You Are What You Practice | Jennette Ross

Discover the difference between trying hard and training hard in your Christian faith. This powerful message reveals why spiritual growth feels so difficult and how Jesus modeled a better way through intentional practice rather than willpower alone. Learn the six transformative ways Jesus positioned His heart that allowed love, joy, peace, and kindness to flow naturally through Him.

Explore how Jesus was present, giving full attention to whoever was in front of Him. Understand what it means to be available like Jesus, who made Himself willing to spend slow, intentional time with people. Discover the challenging practice of being interruptible, allowing God's purposes to come through unexpected moments. Learn about being unhurried like Jesus, who understood that struggle teaches valuable lessons and time is a great teacher.

Uncover the freedom of being unoffendable, choosing not to partner with offense even when justified. Find peace in being undefensive, secure in who God has made you to be rather than protecting a false image. This message includes practical steps for developing each of these Christ-like characteristics in your daily life.

Whether you're struggling with presence in our distracted world, availability in your busy schedule, or defensiveness in relationships, this teaching offers hope and practical guidance. Discover how spiritual formation works through consistent practice rather than trying harder, and learn to embrace the unforced rhythms of grace that Jesus promised.

Perfect for anyone seeking spiritual growth, Christian discipleship, following Jesus, spiritual practices, Christian living, faith development, spiritual formation, biblical wisdom, Christian transformation, and practical Christianity. Learn to practice the way of Jesus and experience the freedom of training hard rather than trying hard in your spiritual journey.


This sermon was recorded at a Sunday morning gathering at Church of the Lookout in Longmont, Colorado.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast. The Church of the Lookout is all in Colorado in our vision. Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love. Visit us online at the lookout.church.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

Okay, so before we start, I want to share with you some interesting thing that happened this week. So Monday, I got a Facebook message from this friend of mine that I have not talked to in 13 years. She used to attend a church that I went to. And she was thanking me for a conversation that we had that honestly I don't even remember. I don't even remember the incident where she was over at my house, but she said that she had shared something with me, and my response to her was, huh, that doesn't sound like the Lord. That doesn't sound like his voice to me. And she went away from that moment thinking, huh, I don't, I didn't realize that there could be another voice in my head that would that I would think was the Lord that wasn't the Lord. And so that sent her on this whole trajectory. And now 13 years later, she's looking back and she said to me, I have thought about that conversation many times throughout those 13 years. And I can say now that I am bearing good fruit from that moment. And it was just a simple comment that you had made, Jeanette, but it it really changed so much in my relationship with the Lord. And I was dumbfounded by this because A, I didn't remember the conversation, but B, that season of my life, I would have told you my voice was on mute as far as having any kind of impact and the Lord using my voice to help anybody beyond my immediate family. So I was just like, wow, that was really amazing. And then Nikki, my friend Nikki from this church, messaged me and said, I had a dream about you. She messaged me on Tuesday. So the same night that I'm getting this message from this girl, Nikki has a dream about me. And she said, In the dream, Jeanette, you were standing in front of me and you were trying to talk and you couldn't, um, your words weren't coming out, like you couldn't talk. And she said, In the dream, I felt this prompting that I needed to pray over you, that the blood of Jesus would rain down from heaven. So I was like, Okay, this is really interesting that these two things happen, right? And it's on the week that I'm preaching. So I take it to the Lord and I pray and I ask him, What is going on? And I did some research about the blood of Jesus, um, because Nikki was like, I have never heard that phrase, like the blood of Jesus raining down from heaven. And she was thinking about how there is a literal altar in heaven, you know, where the blood of Jesus is pouring out over us. And that blood represents the authority that Jesus fought for us to have back, right? So now we have authority over the enemy and authority to speak things on God's behalf, and he will empower those words to have impact, right? And then the blood of Jesus also is a redemptive thing. We're our sins are forgiven and we're cleansed through the blood of Jesus, but also the blood of Jesus is freeing us from trying to earn our own right standing. So Jesus earned for us our right to be perfected in him, and we don't have to do that anymore. We, I mean, it's just we we this is what it what we are, right? We are right before God because of Jesus. And so I was feeling as I was praying about it that this morning there is a grace for this testimony of my friend. So it's not and it's not me, okay? Um, I just think there's gonna be something that is said that maybe your neighbor will think is a very simple thing and just pass by. But for you, the Lord is gonna breathe on it, he's gonna speak to you, and it's gonna be a defining moment like it was for my friend, that years later you'll be able to look back, and you may not even remember that it came from this context of me preaching, but you will remember the Lord had said to me something, and it it was a line in the sand for me, and it changed. Like there was transformation that happened that now I can see I'm bearing fruit from that moment. And I don't think it's for one person, and I don't think it's one thing that I'm gonna say. I think it's I think it's there's just a grace this morning, is all I can say. And so I want you to pay attention. I don't want you to miss this. I mean, all joking aside, I don't want you to miss what the Lord has for you. This message is very practical. I know a lot of times I get up here and I have the roar of the Lord in my belly, and the the roar of the Lord, I guess, is just something very practical, and so it will be easy to miss. So I I just want to pray for everybody's spirit to be to attention. Can I do that real quick? So, Lord, thank you for dreams, thank you for friends speaking and bringing forth your word and your encouragement. Um I'm paying attention, Lord. And I I bless each one sitting here, whatever word that you have for them this morning, Lord, that your spirit is on, I pray that they would receive it. There would be nothing that would interfere. I I call every ear to be open and hear, the eyes of the heart to be open to see your activity, and I call every spirit forward to attention now to hear the word of the Lord for you. In Jesus' name. Amen. All right, you ready to dive in?

unknown 5:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

John Mark Comer, in his book Practicing the Way, credits the Sermon on the Mount as the most important collection of Jesus' teaching all grouped in one place. He says these teachings paint a picture of living in a way that for many feels unattainable. And some theologians, he goes on to explain, uh, will argue unrealistic. But Comer points out this in his book. He says, Jesus assumes that we will lust and we want to get a and will want to get a divorce and call people's name and love money and worry about our future. But what's easy to miss is that Jesus also assumes that living his way is going to take practice. One of the first things Jesus says right before his opening command in Matthew 5.19, whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And the literal last thing Jesus says is an echo. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice. Jesus begins and ends the Sermon on the Mount with the call to practice. And yet, very few of us think of following Jesus as a practice. Richard Foster, after decades of teaching on spiritual formation all over North America, he concluded that most people think they will grow to be more like Jesus through trying hard rather than training hard when the exact opposite is true. I think in the natural, we get the concept of like you've got to put in the practice, you know, to get somewhere, right? If you want to run a marathon, you're not gonna start by running a marathon. For me, it would mean running to my mailbox and back, right? If I wanted to train. And then I the next day maybe you can go a little farther. So I wanted to uh I just thought this would be a good illustration that could sit here and you guys can see to keep reminding us as I'm talking, because the temptation is gonna be to want to think that I'm talking about trying hard and mustering and white knuckling it, and what I'm trying to free us all of that this morning and say that the spiritual life is practice, and we're always practicing something. You just have to decide what is it that I'm wanting to practice in this moment? Is it gonna be something life-giving or soul-sucking, right? So in uh 2021, I decided I wanted to learn how to paint, okay? And I really love portraiture. That's I that was a surprise, but maybe it's the image of God thing, you know, but I love painting people. So before I had done any lessons on portraiture or anything like that, I just thought, well, I'm just gonna go down um in my studio and play and and paint a person. So this is my thing. And no, I was not trying to make her look like she belonged to Shrek, the purple cousin of Shrek, but this is how she came out, okay? I mean, you can tell, you can tell it's a person, right? But you know, it's no hopper painting, okay, if you know uh painters. All right, so this is where I started, okay? And so this is my most recent portrait that I did. Some improvements, still not hopper, you know, um, but there's a difference, right? Now, what's the difference? I started taking lessons and I started practicing and I learned techniques, right? And there were a lot of paintings of people that went in between this and this. Um, and hopefully, two years from now, I'll look back at this and think it looks like this, you know? Um, but it's just practice, right? I put in the time. And my spiritual director, Craig Westoff, he's awesome. He has this phrase that he says, we're always, ever, only learning, practicing, and becoming. And this is the cycle we're always in. We're learning things, we implement them through practice, and then we start to become them. And that's the thing with the fruit of the spirit, right? It's different than um gifts of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit, you practice it, and what happens? You actually become it. So you say, I'm gonna practice being loving. And it's really hard to practice being loving and not be loving. You wind up becoming the thing that you're practicing. And the thing with the spiritual uh walk and our life with Jesus is that the more we do it, the easier it gets, right? When I first started lessons, I had to think so much, especially about mixing paint to make skin tones. That is so hard. Unless you use skin tone paint, but you're not supposed to do that. So it's super hard. And I would have paintings like the people would look green or you know, weird colors. My husband can't tell you. Um, you know, and then it took a while before I could learn that. And eventually I'm not gonna have to think about it so much. The more I practice, it'll just become more of intuitive. Um, and same, same way with our spiritual practices. So I'm vacuuming one day, and I'm cleaning the house, and I like my cleaning time, I like to call it redeeming the time by connecting with Jesus and just talking to him. And so I'm vacuuming and I'm praying, and I'm thinking about this whole thing about practicing, and I'm thinking about what do I want to become? And of course, Jesus is the model, right? He's the one that's practicing perfectly and being perfectly, right? And so I'm thinking through, like, what is Jesus, you know, and what is he doing, and what is Jesus practicing? And I start getting this list in my mind because you can say, I want to be loving, I want to be joyful, I want to be, you know, whatever, fruit of the spirit. But love looks like something, doesn't it? And joy looks like something. And even this morning, if you were here at the beginning of the service, my husband was talking about joy and that he practices smiling throughout the day, right? That looks like something. Joy looks like something. And so I'm wanting to just get really practical with the Lord. Like, okay, what are some things that I could practice and put in place? And what how is Jesus posturing his heart? What is the internal climate within him that is setting him up to exude the fruit of the spirit so that when people are encountering him, they're experiencing all of these things of the fruit of the spirit. And I came up with a list, and we'll try to get through all of them this morning if we can. And the first was present, Jesus is present, he's available, he's interruptible, he's unhurried, he's unoffendable, and he's undefensive. And this is the way that he's posturing himself, and as he's doing those things, then people are experiencing love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, all the things, right? So let's um get into it. And I will say, I am not presenting this like I have it all figured out. I am practicing, and there are times that I practice things that I don't want to practice, right? So, in that list, you know, unoffendable, I find myself getting offended often, like especially now that I'm paying attention to it. Oh my goodness. But guess what? In the moment that I'm realizing I'm being offended, I can say, okay, and I can do the work to dig down and find out what is being triggered, why, all that stuff. That's so important. We need to do those things. Also, I can say, okay, I was practicing offense in this moment, and I can switch and I can say, what would it look like for me to practice not being offended? What would need to have to shift in me? And then I get to practice being unoffended, and it's really that simple. Because isn't the things of the kingdom really simple, just super hard to actually do? All right, so present. Let's start there. Mary, and I'm not talking about the mother of Jesus, I'm talking about Mary, his friend, sister to Lazarus, sister to Martha. And we've got that moment where Martha and Mary are prepping for a dinner party. Jesus is already there. We talk a lot about what was going on in Mary, what was going on in Martha, because Martha's pretty ticked at Mary. Mary's sitting at Jesus' feet in this conversation with him. Martha's running around trying to get ready for the party and preparing the food. And she says, Jesus, aren't you going to say anything to Mary about helping me? Right? I mean, I've taught on that passage here, on this stage. But I was thinking about Jesus. He was very present to Mary, so present that he did not feel like he needed to get up and help Martha, right? Like she needed help getting ready. That was something that was happening, and Jesus wasn't like, okay, let's get, let's go, Mary, let's help your sister. No, he was engaged and very present to Mary, who was really wanting to talk with him. And later, there's another incident where Lazarus was sick, and Mary and Martha had called and said, Jesus, you need to come and pray for our brother. And he delays coming, and then when he finally gets there, he's already died. And Mary runs out to meet Jesus and she said, If you were here, he wouldn't have died because she had seen him do all kinds of miracles. And and blind eyes could see, ears could hear the lame, could walk. She knows if Jesus had just been here to pray for my brother, he would have risen from the dead. And Jesus doesn't try to explain himself to her. He's just very present with her grief, with her confusion, and with her questioning. So Jesus is present. And he gives his time to anyone wanting his attention. And as I have tried to practice this way of being, one thing that I'm learning is the more I practice being present to Jesus, the more I am able to be present to others. And here's the thing about all of this practicing. We can practice and we should between us and God. And that is awesome. And transformation is gonna happen. But, or maybe I should say, and so scratch that butt. And we are not going to experience the level of transformation until we interact it with others. That's where it's tested. Here we're like, I'm so good, I'm getting this present thing, I'm rocking it, and then uh a kid comes into the kitchen and I'm on my phone and they're trying to talk to me, and then they leave, and I realize, darn, I wasn't present to them. Um, okay, I get to practice that. Put down the phone. Hey, come back! I'm paying attention now. Sorry about that. All right, so as I practice this with God, one thing that I do is I utilize my nice little watch here. It's got unlimited timers on it, which is awesome because I heard about this monk who was practicing the presence of God, and he had come to the place where the first second of every minute he was turning his attention to God and just aware, because God's with us, right? We're just not always aware of it. So he would turn his attention, and I don't know how he did it, because this is a monk from a long time ago, and they didn't have little watches. But I thought I have a watch and I could do the first uh 60 seconds of every hour, and so I set a timer, and every hour from the time I wake to the time I go to bed, it goes off and it reminds me. I get to practice being present to Jesus. Sometimes that looks like a whole lot of time, and I and I like to delight in the Lord, so I'll have this little thing that I do where I say, You delight in me, and I delight in you, and you delight in me, and I delight in you, and I feel that delight, but sometimes I'm in a conversation and I don't have time for all that. So I'm just like, tap it and thank you. And to I just say to myself, Thank you, Lord, that you're here. And sometimes I tap it automatically and I forget. And I didn't practice being present, but guess what? It's coming up the next hour, and I get to practice the next hour. So that is just a practical thing that I do to practice between me and God. And it hasn't always looked like this, and it probably won't always look like this, but right now I'm just wanting to share with you things that I am doing to practice to help help maybe stir some ideas in you. And then with others, I kind of referenced it. I try to put down my phone and make eye contact. Um and again, sometimes I practice that, and sometimes I whoops, I missed that moment. A book that I want to recommend, that's what all this stack is. Um, I'm gonna give you different books. So the books themselves might not necessarily be about like time management or uh like apples to apples, but there's something in these books with um each one that I'm recommending that I feel like laid something foundational in me that helped me come to a place where I was ready and open to practice these things. Does that make sense? So this book, um, it's actually the first of three books that he wrote that are all connected. I think he's written more than three books, you know what I mean, but these three go together. Um, David G. Benner, Surrender to Love. It's awesome. So highly recommend that book. I wish I had a way to keep them up, but I don't. Um, so come to me after if you need to know a book title. Okay, how are we doing? All right, available. So Jesus is willing and wanting to spend slow and intentional time with people. And we see this with Zacchaeus, I think. Zacchaeus was a wee little man. We little man was he, and he was so short that he had to climb up into a tree. And Jesus walks by, sees him up in the tree, and says, Hey, let's go hang out at your house, right? So he made himself available. I don't know if that was in his itinerary. I don't know if one of the disciples like kept track of Jesus' schedule. He's like, okay, we're going to Beth Seda, you know, we're going to go see this person, whatever. I don't know. But I don't know that Zacchaeus would have been on the docket. Um, but Jesus made himself available to Zacchaeus. And I love the quality of Jesus in that when he is with people, he's wanting to help us get really present with who we are and where we're at. So the way that he does that is he asks questions. And listen to what Pete Gregg says in his book, How to Hear God. He says, Jesus asks no fewer than 307 questions in the Gospels. He is asked 183. And only directly answers three of them. Astoundingly, Jesus was more interested in asking questions than answering them, in listening than making pronouncements. Clearly, he understood that a well-framed question can be the most powerful way of unlocking a human heart. So as I have practiced availability to God and to others, one thing that I have come to realize is that my soul, my soul, my body, will, and emotions craves spaciousness. And not just spaciousness for spaciousness' sake, but spaciousness for God to fill with the simplicity of Himself. And so as I practice with God, I am purposing to make space. And so for me, that looks like getting still and shutting up and listening and being open. God, are you wanting to say anything to me? And sometimes he does. And you know what else? Sometimes he just wants to be with me. And he doesn't say anything at all, but I feel him, I feel his presence. And so it's stopping throughout the day when I can, when that alarm goes off, and actually pausing and being silent. It's taking time in the morning if I can to sit maybe for a minute, maybe for five minutes. It's going away sometimes on retreats where I don't have any um phone on or and I'm just sitting quietly and listening, or looking at the birds flitter around, or looking at a flower and just being with God. With others, it's intentionally giving focused time to people when they ask. So making sure that my schedule's not so jam-packed that I, you know, when somebody says, Hey, I need some time with you, that I can fit them in and sometime relatively soon-ish. Um, and it's also me intentionally pursuing time with others and reaching out to people and saying, hey, let's get together. The book that I would recommend is um Ruth Haley Barton Invitation to Silence and Solitude. This book is awesome because at the end there's questions, or at the end of each chapter, there's questions, and there's actually exercises to help. And when I first started this book, it was so hard for me to even conceptualize why we needed to sit still. Uh I didn't get it, and it was hard for me. And um it's still sometimes a struggle, but um the more I've practiced it, the more I've realized it's something good and I need it. Um and I'm experiencing God in ways that I do not with all the other practices. So encourage you to look into that. All right, Jesus. He was interruptible. There's so many accounts of Jesus on his way somewhere, and then someone's hollering out to him, Jesus, come do this, come heal me, heal this person, do this, answer this question. And Jesus, it I have yet to find where he says, I'm sorry, I don't have time for that. I'm on my way here. There's times where he's on his way to heal somebody, and somebody else comes in and interrupts him, and he'll stop and give them his full attention. Um, I actually want to look at Mark 6, 30 through 34. The setup here is the disciples, the 12 that Jesus hand selected, he had sent them out, and he said, I'm gonna have you go and pray, heal the sick, cast out demons, share the good news of the gospel. And it says here, picking up in verse 30. The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest awhile, for many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. Now, many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. And when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things. So Jesus did not say, Hey, love that you came, but my disciples need some rest. They want to talk to me about the adventures they just had on their ministry trip, and so we'll catch you guys later. Thanks. No, he teaches, he has compassion for the people. He allowed himself to be interrupted, and this is Jesus, his plans are perfect, and he allowed himself to be interrupted. So as I'm practicing being interrupted, and probably on the list, this is like the hardest one for me. Um, I'm learning I am not in control. And you might say, well, duh. But yeah, I mean, my head knows it, right? But my gut doesn't. My gut is often persuaded by the illusion that I have some sense of control and entitlement. So I've got my studio day on Friday where I'm supposed to go paint. And it is inevitable that my lovely children will forget something or have an emergency that requires me to drive to their school. And then I'm like, I can't start painting because then it will start drying and it'll be all gummy and tacky. And by the time I come back, I won't be able to push the paint around. So I'm like, well, there goes my painting day. So I'm gonna skip to since I'm talking about that. Um I'll do the others first and then I'll go back and say with God. So with others, I'm learning to trust God instead of getting frustrated. Because Jeremiah 10, 23 says, I know, Lord, that our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our own course. And Proverbs 19, 21, many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. So I'm learning when I want to practice being interrupted, that God knew that that need was going to happen with that kid or that interruption, whatever the interruption may be. And so there is an opportunity for me to experience something, and the Lord can speak through that or meet me in a way if I would be open to engage with him. Like, okay, what are you doing, Lord? Because this interruption is a surprise to me, but it wasn't to you. So what are you doing here and what do you want to say to me? And with God, the way I'm practicing being interrupted is Sabbath. Sabbath being a 24-hour period where I'm focusing on something that's restorative or doing activities or engaging in things that are restorative and rejuvenating to me, but also delighting in the Lord. So this last Sabbath, I literally, it was a cold day outside, so I bundled up in a little blanket and I sat and read a book that was not about spiritual growth, but it was just a fun book, a funny, fun book. Um, and I totally delighted and I felt the Lord just smiling, like, I love that you're loving this book. Yay, yes. And why I say Sabbath is uh a practice in interruption, it's because every Sabbath without fail, I have a to-do list, and I could very easily rationalize, I really need to get through this to-do list. And sometimes I have I have not practiced Sabbath and have chosen to do the uh to-do list. But you know what? At the end of the week, I feel like my soul has been torn. Whereas if I will just allow myself to be interrupted and forsake the to-do list and engage in Sabbath and delighting with the Lord, I either find out that that thing that I thought needed to happen doesn't really need to happen, and I can just let it go, or the Lord works out a way for me to do it and I have more energy and focus because I've been rested for a day. Does that make sense? So we can be interrupted with Sabbath and a book, and I'm sure you've heard us talk about this book before, but it's it's so good. It helped me really get the idea of delighting, because my personality type thinks that the the to-do list is not that important. So I've just learned to put delighting and having fun on my to-do list, and then I can scratch that off. Okay, so this is Sabbath by Dan Allender. That's really good. All right, unhurried, Mark 6, 45 through 51. We're picking up in the story. So, um, where we were just at, uh, where the disciples were coming back from the ministry trip and all the people came around. And it says, Immediately he, being Jesus, made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Beth Zeda, while he dismissed the crowd. And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land, and he saw that they were making headway, painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea, and he meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid. And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased, and they were utterly astounded. I have been in, see, there's my I have another alarm going off. Uh I have been in this passage for a while because it's just hilarious to me. That it's there's a Jesus in here that I'm like, I did not know this Jesus, and I want to know him. Um, but it it's hilarious to me. Okay, so he sends the disciples off, and then he's like, I'm going up to the mountain to pray. So, you know, this is before headlamps and all the stuff, right? So Jesus is probably climbing that mountain when the light is still up. So by the time he gets up, it's still light enough for him to be able to see them out on the sea, and he sees them struggling, right? Now, if this is me, and I'm not saying this is right, but in my like need to want to help people and feel uh sometimes obligations that are not from the Lord, I would have been like, oh, I need to quit praying and get down there and go rescue them, right? Jesus, he just keeps praying. And it says that he he doesn't get down to the water until the fourth watch. That's 4 or 6 a.m. So get this, it's probably dinner time, right? When he sees them struggling, and then he just lets them continue rowing out there in the wind, struggling. I mean, their shoulders were probably sore. They're like, oh my gosh, we're gonna die out here. And Jesus is just in no hurry to go rescue them. And then when he gets out there, it's hilarious. He doesn't be lying to him. He says that he was he was planning on going elsewhere and passing them by. He wasn't even gonna help them. Why? I think Jesus, the Lord, is okay with us struggling. The struggle does something, doesn't it? And time is a great teacher. So Jesus is not in a hurry to go save them or in a panic at all. And I'm learning that I am uncomfortable with waiting. I am kind of, I have practiced being late a lot of my life. And it's usually not terribly late, it's like five to ten minutes late. And I was having a conversation a few years at one of my work reviews, and the pastor was saying, um, hey, noticed you're kind of five to ten minutes late often. And through that, I had this revelation that I'm like, I don't want to be early. And I don't, I don't like the waiting that being early brings. It's like that awkward kind of, what are we doing? You know, if you're early to a party, sometimes the host was like, I'm not ready yet. And so you're like, just pretend I'm not here. Or if it's a meeting, you just get into that weird kind of chit-chat because you don't want to get started or get into anything too deep about your life in case somebody else is still coming. And you know what I mean? So you're just kind of in this limbo, and I hate it, and I'm like, I want to avoid that. So I literally had a 60-second window to be on time because I don't want to be late, I don't want to be early, so then I have one minute that I can nail it. So guess what? I was often late. But if I as I practice being unhurried, it's practicing letting myself feel that discomfort and and realizing like I'm not gonna die. It's okay. And Jesus is with me even in the awkward, uncomfortable spaces. Lo and behold. So with God, it's it's feeling that disease of waiting or that dis-ease. Isn't that kind of interesting? Disease, it's the disease of waiting, the dis-ease, and choosing to acknowledge God with me instead of distracting. So I get to do this every time I go to the gym. I go into the sauna and it's 20 minutes, and I choose not to distract myself with my phone or a podcast, not always, but most of the time. And all there'll be people in there and they're just struggling. They're like breathing hot and they're looking at their thing and they're trying to distract themselves. And I just decide, okay, I can actually nail a couple things here. I can do the peace and stillness, silence and stillness, and I just sit there and I open myself up and I just start praying and releasing the peace of God over all the people that are in the sauna, sweating it out with me. Um, and it's great. Um with others, um, my husband actually had this suggestion. He he was like, I'm gonna try to start leaving and making sure I'm at places five to ten minutes early. And if I am late, just embracing that I am late and not getting into the anxiousness. Because for me, when I am hurried, I'm like a chicken with the head cut off. I'm just like running around, I'm late, I'm late, you know. And I love him because he'll be like, I'm noticing that you're feeling a little hurried, hon. And it's just a reminder, oh yeah, I am. I'm practicing hurry right now. Okay, I'm gonna practice on hurry. I'm gonna let the peace of Jesus in. Um, anyway, this book, John Mark Comer, Elimination, Ruthless Elimination of Hurry is awesome. He's a really um easy read. I mean, deep concepts, but he makes it very um approachable. So you'll just enjoy that book. I mean, I do. Okay, unoffendable. There was this town, and they had this man who was demonized. So much so that he would roam the hills screeching, he would cut himself, and I'm guessing that he was terrorizing the town pretty bad because they were trying to chain the guy up, but he had so many demons in him. It said a legion, which a legion is anywhere between three to six thousand. So he has three to six thousand demons inside him, and those demons were giving him superhuman strength, and he would be able to rip out of these chains. All right, so Jesus is passing through this area and comes upon this demonized man, prays for him, casts out the demons. The demons themselves ask Jesus, will you put us in the pigs? This is weird to me. I don't understand it. It's gonna be one of the questions I have, unless the Lord brings revelation. I'm like, why did you okay that? Those poor little pigs. Because they freak out, they start squealing and they run, then plummet off the hill, off a cliff to their death. And like, then what happened to the demons? I don't know. I have all these questions. Anyway, that's not important for a message. But the people, you would expect they because the man is like cleaned up and in his right mind by the time all the town comes, and you'd think they'd be like, thank you, this man's been terrorizing us. We couldn't go through this area because he would be here screeching and cutting himself and doing all these crazy things. Instead, they're all mad. I mean, Jesus did mess up lunch, so I do get it on some level. But still, you think they'd been like, Thank you, Jesus. Um, tell us more about yourself. Instead, they were like, get the heck out of here. Beat it. We don't want you in our town. And Jesus could have been offended, but he wasn't. There's another time where he's wanting to go to Jerusalem, but he's got to pass through uh Samaritan town. So he sends a couple guys to go and prep the place, find where they can stay. And the people in the town are like, no, if you're on your way to Jerusalem, forget it, you cannot come in here. Because they had such a dislike for the Jewish people. So they're like, no, you cannot come. And James and John were super offended, and they're like, Jesus, let's call down fire on these guys. And I mean, really, I mean, we laugh at that, but gee, God had done stuff like that in the Old Testament, right? So why not? This is Jesus. You're not rolling out the red carpet for him? Come on! Fire. Jesus doesn't uh agree. He chooses not to partner with the spirit of offense, and he says to the disciples, you don't know what spirit you're operating out of. And he rebukes them. So Jesus doesn't get offended even when he has the right to be. And I'm learning that the more I am in tune with compassion for myself, because I mess up a lot, the more I have compassion for others. And the way that I'm practicing this is the same with God and with others, and that's confession. Because if I can if I confess to God and I'm really real with the mess-ups or the ways in which I have lost sight of his love for me, because I think we only sin because we don't know who we really are or we don't know who God is in the moment, you know, we forget. And so we sin. And so when I can get really real with where I'm at and what I've done and the choices I'm making and why I'm making those, and confess those to the Lord, then I feel his forgiveness and I feel the compassion of the Lord. And then I feel really clean, and then I have that to extend to others, right? And so confession with others, I'm not talking about repentance. We do need to go to people and say, I'm sorry, I messed up. That needs to happen. But this is Not what I'm talking about as far as what I'm practicing. And I'm not talking about accountability, although we need that. We need to have accountability if we're if we've got a besetting sin that we're having a hard time with. We need to invite other brothers and sisters into our life that know that, that we can go to and say, Ah, I messed up or I'm struggling. Will you pray for me? And that's important, but that's not what I'm talking about. The confession I'm talking about is somebody that just knows all your stuff. And that's not part of your immediate family. My husband knows all my stuff, but he also lives with me and he gets to see all my junk too. So he sees things even then I don't want him to see. But he is living with me, and so he and he's committed to me, right? But with you all, with somebody else that's outside of my house, I curate how you experience me most of the time. Right? I mean, that's just the reality. I'm not trying to curate, but it's just easy to present myself in a certain way, right? You don't need to know all the stuff, the dumb stuff that I think and the offenses that I have, and you know, judgments I'm making. So then you go and find a person that you're gonna tell all that stuff to, there's no way you can wear masks around them anymore. Right? And I'll tell you what, I've I heard this uh message from John Ortberg on a podcast where he was like, if you're a leader, you need to have somebody that you're confessing to on a regular basis. And I was like, This sounds awful. I don't want to do this at all. So I picked somebody and I said, Let's get together and let's just share everything that we can remember having shame over from as far back to the present. And so we took a couple weeks to just write it all down, and then we got together, and it took us three times getting together to get through all of our junk. And I was expecting it to just be mortifying and so embarrassing and just terrible, but I'll tell you what, it was so freeing. It felt so good to have somebody look me in the eyes and continue to choose to love me when they knew all of my deepest, darkest failures. Because we can't really be loved if we're not seen. And ultimately we need to be seen by God, but we can be seen by God through others as well, and that's how God set up family and community to exist. So confession. And the book that I recommend is not about confession per se, but um it is about learning to embrace yourself and meet God where you really are. And it's another one of David Benner books. This is actually the second one, right after the surrender to love. This is the next one, the gift of being yourself. And I think out of all of these books, this is my fave. It's so good, you guys. Um, highly recommend reading it, obviously, sometimes saying it. All right, one more. Undefensive. Jesus was literally sinless. He had no reason for anybody to make any judgment, yet constantly was getting the side-eye from people. They were accusing him, misassigning his motives. Um, and that was the Pharisees. And even on the day of his death, as he's hanging from the cross, the Pharisees are saying all this stuff, making all these rude comments, mocking him, and you know it is really bad when two thieves are on either side of you that are totally guilty should be up there on the cross, and they start joining in with the Pharisees and mocking you. Jesus had every right to get defensive and be like, you don't understand what I'm doing. This is for you. Yeah, I could call down the angels and have them rescue me. Then what are you all gonna do? Right? He totally could have been that way. But he he is not defensive. In fact, he forgives. And one of the men who is hanging next to him has a change of heart. And and he asks Jesus in Luke 23, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus answers him and says, Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. That is our Jesus. He doesn't try to explain himself and defend what he's doing. Because he's in he is secure in who he is and who God is for him and what God is doing in his life. And what I'm learning is I'm insecure, and all you are too. Nope. I don't. Because even the people that I think have that, and when I get with them and I'm really talking, and we're really talking, it comes out they're insecure too about something. Everybody's insecure. So with God, I'm learning to ask, what am I afraid of? And what am I trying to protect? Because if God's poking at something and I'm feeling defensive, like, hey, that God, there's something I'm trying to protect. I'm not trusting him, and I think I have to have walls up for some reason. And with people, I'm asking, what mask am I trying to defend? What version of me that's not real do I do I feel is threatened in this moment? And so I'm like, oh yeah, I'm gonna get defensive. But if I remove that mask, I can't be, I can't be defended. It's God. I have to trust in who I am and who he's made me to be, and I don't have to defend that. And the book, this book just helps with emotions. It's Chip Dodd, the voice of the heart. Um, it's so good, I'm gonna read it again because I'm like, there's stuff in here that I'm like, I don't even get it here to certainly not have it here yet. Um here's what I want to do. Travis, you can come up. Um I felt like the invitation was to pick something, and maybe it's not from my list. Maybe the Lord's been talking to you about something else as I've just been talking about practicing. But what is one way of being that you're feeling an invitation from the Lord to practice? And how might that practice take shape in your life? So, you know, for me it was these things, and I don't want to say that all I went, I didn't have this list and say, okay, I'm gonna do all of these things all at once. You're getting like years of me uh adopting different things and different practices, right? Um for you, I'm not don't try to do all six. Pick one thing, you know, and maybe, and then within that one thing, maybe the practice is I'm gonna focus on doing this with God. Or maybe you feel like I I feel like I have good things in place with experiencing with God, but I'm I'm not really um attentive and in tune with how I'm practicing this with others. So I'm gonna focus on that. So I just want to give you a minute, I'm gonna Travis is gonna play a little bit, I'll give you a real short bit to sit quietly with the Lord and see if he brings something up. Okay? And then I'll come back and bless you all. So this is not meant to be a heavy, it's just to say we get to practice, and we are always practicing something, and the Lord has empowered each and every one of you with his spirit to choose what you're going to practice. And it's a choosing of every moment of every minute of every day. So you just have to determine with the Lord what is it you're inviting me to practice, Lord? So I want to bless you with Matthew 11, 29 through 30 from the message as a reminder that this is light and easy. Jesus says, walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. And so I bless you in the free and light walking with Jesus as you practice being like Him. May the glory of the Lord be upon you. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

Amen. Can you guys thank Jeanette? Really good. Yeah, just uh echo that. That uh as you guys go into your week, I just want to bless you with the freedom to practice being like Jesus. Lord, thank you. Thank you for this day, thank you for each person in this room. God, we we want to be like you, but we don't have to be like you today. We get to practice. Thank you. Have a great week. Thank you so much for being here as you go. Pray that you would be blessed in the Lord. In Jesus' name. Love you. Thanks.