Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] We're in part three of a sermon series called Good and Beautiful. It's based on some books that are, I mean, several books. But one of them is called Good and Beautiful Lives. There's Good and Beautiful God, Good and Beautiful Community, written by James Brian Smith. And the idea is that we can have a good and beautiful life in Jesus. Now, that doesn't mean we don't suffer or have a theology of suffering, doesn't mean that we don't go through difficult times, and it certainly doesn't mean that we gloss over all the difficulties of life in order to pretend that we have a good and beautiful life. That is not our calling. Instead, we embrace all these elements that are part of the journey of life. And when we walk through them with Jesus, we learn what is good and beautiful. And the question that we're asking in the middle of all this today is, okay, well, if there's a good and beautiful life for us, it sounds like that requires change.
[00:00:58] Can people really change? That's the question we're asking today. The answer is yes.
[00:01:03] So that's it, I guess. There you go.
[00:01:06] I don't know why Evan thinks we need 28 minutes to get these things done.
[00:01:10] I am a master of efficiency today.
[00:01:14] Yes, people can really change. We can really change.
[00:01:17] Others that we have in our community, they can really change. And of course, we can really change ourselves. And we're going to talk a lot about community next week, so. So I want to focus on what happens. Why is it difficult for us to change sometimes. And then we're going to talk through some things as to the reason that we can change and some ways, some tools that we can have in order to help us change. Now, the final thing before we jump into the scripture is I want you to know that this is not a community that's interested in people understanding that they need to change before that they can belong. I want you to know that you belong in this room right now no matter what. And even more importantly, you belong with Jesus. You are loved by God no matter what, right now. And so I know a lot of times in religious spaces, or a lot of spaces in general, there's this idea that I need to behavior modificate before I can actually sit down in the seat. That is not the case here. And that is not the kind of faith that we have or the kind of God that we believe that we serve.
[00:02:09] Instead, we believe that because we belong and we find ourselves in the presence of Jesus. What then happens is transformation because of the closeness and proximity to Jesus. That makes sense.
[00:02:22] So let's start in Luke, chapter 8, verse 26. And it says this happens right after a story that maybe many of you are familiar with, that Jesus is asleep at the bottom of this boat. The disciples are kind of running and operating the boat. A storm happens. They wake up Jesus. He calms the storm. And it says immediately and goes into verse 26 here, says they arrived in the region of the Gerasenes, across the lake from Galilee.
[00:02:46] As Jesus was climbing out of the boat, a man who was possessed by demons came out to meet him. For a long time he had been homeless and naked, living in the tombs outside the town.
[00:02:56] As soon as he saw this, he shrieked and fell down in front of him. And he screamed, why are you interfering with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? Please, I beg you, don't torture me. For Jesus had already commanded the evil spirit to come out of him. The spirit had often taken control of the man. Even when he was placed under guard and put in chains and shackles, he simply broke them and rushed out into the wilderness completely under the demon's power.
[00:03:20] Jesus demanded, what is your name? Legion, he replied, which, by the way, I played the role of Legion in a church performance when I was 13 years old, growing up.
[00:03:30] Yeah, yeah, I got to be all the demons at once.
[00:03:34] It happens when you're the pastor's kid, I suppose. And my closest friend Joel was Jesus, you know, for like the fourth or fifth time.
[00:03:42] And I know you're shocked to know that I was the demon possessed one. But anyway, just thought you'd want to know that little tidbit.
[00:03:52] The demons kept begging Jesus not to send them into the bottomless pit. And this hap. There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby. And the demons begged him to let them enter into the pigs. And so Jesus gave them permission. And then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs and the entire herd plunged down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned. Now this is where it gets interesting. I know it's hard to believe. It gets more interesting after pigs and hurtling down a hill. But when the herdsmen saw it, they fled into the nearby town and surrounding the countryside, spreading the news as they ran, people rushed out to see what had happened. A crowd soon gathered around Jesus. They saw the man who had been freed from the demons.
[00:04:32] He was sitting at Jesus's feet, fully clothed and perfectly sane. And they were all afraid.
[00:04:40] Then those who had seen what had happened told the others how the demon possessed man had been healed.
[00:04:46] And all the people in the region, the Gerasenes, begged Jesus to go away and leave them alone, for a great wave of fear swept over them. And so Jesus returned to the boat and left, crossing back to the other side of the lake. And the man who had been freed from the demons begged to go with him. But Jesus sent him home, saying, no, go back to your family and tell them everything God has done for you. And so he went all through the town proclaiming the great things that Jesus had done for him.
[00:05:13] Amazing that relief is brought to this community, that a man who is terrorizing everyone that would go anywhere near is healed. And the response is fear.
[00:05:29] Now, one of the things that this leads me to believe is that change is hard for everyone, right? There's change in the process of the transformation of the demon possessed man. There's a resistance to transformation, of course, but then when transformation happens, what happens around him is that the community would rather have the consistency and the knowing.
[00:05:47] The knowledge of this man is unsafe and dangerous and we can't go in this area when he's there. They would rather have that routine, the known danger, than they would have the healed man. As a result of the power and the presence of Jesus, often what happens in our lives is not only is the change and the transformation difficult, which we'll talk about, but what can make change and transformation even more difficult is that it is difficult for the people around us to experience.
[00:06:19] Imagine someone you've known for years that's stuck in the same destructive habits and people will say, well, that's just who they are. That's often what we say about our own selves and we get stuck in that narrative.
[00:06:31] So is deep, lasting transformation even possible? We say yes. Or are we just doomed to be the same person with a few minor adjustments along the way, A few self help books to change and behavior modificate just enough?
[00:06:44] The author of these books, James Brian Smith, says we change by replacing the narratives of our life with the narratives of Jesus.
[00:06:53] We often try to change through this willpower, this sheer willpower. But true change actually happens from the inside out, rooted in God's goodness and truth. Let's pray one more time. Father God, we thank you that we get to be here together today. We pray that we'd be open to transformation not because we want to belong. We believe that we already belong, that you love us, Lord Jesus, but now we want to be close to you. And allow that to do a mighty work in our lives. In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:07:20] To illustrate this idea of the power of the story that we tell ourselves, I want to do this little illustration that I always feel like is on the verge of cheesy, but try to go along with me here. I'm going to show you a series of photos that are just frames from well known movies. Okay. You might not know every single one, but I want you to say the line that goes along with this one frame if you know it as best you can. Okay? We can connect all these dots so you see one thing and all of a sudden we can jump all the way back into a narrative or a story that has existed for a long, long, long time. Now. It's fun with movies, but often this can be destructive behavior with our own lives. It's kind of how our brains work is that when we see something, our brains are really good at identifying patterns of behavior or patterns in how we should behave. And so we'll see a person, we'll see a thing, we'll hear some bad news, and then we have this thing in us that automatically can transport us back into a certain mode of behavior or a certain way of thinking about someone, or a certain way of thinking about the world around us.
[00:08:24] Now Jesus, his presence is offering us the opportunity to interrupt that cycle.
[00:08:32] It's so difficult.
[00:08:35] It's hard to see Darth Vader without remembering the music, right?
[00:08:40] But the presence of Jesus can actually begin to not remove history or teach us to ignore everything that we've done or that's happened and pretend that it never happened. But instead Jesus comes into the middle of the narrative of the story and begins to change things, not change things, so that we begin to look like a stereotype of Christian behavior or community or person. It's certainly not changed so that you might not that you might look all like Ben Fleming, which would be the biggest mistake of your life, but instead it's so that we might see and hear and know the world the way that Jesus knows in season.
[00:09:17] This all starts with understanding that the goodness of God is actually what makes change possible.
[00:09:24] Many of us believe because of how we were taught growing up or an element of superstition or something, that we believe that God is an angry and dissident and disappointed God.
[00:09:35] That narrative will keep you trapped in a certain way of behavior for the rest of your life.
[00:09:41] We actually do live at the mercy of our ideas about God. How we view God enables us to enter into transformation or not.
[00:09:48] If we believe that God is good and generous and loving. We'll actually approach him in trust instead of fear.
[00:09:56] The perfect example of this is the story of the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15. If you haven't heard this story, this kid goes to his father and he says, I'd like my inheritance now, please, not when you're dead. Which especially culturally at that moment was him saying, I wish you were dead right now, because I want your money and I want to go live how I want to. And so the father very generously gives the inheritance of the son, who goes and spoils it almost immediately. And he has this revelation moment of I need to go back and beg my father to be a servant at his house because it's better than the life that I'm living right now. So he prepares a speech, approaches the father, who has run down the driveway to meet him. And the father cuts him off and says, no son of mine will be a servant in my house. And he welcomes him back as the son that he truly is.
[00:10:40] See, the son's transformation doesn't happen at this moment where he says, I'd like to be a servant. It happens at this moment where he realizes that the father has no interest in this punishment narrative that the son has created. Instead, he's interested in embracing him just as he always did, just as he was when he was a small boy on that same property. He puts a ring on his finger that is emblematic of he belongs to the family. He gives him the robe, he throws a party, all the things. And that is when the moment of transformation happens. Not when we realize that we've erred, but that when we realize that even though we have erred, we are accepted and loved and brought in by God.
[00:11:17] It is impossible to enter into this healthy transformation. We can find some behavior modification, we can find some guilt ridden behaviors that we then participate in. But until we understand that God embraces us and loves us and sees us and cares for us, the transformation will be stunted and it will look something like God did not intend.
[00:11:38] Change comes when we see the Father's true heart, not when we just go on our own presuppositions about who God is.
[00:11:46] And so I want you to ask yourself today because this is important foundational question for all this.
[00:11:51] What do you truly believe that God is like?
[00:11:54] What do you really believe?
[00:11:57] A God that's anxious to be vengeful upon you, or instead, a God that is anxious to embrace you?
[00:12:05] The answer to the question shapes what we believe is possible.
[00:12:11] Romans 12:2 says this do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed instead by the renewing of your mind. This real change happens from the inside out of us.
[00:12:25] Transformation is the renewing of our minds, not just behavior modification. Again, if you haven't changed your mind in a long time, I would encourage you to figure out a way to do so. If you somehow came up with all the secrets of life 20 years ago and you've just been going by those notes ever since, I got news for you. You're probably missing something.
[00:12:44] You're probably a little detached. You're probably a little bit closed off from the Holy Spirit and what God wants to do in your life.
[00:12:52] Now, in order to do this transformation that happens from the inside out, there has to be this foundational core shifting and changing in our lives. It's not just about a short term of trying harder, but instead it's about being immersed in new stories, practices, and communities that begin to shift and shape and change and mold our hearts.
[00:13:11] We've got to be willing to allow God to do a deep work that only he can do. And that takes time and sometimes great difficulty.
[00:13:22] I remember being a part of this gym about 10 years ago and we had this great guy who owned the gym coach, his name was Dean. And if you came in to Dean saying, I really want to figure out a way to quickly get into my summer body, he would quickly find a way to remove you from the gym.
[00:13:41] As his whole idea and philosophy was not, yeah, come in so that you can get this temporary fix so that you could take some photos in August. His thing was like, if you want to really actually do something, you have to give yourself over to this really long term process that's difficult and requires sacrifice in a lot of different areas of your life.
[00:14:02] Are you, are you willing to jump in for the long term or do you want to show up and try to get a quick result and then get out? Because ultimately that's not the result you want.
[00:14:09] Do you want to do the deep work? Do you want to do the deadlifts? Do you want to do the stuff that you hadn't thought of and movements that you don't want to do because you know that they're your weaknesses? This is how transformation happens. It's a deep and often difficult work of training that requires many steps and intricacies that we're not always prepared for.
[00:14:29] Ask anybody that's good in an instrument that they just often had to sit at the instrument and continue to play, and then often under the guidance of a master of that instrument. Ask any guitarist. And you know that the beginning of playing the guitar has very rarely to do with memorizing the chord formations. Instead, it's about getting calluses on your fingers so that then you can memorize the chord formations.
[00:14:51] It's one of the worst things about teaching kids guitar.
[00:14:55] Hey, you're 10 years old. You think this is going to be fun? Great, we're going to mutilate your hands first.
[00:15:03] But there is a depth that is required in this transformation process that we have to be willing to take on if we're truly interested.
[00:15:10] I'm asking you today not ask the question of how do I stop doing this bad thing that I'm tired of. Which is an understandable question. But the better question is, what truth of God do I need to believe so that my heart changes?
[00:15:24] What truth of God do I need to believe so that my heart actually changes? That's the deeper work.
[00:15:33] And then spiritual practices create space for this work. Second Corinthians 5 says, Therefore if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone, the new is here. We practice this in ways such as silence and solitude, scripture, meditation and confession.
[00:15:51] The author of these books emphasizes that spiritual disciplines are not about earning God's favor, but instead about placing ourself in a position where God is welcome to transform us.
[00:16:02] I used to think that good Christians were morning people.
[00:16:06] Have you ever thought this before?
[00:16:08] You know, I remember being woken up at 6, 6:30 in the morning by my dad and he was telling me I got to read three in the old and two in the new, three chapters in the Old Testament, two in the New.
[00:16:19] And I began to have this idea as I stared at the Bible, pretending to read that clearly, this religion is for people that like early mornings. Because there's something about that that I'm not getting ahold of that I don't understand.
[00:16:34] Oh, my dad loved it, you guys. My dad was that dad that would come in and like, you know, sing to you in the morning, which is the worst thing in the world.
[00:16:44] It's actually great and sweet and beautiful. But for 15 year old me that just wanted an extra 30 minutes of sleep, the singing was like scratching on my ears.
[00:16:52] My dad loves the morning still.
[00:16:55] That's where he finds and meets God. But what I discovered over my time as a pastor, but even more than that as a Christ follower, is that what God is after is not necessarily your early mornings. He is after moments where you are open to hearing him speak to you, to him Transforming your life.
[00:17:12] And so what I began to realize is that walks were good for me, that solitude at the end of the day was important for me, that reading certain books and ways and meditating on poetry was actually a good outlet for me and how I connected with God. See, God is not after just our spiritual practices. Spiritual practices lead us to a great place that ultimately is where we do belong and that is in a receptive place to hear and, and learn and understand God and allow him to transform us.
[00:17:39] So I want to encourage you today if you feel like the tape is too high on some of these practices, that they're not really your personality, they don't come naturally to you. Understand that silence, solitude, meditation and confession can be found in lots of different ways and different times of the day. And encourage you to grab ahold of those practices so that you might meet God in those positions and places.
[00:18:04] These practices lead us into a place where we then abide in the vine.
[00:18:09] We find ourselves connected.
[00:18:11] This change isn't instant. Instead it's a slow and spirit driven process.
[00:18:18] I remember a couple years ago I went to Scotland to do a long pilgrimage walk. It was like 77 miles or 80 miles, something like that.
[00:18:25] And I remember just because my programming is what it is. I remember before I went, I was talking to my therapist and I brought up somehow. I said, yeah, I think I'm in enough shape to get this whole thing done in a few days. And my mile time is actually around 17 minutes.
[00:18:39] And my therapist looked at me and she was like, is that the point?
[00:18:44] Are you going to Scotland to beat your mile time?
[00:18:49] I was like, it's a good point.
[00:18:53] She said, why don't you shoot for something between, you know, 25 and 35?
[00:18:58] Go slow, take in the scenery, pay attention to what's going on in your heart and in your mind.
[00:19:06] That's the idea of what we're trying to get after, is to find ourselves in a place where we're going slow enough to allow the spirit to drive a new word, a new breath.
[00:19:16] It's like seeds growing underground before you see the sprout. Often we doubt that it's actually going to sprout before it does.
[00:19:24] So I want to encourage you to commit to a small, consistent practice this week that puts you in the presence of God.
[00:19:31] Something that works for you, that you feel like you can do daily or weekly.
[00:19:37] Commit to finding those places where God can transform your heart. And then of course, ultimately this thing, this transformation has to happen in community. And we're going to talk about a lot about that next week.
[00:19:48] But if you find yourself doing transformation all alone, all the time, I promise you, you're not going anywhere.
[00:19:54] You're just continually churning your own thoughts.
[00:19:57] You're making a mega version of you.
[00:20:01] Instead, engage in community that will then help you understand the breadth of God's grace.
[00:20:08] So again, why is this so hard? Okay, I laid out all those things. It's reasonably straightforward. We know that it'll take time, it'll take some energy.
[00:20:20] But again, one of these reasons that this is hard is not just the inner work that happens with us. It's the response of the world around us.
[00:20:26] I'm amazed at this story where a community can actually be set free from a menace, a demonic presence that was manipulating the behavior of somebody that began to be so destructive and violent. They're relieved of this and they actually don't want that relief.
[00:20:46] They'd rather have the same old story that they've always had instead of the miracles of Jesus.
[00:20:53] Now, when I was 20 or 21 and before I continue with any of this story, I realized I have no understanding of fashion and how it works for me or for you. I don't know why the pants get bigger and smaller and bigger and smaller and bigger and smaller and then they go higher up on you. Then they, they go lower and higher and lower. You guys, I saw some low rise jeans the other day that were very Britney Spears like 97 era. And I was like, you guys, this is something that I thought we all agreed that we didn't want anymore. Like there's a lot of things that should come back from the 90s. I don't think this is one of them. We can do better than this. So we kind of go, I don't, I don't understand fashion. That's all I'm saying. But when I was in high school especially, like, all I wore was the sweats and the shorts and the hoodies that whatever team I was playing for had handed out for free. Then that was what I wore all the time. And I remember getting to college 2021, and I wanted to wear what was in fashion at the time. And that was really brightly colored jeans. I wanted some red jeans.
[00:21:52] And so I went and bought myself some red jeans. And then I didn't wear them for over a year.
[00:21:57] They just sat in the closet and I would look at it. It sounds really dramatic. I would pull them out, I would look at them, I would put them on, I'd take them off, I'd get something else, put them on.
[00:22:05] And it was so funny. And I realized what it was after a little while was not that I thought I would look bad at them or whatever. I probably did look bad at them because, again, they were red jeans and I was me. But I began to realize, like, the reason that I don't want to wear these, because I don't want to answer all the questions about why I'm wearing them.
[00:22:22] You know, you have that group of friends that looks at you and goes, oh, new thing, huh? Wow, Big life decision you're making right here.
[00:22:32] Oh, so you're gonna, like, try this out, huh?
[00:22:36] Oh, I see. It's a new look, it's a new thing, it's a new. And there's something about the world around us that often just wants us to continue to walk in the story that we've always walked in. It's easier for everyone else. It's easier for us to go ahead and put on the same pants that we've always been doing. It's easy for us to go ahead and react in the same way that we've always been reacting to look at the people on the other side of the political aisle the same way that we've always looked at them. To look at the homeless population the same way we've always looked at them. Look at the rich people the same way we've always looked at them. It's so much easier to hold on to these stories in these narratives because they are familiar and so comfortable to us. But it takes something different altogether. It takes a transformation that happens in us that begin to see the world a different way, to begin to look at the soul of the person and not just their actions, behavior, and their language the way that Jesus would.
[00:23:24] And I got to tell you, one of the reasons that we don't do it is because the people around us will be alerted to a transformation that you're making.
[00:23:33] And I've got news for you. When I finally decided to wear the pants, everyone asked me about them over and over again.
[00:23:42] I probably didn't always respond well.
[00:23:45] And I got to tell you, if you want to enter into this transformation space, the world will have questions around you that doesn't make them mean or awful or evil. It will make them, at the very least, curious. And that will be uncomfortable for us.
[00:23:59] To change your mind with other people around who have heard your opinions about things for so long will be uncomfortable and difficult for them.
[00:24:08] And yet that will probably be some of the cost of the transformation as we head into a good and beautiful life together. Amen.
[00:24:18] So I want to encourage you, trust the correct narrative about God, that He loves you, he's not looking to punish you.
[00:24:23] Be willing to train with Jesus. Not just try harder for a temporary amount of time, but do this long term training with Jesus. Be patient with yourself in the middle of it.
[00:24:33] I want to encourage you to practice disciplines that open up space for grace. Try out some solitude, try out some silence, try out some scripture meditation and walk with people that will help you live this out.
