S.2. Ep. 9. Practitioner's Podcast: Abiding as a Disciple
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the practitioners podcast where we're applying Jesus style disciple-making to everyday life. This episode is powered by navigators church ministries which focuses on helping churches make disciples who can make disciples for more information check out navigators church ministries.org Justin random question of the day.
Are you ready? I'm ready. Lay it on me. What is your favorite comfort food favorite comfort food comfort food. let's see. So I'm really tempted to say mountain Dew right now because for years that has been. I haven't really had a mountain Dews since late June. Oh wow. Yeah that's the longest stretch maybe ever for me.
and the cravings have gone away so I'm not sure I have one right now which I'm thankful for that. Cause I've been been trying to not do the do for a long time and now I'm able to. To follow through on that. So I'm excited about that but I'm not sure how to answer that. So when on on the mountain do a loss on this question for me.
How about how about for you? Or are you okay? Yeah it's pretty pretty consistent. Although I do have a rule I don't let myself have more than five a day. Okay nice. So I've kind of like it's a comfort food with a cap. Ah okay. Well that's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. And I oftentimes get blamed for eating all the Oreos by my family.
Like dad you ate all the Oreos. And I always say the same thing which is I may have eaten all the Oreos but I didn't eat them. All of them once. I'm just super consistent. There you go consistency's key there. Yeah. But and which is interesting right? Because what we're talking about something that I desperately want to be consistent at and it's this idea of abiding as a disciple.
So abiding is not a word that we use very often. I'm wondering if you could maybe give us. a good working definition of the word abide or or abiding and talk to us about why this is so important. Yeah. So abiding is you know kind of staying into something right. Or clinging to something. And you know when we talk about Jesus style disciple-making it it might not seem like a natural fit.
Like why are we talking about abiding? If we're talking about disciple-making. But really this is what Jesus has called us to. Right. And so mark three 14 and we talked about this a few episodes ago with the with him principle mark three 14 says he designating them apostles that they might be with.
And then he might send them out to preach. So what we have to remember and we again talked about it a few episodes to go relate to that versus that the first task of a disciple is to abide. And it's its first not only an order right? Jesus asks us to be with him or to abide with him before he invited them into mission.
And by the men too the other thing. but it's also first and priority as well continuing priority. And so you know abiding is that idea of staying in staying with being rooted to Tony where do we get this idea though of abiding? I mean you and I just didn't decide to idle this abiding as a disciple and move forward.
where do we get. Well I I think w you know we call this a podcast applying Jesus style disciple-making and everyday life. And w the the person who is the perfect example to to shock. No one of abiding in scripture is in fact Jesus. And one of the things that in my study of this word abide that I've learned over the years it's this to dwell in right to live in and Jesus did this so well.
Throughout all of scripture we see Jesus dwelling with the father right. And dwelling with who God is and spending that quiet time. Right. And so we even see it. He says it right in John 15 one. I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. And so I I love this idea of dwelling. I love this idea of being with him and this first task.
And and even when we look at Jesus's ministry and the way he set himself up he would often abide first thing in the more. Right right away. It would say that Jesus went off to a solitude place to pray. And even before his his eventual arrest and death and resurrection he wanted to go to the garden so that he could abide with the father so that he could dwell with so that he could meditate pray.
and he wanted to do that with his people. So that they can all do that together. So I I love the way that Jesus lives out this abiding principle and and you know I know it's something that's changed my life quite a bit. Yeah. That's awesome. So when you were talking about that Tony I noticed that you used the word abide kind of synonymously with moving away from everyday activities and spending time almost like a quiet time but I've thought of abide more of like a constant.
Right. So that they were trying to constantly be within you know the the connection that we have relational connection to God relational connection to Jesus. That's something that we're trying to do throughout. so I'm just curious how would you how would you think about that or talk about that?
you know what you you do a great job there. Justin. I'm noticing my assumption. Is one of my self assumptions is that if I don't start the day with Jesus I can't continue the day with Jesus. And so for me and I think what we see in scripture is that in order to live in a constant state of abiding this constant relationship this constant idea of being with him with Jesus have of keeping.
Jesus' first and our priority. for me I have to really set that up in the beginning of the day. And so the quiet time for me right away in the morning. Is how I keep the I think like Jesus goggles. I need to put my Jesus goggles on first thing in the day. So that way I can see the rest of the day with my Jesus goggles.
So I think it's a both and it's definitely not an either. Or does that make sense? You know even at verse you referenced John 15 five which is kind of the classic passage of abiding in the scriptures. It says I am the true vine and Jesus is talking there and my father is the gardener. So one of the things that I think about with abiding is abiding is staying in reality.
Staying in truth. Right? So there's there's other vines that we can try to hook ourselves into to get a nourishment to survive to live this life. And you know lots of people do but there's one true vine. Right. And the true vine is Jesus. And so what you just turned like Jesus goggles. I just thought well yeah you're you are hooking into the true vine for the day.
Right. And so you're getting there to To set your perspective and your trajectory for that day. You want to be hooked in and abiding in the true vine of Jesus. And that's you know that's what we all are aiming to do as disciples right. Or we should be doing I'll tell you one of the most transformational experiences for me when it comes to abiding is I in seminary we don't often spend a lot of time.
Practicing what we're learning. You know what I mean? We do a lot of educational knowledge but we don't do a lot of heart knowledge. And one of the my favorite professors and somebody who has become a mentor to me over the years Dr. Bellini who has been on my other podcast quite a bit he he taught a class on the.
And he said in order for us to have a full encounter with the holy spirit we have to make sure that we're abiding with the Lord. And so as a class you know we're in there we're taking notes and we're like okay Dr. B how do we abide with the Lord? And he was like okay I want you to put your pencils down.
I want you to shut your books. And he goes and now we're just going to sit here and soak in the spirit. Right. And so. For the rest of the semester. What we did is we spent the first 20 minutes of class soaking in the spirit which is just kind of a term of a prayer and meditation and reflection. And sometimes he would bring in scripture.
Sometimes he wouldn't sometimes he put on worship music but we would spend the. that first little chunk of class just dwelling with God so that we can learn more about the holy spirit because his whole thought is Hey if you don't if you're not abiding you're never going to have a relationship with the fullness of the triune.
God if it does that make sense? I like that. Right. So there's what I hear you saying. There's an intentional. movement towards trying to abide trying to connect trying to hear from the spirit hear from Jesus and and to really live into that which I think is super important right. Because you know in that same passage of John 15 verse five it's Jesus talking again.
I am the vine you're the branch. If a man remains in me and I in him he will bear much fruit apart from me. You can do nothing. this morning I was talking with my daughter about this passage and and I asked her I said well you know do you think that we can do anything apart from Jesus? And she said well yeah I do.
I was surprised by this answer. And I'm like okay what is it? And she said I think we can stand apart from him. And Okay. As I you know that's that's an interesting thought. And so we started to go down that that path of you know well what what does Jesus really bring to us? Well if he is the vine and we're the branches.
Then if we are cut off from him then really we can't even do that. And I thought of and we talked through the passage in Colossians where it says that Jesus holds all things together. And so talked about the atoms of the universe and you know how they hold together just all this. But this idea of man if we aren't going to abide.
Then we can't do anything. We can't bear fruit of of disciples. You know if we want to make disciples for not abiding it's not going to happen. If we want to just have a life. Has some sort of good coming out of it. We can't even do that if we're not abiding. So super important that we're inviting Tony what are some of the things that get in the way of us abiding and you know how do we move through those?
so I would say that one of the first things that kind of gets in the way for me when it comes to a biding is lack of margin. Right. So when I when I over calendar or when I over-schedule or when I do the things that don't give myself margin then I don't have time to look at the world through the right perspective.
And now I'm not saying that you can't be scheduled and go meeting to meeting that that's happened. Right. But like you know we have. We have to make sure that we're not over calendaring so that we don't have margins so that we know what our first priority is or at the very least maybe schedule it. I don't know that that would be another thought.
Justin what about you? What do you think gets in the way of our our time to abide? Yeah I think for me it's my heart. So I I just noticed that. You know my heart will move towards other things. And that's why you know I talked about mountain Dew at the front. It's there's nothing wrong with drinking mountain Dew but it it was getting to my heart and and clutching it in a way that was unhealthy.
Right. Cause I felt like I had to have it and if I didn't have it I felt like this weird pole towards it. and when I think of a biding I think of that right. That am I hooked into the true vine to the reality that Jesus is the one that meets my needs. He's the one that sets the agenda for my life.
He's the one that should order my life and what I'm doing and how I'm making choices. But there's I often find whether it's mountain Dew or something else. you know my heart just moves towards other things other than Jesus. So frequently that that's a big hindrance for me is just all right. Well I have to notice.
All right what is my heart moving to? If it's not Jesus why is it moving towards those other things? And then how can I get hooked back in to the true vine of who he is? So as we think about hooking back in and moving through those challenges Tony what are some ways that we can do that? Yeah. I you know as I hear you talking about all that I think a lot about idol worship right?
And so when we talk about ways to abide what we're also talking about are ways to make sure that your heart is intentionally focused. And so I think that that you know probably the first and most important thing that we can do in a byte. Is scripture meditation and reflection. And and I when I talk to churches all the time this is one of the things I talk about.
If you're not rooted in God's truth you'll make up your own shrift and you you can't abide you can't abide in the truth if you're making it up because it's not true. Right. Right. And it's one of my biggest frustrations with culture today is people talk all the time about this idea about I'm speaking my truth and.
Yeah but your truth isn't ever eternal you know your truth is not Jesus your truth. That there's only one truth and it is Jesus. He is the vine and we are the branches. So the first thing I always tell people if you want to abide you gotta be in scripture meditation and reflect. Oh no I love that. So we're going through and we forgot to mention this.
We're going through three essentials for abiding through the first one is scripture meditation and reflection. for all the reasons Tony just said that was really cool. and I li I like your your statement there that if we're not what was it we're not abiding in God's truth. We'll make up our own.
That's right right. And if we're not abiding in Jesus we will find something else to abide in. Right. That's just the reality of it. So our second essential for abiding is prayer and that gets your heart right? So it's not just about you know meditating knowledge on scripture. It is about absorbing that making it a part of who we are and reflecting it back to God.
And really talking with him and listening to what he might have to say about the condition of our heart about the choices that are in front of us about maybe actions that we've already taken and what he thinks about them. And you know that happened to me about two weeks ago Tony I had a conversation with somebody and you know I spent time with God and prayer that night and he just brought it up to me.
And brought up that I wasn't as wasn't as gentle as he would have me be in that situation. So I had to go back and talk to that person apologize but you know that's one of the essentials for biding is prayer because if I hadn't spent that time in prayer and listening as well as talking in prayer then I might not have gotten to that place.
Or I definitely wouldn't have heard from God in that time. so sent three essentials for abiding scripture meditation or reflection prayers. The second one what's our third one. The third one is one of my favorite things. It is the church or community or fellowship and and I'm going to if it's okay I'm going to go on a little bit of a rant here.
I know I always get a little nervous so let's be clear right? Jesus came to earth in the flesh. So Jesus came to earth in the flesh in the incarnate. Right. And so when we talk about this idea about the church about community about fellowship what we're really talking about. Is the reality that we need to be with people in the flesh.
So you have to go to church in person you have to be community in person. You have to be in fellowship in person. If you want to experience the fullness of the body if you want to experience the fullness of what God has for you it requires you showing up in person. One of the hardest things for me and all of this season of COVID and change is that I feel like people are now trading in authentic community for online situations.
And this is my belief as well that there's an incredible tool with online worship. It doesn't change the fact that we still have to be. In person we have to be there in the flesh. If we want to abide with the Lord we must be with the church the community the fellowship of believers. I really love that Tony because you know the church is a.
Right. First and foremost. Right. And sometimes we get that mixed up. But when we talk about church as a building or service and we get why we do that. But if we miss the primacy of church being a people then then we're going to miss out on a lot. Right? The incarnation the full bodied experience of what it looks like to connect with other believers that you know online can never replace.
All right. Online can never replace being in different contexts with people seeing how they interact seeing how they relate experiencing you in relationship in those ways in time and space. And and so yeah I think what you're saying is right on that it's it's a tool it's helpful but we have to be careful that doesn't grow too big or out of its role where it it replaces something in in a manner that isn't as good.
Right. And we're not designed for that. We're designed for being in relationship being with people in time and space. So those are three essentials for abiding right? Scripture meditation or reflection which by the way is the number one thing that a person can do to grow in their faith regardless of where they are.
We've talked about that on previous episode season one two is prayer and three is being in relationship with other believers. And whether you want to call that community or fellowship or just being the church I mean that's what we need to do. if we're going to be abiding Tony wants you to take us out with our takeaway and action.
Anyway as a disciple our first task is to abide as a disciple. Our first task is to abide and the action step Justin I want to challenge you this. Assessing look ways to improve one of your biting essentials scripture prayer your sense of community and the church assess and look to improve one of your biting essentials guys.
We're so thankful to be on this journey with you. we love every week getting to talk about disciple-making do us a favor hit that subscribe button wherever you listen to podcasts leave us a rating or review on iTunes and Hey the biggest compliment you can get. Share this episode with a friend maybe somebody who can hold you accountable to abiding.
We'll see you guys real soon.