More Like You

Introduction

I’m gonna be honest with you this morning. I’m exhausted. It’s been somewhat of a long weekend. Of course, we had some of our own things going on earlier in the week with Xander, and we’re excited about the progress there. But we spent hours this weekend, and I do mean hours, very good study with Daniel Broadwell, someone that many of you may know, and many of you may know now if you didn’t before. Daniel and I had a lot of great discussions. He shared his outlines with me, the things he was going to go over. What I want to do this morning, as I tend to do on the morning of Youth Weekend, because of our situation, we just can’t fit everybody in here. And but I want the people here, and I want the parents here especially to understand the sorts of things that were being discussed over this weekend.

This week in particular, Daniel was covering material that it’s it’s not just for the youth. This material is extremely helpful. I found it super helpful just in my discussions with Daniel and some books he shared with me that I’ve already started reading, that I think are going to be amazingly beneficial for me. But I think as adults, it’s something that we really need to strive toward in terms of the idea of discipleship. This was their theme this weekend. the theme was more like you, but the idea was about being a disciple, and what does that mean? when I say the word disciple, what do you think? I mean, it may be you think, well, someone who follows Jesus. And that’d be a good answer.

But like most terms in scripture, they’re not really inherently religious terms. The word disciple is used all over the place in the ancient world. They’re even in scripture, and we’re gonna spend a lot of time in Luke this morning. but in back in probably around Luke 6, is we’re gonna focus our attention. But if you go back to Luke 5, there’s questions being asked to Jesus. Luke 5 33, and they said to him, the disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. We have disciples of John here, we have disciples of the Pharisees. In the pagan world, I mean, we if anyone who’s familiar at all with antiquity or philosophers, you’re familiar with Prothagoras or Socrates or Plato or Epicurus, all of these people had disciples, people who followed them.

In fact, we have their writings a lot of times because, like Plato, he’s recording the things that Socrates taught. He was his pupil, his disciple. This is a concept that they understood very well. And so I want to cover some ideas about what discipleship is and what disciples do. Some of this is the very things that Daniel was covering with our young people this weekend. And then I want to get into some examples and I think some very practical elements. We can only introduce this. Like I said, he did five plus hours of teaching, and I have 30 minutes. So we’re gonna have to kind of boil this down and get right to some examples to show this, and then probably in future sermons, I’ll do some more here.

Unfortunately, in our religious culture, we have stripped away a lot of things that are extremely important about discipleship. Some of this is just by the nature of the influences that we are around, Protestant influence, particularly Calvinism, that has kind of gotten this false dichotomy of faith versus works, and we have this idea that doing things is not that great, particularly in the religious world, that somehow you’re trying to earn your salvation if you do stuff, which is completely erroneous. Doing things is extremely important in Christianity. Your practice matters. And if we’re gonna be disciples of Jesus Christ, there’s some things we have to understand about the way we live if we want to be like him. So I want to read a text from Matthew 28 in the beginning.

You’re familiar with this. Matthew 28, the very last words or some of the last words of Jesus at least. He comes to his disciples and he says, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. You’re probably familiar with that being the very end of the gospel of Matthew. He says, All authority.

But notice the wording. After he says that, he says, This is what I want you to do. He doesn’t say just go baptize people. I mean, that’s an element of it. That’s an element of the bigger picture. He says, Go make disciples. Go make disciples. And in the process of doing that, he really gives two things. You’re baptizing them because this is the means by which they become part of Christ, and they say, I’m signing up for this. I’m going to be Christ’s disciple. I’m going to die with him. I’m going to be resurrected with him, and I’m going to walk in a new life. That’s what discipleship is about. You follow the master because he offers you a new way of life, a better way of life.

This is the promise of all teachers. We have to understand that Jesus is the creator, he is the one who made us and he knows us best. And this sort of then blends into the next point I want us to understand. It’s not just authority, it’s also that Jesus is the smartest and wisest man who has ever lived. If we want to live the right way, who should we follow? If we want to do what’s best for our life and for the life after this life, who should we listen to? Is it Socrates, Aristotle? I mean, they said some great things. But Jesus is smarter than all of them. He knows better than any of these men. He knows better than Solomon if we want to get a Jewish perspective.

He is the smartest person to ever live. And so it’s not just authority, it’s not just he says it and we should do it. It should be a desire, knowing how wise and how smart and how Jesus knows the best way to live, that we should want to follow him because he has the answers. It’s not just because I have to. This is not about checking boxes. It’s not, these aren’t going to be life hacks. You know, that’s our culture. Like you just do these one or two things and it’s going to change your life forever. That’s not what we’re about to get into here. This is Jesus being the master teacher. He is a rabbi. And as a disciple, there’s a nature to what discipleship is, which we’re about to look at, that is all about understanding that the teacher has the answers, and you follow him, not because it’s some box to check, but it’s because you have believed that this person has the way of life.

And there’s no better way to live. That’s what we find in Jesus Christ. The word discipleship means or has the connotation of the idea of being a pupil, or maybe a better way for us to understand it a learner, but a more precise way for us to understand this, I think, in a way that we can grasp a little bit better, is something like an apprentice. We understand this a little bit more, maybe in trade type schools, that sort of thing. There’s a master who knows what he’s doing, welding or a carpenter or whatever. You don’t go in there and say, I’ve got this. You know, I’ve got it from here. Thanks for letting me use your equipment. I’m gonna figure it all out. Well, there’s a certain way that you interact with the teacher, and it’s hands on, it’s not just sitting in a chair and listening.

There is that. There’s the element of maybe what we would think of as classroom instruction, but there’s also then the hands on element of what it is to be an apprentice and learn from someone who has skill, who’s done this for most of their life, and I’m a I’m just a beginner, and I don’t know what I’m doing, and so I’m going to sit and listen to what they’re telling me. I’m gonna see them as the ultimate guide. We have to understand what discipleship is. So I want us to turn our attention to Luke chapter 6. I’m gonna read a text there, Luke chapter 6 and verse 39. This whole section actually is great on discipleship. You know, Jesus gets his disciples together, and it’s a section that you would probably be familiar with the idea of the Sermon on the Mount.

Luke presents it a little bit different way. He talks about a level plane, he’s still on a mountain, but he finds a level place on that mountain, and a lot of the same sorts of things are said here, and he’s talking about what discipleship looks like, and lots of different elements. But we’re gonna pick up in verse 39. He says he also told them a parable. Can a blind man lead a blind man? We’re following somebody. This is where he’s going with this. We all are following someone. There are good teachers and there are bad teachers. And so we’re deciding which way we’re gonna go. There’s no in between. We don’t say, well, I’m just not gonna follow anybody. We’re following someone. We are influenced, and we did a lot with this with the young people.

1. A Disciple Is With the Teacher

We’re influenced by the things around us. We’re letting music teach us things, or we’re letting movies teach us things, or we’re letting our peers teach us things, or we’re letting our parents teach us things. People are teaching us. We’re following someone. Who are we deciding to follow? And maybe a thought for those of us who are here this morning is what are we teaching? What are our young people seeing in us? Are they gonna see the sorts of things we’re gonna talk about this morning in us as we are endeavoring to follow Jesus? Right? A thought for the older people, for the parents and the grandparents who are modeling the way to live to these young people. And so there’s important elements about a disciple. A disciple is with the teacher.

When I started preaching, I did a two-year program with an older preacher. I went into the office the first day, and he made it very clear who was in charge. Even to the point of, you know, the elders are in charge of the congregation, but you are accountable to me. I’m teaching you. So you will get here when I tell you to get here, and you’ll leave when I tell you to leave. You’ll dress a certain way. You’re gonna do things in a certain way because he has experience. He knew what he was doing. I was 22. I didn’t. And for the most part, my parents did a good job raising me, and I understood authority, and we had very little problems. There was a few times where he had to make some points to me about maybe getting there a little bit late.

That was very infrequent. But it did happen. It’s just part of learning, right? It’s part of growing. He said, You’re supposed to be here at 8 30. Where were you? It’s 8 45. Right? There’s these lessons that have to be learned about diligence and about work ethic. In whatever scenario you’re talking about, you should be with the teacher. It’s hard to learn from the rabbi, from the teacher, if you’re not with him. It’s just an element of discipleship. And Jesus really makes this point in Luke chapter 9. There’s people who are saying, Hey, I want to follow you. And you remember these reactions he gives to them? He’s kind of just stating reality for what it is. That sounds great. He says, this guy says, I want to follow.

This is verse 58, chapter 9, verse 58. He says, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Do you know what you’re signing up for? Right? I want to make sure you understand the decision you’re making. Sometimes we worry about this, right, with our young people when they want to be baptized, when they want to give their life to Christ. Do you know what you’re signing up for? Do you understand what this is? I want to say a little bit later that following Jesus is easy. And I say that because he says it. So I want to come back to that. Put that in your brain. We’ll come back to that here in a few minutes.

But it is a decision. We have to count the cost. We have to think about whether we’re willing to do this. He continues though, to another, he says, follow me. So now Jesus is looking for disciples. And the idea of following, that’s that’s kind of hand in hand with discipleship. Right? The disciples follow the teacher. So he’s saying, Hey, follow me. But he says, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. And Jesus said to him, Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Here’s the point. Disciples follow the master. They’re with the teacher. They don’t have time to go do a bunch of other things. If you’re going to follow me, Jesus said, Hey, follow me.

2. We Observe Him and Listen to Him

He says, Okay, I’ll do that, but first I want to go do all this other stuff. And Jesus says, No, if you’re going to be a disciple, then you walk with me and you do the things I’m doing and you listen to me. And so that’s the next thing. We observe him. Right? And all the elements we could go into great depth about a lot of the things we’re going to talk about this morning because it’s it’s all here in Scripture. But we are we are with him. He says, remember at the very end of Matthew 28, he says, and I will be with you even to the end of the age. Jesus is with us. The end of the age hasn’t happened yet. The authority of Jesus still exists.

The concept of going and making disciples and baptizing them and teaching them to observe everything I’ve commanded it still is there. And he says, I’m with you even to the end of the age. Jesus is here. He’s always with us. He’s omnipresent. How many times have we talked about that? He is with us at all times. And we also should be observing him. There’s a lot of great things in the Gospel of Luke that show us what Jesus was like. And his disciples pick up on this too. In Luke chapter 11, here’s another text where other disciples are mentioned. Jesus was praying in a certain place. This is mentioned regularly in Luke. This is part of his habit. This is part of his discipline. That he’s he makes a habit of going out into remote places, getting by himself, and praying to the Father.

The disciples notice this, and they also hear his prayers. I’m not sure which of these they’re most attracted to here. We just we don’t know. Maybe both. When he finished praying, one of the disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. This is what teachers do. Right? And this is what disciples look for. They’re with the teacher and they’re observing the teacher. They’re seeing the sorts of things that the teacher is doing, and they’re asking about it, and they want more. They decide this is not about checking a box and make sure you do the next thing. That’s not what this is about. It’s not about rules or laws. That’s not the idea here. It is that we know this guy has the answer.

And in our heart, we desire, and with our will, we desire to follow him because we know this is better than anything else. And we even see with the disciples, they don’t understand right away, do they? It takes them a long time to get it. It’s not that they’re with him and they just figure it all out in a few hours and then they go on out, and now they’re proclaiming the gospel and they don’t need Jesus anymore. That’s not the idea in Luke chapter 6, right? After he talks about the blind, following the blind, then he gets to the point. A disciple is not above his teacher. This is Luke 6, verse 40. A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.

So here’s the question. This is the question I have to ask myself, and by implication, you ask yourself. What is my training look like? This is sort of what we are asking the young people this weekend, too. What’s your training like? I’ve done a little bit of running in my life. More recently, John has pushed me to the gym and made me lift weights, which has been good for me too. But and he’s been great about that. He didn’t get me in there and then immediately put 225 pounds on the bench press and say, go at it. That would have been a really big mistake. And he knew that. When I was I’ve run a few races over the years, many years ago now, you can probably tell I don’t run a whole lot at the moment.

But I, you know, I didn’t just sign up and go run a 5K. Like, I, you know, I want to run, I’m just gonna sign up and go run that 5K next weekend. Anyone think that’s a good idea? What do we do? We train. And there’s a lot of things that are involved in that training, which we’ll talk about here toward the end. There’s things that we do, and there’s things that we don’t do as part of training and prepping. But discipleship, the whole concept of discipleship is a concept of training. It is sitting at the feet of the teacher and learning. And he says, this is something it’s not going to happen right away. You have to be fully trained. And so the question is, what am I doing to train?

Am I growing? Am I changing at all? If I’m not, I’m not a disciple. If I’m in the same place now that I was five years ago or seven years ago, or ten years, I’m not a disciple. I’m not learning. I’m not training, I’m not growing. And so we have to be honest with ourselves about where we are and the problems that we have, the sins that we struggle with. This is the next point he makes in the text, right? It’s really easy to look at somebody else and point out their problems. Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye? But do not notice the log that is in your own eye. We have to look in the mirror first. This is what he’s saying.

Look and see whether you’re doing the things you should be doing before you start looking at other people. This is what Jesus is telling them. It takes work and training to grow. And part of this is just the reality of we observe what the teacher’s doing, and we pay attention because we know he has the answers, and then we listen to him. A little bit later in Luke, I’m not going to turn there, but I’ll just reference the story. You’re familiar with it. Martha and Mary are together, and Jesus is in their home, and you remember Martha is distracted, that’s the key word by much serving. And what’s Mary doing? Jesus is in there and she’s sitting at his feet, listening. She chose the better part, Jesus says.

Distracted is the key word of our culture. We are distracted by so many things that take us away from the very thing we’re talking about this morning, the idea of discipleship and truly following, being with the teacher, observing him, listening to him. It’s way easier to just put some music on. We have millions of songs and podcasts and everything at our disposal. And every quiet moment can be filled with something. And at least for myself, I can say that is a temptation. I don’t like quiet. I want to fill it even at night. I want a sound machine going. This is just the nature of how we are today. Anybody else like that? I’m not saying it’s wrong or you can’t ever do it, but we don’t like silence.

3. Do What He Says and Do What He Does

It’s troubling. But we actually need it. More on that in a minute. So, what are the goals of discipleship? So we talked about what it is, right? That we’re with the master, we observe him, we listen to him. But that then kind of follows with the next part of this, and that is if we’re going to listen to him, we need to do what he says to do. It doesn’t do much good to sit at his feet like Mary and then walk out and not do the things that he’s saying to do. That’s not discipleship. It doesn’t help to get into the word and see the things that Jesus has told us and then go about our life throughout the rest of the week. We come on Sunday and we hear some things from Scripture, but then the rest of the week we just kind of do the things we want to do.

That doesn’t help anything. That’s not being a disciple. So we’ve listened, but we haven’t actually applied the things that are being said. Jesus talks about that. Luke 6, verse 46. Why do you call me Lord or Master? Why do you call me master, teacher, rabbi, whatever word you want to use here? He uses the word Lord here. Why do you call me Lord and not do what I tell you? That doesn’t make any sense.

I don’t have time for that. You’re gone. This is the same point Jesus is making here. The goal of discipleship is not just to kind of come and feel good a couple times a week. It’s to be transformed. It’s to change to understand this is the way of life. It’s not to keep some rules or some laws. That’s not the point. The point is that Jesus has the answers. He actually can change our life. And if we’ll listen to him and do what he says, amazing things will happen for us. This is the promise. Along with that, in our observation, is not just doing what he says, but doing what he does. We have the words of Jesus, but as his disciples were learning, they’re seeing the things that he’s doing.

And I’m going to use prayer, solitude, silence as sort of the example throughout the sermon this morning, because we see plenty of that here in the text. There are other examples we have of things that Jesus does as well that are very helpful. But in Luke chapter 5, verse 16, this is sort of contrasting Jesus being in crowds. It’s mentioned often that he had crowds around him. In chapter 12, it says there’s so many thousands of people following him. He is a public figure. Everyone wants his attention. People are coming to be healed. They’re coming to listen to the things he’s teaching. But it says he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

And so we see, like in the moment, at that time, Jesus just knows right what to do. But one of the things that sometimes we miss that is super helpful for me to see and for you to see is that Jesus prepared himself. Often, he would withdraw and go to desolate places and pray. Earlier in the Gospel of Luke, it talks about how he is growing in wisdom and stature with favor in God and men. At one moment we find him in the temple at 12 years old. He’s conversing with the teachers, with the people in the temple, and they’re talking about the law of God. Jesus is preparing himself. He doesn’t just think it’s going to happen. And if we think discipleship is just going to happen, we don’t understand what discipleship is.

If we think we don’t have to practice this or have self-control or have discipline, and that when the moment comes, it’s just all gonna work out. We don’t understand how discipleship works.

Focus. It takes all the things we’ve already talked about, being with the master and listening to him and observing him and then doing what he says and doing what he does. This is what Jesus is doing. He’s getting away frequently to a solid place of solitude and he’s praying. I should probably be doing that. Not to check a box, not because it’s a rule or a law, not because one of the elders is gonna come and say, How many times have you gotten away by yourself and prayed this week? And then they’re going to excommunicate me if I haven’t done it. None of that is the reason. And they’re not gonna do that. It’s because if I want to be a disciple, I’m gonna do what Jesus does.

It’s that simple. If I really think he has the answers and that he has the way, which is what the Christians were called in the book of Acts, the way, there’s a reason for that. Jesus has the way of life. If I really believe that, I’m gonna follow him. I’m gonna do what he does, I’m gonna do what he says, because the goal is to become like him. Luke 6 40, remember? He makes this exact point. That you’re not going to be like him until you are fully trained. Well, this is a lifelong endeavor for us. I’m not naive. I don’t think that at some point in my life I’m going to say, well, fully trained now, I’m like Jesus. I’m good. I don’t believe that’s how it works, but I believe that is the process.

That is the idea that as I’m looking to scripture, and we’re going to talk about some of this here in a minute about the things that we’re doing, the disciplines that we have, that I’m going to be growing and I’m going to be becoming more like him. I’m going to be recreated after the image of his son. That’s the wording of Paul. I’m not going to just stay who I am. I don’t come out of the water and then just go about my life following my own will and doing the things I’ve done before. How much have I changed since I came out of that water? Professing to be a new person and walking in newness of life. And what am I doing to create that change in my life?

And what am I allowing God to do through me by working with him? Right? He wants to will and to do for his good pleasure, Philippians chapter two. God is going to work in us. Well, how does he work in us? I would suggest to you that he works in us by us following him. By being disciples, by sitting at his feet, observing, listening, doing. That is how God’s going to work in us and through us for us to be conformed to his image. That’s how we’re going to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. Romans chapter 12, verses 1 through 3, so that we do his good pleasure. This is how it’s going to work. So, how do we get there? Well, in the seven minutes that I have left, I don’t think I can give you all the answers.

But I think we can introduce the concept. And let me just say that I think older generations, some of which are present this morning. I don’t know if it’s just by nature, if culture or if this was taught, I wasn’t there, so maybe you were taught these things. Do some of this a little bit better. Some of these things we actually still do, but I think it’s helpful to recognize what they are and their benefits. I want to kind of preface it with all of that. I remember being a little kid and the places I would go, I’ve mentioned this before here, probably my parents and their friends. I mean, they had a Bible with them everywhere they went. There’s an element to that was taught, or it was learned behavior.

I’m not sure. I get that it’s tricky, and we all carry Bibles with us all the time in our devices, so I understand that. But there was certainly a purposeful element to daily reading. And some of that would be super beneficial to recognize how helpful that would be to purposely. I remember as a boy, men bringing their Bibles to work. Not to walk around and tell everybody they’re Christians and they need to read. I mean, it was fine to have those conversations, but because they wanted to take time when they had it to sit and read.

4. Disciplines of Abstinence and Engagement

Again, it’s not a rule or a law, but it’s because it’s beneficial and we’re trying to follow Jesus. So how do we get there? How do we become trained to be like him? Here’s a list of ideas. there’s some kind of some classical disciplines. These are things that we see in scripture. and I like I said, I just can’t talk about all of these this morning. Some of these we ask questions about. Like even recently, some of us guys have a text group where you’re talking about fasting. One of the guys asked about fasting. And this is actually my mistake. I was like, well, I don’t think we have to do it. Right? That’s not the point, is it? Is it that we have to do it?

That completely misses the point. It’s what is going to benefit us in being like the Master. Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights before he began his ministry. Before he chose the disciples that were going to follow him, his inner circle.

Now, I’m not saying we’ve got to go fast 40 days or even all night long, but what I am saying is we see Jesus doing these kind of things. And if it’s good for Jesus, I think it’s probably good for me. He talks to his disciples about how to fast. I really didn’t intend to talk about fasting, but it’s there. It’s in Scripture. If we’re going to do what he says and we’re going to do what he does, it’s right there in Scripture. And so I think we have to wrestle with that. We have to think about is this something that is beneficial? And I would suggest it is. It’s probably something that I need to be doing on a frequent basis. And here’s the reason why our culture is filled with such excess.

We always have whatever we want. And at some point, we have to realize that our sufficiency and dependence is upon God. When we’re happy, we eat. And when we’re sad, we eat. And when we’re anxious, we eat. And when we’re worried, we eat. This is how some of us are. Every time something we that’s where we go. That’s where we find our fulfillment and our satisfaction. It’s dangerous. Nothing wrong with eating. Eating’s good. God created us to eat, right? This isn’t a laws. These aren’t laws. This is about what is wise. This is about being like our master. It’s about being a disciple. And realizing my dependence is upon God. He is my sustenance. Jesus says this very thing to the disciples in John. Aren’t you hungry, Jesus?

Right? He’s with the woman at the well, and they come back, they went to get food. Aren’t you going to eat? He says, I have food that you don’t know about. There’s something more important than eating to Jesus in that moment. And that’s what he’s focused on. And so we introduced these ideas, Daniel did to the young people, some of them, in more detail than others. There are disciplines of abstinence, and there are disciplines of engagement. The engagement ones, we probably do a little bit more, some of those. But the abstinence ones are just tough in our culture. We have so much.

I think we yearn for that.

And you’re not in the busyness of life. It’s not because the tent’s so comfortable, I assure you. But there’s something about being in nature, and I’m not getting all mystical here. I’m just saying there’s something about that even Jesus does, right? He gets away. I don’t think he hiked a mountain necessarily. I mean, I think he’s getting away to an empty space, probably on a hill somewhere, away from everybody. That’s what the text tells us. So he can engage in something more important, something much needed. Time with his Father. But all of these things on the abstinence list, the frugality and the simplicity, sacrifice, it’s amazing because we have so much, and yet it’s so hard, it seems, to do some of these. The temptation in our culture, and really what we’re taught, this is our teacher in our culture, is that you need more.

5. Solitude, Silence, and Prayer

So for discipleships of society and culture, we’re never satisfied. We always want more, even though we have so much. And so practicing some of these disciplines of abstinence helps us realize how desperately we need God, not stuff. And there’s plenty of passages within the Gospel of Luke that talk about this, but like I said, we’re a little bit pressed on time. So I’m gonna just do a little bit of example here about this discipline. Really, there’s three here. You could separate solitude, silence, and prayer. They interact, which is why I put them together. And I want to run through this section a little bit like Daniel did with the young people. so we really know what we’re doing here. What are we talking about?

We’re talking about getting alone, being by ourself. I don’t know. Yesterday I did a little bit of this. I’ve done some of this in the past. It’s really interesting how this works. I’ve read plenty of secular books, like Deep Work or Digital Minimalism. some of you may have read these. It’s it’s actually interesting, they’re getting all of this material from spiritual disciplines. That’s where all this is coming from. They just strip away the Bible passages and they give you the concepts because they want to sell more books, all right. So, but the guide of silence and solitude and all that’s talked about in all of these like self help, productivity type of books, because they understand the importance of walking, right? Jesus is walking with his disciples from place to place.

How many books? Some of you are in the business world, have you read, talks about you know, walking is a great way to have creative ideas and all of that. It’s all coming from this. This is the source.

And when we look at scripture and we see what Jesus says and what Jesus does, he spends so much time alone. And the goal is not to be alone. Seek first the kingdom of God. This is a point I want us to really understand. Seek first the kingdom of God. It is not seek first solitude or seek first isolation. And there’s people who have done that in the past in monasteries and things like that. Like that’s the goal. The goal is not that. The goal is spiritual formation and growth. And sometimes we use some of these disciplines to help us get there, right? That’s the goal. And so there’s time of solitude, but that time is not to then neglect your family or to not do things that need to be done, but it is a specific purposeful thing that is helpful to us in our spirit as we’re trying to be more like the Lord.

So what do we do? We get alone. And why? Because our lives of the already described are so hurried and busy all the time. And we fill it with distractions at every corner and crevice of our life. When you pull up to a stoplight or a stop sign, or you’re in traffic, what do you do? Young people aren’t here, most of them. I’ll just be honest. The temptation is to pull out your phone. Did I get a message? Did I get an email? I’m going to change the song. Whatever it is. It’s very hard to just sit there in stillness and silence for a minute, two minutes. And that’s as we’re even doing something else, we’re driving. We probably shouldn’t be doing that at all because it’s distracting.

What about when we’re just sitting at home? How long can I just sit there without looking at my phone in silence, thinking about important things? Our brains need space to think. I read an article not too long ago. It was about how good it is for kids to be bored. And it’s very hard for a kid to be bored anymore. There’s always something to engage, always some kind of distraction. And if they aren’t holding a device or looking at a screen, I’m bored. But have you noticed, parents, when we force them off of that, they get super creative. They start playing together and they start doing all the things that we did when we were kids playing house and all that kind of stuff, and they get all sorts of creative ideas.

And that’s when their brain is working. But we also need to sit in stillness and just think about the things of God. It forces us to stop and to slow down our hurried life. We are faced with our insecurities and our weaknesses and even our successes and how we’re going to process all of that. And here’s the thing mental health is a major crisis in our culture. And I would suggest one of the reasons for that, not all of them, but one of them, is that for the most part, we never have to sit and face our insecurities, our weaknesses, the failures. We can always distract our minds, but it’s still there. It’s still deep down. It has never surfaced. We don’t deal with it because we allow ourselves to be distracted constantly.

And that is also an inhibitor of spiritual growth. We can’t admit the areas that we need to grow in. We aren’t honest with ourselves. We start making justifications. I’m really a good person. I know I did this. I know I messed up, but I’m really a good person. You know, Jesus had something to say about that.

Verse 43, Luke 6, 43, for no good tree bears bad fruit. Nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its fruit, for figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good. And the evil person out of the evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. He also says, similar concept, you are known by your fruits. And so we can try to justify it because we don’t want to wrestle with the reality, but the reality is I am a sinful person. And I have to wrestle with that. And if I will never wrestle with it, if I will not be honest with the sins and the weaknesses of my life, I will never fix them.

I have to sit in silence sometimes and wrestle with the reality of who I actually am. If I’m going to let Jesus change me. But if instead of thinking about it, I just turn on music or pull out the iPad. Or do various other things that may be sinful in and of themselves. If I’m always distracted and removing myself from that moment where I have to face myself for what I am, I’m not a disciple.

Jesus said you can’t do that. That’s not how it works. And so I have to slow down and really think about who I am. Alright, so how do we do this? Really quick answer here. Obviously, there’s way more depth. But we just have to decide we’re going to do it. We’ve got to pick a time, pick a place. That’s what Jesus did. Right? He seems to do it in the middle of the night, something like that. He goes off. Whatever it is, and everybody’s different. We have different schedules. Picking a time where we can get away for some silence and some prayer. And it may be that we start small. Jesus is doing this all night. He had a habit of doing this, and we see him doing it all night at one point.

That may not be the place to start. Maybe it is. Some personalities, maybe you jump all in and you say, I’m doing this all night, and that’s how you start. I don’t know. That’s up to you. There’s no law here or rule, but we’re just going to do what he does. Are we going to see what he says? And we’re going to follow that. And so maybe we just start with five minutes. I promise, if you haven’t done this, if you try to sit in silence for five minutes without a phone, without media, without another person, that’s going to be uncomfortable. And so maybe we just start small with just a few minutes and then we will build. Having I’ve done some of these things in the past in other formats, and I think it’s completely true.

Over time you learn to love this. You start with just a few minutes, but then you want to you want it to be half an hour. You want it to be an hour because it just clears your mind so much, and you think about things that are truly important rather than all the trivial things that get bound up in our mind and we think matter. And that’s part of this process. When we sit in silence and solitude and we pray and we meditate, we begin to think about what actually matters.

And I think this is one of the reasons Jesus did it. For focus, for connection to the Father. Here’s another thought, a big term, lectio divina. Some of you might have heard this, it just means divine reading. This is kind of a medieval lot of these things, actually were done in medieval times in a very formatted and structured way where they would have silent solitude. That’s where the monasteries are, and they would take it to an extreme, which I’m not suggesting. But this is probably a practice that came from that, where you read a sort short passage and then you meditate on it. You may even rewrite it. Maybe in a journal, you just rewrite because what you know what that does? It slows you down.

And I promise you, if you take a short text and you start writing it in your own hand, you will think about things you’ve never thought about as you read that text and write it. It’ll slow your brain down. That’s actually why I say highlighting is so good because it does the same thing. Highlighting forces you to slow down and think about what you’re going to mark. And the real benefit there is you’re actually meditating on the word. And you’re reading this. So the meditation, this is you’re being it’s reading it over and over and over. You’re probably going to memorize it in the process. And then you pray. You’re taking what’s in the text, and you’re you’re then showing gratitude to God for what it is, or confession, or repentance, or you’re making requests based on what’s in that short little text.

6. My Yoke Is Easy and My Burden Is Light

So sometimes we’re real worried about that because we have this idea in modern culture that everything should just be kind of like by the seat of our pants and spiritual and mystic and all that. No, like we need structure. We need order, we need discipline. There needs to be training. It’s not just gonna happen. And so things like this can be very beneficial when it comes to following Jesus, being his disciple. Jesus says this in Matthew 11 Come to me. All who labor or are burdened and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

This is a completely other sermon, but I’m just going to give you three quick points from this text. Number one, life without Jesus is a burdened life. When we aren’t his disciple and we don’t follow him in various ways that we’ve mentioned and discussed, we don’t do what he does, and we don’t listen to what he says. That is a burdened life filled with heavy weight and laden. We are laden down by the meaninglessness of the world when we don’t listen to Jesus. It’s a terrible life. But Jesus invites us.

I will give you rest. So number two, Jesus’ way brings rest to our souls. Right? So number one, a life without Jesus is burdened. It’s miserable. People are seeking for purpose, they’re seeking for meaning, and there is none. It’s all empty. And so they seek for pleasure, they seek for whatever it is they’re after, but it’s never going to bring them any sufficiency and fullness. But number two, Jesus brings rest to our souls. Peace. That’s what we’re really looking for. And then number three, Jesus says, His yoke is easy and his burden is light. He’s the smartest man to ever live. If we do what he says, it’s going to make life easy. Right? He has the answers. This is what he’s telling us. My yoke, if you’ll put my yoke on, yoke’s about work, right?

Conclusion

If we yoke ourselves to him, yeah, there’s gonna be work and there’s gonna be training, but it’s the easy path in reality. We know we have purpose and we know we have meaning and we know we’re going somewhere. And that makes it easy. My burden is light. Remember, number one, without Jesus, your life is burdened. It is heavy laden. There are no answers, and you are left empty. And that’s why he says, My yoke is easy, and my burden is light. So this morning I’m not asking you to follow a bunch of rules and laws. That’s not what this is about. Certainly, Jesus is the authority, and he can make rules and laws and tell us what to do. But the point here this morning is if we want to be his disciple and follow him.

I understand what that really means. It means we’re with him. It means we observe him, it means we listen to him, that we do what he says, that we do what he does, and that in the end we want to become like him, and there’s a reason for that. Because he has the answers. He will give us rest. Do you want rest for your soul? Are you burdened by the things you’re going through in life? There’s only one answer for that, and that is not for somebody else to be a disciple. Right? Notice, don’t look for the speck in your brother’s eye. It’s for me to decide that I’m gonna follow Jesus. I’m gonna do it his way. And I’m gonna do that whether or not the person next to me does.

And that’s gonna be a source of answers. That’s gonna be a way of life that brings joy and satisfaction and fulfillment, even if the other people around me decide not to do that. And you can do that this morning. You can decide to give your life to Jesus, to claim that he is the answer, that he is the way of life, and that if I do things his way, I will find satisfaction. And then just as a little note below that, I want us to thank parents about what our children are seeing. Are they seeing this in us? Are they seeing people who are training to be disciples, who are training to be like Jesus? Or are they seeing people who are caught up in the world and listening to other teachers and other ways of life?

Can Jesus help you this morning? Listen to his invitation. Come to him. Why don’t you come as we stand and we sing?