Week Three. Recorded Lecture, Part 3. Summer.2022.Discipleship Tools

this is week three discipleship tools and I just recorded and uploaded

four parts of this five part lecture series for you divided,

had three slide sections, and I've divided the first one into two parts,

part one and two that you'll find in week three,

then there's the second part, the second section of slides,

it's all about your discussion forum,

and then there's the last part that's called Thin Places,

and I've divided that into two parts.

First part gives you the definitions of thin places,

you can see that it's based around this

various movements of the church that you know,

the times the church's goal,

the church's goal is to do all four of these things and you know,

there's different places where these emphasis happened 11 places to open

our hearts and to open our vision to direct our attention upward

to where God is at,

and there's another part of the movement of faith in the movement

of spirituality that opens us inward to discover God isn't just over us

in the upward fashion, but he's actually inside of us.

So these two are intimately connected with each other.

There's another part that's about the community that just to keep the

upward and inward language going, you know, let's talk about being with word,

we live a lot of isolated lives for, and we not much with word nous,

in terms of how we do our culture, we're quite separated from each other

and the church is the one place where with word is the goal all the time

and it's a reality when the church is the authentic church of jesus,

but it's never just those three things,

there's always this outward movement so upward, inward

with word and outward,

and we're going to focus in this class of

thin places because of thin place on the upward

focus.

So thin place we saw is a thin is a

moment where the boundary between God and us is especially thin

can be in nature, it can be in worship, it can be just in privacy in our own home.

Just in a moment, we've come really aware of the presence of God.

So that awareness is a big deal

and these moments are really important.

They mess with the status quo, the routine in your life and they leave you,

if you'll cooperate with them,

they'll leave you as a new person.

And so the brain science is telling us that we have a space in our brains,

it's all about that

thin place, moment that we've become aware of the, of the reality of God around us,

and potentially in us, it's the attention center in our brain,

it helps us pay attention not to the

mundane things like paying bills and making dinner,

but it helps us to pay attention to things that are bigger than us.

It takes our breath away and we realize

we're in the presence of something mysterious that

we can't actually define easily or put into

a box and it's a spiritual experience center.

So we looked at the example of Isaiah.

So I just let me get through these slides and don't

get seasick please as we go through all of this,

that was in your last part of the lecture

but lets them move over to the new testament and we just see where

the apostle paul enters into this thin place encounter.

So it happens like this just kind of using contemporary storytelling technique.

So it's on a dirt road somewhere in Syria,

this apostle who is not yet an apostle, but who's a pharisee named Saul,

it's on a dirt road somewhere in Syria where

thin places going to develop and Saul will not remain the same,

just like when it developed for Isaiah.

In the temple, Isaiah was never the same.

Sol is not in the temple this time like Isaiah,

he is on a dirt road heading toward Damascus.

This is where, this is where the story happens.

Saul is a,

in an ascendancy moment in his life,

he is rising high

in the ranks of the Pharisees and they have sent him to Damascus

with a seal of approval to locate and arrest and maybe bring back to Jerusalem.

Any followers of the way that was the code word

back then for people who were followers of jesus,

I am the truth of life in a way the way in the

and so that's who christians were first known as as followers of the way

later under paul's ministry in Antioch's

the followers of the way will be known as christians as

little christ, but right now they're known as followers of the way.

So Saul is heading to Damascus as hard charging, um fast rising, you know, Pharisee,

who is likely to be voted the most likely to succeed, you know,

in his class of Pharisees

and they told him go find all the followers of the way that you can

imprison them,

put him in leg chains and bring them back to Jerusalem

and we'll deal with them once you bring them here,

that's where he's on the way.

So who is Saul?

Well, he's

an expert in being religious, that's exactly who he is.

He's a religious technician,

he knows the ins and outs of how to be religious and he knows

more about religion than I know and he knows more about religion than,

you know,

in his deep and he has deep, deep knowledge about his religion,

his religion's laws and customs

and so much so that as a pharisee, he's a person who watched you carefully

to make sure that you lived in alignment with those laws and customs.

There's little grace in Saul's life at this point in his life.

He is a religious expert and he will catch you and not being a religious expert

and if you fall into his hands

and under is his influence is likely not going to be pretty for you.

He is going to an exact toll on your life,

you will get a pound of you because of your

inability to live up to the laws and customs,

like he can live up to them, that's who he is,

but he's on the way to Damascus,

he is going to find those people that are not living according to his laws and customs

and he's almost there when suddenly a light from heaven flashed all around him

and falling to the ground,

a person began to speak to him,

The person identifies himself as Jesus, the crucified and resurrected one.

And you know, just literally,

you can see the language that we're told in the story in verse four, Saul,

why do you persecute me?

And of course Saul is totally unaware,

you know, thin places developing,

but Saul's pretty thick hearted and he doesn't get it yet.

And so he says, who are you Lord? And he says, well I'm jesus, whom you are persecuting

and that is going to begin to change everything for Saul,

he suddenly is confronted by the fact that the resurrection actually happened,

that jesus is not just a misguided messiah wannabe,

but he's actually the real messiah

and he gets up totally disoriented all of a sudden,

not just because he's physically blind, but he's disoriented in his heart,

he is now really confused and turned around and turned upside

down and he doesn't know how to make sense of it.

So he gets up from the ground, but although his eyes are open, he can see nothing

and it takes a while for his companions to figure out what's happened to him.

So this is what happens.

We're told in verse 11 that he's praying,

he prays for the very first time in his life and this is what I mean.

He had done fake prayers before, he'd done ritualistic prayers,

He had read the words and mouthed

the words, but it wasn't a conversation with living God, he was the pharisee

in the temple

who looked down and everyone around him and he said to living God

God,

I thank you that I'm not like these people around me who don't

live up to the laws and customs as well as I do,

you know, I do all of these things and they only do half of those things, he was able to,

he prayed like that, but that's no prayer.

So let's say he's never prayed before.

This is the first time in his life he has ever prayed.

Now, here's how we know it.

God has sent

um a disciple, a follower of the way in anti Ock to go meet with paul

and

to make sure that

paul is commissioned and that his side is restored to him.

This father wants nothing to do with Saul because he knows exactly who he is,

his reputation has preceded him

and this disciple

tells God no I'm not going there, it would be too dangerous and God says no you can go,

he's not the same person.

He has been changed

and this person says well how do I know that?

And God says

well you're going to find him praying.

This was apparently a big deal.

Want to just actually go off in this just for a moment for you.

Let's just pause for a second. How do we know when people's lives are being changed?

How do we know when they're encountering God?

How do we know when a thin places developing

in that reorientation as transformation occurs?

This is what you will always find,

you will find them praying

doesn't mean that they'll always be in worship doesn't say

well you can trust this person because he's in worship.

There's a lot of dangerous people that go to worship

doesn't mean that you can trust him because he's going to bible studies.

There's a lot of people that go to bible studies that have no intention

of living for God and they have not actually had ever had an encounter with God,

but their minds are filled with bible words and they're going to use them

exactly like saul to point out how you're not living up to them.

Dangerous people in bible studies sometimes

he may go out and it doesn't say you can

trust him because he's out witnessing there are dangerous people out

Witnessing that actually create more boundaries between people who need God

and God himself because of how they approach these people.

So that's not the validation point, here's the validation point,

he is on his knees, he is humbled,

he is not trying to judge you, he realizes he's being judged, he is praying,

he's having a conversation with me,

that's how you know people are being transformed, this is what Saul does next.

So

he is commissioned in this moment

and this and God tells us,

disciple in

um in Damascus, this follower of jesus in Damascus said you know, you should go,

you can trust him, he is praying

and this man is my chosen instrument to carry my name

before the gentiles and kings and the people of Israel,

so just get this, he's going, so that's code word, people of Israel and gentiles,

that's everyone,

the jewish people and the gentiles, that's code language for everyone.

He is going to everyone, he's going to high powered people and he's going to low,

he's going to people of low stations, it won't matter,

he is going to but he's going to be in front of all of these kinds of people

and

and I am going to show him you need to go lay hands on him, he'll be healed,

you won't be in danger. He is praying,

He needs to know how much he is going to suffer for the sake of my name.

Maybe he's going to suffer because he has forced the people of jesus to suffer.

Who knows? But this is the plan for for Saul,

so don't be afraid

he's going to tell Saul,

keep on speaking,

people are going to do horrible things to you,

but don't be silent. I am with you. And this is a

this is the outcome of this thin place. So what does the meeting do for paul?

We saw what it did for Isaiah? What does it do for paul?

Well, he is now freed from the grip of the law

so that he can be in the group of jesus,

he is now freed from being enslaved to rules so

that he can be enslaved to jesus and his grace,

He's going to be changed.

He's never going to be out of the grip of something just

like you and I are never out of the grip of something.

But finding yourself in the grip of jesus is the greatest place to be

because it gives you freedom.

The grip of the log

never gives you freedom. The grip of your work never gives you freedom.

The grip of money and addiction, empower and insecurity.

Those grips never give you freedom.

It's just the grip of jesus in your life, in his grip.

That gives you freedom.

That's the first thing it does.

So I just want you to see what it looks like then, So before Damascus saw

in the grip of the law. The servant of the law. A slave to the law.

This is what he said,

I was more of a zealot for the traditions handed down by my forefathers

than most jews of my age. He's full of himself, he's proud of his accomplishments.

He is, he recognizes he's more zealous than your zealous.

He is not a person to hang out with. Be no fun to be continent elevator with Saul.

But after Damascus,

this is all paul can talk. Saul can talk about. His name is renamed as paul

and this is how he'll continually talk about himself,

paul,

the servant of christ jesus,

no longer more zealous than everyone else now. No, I'm the

I'm the servant of christ jesus.

This is a remarkable thing to have a thin place

so real quickly. How do you do this?

Just four steps, we'll go over this in more detail in the class first.

Thin places happen to just open your eyes.

Love what brother Lawrence says,

there's no difference between the chapel in the kitchen,

a thin place can happen in worship and it can happen in the kitchen.

Thin places happen.

Secondly,

disappointment, confusion are like fertile soil for thin places.

Just just pay attention to those moments in your life where things are not working,

You're likely on the cusp of a thin place,

Open your eyes, be aware

practices, help prayer, scripture, silent, solitude humility,

all of those kinds of practices they help.

And finally

just make sure you don't get far from the cross of

jesus because it's the most real thin place of all.

It's where the love of God is most concentrated in this world,

the cross of jesus. So that's your lecture.

That's that's the pieces that I've asked you to pay attention to

this week and I hope you get some benefit out of this.

Got questions. Fire away. Send me an email.

Be happy to get back to your blessings to each one of you.

Week Three. Recorded Lecture, Part 3. Summer.2022.Discipleship Tools

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