.
Speaker A:The Greek word is our.
Speaker A:We get our English word desert from it.
Speaker A:Desert doesn't mean hot sand, no water and you're going to die.
Speaker A:It means that you're alone.
Speaker A:He is always doing that.
Speaker A:That's not a super spiritual thing.
Speaker A:It is, but it isn't.
Speaker A:He has carved out space to be alone with God.
Speaker A:That's great.
Speaker A:What else?
Speaker A:When you think of Jesus way of life, what do you think of his rhythm for living?
Speaker A:What's he do?
Speaker A:He teaches people.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Who does he teach the most?
Speaker A:Somebody if Kiersten.
Speaker A:Who does Jesus spend the most time teaching?
Speaker A:What's that?
Speaker A:Himself?
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:He's spending alone time with God to receive things but also he's teaching a few people that he spends all of his time with Core relationships.
Speaker A:Is Jesus trying to have like the most followers on Instagram?
Speaker A:I genuinely think Jesus wouldn't have social media.
Speaker A:Probably not.
Speaker A:He was not famous, didn't try to be actually repelled it.
Speaker A:What else?
Speaker A:What of Jesus way of living do you think of?
Speaker A:How did he live?
Speaker A:What did he do day to day?
Speaker A:What's that?
Speaker A:I'm sorry?
Speaker A:What'd you say Yuli.
Speaker A:He runs his own business?
Speaker A:Yes, he was a carpenter, an artisan.
Speaker A:He worked.
Speaker A:He worked for money at some point, but sometimes he didn't.
Speaker A:Sometimes?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:When he.
Speaker A:When his movement got started, people just sold their stuff and gave it to the poor.
Speaker A:Who wants to do that?
Speaker A:Lucy, that's a very practical thing.
Speaker A:Jesus rarely gave people advice that they didn't ask for.
Speaker A:Alcoholics Anonymous says unsolicited advice is always received as criticism.
Speaker A:How many of us are going around giving unsolicited advice?
Speaker A:Jesus listened.
Speaker A:He asked questions.
Speaker A:He built trust with people.
Speaker A:He met people where they are.
Speaker A:Also, let me add this, that Jesus did not save everyone.
Speaker A:Hold on, relax.
Speaker A:He did.
Speaker A:But what I mean is, when he was feeding 4,000, was everyone in the world being fed in that moment?
Speaker A:Were there people going hungry in that very moment?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:While he was helping one sick person, was everybody else doing great?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Jesus himself lived by this thing we talk about.
Speaker A:Not everyone.
Speaker A:Nobody can do something about everything.
Speaker A:Nobody can.
Speaker A:Not even Jesus did.
Speaker A:Except in his death and resurrection.
Speaker A:Charles, Love as I have loved you.
Speaker A:Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker A:Charles, thinking about when Jesus said, love others as I have loved you.
Speaker A:In that very moment, Jesus hadn't died yet.
Speaker A:So in that moment, maybe it does us well to think of, well, how did Jesus do that up to that moment?
Speaker A:How did he live?
Speaker A:What did he.
Speaker A:How did he spend his time?
Speaker A:How did he do relationships, things like that?
Speaker A:All right, hey, let me show you.
Speaker A:Let me show you how I'm not just making this up.
Speaker A:This concept of Jesus goal again, this is spiritual, folks.
Speaker A:It is.
Speaker A:I'm going to tell you, like, the solution to our problem is spiritual, but it's also highly practical.
Speaker A:And Jesus wants us to learn with him, like apprentices.
Speaker A:I've said this before.
Speaker A:If I want to go, I always pick on you, Josh, but you actually work with wood, and it's kind of like Jesus.
Speaker A:So Josh is like Jesus in many ways.
Speaker A:In other ways, I'm sure he's not.
Speaker A:Okay, listen, if I wanted to know how to build some cabinets, would I do.
Speaker A:No, I shouldn't go.
Speaker A:Just watch a YouTube video and jump in.
Speaker A:Yes, you can do that.
Speaker A:It'd be way better to spend time with somebody who builds cabinets, watch them, practice with them, fail with them.
Speaker A:That would be the best way to do it.
Speaker A:I could do it on YouTube and do it by myself.
Speaker A:But when I try to do this YouTube video, I would have no mentor saying, oh, no, no, no, no, not that way.
Speaker A:Or to just watch it.
Speaker A:Go watch.
Speaker A:He's gonna do it that way and fail.
Speaker A:I'm gonna let him fail, and then we're gonna talk about it.
Speaker A:This is what Jesus is inviting us to watch.
Speaker A:I'll show you.
Speaker A:Right here.
Speaker A:Beginning to end.
Speaker A:In the Gospels, he says, in Matthew 4, 19, come and read the next two words for me.
Speaker A:Does he say, come and believe in me now?
Speaker A:It's a part of it.
Speaker A:Hold on.
Speaker A:Don't go nuts and I'll show you.
Speaker A:I'm going to show you something.
Speaker A:And then back here.
Speaker A:We're going to make our way back to this one.
Speaker A:So just hang tight.
Speaker A:We're going to make our way back to this one.
Speaker A:Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Speaker A:Take my yoke upon you.
Speaker A:And you read the next three words and.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Does he say, and believe in me?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Learn something from me.
Speaker A:The word that we.
Speaker A:That is the Greek word for learn.
Speaker A:There is the same root word of disciple.
Speaker A:It's like apprentice.
Speaker A:The better word for it might be apprentice, like, come and be my apprentice.
Speaker A:Take my.
Speaker A:I'm jumping the gun.
Speaker A:We'll come back to this.
Speaker A:Just wait.
Speaker A:And then we got this one.
Speaker A:This is the end of the Gospel, Matthew.
Speaker A:Therefore, go and make believers of all nations.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Nope.
Speaker A:Go and make what?
Speaker A:Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:You gotta believe.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:You gotta be born again and immersed in a completely new reality and way of life.
Speaker A:Yes, you do.
Speaker A:But watch.
Speaker A:What else you got to do.
Speaker A:Oh, teach.
Speaker A:Go do like I do.
Speaker A:Learn my way of life.
Speaker A:This is something like, we're learning a way of life with Jesus.
Speaker A:We're not just, like, believing in something.
Speaker A:So let me back up and tell you.
Speaker A:Yes, I want to tell you that there is.
Speaker A:Hey, look, it is a.
Speaker A:Is a.
Speaker A:This is a spiritual thing.
Speaker A:We keep saying this.
Speaker A:The solution is spiritual and practical.
Speaker A:Are you still with me?
Speaker A:The starting place for every person who wants to follow Jesus is we have to receive from him this spiritual liberation that he gives us.
Speaker A:We on Jesus side of the ledger, we are freed.
Speaker A:It doesn't mean we're freed.
Speaker A:We have to accept it.
Speaker A:Here's what I mean.
Speaker A:Do you know there's this thing in Indiana called my case?
Speaker A:You ever heard of it?
Speaker A:If you want to know, like, right now, if you want to know my dad's speeding tickets, go to my case in Indiana.
Speaker A:Search Ronald Stackhouse.
Speaker A:You'll see every traffic violation he's ever had.
Speaker A:For the love of God, people don't do that right now.
Speaker A:If you want to see people's rap sheet.
Speaker A:It's on there in Indiana.
Speaker A:Every misdemeanor, every felony, everything.
Speaker A:But in Jesus's economy, if you put in Ronald Jean Stackhouse into his database, or Jeremy, or Beth, Josh, Adam, everybody in here, it's really frustrating.
Speaker A:There's just one entry, that one.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker A:Even the person you're like, I can't wait to see their rap sheet.
Speaker A:I'm going to expose them.
Speaker A:I'm going to share this.
Speaker A:I'm going to screenshot this, put it on the socials.
Speaker A:Everybody's going to know every person.
Speaker A:You look them up.
Speaker A:Boom.
Speaker A:He has released us.
Speaker A:He came to deal with the forces of darkness, of sin and death and darkness so that we would be freed once and for all.
Speaker A:When he went to the cross, he went to fight a battle we could never fight on our own.
Speaker A:Some traditions believe that he went down.
Speaker A:He literally went down to hell to fight for us.
Speaker A:So the things that are destroying us, we are now freed from.
Speaker A:However, we have to take the keys from his hand.
Speaker A:We're sitting in a jail cell.
Speaker A:My spiritual director will do this to me sometimes when I'm rehearsing some story about how somebody hurt me.
Speaker A:He'll say, it sounds like you're choosing on that one to still sit in the jail cell.
Speaker A:On it.
Speaker A:I'm like, excuse me?
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:How dare you?
Speaker A:He says it right here.
Speaker A:He says, look, I have the keys.
Speaker A:They're in my hands.
Speaker A:I give them to you.
Speaker A:Be freed.
Speaker A:When I said, like, first, this is a spiritual problem we got.
Speaker A:Every problem we face is a spiritual one.
Speaker A:So it needs a spiritual solution.
Speaker A:He's it.
Speaker A:Believe in him.
Speaker A:Trust in him.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Belief is a part of it.
Speaker A:We need a spiritual regeneration.
Speaker A:We need some remodeling.
Speaker A:No, we need demolition and then some rebuilding.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:Yes, and we have to learn his way of life.
Speaker A:No, we have the chance to learn his way of life.
Speaker A:Okay, that was spiritual.
Speaker A:You with me?
Speaker A:But here's practical stuff.
Speaker A:Yes, we need to be believers, but we also want to be disciples, apprentices who learn his life saving trade, his soul restoring trade.
Speaker A:I want to read this because I think that maybe.
Speaker A:Maybe you might be in this boat.
Speaker A:It's often quoted that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and again and expecting different results.
Speaker A:I mean, we all know that.
Speaker A:Boring.
Speaker A:But that's exactly what we do.
Speaker A:We get a vision of the kind of life that is possible in Jesus.
Speaker A:We go to church or read a book or listen to a podcast.
Speaker A:We catch a glimpse of the kind of life.
Speaker A:We ache for one of emotional health and spiritual life.
Speaker A:Our gut immediately says, yes, God, I want that life.
Speaker A:We head home from church with all the willpower we can muster and set out to change.
Speaker A:But then we go right back to living the exact same lifestyle and nothing changes.
Speaker A:It's the same cycle on repeat.
Speaker A:Stress, tiredness, distraction.
Speaker A:We feel stuck yet again.
Speaker A:And then we wonder, what am I missing?
Speaker A:Anyone?
Speaker A:Are you there?
Speaker A:So spoiler alert.
Speaker A:If you go home today, you're like, all right, I'm ready.
Speaker A:I'm ready.
Speaker A:I got it from church.
Speaker A:I'm ready to go live this thing now.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:That's why we keep meeting together.
Speaker A:That's why we keep walking together.
Speaker A:And we walk slow and steady and persistent and we believe.
Speaker A:And then we struggle with unbelief.
Speaker A:And then we fall.
Speaker A:And then someone in church picks you back up.
Speaker A:And then we keep practicing a way of life.
Speaker A:Not just a way of believing, but a way of life.
Speaker A:We watch Jesus together over and over and over and again because the things that we give attention to are the people we become.
Speaker A:And we start championing each other's like hopes and dreams.
Speaker A:And we learn to spend our time as Jesus spends his time.
Speaker A:This is the practical stuff I'm going to outline for you.
Speaker A:Are we spending time regarding time the way Jesus regards time?
Speaker A:Maybe we know what Jesus taught.
Speaker A:We know what he did.
Speaker A:How did he regard time?
Speaker A:How did he spend time?
Speaker A:To what did he give time?
Speaker A:How did Jesus schedule his days?
Speaker A:One thing Crystal mentioned didn't matter what was going on.
Speaker A:Jesus was like, hey, I'll see you later.
Speaker A:I need to go over here and be alone for a while.
Speaker A:One thing Jesus did was practice Sabbath.
Speaker A:You're going to talk about that again, Ross?
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:Eugene Peterson, he wrote the message translation paraphrase.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A:Eugene Peterson, he and his wife every Sabbath day would go on a like 2 to 4 hour hike to be away.
Speaker A:He said, it's the most radical thing I ever did.
Speaker A:How many of you are thinking right now, there's no way that I'm going to practice a 24 hour period of time.
Speaker A:There's no way, Ross, where my goal is rest with a few people, where I'm just, I'm present and paying attention to those people and to God.
Speaker A:I keep being surprised by it.
Speaker A:We, my family went on a hike in Fort Harrison park yesterday.
Speaker A:I carried the little nugget on the back.
Speaker A:It's my nickname for no, just present.
Speaker A:When Jesus says hey, he says this right here, all you who are loaded down heavy, take my way upon you.
Speaker A:A yoke was a way of talking about a rabbi set of teachings and practices.
Speaker A:I was like, oh, yeah, this is what it's about while I was in the woods.
Speaker A:This is part of Jesus yoke.
Speaker A:He blesses this.
Speaker A:Did you know that Jesus has not asked you to fix the world?
Speaker A:Did you know that Jesus hasn't asked you to save everybody?
Speaker A:He did so.
Speaker A:We learn to spend our time as he spends his time.
Speaker A:We learn to see our gifts as Jesus sees our gifts.
Speaker A:We learn to steward life as Jesus stewards life.
Speaker A:We learn to delight in people the way Jesus delights in people.
Speaker A:We learn to delight in our enemies.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:We learn to delight in our enemies.
Speaker A:Do we have to like what they do?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Do we rejoice in their injustice?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Do we learn to try to love them in whatever way Jesus is asking us to?
Speaker A:We learn to welcome the stranger as he welcomes the stranger.
Speaker A:I'm going to a protest tomorrow to protest these immigration centers.
Speaker A:I'm going up to one in Kokomo to protest tomorrow with some other clergy people.
Speaker A:I'm not doing it for political reasons.
Speaker A:I'll just tell you my hand.
Speaker A:We're going to talk politics in church for about 15 seconds.
Speaker A:Politics suck.
Speaker A:Most of our leaders are ego driven.
Speaker A:Almost all of them.
Speaker A:I'm not going there for some political agenda.
Speaker A:I'm going there because simply Jesus told me to, to welcome the stranger.
Speaker A:My citizenship is not primarily in America.
Speaker A:It's in the kingdom of the heavens.
Speaker A:So that's a way of life that I'm going to adopt.
Speaker A:It's at 2 o' clock in Kokomo if you want to come.
Speaker A:Ross, I have a job.
Speaker A:That's fine.
Speaker A:The way that we're rounding up people, like animals, abhorrent.
Speaker A:It is an abomination from the pits of hell.
Speaker A:And because I belong to Jesus and I am his apprentice, I'm going tomorrow.
Speaker A:So if we're going to.
Speaker A:Hey.
Speaker A:I need to believe in Jesus again every day.
Speaker A:I need his spirit to enter my spirit.
Speaker A:I need his help to not be so darn afraid all the time in my life.
Speaker A:But then I also got to just do things that he asked me to do before they make sense.
Speaker A:Just like if I were.
Speaker A:Sorry, Josh.
Speaker A:If Josh said, ross, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker A:Don't put that leg there.
Speaker A:But that screw.
Speaker A:No, we got to do this method first.
Speaker A:It would make no sense to me.
Speaker A:But I'm gonna listen to him because he's Built a thousand tables.
Speaker A:I've built like, zip.
Speaker A:Jesus is saying, I need to teach you an eternal kind of way of life.
Speaker A:I need to teach you that.
Speaker A:So you're gonna need to do some things that I'm asking you to do before it makes sense.
Speaker A:Welcome the stranger.
Speaker A:But, Ross.
Speaker A:Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker A:Just watch how quick our butts come up.
Speaker A:I once had a good friend preach on how big our butts are.
Speaker A:Watch how many times when Jesus asked to do something, our big butts come into the picture.
Speaker A:All these things, guys.
Speaker A:It's not just about believing.
Speaker A:He didn't come to just make us believers.
Speaker A:He came to make us apprentices.
Speaker A:And oddly, if we practice his way of life, we'll be shocked if we reduce our life to giving the most of our time to a core relationship.
Speaker A:Core relationships.
Speaker A:It'll be weird.
Speaker A:I don't feel so stressed.
Speaker A:If we believe that we are loved like Jesus did and we trust in our identity in God, and we're not people pleasers, God help me.
Speaker A:We practice something called self differentiation.
Speaker A:Look it up.
Speaker A:It's worth learning about some of us out of our trauma, we're either emotionally fused with people.
Speaker A:We're like, are you okay?
Speaker A:If you're okay, I'm okay.
Speaker A:If you need help, I'm going to get my worth out of helping you.
Speaker A:But other of us run the other way.
Speaker A:We're emotionally cut off from people we're in.
Speaker A:I'm not going to ask for a poll in the room.
Speaker A:Which one you are.
Speaker A:It all starts here.
Speaker A:He has given us the keys.
Speaker A:Romans 8 says it.
Speaker A:Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Speaker A:That's the beginning place.
Speaker A:The rest of it is learning a way of life with this master artisan who builds like eternity in us.
Speaker A:Okay, so the solution is to become a Christian.
Speaker A:What do you think about all that?
Speaker A:Do you agree?
Speaker A:You disagree?
Speaker A:What's this making you think?
Speaker A: Let the record show that it's: Speaker A:Okay, Lucy, go ahead.
Speaker A:Help.
Speaker A:Yes, that's everything.
Speaker A:Lucy was just saying, like, when we become apprentices, we.
Speaker A:It just so happens that we also bring about the kingdom of heaven on earth.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:And then we help other people to become apprentices.
Speaker A:Why would.
Speaker A:No, I won't say it.
Speaker A:I want to keep.
Speaker A:Keep it time.
Speaker A:Yes, Evan.
Speaker A:Yes, Evan was at a conference once.
Speaker A:There was a slide.
Speaker A:Like, people have been so obsessed with proving that Christianity is true without demonstrating how Christianity is good.
Speaker A:The way you do that is to practice Jesus's life restoring way, soul restoring.
Speaker A:I didn't even Know how wearied my soul was and still is until this extended stillness and silence I've been practicing day in and day out.
Speaker A:We're so wrecked.
Speaker A:What else?
Speaker A:What's astern in you, Lucy?
Speaker A:For round two?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Jesus.
Speaker A:John Ortberg has.
Speaker A:There's a title of one of his books.
Speaker A:I think it's called Eternity is In Session Now.
Speaker A:I think, like I said, this is a Ross.
Speaker A:But it is.
Speaker A:Is it about what's going on here?
Speaker A:Is it?
Speaker A:Or about what happens beyond here?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:And when we practice apprenticeship, we're starting to get that.
Speaker A:Who else?
Speaker A:What else?
Speaker A:What you got, Joanna?
Speaker A:And this is why I'm always reluctant to say these things, because I am biased, but I also.
Speaker A:I can also be biased in the way that I. I actually grew up in knowing his heart and knowing it now.
Speaker A:And so like Jesus was this great teacher.
Speaker A:I mean, to me, this conversation was just so good, the way that you studied that and put it to us.
Speaker A:I'm just thankful to have you as a good teacher and a trustworthy teacher.
Speaker A:Well, I love you too.
Speaker A:The whole point of Ross, we didn't come to church.
Speaker A:You could read from a book.
Speaker A:This is important.
Speaker A:This is important.
Speaker A:The whole point of apprenticeship is to model all of your life after Jesus.
Speaker A:All of your life.
Speaker A:Your time, relationships, money, everything.
Speaker A:And in doing so, to recover your soul, to have the warp part of you back into shape.
Speaker A:To experience healing in the deepest parts of your being.
Speaker A:To experience what Jesus called life to the full from John 10.
Speaker A:We looked at it early in the series.
Speaker A:Listen to this.
Speaker A:What the New Testament writers call salvation.
Speaker A:Keep in mind the Greek word that we translate, salvation is soteria, the same word we translate, healing.
Speaker A:When you're reading the New Testament, you read that somebody was healed by Jesus.
Speaker A:Then you read somebody else was saved by Jesus.
Speaker A:You're reading the same Greek word.
Speaker A:Salvation is healing.
Speaker A:Even the etymology of our English word salvation comes from the Latin salve, as in an ointment you put on a burn or a wound.
Speaker A:This is what Jesus was all about.
Speaker A:Healing people, saving them at a soul deep level.
Speaker A:How?
Speaker A:Through apprenticeship to him.
Speaker A:Brad.
Speaker A:Yep, yep.
Speaker A:That's wonderful, Brad.
Speaker A:That's not a plant, Brad.
Speaker A:Just tied into our core value, one of our church.
Speaker A:We want to meet people where they are and see them as God's masterpieces.
Speaker A:When we're being apprentices to Jesus, we're literally becoming a piece of the master.
Speaker A:Darn, that's good.
Speaker A:No, I just stole it, man.
Speaker A:What else?
Speaker A:What are you thinking?
Speaker A:What's this?
Speaker A:Making you feel one or two more.
Speaker A:Josh.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Josh is just thinking about someone they had in their life who ended up converting people to Christianity by their actions because they were embodying a way of life contrasted against somebody who's standing out at the racetrack with a sign, which honestly isn't even a good business practice.
Speaker A:It's not doing a good recruitment job anyways.
Speaker A:So it's not even working.
Speaker A:But that's the whole point.
Speaker A:People who are doing that aren't doing that for those people.
Speaker A:They're doing it for them.
Speaker A:They're not doing it because they love the people to whom they're showing the sign.
Speaker A:They're doing it for them.
Speaker A:They think it's a good heaven maintenance strategy.
Speaker A:What else?
Speaker A:Maybe one or two more or none more.
Speaker A:Oh, go ahead, Shelby.
Speaker A:The message that here isn't necessarily God's actual.
Speaker A:Yeah, yep.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:That we definitely live in a. I don't think our.
Speaker A:It would be easy to be prisoner of the moment and think there have been no other times like this.
Speaker A:Like, go check out the Reformations.
Speaker A:Some pretty rough disagreements back then.
Speaker A:People going to battle with pitchforks and scythes because you didn't dunk someone in baptism, you sprinkled them.
Speaker A:Weird.
Speaker A:But to each their own anyways.
Speaker A:But it is a.
Speaker A:It is a hyper polarized time where there are many expressions of Christianity out there and many moments when people are saying they're doing something because of Christianity.
Speaker A:That's why I didn't mean to do this.
Speaker A:Today we have a core value that we want to fix our eyes on Jesus and live by his Spirit.
Speaker A:We're just trying to ask, what did he say?
Speaker A:What did he do?
Speaker A:How did he live?
Speaker A:And how do we seek the Spirit's help to do likewise?
Speaker A:It's that simple and that hard.
Speaker A:So that's what we're here for.
Speaker A:All right, I think that's it.
Speaker A:Let's pray.
Speaker A:Thank you for saving us, Lord.
Speaker A:Help us to receive the keys to freedom that you are so eager to give us.
Speaker A:Because you delight in us.
Speaker A:Heal us so that we have a chance to delight in you again.
Speaker A:Our hearts are loaded down and heavy.
Speaker A:We're beaten up.
Speaker A:We can't see straight.
Speaker A:Help us to delight in you again.
Speaker A:Help us to see how you delight in us.
Speaker A:Show us this eternal kind of life, this life and soul restoring life, way of life in Jesus name name.
Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker B:Thank you for participating in the conversation happening at Heaven Earth Church.
Speaker B:Your next opportunity to do so live is this Sunday morning, 9:30am Eastern Time, either at the main campus at 309 East Main in Whiteland, Indiana, or online at YouTube Live.
Speaker B:That's at YouTube.
Speaker B:The audio podcast is always available at Apple Podcast and on Spotify.
Speaker B:You can help others find out about the Heaven Earth Church podcast by going to Apple Podcast and or Spotify and leaving a five star rating and your review.
Speaker B:Instructions on how to do just that and links are in the show notes.
Speaker B:You can always find out more by going to the church website, heavenearthchurch.org we.
Speaker A:Want to thank you for spending time with us today.
Speaker A:My name is Ross Stackhouse, the pastor to Heaven Earth Church, and you may think out there that your story is over, but in fact, your faith story may just be beginning.
Speaker A:If you want more information about our church or you're interested in the next step, you can go to heavenearthchurch.org Otherwise, we look forward to being with you next time at the Heaven Earth Church Podcast.
