Tyndale Chapel Podcast

That's good. I'll ask you to repeat all of that at Christmas time when we're together. So everyone in our family can hear it.

I had a question for you. What is holding you back from growing in your life? Or let's just put the cookies on the bottom shelf. What is holding you back from true greatness? There's lots of things maybe that go through our minds, when we think about the answer to that question. Even if we don't often think about that question, we're living it. Other people sometimes feel like, what's holding us back from growth? Maybe it's your current professor, who you feel is between you and greatness. Right? Maybe it's just that, you know, the people in my life where I didn't have, you know, the family that I had hoped to, or there's a relationship in my life, that's difficult. Or if this person would just do this for me, then I could actually move forward, or I'm trying to grow, but this person, and this circumstance keeps cutting in on me. And so sometimes we think people are what's holding us back from actually growing, or becoming the people, who can say this, we feel we were meant to be the me, I want to be, me I believe I can be, the places I'm trying to get to, or perhaps circumstances. Right. Things haven't fallen for me in the right places. You know, if I look at other people, the opportunities that they were just gifted, that landed in their lap, or what because of the place in the world they were born, or how much was in their parents bank account when they were born, or what things happen, the heads they were able to turn or the people that seemed to be in their favour, the opportunities they had, and I haven't had those opportunities, or the one opportunity I'm waiting for just hasn't materialized, that door hasn't opened, and therefore I cannot grow, or I'm stuck, or I can't become the person I'm meant to be.

Sometimes it's people, sometimes it's circumstances, or sometimes we think, Oh, it's just my own self discipline. If I was just better at this, if I just worked harder, if I could just overcome, if I could just get past this unhealthy habit, or this addiction, or this flaw in my character or my ability, if I just like could apply myself a little bit more, take what I know, and actually put it into practice, then it's me who's standing in the way of where I want to go. Whatever the circumstances may be for for you, some of you maybe the answer is education. And that's why you're here thinking, well, if I can get equipped, if I can get some paper or some letters behind my name, or get some more learning, that will move me forward in life. And I think the question we need to sort of rethink in terms of well, what is it that we're trying to do what, what is growth, actually about? When we turn to the scriptures, what's interesting is that the scriptures use a different word, although at times it uses the word grow, a more, I think, fulsome word. It's interesting. One pastor observed that oftentimes when it comes to churches, or or Christ followers, we have this idea of success in the life of faith is growth. Being able to acquire things, or more spiritual gifts and more aptitude, or more application of those things, or a broader scope of ministry or ministry opportunities, perhaps some of us are in that room thinking of that, or bigger churches in the world that I live in, if that's that, that its growth, and that others would argue no, no, no, it's, it's, it's faithfulness. You know, just staying true, staying loyal, staying on the path, staying who you are, no matter what change is, staying at something, even if you don't get, quote, success. And as one pastor pointed out, it's actually the biblical idea is actually something more than either of those two things, but it's not a word we use very often. It's this word, fruitfulness. Not simply growth, not simply faithfulness, but actually fruitfulness.

One of the repeated metaphors, certainly in the Psalms, but in fact, we find this through the teachings in the life of Jesus, for to describe spiritual life is that of a tree. Something that is, if I can say it, this way, rooted in a life giving source and because of what it is rooted in, then the vitality and the life that grows up within it turns it into a life giving source, that it becomes life giving for others. The analogy of a fruit tree is helpful in this way, in terms of the roots that go down and if the if the if the source, the life, the water, the nutrients, the soil is healthy, that the tree grows up healthy, and then what does it do, it begins to mature, and therefore is shade and shelter for humans and animals. It is providing oxygen, life giving things to the world, and in fact, fruit, right, things that are useful, and nourishing, and a good vitality to others. This is the picture of spiritual life that we see throughout the scriptures, and so fruitfulness is the goal. And I want to just read for you from a conversation that Jesus had with his disciples, where he unpacks a little bit of what the goal is, and therefore to help us what might be standing in the way, what might be holding us back from a life of greatness, or growth defined by fruitfulness comes from John chapter 15. And what's interesting, it's not sort of a seven steps to this and that. Jesus didn't write a seven step book, he didn't have an Instagram post 30 Days to a shredded spirituality, okay, this is not what we find, actually, in the conversation that Jesus has listened to what he says, and I'm reading from, every version of this text in the various scripture, I love. I'm just choosing the Message one today, for our purposes.

Jesus says this: "I am the real vine. And my father is the farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn't bear grapes, and every branch that is great bearing he prunes back, so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I've spoken. Live in me, make your home in me, just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself, but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me. I am the vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you. The relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is dead wood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask, will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is. When you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.

Jesus' first words in this passage to His disciples, "I am the vine" are somewhat familiar to us if you're, if you've read scripture, but for the disciples, it was an important and different phrase. Because in Israel's history, they were referred to as the vine. Israel as the people, Israel as the kingdom. And in a sense, at that time, the earthly kingdom, the questions about whether Jesus was going to restore the kingdom to Israel, were on their minds and hearts, and sometimes coming out of their mouths. And so he he says, Actually, I am the vine. So as the different, immediately their ears would have perked up said, What do you mean, you're the vine. He was turning their attention away from, perhaps this earthly kingdom, and their ethnic, political, religious identity as the Jewish people, towards himself as the source, as the true vine. And, and he uses it to jump off with a bit of a metaphor of what life is. And he says, there's two ways to live, basically, a life that you will end up dried out, empty, dead, kind of lifeless, and useless. Thrown away into the fire. I don't think, he's not talking about eternal salvation and damnation, and hell and all this stuff. That was, I'm sure I've heard a sermon on that from this passage. He's just saying like, there's a disconnection that will happen that will dry you up and make you useless and lifeless. The other is a, is something that is vital and alive and continues to bear fruit. He's just saying there's two ways to live, and the choice is obvious. But how. So he begins to go on. Three words. Live in me. And he's mixing metaphors here, and the Message version sort of teases that out a little bit more. He says, make your home in me. This is the way to life, to grow, to fruitfulness is that you would live in me, and make your home in me. Again strange for them. Because the the the home of God, the resting place of God, was the temple. This is where God descended and God chose to meet with them, it was the place of overlap where heaven touched down, and that's that's how they would have relationship with God, is ultimately the temple represented that place, that home, where God lives. And Jesus says, you make your home in me, as I live in you.

It was intensely, personal, relational language, as he has he takes the vine, and the fruit, and the branch analogy and then he mixes it with this home, this remaining, this staying in me. He says this is how you are going to live in relationship with me, in a personal way. And here, as those of us from Protestant slash evangelical backgrounds, we are in trouble. Here's why. Because we say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, personal relationship. I know that. Got that. Maybe the some of the other traditions, they don't get that. But we get this. That's what Jesus was saying, make your home and me this is personal. This is about a relationship with Jesus, I got that. And how do I get that? By believing that He died on the cross for my sins, and that I will go to heaven one day. This is the core we have, we were told, of what it means to have a relationship with Jesus, which unfortunately, that language makes no sense in the context of what he says, and what he continues to talk about. And I think we do have to question ourselves, simply because the empirical evidence for many of us who have faith and have the personal relationship with Jesus, if we're honest, we say, Yeah, but why do I feel like a dried up twig so often? Why is my life, and my spiritual life, marked by an emptiness, a dryness, a lack of vitality? And if we can push it even further, why is there not much fruit in my life? Is my life and is the tradition in a sense of people who have faith, one where others go, oh, come like a like a tree? Oh, you're giving me fruit? We are bringing life and vitality to the world? Is that really what's happening? Or why is it that people in droves are leaving the faith, said tried that, didn't work.

So we actually need to slow down here, less we think we know exactly what Jesus is talking about. I say what did he mean? And I'll admit, we're in the realm of mystery here, always, when we deal with the words of Jesus, as he begins to describe life with him. But at least it's enough to say, Wait a second, if these are the two ways to live, and experientially, empirically, it seems like we, many of us, have for seasons or periods or our whole lives or faith or everyone we know would say, yeah, they're more like a dried twig than a life giving source to the world. Okay, so what was Jesus saying? What does spiritual vitality and growth and fruitfulness actually look like? I want to put these two words in front of you, as I think that what he was trying to describe, it is that a life with him that is marked by intimacy and access.

Intimacy and access. Intimacy as in a deep, a vital, relational connection. This is the same conversation where Jesus goes on to say, you are my friends, right? He is sharing a meal. This is an intimate conversation, of footwashing, of teaching, of pledging of love, a promise of faithfulness. This whole conversation is taking place with his inner circle in the upper room around this conversation about intimacy. And so, to stay with me, and me with you, was was describing a kind of intimate relationship in an ongoing way with Jesus, where he says, disconnected, right, the relationship dies, intimacy is lost, and access, right? What is the vine and the branches that is both, accessing the life of God, but also giving God access to our lives. The intimacy and the connection. And this is where we begin to ask ourselves, is my life with Jesus marked by intimacy, friendship, this ongoing vital relationship, and is my life marked by a vulnerability and authenticity, in in access, where I am honest with him, when was the last time you were really honest with God in a prayer. It's something that in many ways, our worship life, and I love, praying through a Psalm today, Ken, because I think it's, it's reconnecting us to the to the words that we might not feel authentic enough to write in a song, that sounds good on a Sunday morning. But Scripture, over and over, is calling us to a life of honesty and vulnerability with God. When was the last time you were mad with him and expressed it in a prayer. But also, when was the last time you invited him to poke and prod and have access into the decisions, and the will, and the desires, and the emotions of your life. Jesus is describing a kind of relationship with him of intimacy, and access. And I think, to be blunt, we are not going to grow in our lives with Jesus, unless we have a way of cultivating this relationship. Again, you know, people will say to me, as a pastor, sometimes, can you lose your salvation? That question makes sense, if salvation is a track, a transaction where you say something, and God does something and gives that to you, and you hold it and then say, Can I drop it? Can I break it? Can I give it back? Because I don't want it anymore? It makes no sense in the context of relationship. It's like saying, Can I have an intimate friendship with my wife, if I don't cultivate intimacy and friendship with her? No. Can, can I can I have a closeness to Jesus if I'm not close to Jesus? No, that doesn't make any sense. The whole point is to cultivate, to engage in the relationship with God, that allow for intimacy and access to grow in our lives. And here's where the, the practices of our faith begin to matter. Because they, they're not about earning salvation. They're the ways that we actually cultivate intimacy and access with Jesus. And I don't know why, but this was a new discovery for me, in recent years.

One of the things that Duncan referenced, that I think differently about my faith now, I never realized, and maybe I'm the one dummy in the room. I never realized that the spiritual practices in my life were the things that were meant to cultivate intimacy and access with Jesus. I mean, I kind of knew they weren't there to save me, because everybody kept telling me, there's nothing you can do. There's nothing you can do and your salvation is just what God has done for you. And then in the end, it just makes us passive participants in this transaction. No, there are many things to do, but I do them so that I can have access to Jesus and he to me, so that we can grow in an ongoing relationship and Jesus is very clear. He says, "Apart from me you can do nothing". Right? That's the NIV translation. I think the message has, "Separated, you can't produce a thing." This is not oh God is the magic Mio to your life. You know the thing you squirt in your water that makes water tastes better, like life's okay. But with Jesus, oh, man, it's way better. Apart from Jesus, you can't do much, but with Jesus, you can do all things, write it on your basketball shoe, that's how it works. It's not what he means. What he's saying is, if you disconnect from me, you will dry up, because the whole point is the vital dynamic, intimate, and accessible relationship of faith in an ongoing way. Separated, disconnected, you dry up. Therefore, what? Do the things that cultivate intimacy and access, again, right this is the whole analogy with the fruit, and the trees, and and biotic life. Cultivation matters. As someone once said, we are not park rangers. Park rangers make sure nothing changes right? We are gardeners, always moving things around to to try to find the better soil, and the life, and the nutrients in the sun just coming in, in the right way. It's what we are not only doing in the world with our work, we are doing in our internal lives with God. And so just as we think about the spiritual practices, can I just share with you the things that have begun to change in my thinking, as it relates to what the spiritual practices are meant to do?

Things like scripture. We read, not primarily for information, but for encounter, that leads to transformation, an encounter with the living Word, through the written word, which means, I had to change my practice of reading scripture to just give myself more time, to pay attention. To listen, as I read, to allow Jesus to begin to speak to me through the written word, and then to internalize and to speak back to him. By definition, that takes time. Verse of the day, I mean, some of us are eating crumbs, that are barely enough strength for the complexity of life. The life that you live is complex. The decisions you have to make are difficult. The world we live in, is full of pain, and difficulty, and complexity, and little crumbs here and there, verse of the day, is no match for the difficulty and challenge of your life. What does it mean to eat whole meals, to linger in God's presence through the Word to read it, and let it read us?

My spiritual director a little while ago, we were talking about a passage he said, "Hey, I don't normally come in with sort of an idea to start with, for you. But I feel like you're meant to read this passage, John chapter four." I said, okay. He said, "So read it for the next month". I said, "I could read it right now in five minutes". That's not the point. He said, "Read it and reread it and reread it until it begins". And I can tell you that passage had a, had made a monumental shift in my life in the last six years. Just that one passage, more than much of the other scripture I had read, maybe up to that point, not because the Scriptures problem, but the way that I was consuming it, reading it. So what does it mean to read for intimacy, and access, and transformation? It means time, it means we read, and we listen. And we reread.

Prayer. Eugene Peterson famously said prayer is answering speech. It is the language we use to respond to God, which means we first listen, the first act of prayer is to listen, we, and when Jesus says "Don't babble as the pagans do", part of what he's getting at is not just think about your words, but don't just speak. When reading proverbs lately, so much of the of the foolishness of human beings is described as too many words. When we come into prayer, are we coming in in silence and solitude, and that's another spiritual practice that I have found to become like dynamite, like setting my prayer life on fire, as I sit in silence and say, nothing. We practice this in our church, and we start with baby steps with two minutes, and then five minutes, and I say to people, I know for me like an extrovert, a verbal processor, five minutes feels like an eternity when you begin. I'm now stretched out to 30 minutes. One time, in one of our courses here, spent five hours. I cheated because I napped for about an hour of that, but I didn't tell David Sherbino, so you don't need to discuss that here. Think it's on the internet now. But just time and space to sit, and what happens when you sit in silence? You realize how noisy your thoughts are. Oh, the chaos, and the clutter, and the lust, and the distractions, and the vain ideas of glory, and the petty obsessions with little things that begin, but I had become aware. Were they just there, beecause I got in silence. I'm like Jesus, why are you planting these thoughts in my head? No, they were always there. I was unaware. So how is Jesus going to talk to me about my inner life, until I become aware of that inner life? And then I say, Lord, why is this thing getting at me so much? Why am I obsessing about that one line that I read in that email today? Or why did that text blow up my day? And I didn't even know it, until I stopped. The spiritual practices are opening doors and creating space for Jesus to come and to have access to my inner life, to begin to probe and it begins with me becoming aware of it. Silence, solitude, without interruptions, without worship music blaring in the headphones throughout, just actual space and time to stop and slow down.

Sabbath. Not just, not a day off, but rest. The rhythm of rest. God, we don't see God the weekend warrior in Genesis one, like doing a bunch of stuff and like man, five o'clock can't wait. Let's call up some buddies. We're gonna smash it this weekend. Come back in Monday , oh I'm so tired from the weekend. Our weekends are like that, our vacations are like that, it's not Sabbath. We are not rested coming out of those things. So what does it take to, in my experience, to tinker and try and fail and try again to construct a life rhythm? I remember talking to my spiritual director about a sabbatical I was thinking of taking a few years, and he says, before you even entertain that idea, what is your weekly rhythm of rest? If you don't know how to do it on a weekly basis, a sabbatical is not going to fix anything, and neither will a three week vacation. What is our rhythm of rest in the middle of busy, chaotic, demanding lives? The rhythm of the life of Jesus. Dallas Willard famously said, "You know, Jesus never expected us", I'm paraphrasing, "to just simply display His power and His character in the moment, without adopting his actual way of life". And the rhythms of retreat, and rest, and Sabbath. My advice to you with these things, is you can't fix everything. And so here's just a couple of questions, as the band's gonna come up and lead us in a song of response.

Which of these practices in your life needs to be changed to make it more about intimacy and access? Like you may be doing them, you may be engaging, in your life and your rhythms maybe well, maybe a well oiled machine, and all very good, but what is dry? What is empty? What is drying you up? What is not giving life? What would you say? Yeah, I read, but it's dead. How do I reread? How do I re-engage, what is the spiritual practice I need to start again, say Jesus "Fill this with your presence and your love and your access?"

Or perhaps which of these practices needs to be added to your life, to get closer to Jesus and allow him more?

Jesus, we recognize that the gift of life with you is not easily apprehended. We thank you for conversations like this, that you had with your closest friends. We remember in this moment that we are your friends, that we are people who have been called into relationship with you. And so lead us in the ways that lead to life. Your name we pray, Amen.