Sermons | FBC Boerne
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Sermons | FBC Boerne
Formed by Grace | Fall 2025 | Lesson 1
What if the spiritual disciplines weren't burdens to bear but gifts of grace designed to transform your relationship with God?
This weekly discussion, led by Pastor Daniel Justice and Kasie Musetti challenges the traditional understanding of spiritual practices by reframing them as channels through which we meet with God rather than religious obligations. Together, we explore how these practices aren't about earning God's favor but about creating space to know Him more deeply.
The conversation tackles head-on the misconception that spiritual disciplines are merely about gaining knowledge or checking religious boxes. Instead, we discover how practices like Bible reading, prayer, worship, and fasting are meant to transform our hearts, helping us know God's character in ways that change how we live and relate to others. As one participant beautifully puts it, "The Lord is after our heart, not our perfection."
We candidly discuss the real barriers that keep us from consistent spiritual practices—busyness, perfectionism, social media, and misunderstanding rest. A refreshingly honest moment comes when a mother shares how her Bible reading happens at the kitchen counter while caring for screaming children, reminding us that authentic discipleship happens in the messy trenches of real life, not in Instagram-worthy quiet times.
The heart of spiritual disciplines is captured in Jesus' metaphor of the vine and branches in John 15—they help us remain connected to Him so His life can flow through us, producing fruit we could never produce on our own. This isn't about rigid religious performance but about a life-giving relationship.
Whether you're new to the concept of spiritual disciplines or have practiced them for years, this conversation offers a fresh perspective and practical wisdom for growing closer to God through intentional practices. Join us as we learn to train ourselves for godliness in ways that bring refreshment to our souls like spring rain on thirsty ground.
All right, this is fun. I see familiar faces that are with us most semesters and then I see lots of new faces, so I'm excited. One of those new faces is actually up here helping me this time teach. I want to welcome somebody and you guys help me. Welcome Casey.
Speaker 3:Mussetti.
Speaker 1:This is not Pastor Jason, if you didn't notice this is not Pastor Jason, but I am so excited to have Casey. Casey and her husband, Tony, have just jumped in with both feet. And how long have you guys been here now?
Speaker 2:So we grew up in Bernie, met at Bernie High School and then went to Texas A&M. If there's any of yeah, yeah, Okay, I was waiting, that was your cue Um and way more tolerable.
Speaker 1:It wasn't so obnoxious and loud. That was. We got to amp it up. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 2:Um, and then we moved to Beaumont for a while and had one baby there, our three-year-old son Teddy, and then I was pregnant with Georgia, eight months pregnant when we moved back to Bernie. So we've been back for two years now and it is just the joy of our lives to serve in our church wherever the Lord has us at that time. And so, yeah, we've jumped in my husband's down in the youth building while we're doing this, and we just love to serve the Lord.
Speaker 1:Tony works with youth and helps them with men's ministry. Casey's super involved with women's ministry and MomCo formerly known as Mops and they help lead a young couple's growth group on Sunday morning at the 1030 hour. So they're super involved all over the place and I asked Casey to help me this semester with this Bible study. I thought it would be really fun to have her perspective as we discuss our topic this time, which is spiritual disciplines, is the really not fun title for the class.
Speaker 1:Most people don't want to take a class. If you say, come to the spiritual disciplines class, that sounds like a 5 am workout, right, and who really wants to do that? But that is what we're going to cover. But I hope, along the way, our prayers we even talked about putting the study together is that it would actually turn into just seeing how God, how it's such a gracious thing that he gives us these different disciplines that we can practice, and in practicing those, it's a gift of his grace in our lives to help to continue to mold us and shape us to look more like Jesus, to walk closely with him and to grow in our relationship with him. So that's what we're going to do this semester is just examine a lot of the practices. I think is a good way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we hope to make it really practical for you guys too, and I think that was one of the things that I hope to bring to this course. As a busy mom and I know a lot of you guys are busy families out there it's like, okay, these are really cool ideas and I hope to bring to this course. As a busy mom and I know a lot of you guys are busy families out there it's like, okay, these are really cool ideas and I want to chase after the heart of the father. But how do I do that? How do I make that work with my schedule? And so, as we develop our biblical foundation, we're also gonna talk about really practical principles that you can apply in your daily life to make this a reality for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so along the way, just give you a little disclaimer up front. There will be moments where we want to interact, and so we're going to maybe do that in the large group setting. The group is big enough that could get intimidating to try to. You know, some people will have no problem speaking up in a room full, but some of you that's like I'll never come back if you try to make me speak in this room. So what we will probably do is give you some time around your table or, if it's just a couple of you at a table, maybe joining with another table, and give you some questions to discuss, and then maybe we'll ask for spokespeople from time to time to tell us what your table talked about. Because we want there to be interaction, we want to give you time to actually practice some of these things in the room while we're together and have really good conversation. It's not going to be an hour and 15 minutes of lecture. You don't want that. You don't want to hear us do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't want us to just talk at you the whole time.
Speaker 1:That's right, but we're glad you're here and let me just kind of go. Let's go over just the overview of what we're going to do for the eight weeks that we're going to be talking about, formed by Grace, and then I'll give you a little preview of how we will spend the final six weeks of this semester, because we're going to have kind of a part two. That's a little different, it's a different course, but it's a good. It flows well from this one right into that one. So these eight weeks, if you've got your notebook, you can see the overview there.
Speaker 1:Tonight we're just going to look at what in the world are spiritual disciplines. Maybe this is the first time you've ever heard that phrase, or maybe you've heard it and you're like I know what those are. Well, we're just going to look at it again and look at it though through the lens of our title here, just this lens of what is it God in his grace, what is it he's doing through these practices and how do we do them better? So tonight is a big picture overview. We're going to give guardrails, we're going to talk about, maybe some misconceptions that maybe we have about spiritual disciplines and then, starting next week, we're going to jump into a few of the major ones. So next week is scripture reading.
Speaker 2:Yeah, next week we're going to start on scripture reading. Week three we'll do prayer and then worship, fasting and rest will be together, and then we'll do fellowship on week six and service and stewardship on week eight. On seven, and then week eight we'll do perseverance and we'll do like a really cool spiritual disciplines inventory that we'll all walk through together. So we're going to get really practical in each of these weeks where we talk about what each of those disciplines mean, we'll define them, we'll look at the biblical context for them and then we'll also talk about how to apply them in your daily lives. So we're really excited to look at those things through the heart of the gospel and how do we seek after the heart of the Lord and not just check a box in doing all of these practices? Good.
Speaker 1:You excited.
Speaker 2:I'm super excited, are you guys?
Speaker 1:excited to go through the course. I hope so. You're here, so we're, we're going, we're doing this. Ready or not? Um so, let me. Let me just ask a question, uh, before we, before we even jump in Outside of just saying, well, what's telling me like specific disciplines? Because then all you have to do, we've already given that to you with the overview of what some of the specific spiritual disciplines are. But somebody that's brave enough in a room this size, if you were going to define what spiritual disciplines are just holistically, what would you say? How would you define them? Okay, just spending time with the Lord daily? Yeah, that would include you have reading your Bible daily. That's good. Okay, so spiritual disciplines help us follow Jesus, follow his example. Prayer is one. Yes, step back and give me like a 30,000 foot view of, just holistically, all these things scripture, reading, prayer, worship, community, even rest and fasting, community, even rest and fasting all those kinds of things that we talk about as practices what would you say, like what's the purpose of them?
Speaker 1:Why do we do them? Yeah, it's about relationship, and I think that's definitely the goal that we hope is. The outcome of these weeks together is that from this you don't walk away with just knowledge or with maybe you know. Maybe it's harder to get out of these doors because you feel like look at me, I can, I'm better reading my Bible or I now know how to do this, but it's much more no, like. I feel like I now have tools to help my relationship with Christ.
Speaker 2:Yeah, spiritual disciplines are really the means that the Lord has given us to meet with him in many different ways, and so we're going to walk through all of those different ways as we walk through this course. But it's different channels that he's given us, if you will, that you can expect to meet with the Lord. So, whether that's fasting or worship or serving, these are means that he's given you through his word and commanded us to do where you can expect that he's going to show up and you're going to develop deeper relationship with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good, well, let's. So let's jump in. You've got some scriptures there in your notes. If you want to follow along in your notes, that's great. If you brought your Bible and you want to be able to follow along there so you can highlight or write in the margins of your of your Bible, that would be great too. We want to look at just some, some biblical foundation for this. Right, each week we're going to see passages of Scripture. We'll examine them to understand, hey, what does Scripture say about Scripture? Right, next week we're going to really look at it from every angle about what does God's Word say about the Word of God and how we should read it and study it, and those kinds of things. But tonight, bigger picture, what does the word of God say about even this practice of training ourselves or studying or disciplining ourselves when it relates to our relationship with God? So, casey, go ahead and read this first one and give me some, give me some of your initial thoughts and then I'll chime in too.
Speaker 2:First Timothy, four, seven through eight says, have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths, rather, train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is a value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. And so, as I was reading this, the first thing that interests or that took me by I guess the interest to me is the right word is that actually, in a different translation, instead of saying the word train, they use the word discipline. And so instead of saying rather, train yourself for godliness, it says discipline yourself for godliness.
Speaker 2:And sometimes it can be really useful when you're looking at a specific passage, to look at a different translation and see other word choices that have been used. And in training, if you think about it in an athletic sense, you're training your body to an end goal, and so in order to do that, you have to give up something to gain something else. And so, as I'm walking through spiritual disciplines, I'm giving up, maybe, whether it's time scrolling on my phone or time sitting in front of a television, in order to gain time with the Lord. And this passage also tells us that it's not only worth the temporary value, like bodily training, is because at the end of the day, we're all going to pass at some point. This training is a value in the eternal realm.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So here's a question, maybe for just a couple of minutes at your table. We'll go ahead and we'll let you meet the people sitting at your table, if you don't already know them. Talk about this verse for a minute. And there's two things I want you to focus on around your table. First of all, that idea of training yourself when it comes to being Christ-like, training yourself for godliness. I want you guys to go around the table a bit. Somebody that feels like sharing, or multiple people that feel like sharing.
Speaker 1:Talk to that point that Casey made about. Hey, when we think about exercise, when we think about working out physically, it usually means we have to prioritize it. There's things we have to give up in order to do that. Spend a couple of minutes thinking about and maybe even talking about what are some of the things that get in the way for you to follow these instructions that Paul gives to Timothy to train for godliness. So what are some of the barriers to that? That would be the first question.
Speaker 1:Second question where he says it has value to do this, to train yourself in godliness. It says it has value for the present life and also the life to come. List some of those. What are some of those values that training yourself for godliness would have both here in the present and in eternity? So talk about those things, first of all, barriers. And secondly, what do you think some of those values would be that would fit into that category that Paul gives Timothy. So talk around your table. If you've got a small group at your table, join with another table. We'll give you about five minutes or so to do that and then we'll jump back in. Okay, all right, go, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you All right. Is anyone brave enough to share what you chatted about at your table, anything you gleaned from the verse that you're willing to share with the rest of the group?
Speaker 1:Anybody, everybody's not making eye contact.
Speaker 2:They're like don't pick me, I know that play.
Speaker 1:There are so many wise people. Don't look at the teacher. Don't look at the teacher. They're like don't pick me, I know that play.
Speaker 2:There are so many wise people. Don't look at the teacher.
Speaker 1:Don't look at the teacher, they'll call on me. So if I don't look up, I'm fine. Anybody, yeah, I'll go Okay.
Speaker 4:I'm new. We said busyness and the lack of being able to commit your time.
Speaker 2:That's so good.
Speaker 1:All right. So barriers Busyness Robbie's got the mic. Robbie can be the mic, the mic mover. All right. So barriers We'll start with barriers. That's good. Barriers are, yeah, Another barrier Lack of self-confidence to commit to it.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's good.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm going to mess up.
Speaker 1:I'm going to mess up my Bible reading or mess up when I pray, so I don't know how to jump in. Good, what Sadie has something to say? Probably not. She'll never come back, robbie.
Speaker 3:She actually had a very theologically deep expression here. In the Greek it means to be fiddling away your time. To be fiddling away your time.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 1:Well, coming from Mississippi, she'd know all about fiddling Fiddling. Yeah, but that's right, that's good. Yeah, have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths, right, like just wasting wasting our time, yeah. What are other barriers? Things that we can very easily get. We can get caught up in that, if we're honest, are maybe our waste of times or keep us from getting to this place. Somebody else that maybe has a table that hasn't shared something that wants to. Anybody got any other barriers that might keep us from doing what we're going to talk about Work or jobs can get in the way. Anything else in the back of the room. Back there, robbie.
Speaker 2:Social media. She said social media, yeah, yes, yes, that's so good. Actually, the couple verses before verse 7 are talking about following false teachings, so things that would tickle your ears, as, as they say. So, yes, social media is definitely included under the umbrella of what you're not supposed to have anything to do with.
Speaker 4:Yes, or end of the day, you kind of want to erase your like, clear your mind, let your mind like be at ease, but that's not not erase your mind. But you know what I mean. Just, and sometimes we think that by going the word it's like we kind of look at his work when it's really what we're needing. But we tend not to do that, you know yeah, that's, that's a good.
Speaker 1:That is good point because and we'll get to this one here in a few weeks I'd have to look at my overview.
Speaker 1:But, like this idea of rest, right, there are. That is a very godly thing, like he has made us to rest, and there are moments where rest is one of the best things we can do to clear, to clear our minds right, to just decompress from the stuff that that maybe we're we're bombarded with in our everyday lives. But, but we don't, even we may not understand how to rest, to do that right. Instead, we get on our phones and we think rest is is just scrolling and watching reel after reel that pops up and it's like, no, my brain actually never did get rest in that, I just distracted myself with something else. So, yeah, that's a good point you bring up is rest is something that will be very beneficial for us and we're going to talk about that over these weeks. But there's lots of things clamoring for our attention and our time to keep us from resting, to keep us from studying God's Word, from spending time in prayer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would jump to say that I always say I'll speak for my own generation, but you could speak for yours. I bet it's really similar.
Speaker 1:Are you saying we have different?
Speaker 2:generations. There might be an age gap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want Jason back up here now. I know you don't want to admit it, but there might be.
Speaker 2:My generation in particular. Busyness is a tactic that the enemy is using to keep us away from the Lord Absolutely, and so everyone has their schedules full. We can't make fellowship opportunities and we can't make time to spend in the word because we're just so busy, and so I think the enemy uses that as a tool so that we feel like, oh, I have a valid excuse to not spend time with the Lord. If you want a book recommendation, the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer will change the way you think about busyness.
Speaker 1:Well, for me it was. I guess you know that walk to school, you know, uphill both ways and to the one room schoolhouse, and chopping firewood every morning and going down to the creek to get the water for the day, that's what kept me from spending time with the Lord.
Speaker 4:Yes, sir, I like to think of it as physical discipline and in my case, the Spirit is willing to flesh me.
Speaker 1:Okay, I know I shouldn't be doing it. Yeah, yeah, just the urgency of the moment, right, yeah, sometimes we can let what feels urgent just stop us from the things that are best, and so hopefully, along the way, that will. Yeah, like, yeah, I've got to prioritize, yeah, I got to take care of this, so we'll do this tomorrow, but then tomorrow never gets there. So, yeah, it, yeah, this, this, I've got to prioritize that. Yeah, this, this has got to, I got to take care of this, so we'll do this tomorrow, but then tomorrow never, never gets there. So, yeah, it's learning to and hopefully this will. This study will help see that how valuable these disciplines are, so that they become urgent. So those other things that sometimes maybe clamor for your attention are like, oh, wait a minute. Yeah, that may be important and I need to get to that, but this is even more important, right, like I shouldn't face my day without having spent some time in God's word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll move from that head knowledge of I intellectually assent that this is a good thing to the heart knowledge that I truly believe that I cannot go a day without spending some time in the Lord's word, because I know how important it is for my life, cause I think we'd all say like that's really important up here in our heads and then, for whatever reason they say, the longest distance is between your head and your heart. And so I think part of this course is that we move that head knowledge into our heart and we say like, ok, I said this was a priority in my life, but now I'm going to make it and I'm actually going to do this thing.
Speaker 1:That's good. So value. Sometimes knowing what it will produce is what motivates us to do something Correct, right Understanding. Hey, if I will discipline myself to do this, this will be the outcome. Paul even says that to Timothy. Hey, when you train yourself or discipline yourself for godliness, it will have value for the present and for the life to come. What did you talk about around your tables? What do you think some of those values might have been that Paul was speaking of here? How can spiritual disciplines let's start with give value to the present life? What were some of the ones that you guys listed? Did you get to that question? No, you didn't even have time to get to that question. All right, well, tell me then, just in the room maybe somebody you guys don't seem to mind talking, which is really good what would be some of the values that these spiritual disciplines you could see that they will have, or maybe, from experience, you see that they have in your life right now.
Speaker 4:Coping with life. Coping with life.
Speaker 1:Coping with life. Okay, okay, okay yeah.
Speaker 3:So, dealing.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so dealing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yes.
Speaker 1:And so uh, wisdom, discernment to make, to make decisions, uh just perspective to deal with with circumstances in life, good.
Speaker 2:Patience with my children. You know, if you're a mom in the room, you know what I'm talking about having more patience with my children.
Speaker 5:And that doesn't stop when they get older.
Speaker 1:Either right they can be littles or teenagers right. Even grown, even adult children, right? Anybody got adult children that you still. You need to train yourself in godliness to still deal with your adult children in a godly way Anybody.
Speaker 1:My mom would probably say that Would your mom say that you are. I am that adult child that my parents need. That's good. Others, those are great.
Speaker 1:Liz, I would say that's a protect your marriage. Oh, there's not a lot of times when you really think you have a burden of all this. I love it, that's really good and that's a great point. I think this will come up again with those misconceptions that we think about. Why should we do this? Right? Is it just so we can, you know, say I know more?
Speaker 1:But Liz makes a very practical point. Right, when we train ourselves in godliness, it has very practical application in the area of relationships. Right, that keeps our hearts, I would say, fertile soil for the Holy Spirit to be working in us, the things that he wants to do to strengthen relationships, to resolve conflict in relationships. Yeah, without these disciplines we can very easily look at those relationships, problems, circumstances in life with a very worldly perspective and through a very worldly lens and come up with a lot of wrong solutions or responses to things. Right, anybody ever been there or operating out of your own strength or just your own knowledge, and you realize, wait a minute, that was not. How did I get there? That was not godly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so we talked about how it holds promise for the present life, how spiritual disciplines hold promise for the present life. Daniel, could you talk to us about how spiritual disciplines also apply for the life to come?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. Did you guys get to that one? You didn't get to the present, so I assume you didn't get to promise for the life to come. So when we think about these things, let's just talk about time in God's word, right To train ourselves for godliness. And so part of that means spending time in God's word, and then this builds right Spending time in God's word. And then this builds right Spending time in God's word. The psalmist tells us I have hidden your word in my heart so that I might not sin against you, lord, right.
Speaker 1:So training ourselves in godliness sometimes protects us.
Speaker 1:It should protect us from sin, from walking into sin and just getting mired down in sin, but it also has a positive effect.
Speaker 1:When we are spending time in God's word, we're not only learning what not to do, we're also understanding, like the heart of God, for, what we should be doing right, how should we be spending our time, how should we be living in a Christ-like way?
Speaker 1:And so one of the values that I would say is like oh my goodness, as you start to have a more eternal perspective, like scripture says, to set your minds on things above right. That's what spiritual disciplines help you do. They help you keep your eyes up, to look above the earthly circumstances and things going on around you, to have a more godly perspective of things, and as we do that, the way we interact with people can begin to change right. You may find more opportunities to share your faith, to share the gospel with someone else, and so one example might be right as you get more confident in understanding the word of God, you may be better able to articulate the gospel right, and someone else may hear the gospel and respond to it. As a result of you spending time growing in your walk with the Lord, that would be one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a mom ask me recently I do a lot of work with MomCo, like Daniel said, and a lot of mentoring with young moms and a mom asked me. She was like how do you feel like being a mom? I'm a stay at home mom. How do you feel like being a stay at home mom is is worshipful. And and what she was getting at is there's a lot of mundanity in it, right, like you're doing the same thing. You're changing the diapers, you're sweeping the floor, all of those things, you're making the dinner all over and over and over again.
Speaker 2:And how do you feel like that's worshipful?
Speaker 2:Well, really, if you take it all the way back to the beginning starts with the time that you're spending with the Lord and doing these spiritual disciplines.
Speaker 2:So I'm reading the word and the word is telling me to do everything as unto the Lord. And so when I'm changing these diapers and I'm wiping the floor, I'm sweeping the floor, not that they're like the most fun thing in the whole world, but I am doing it as unto the Lord. And so, instead of maybe having a bitter attitude about it or being resentful of the things that I have in front of me, I say well, the Lord gave me these tasks to do, and this, in this moment, is the way that I can reflect Jesus to my children and have a gospel outlook to something that can seem very mundane and repetitive. And so it takes it just from this what can look like a rote spiritual discipline and really applies eternal perspective to it that everything I'm doing, these little humans are watching me do it, and you're either teaching them the wrong thing about the Lord and hurting their view on him, or you're living out the gospel in front of your children and praying that that changes their hearts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that I think that's that's an important, you know, another motivator when we talk about this semester, applying these and looking for hey, it's going to require training. There may be things that we begin to sacrifice in order to spend more time doing these things. Right, it's going to have value for us in our lives. But to also think, oh, this will impact other people, right? Other people maybe that I don't know. Maybe, as a result of this, god's going to use me in someone else's life to help change their eternity. They're going to hear the gospel as a result of what he's doing in me, right? Or I'm going to get the chance, like with my kids or with my grandkids, right, to be able to shape another generation, to help them have a better understanding or picture of who God is. So, yeah, these things have value. That's an important piece from this scripture.
Speaker 1:We spent a long time on this one. Let's jump on to another one. We're definitely not going to get to all of these passages that lay the foundation, but you can go back and read these here. But look at Titus, chapter 2, verses 11 through 14. Paul says so. If you were to read, when we read those verses right there, what would you say? There are several that you could choose from here.
Speaker 1:That Paul is saying are why spiritual disciplines are important in our life, why this training us right, training us in godliness. What is it? What is it Like? What's the purpose of it? He lists several things there that doing this will accomplish in our lives. Do you see some of them? Call them out. If you see one Purify for himself, a people for his own possession, yeah, so spiritual disciplines are doing what in our lives? They're having a purifying effect. Right, part of that. If you were here when we did the heart of God in the gospel class, right, we talked about that. When we talked about this sanctification process that each and every one of us, as a follower of Jesus, are in, from the moment we're saved to the moment God calls us home. Right, we are in this sanctifying or purifying process. Spiritual disciplines are a means, right, that God uses to accomplish that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think this verse gives us a really good overview of the whole point of spiritual disciplines. It shows us that out of our salvation, we become zealous for the things of God and not the other way around. It's not that we are zealous for the things of God and because we do lots of good things we earn salvation. It's the other way around. And even though we intellectually know that as Christians, I think sometimes we, when we're practicing our spiritual disciplines, can get in a rut where we feel like, because I'm doing these things, I'm doing something good for God and I'm earning favor. But this verse reminds us that the Lord is the one that did all the work and out of our love for him and our desire to know him better and to be more like him, out of that overflow, we have these good works and we're zealous for them, but not the other way around it's very good um verse 12 where he says training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled and upright and godly lives.
Speaker 1:I think about some of you guys know I was a youth pastor for probably more years than Casey's been alive. We'll just keep going with the old people jokes here. But during those years, you know one of the things that you would hear so much from you know from youth speakers, if you took them to camps or you know, even back then, youth revivals and those things, right, these guys would get up and they would preach at students and they would be like, right, you just got to stay away from this and don't do this. And it was all the. You know. Just, you know, try harder to not do this, right, it was just that kind of language and there was nothing at all wrong with what they were saying. I mean, those students should be, you know, dating in a way that honors God and staying away from situations, parties and things where God was not being honored. Right, those were good admonitions, but the way they were directed is, you know, just do it right, just stay away, just say no, just resist that temptation. Right, just get stronger and do it.
Speaker 1:But I can think back in those early years. I don't remember them ever telling them how right and this passage actually does right the ability to resist temptation in our lives, the ability to overcome strongholds in our lives, clear up bad thinking, doesn't come from our ability, it comes from our pursuit right of Christ. The more time we are spending with him, the more time we are getting his word into our hearts and we're renewing our minds with his word. The more time we're spending in prayer, the more time we're spending in prayer, the more time we're spending in community with other believers. Those are the things that God uses to actually accomplish that thing that a lot of times we're just told to go out and do but we're not always given the how to do it, and this is one of the great motivators.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some of you guys are part of what has been called at times the bootstrap generation, and it's like all right, we just pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and we keep trudging on and, like you said, not that that's a bad thing, but at some point your straps are going to break and it's not. You're not going to have any more strength in yourself to get through whatever situation the Lord has brought you to, and you're going to be reminded that it is only, like Paul says, it's only by the strength of the Lord that you're putting one foot in front of the other, and that reminds you when you're walking through these spiritual disciplines. That is the Lord providing us the strength to get through each of these seasons and different things that we're brought to. It's not by the strength of our own bootstraps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. All right, so we're going to give you a break from listening to us for a minute. I want you to flip the page and look at John, chapter 15. You've got all verses 1 through 11 there. I've got 1 through 5 on the screen in a minute.
Speaker 1:Here I'll toggle to the second half of this passage, but a very familiar passage Jesus saying I am the vine, you are the branches, you. The only way that you are going to bear fruit is to remain in me. Right, we could just summarize this whole thing to say spiritual disciplines help us remain connected to the vine as branches so that we can bear fruit. We could summarize that and move on. But before we move on, what I want you to do and you can do this just on your own at your table I want you to write down what it would like, what in your situation, right, and for every one of us it's going gonna maybe look a little bit different. You may still. You may be working full time, right, and you may think okay, what would it look like for me, right, if I were to get better in these areas of spiritual disciplines and the fruit I was producing began to? I started producing more fruit as a result of just that connection to the vine. What would that look like? Like, paint a picture in that space that you have below that passage there. What would that look like in a specific area of your life? It may be as a parent, it may be as a spouse, it may be as an employee, it may be as a grandparent, whatever you pick. But what could that look like If you said, hey, over these next weeks, right, if I really began to train myself in these ways more and more, how could this passage of remaining in me and you will produce fruit, what could that fruit look like over the next weeks and months, if you were to really get even more serious about these disciplines?
Speaker 1:I'm going to give you three minutes just to begin to write, and maybe you come back to that later on this week. But go ahead, spend a couple minutes doing that and we'll pick back up, thank you, thank you. Okay, you may come back to that at home later this week and just continue to do that. Like, well, I love that. I love that thought. Like I'm going to spend some time doing that, like as my walk with Christ continues to grow right, as I am working in these areas in my own life, like how could this impact? Like, what kind of fruit? What would that look like in my life? What fruit would it produce? That's a good exercise. I hope you'll spend some more time doing that.
Speaker 1:We're going to skip over the Colossians 1 passage just for time's sake. You can go back and look at that there. That gives us another just foundation for why we do, why these things should be important practices in our lives as believers. But I want us to move on to the passage out of Hosea, chapter six. As Casey and I were working on the material, she wanted to include this verse, and so I wanted her to share a little bit about why this one made the cut.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as we were, as we were developing sort of the outline for this course and I was digging in, this Hosea verse came to me. I'm going to read it first and then we'll chat about it. Hosea 6, 3 says let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going out is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains, that water the earth. And really I saw this as there's two very distinct sections of this verse. There's the first half. That gives us a very practical to do Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. So the goal of the spiritual disciplines and the course that we're going to embark on together is to know the Lord. It's not to check off a box so that we can feel like we're better Christians or that we're doing something that someone else isn't doing. It's because we deeply desire to know the heart of our Lord, and every day that we wake up is another opportunity to know a different facet of who he is and become a little bit more like him on that sanctification journey like Daniel was talking about. And so sometimes, as we're going through and we're going to talk about misconceptions and some guardrails in just a second. As we're going through spiritual disciplines, it can be really easy to either and we mentioned it earlier get down on ourselves because I missed a day of my Bible reading and now I might as well quit because I'm just a failure. It's like no. The goal of this is not to say, oh, I made it every single day for the whole year. When you look back, did you grow in your heart knowledge of the Lord? Did you become more like him? Let us press on to know the Lord. And then there's sort of a promise here at the end as well. His going out is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains, that water the earth. And so, as we're going through these different channels of grace, or spiritual disciplines as we call them, there's a promise that he will meet us there, and we don't know what that's going to look like in particular or what he has for everyone on their different spiritual journeys. But we do know that there are very defined methods with which the Lord has given us to meet with him, and whether it's serving in the church, coming to worship, reading his word, fasting, all the things we're going to talk about. Those are ways that he has very clearly given us and said like meet with me in these ways and they will be profitable. And so, just as the rains water the earth, and we can be sure that these cycles will continue to happen until the Lord creates the new earth, we also can be sure that the Lord is going to meet with us through these methods of spiritual discipline.
Speaker 2:There's a metaphor that I really like, and it says when you go to turn on a light, you don't produce the electricity, but you do expect that the light is going to turn on. And in the same way, when we open our Bibles, I'm not the one who generates the power of the Lord meeting with me or stirs the Holy Spirit, but what I can do is open up that Bible and read the words that the Lord has written and expect that the electricity is going to come on, that the Lord is going to meet with me. And so I show up and the Lord does all the work in the same way that I turn. And so I show up and the Lord does all the work in the same way that I turn on the light switch, and then the power comes on.
Speaker 1:That's good. The end of this verse, right here. He will come as the showers, as the spring rains, water the earth. I had a reminder and especially here in Texas, I think, we get this idea when we see rain. We were standing in the food line and I was just visiting with people in the line and right at the beginning of dinner and it just came just a summer shower. It didn't last, but just for a couple of minutes and it was gone. But the person I was talking to actually breathed a sigh Like oh, it's raining.
Speaker 1:It's like it was so refreshing to their soul to see the rain because they know how badly we need rain and what it does for the earth To even understand spiritual disciplines in that language. Right, yes, we want to do this To your point. It was so well stated. Right, like we come to this because we want to know the Lord. And what does knowing the Lord do? It brings refreshment, right. It brings life to our very souls, right To who we are Like. That ought to be a motivator as we go through this and help lay that foundation. Why would God say you know, hide my word in your heart, come to me in prayer, fast worship, have community with other believers, serve me all right, give of yourself and sacrifice for others. Why, would he say, to do these? Not just to give us a list of things to do, but actually to bring life and refreshment to our spirit. And so that ought to be just energizing and just encouraging to say, yeah, let's do this, let's go on this journey together. So I love that you picked that verse.
Speaker 2:I'll real quickly say that when it says know, it's not knowing something just for knowledge. In the original language, the word know means to distinguish or discern or perceive, in other words, to know by experience. Like my husband, I know him so well that if someone were to say something about him, I could tell you whether that was true or not. Same with this know that they're speaking about here. Let us know the Lord so well that we can discern when he is moving, because we know his heart.
Speaker 1:That's good, so well that we can discern when he is moving, because we know his heart. That's good, which leads really well into. We're going to hopefully here lay some good guardrails, and we're going to do that in a minute, but before we get there, I think it's important to clear up a few misconceptions about what spiritual disciplines are and what they aren't, which we've done a little bit of that along the way, so we don't really need to spend a ton of time here. But one of those misconceptions I think you just touched on, spiritual disciplines, right, are just so I can have knowledge in my head. But you said, by pointing out, what the word actually means, it is a different kind of knowledge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Lord doesn't want us to just know about him in our heads and then go about our lives as if nothing is different with us. He wants us to know his heart in a way that it changes who we are from the inside out. So after our heart changes, then our actions change, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so many times in counseling situations, I'll sit down with someone who's really struggling with a circumstance, something going on in their life, and as you start to peel back the layers, a lot of times not every time, but a lot of times it will come from just wrong thinking that has led to just being stuck in the place that they are. And so many times the one thing that I have to do is just get them to start thinking about the character of God. Right, I don't ask them to. You know, give me a. You know I don't say, well, if you know these facts, if you can recite the kings of Israel in order for me, that's really going to help you in this area. Right, that's not the kind of knowledge that is going to help in those moments, but the kind of knowledge that does help is like, hey, let's talk about what do you know about the character of God? Right, that time in his word, that time in prayer, all of the things that we're going to talk about, those help build a knowledge about the character of God. And when you start meditating on the character of God, right, it speaks to those situations Like you said it about, like, hey, I can, you can say something about Tony, right, but because you know him in a way that I don't, you're going to know whether that thing we hear about Tony is true or not.
Speaker 1:Because you know his character, right. You know him and guys. That's one of the things as we engage in these disciplines, right? What it's going to, the goal here is it's the misconception. It's not going to just fill your head with more facts or data. If that's all it does, then we're not doing it correctly. What it needs to be doing is drawing your heart to have a deeper understanding of God's character.
Speaker 2:Something that I love to tell other women that I'm mentoring is that the Lord is after our heart, not our perfection. And that when we're doing these spiritual disciplines, we can feel like, because we messed up and we missed a day, or we weren't able to attend church one week, or whatever it is, that we might as well just give up. But the Lord is after your heart. He's not after your perfection, in the same way that he's not after your head just being full of a lot of facts and knowledge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my youngest daughter is taking classes through Liberty University online. She's a biblical studies major and last night we were standing in the kitchen and she was well, whining is a good word to describe what she was doing. She's taking Old Testament right now and she was like why do I have to know this? Like what is good, is this going to be? And I was like, oh my goodness, that's so fun. Like to learn this, right.
Speaker 1:Like she goes, the archeology stuff is killing me, dad. I'm like that's like the best part. Like I love the knowledge and there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with like just becoming a Bible history nerd and learning as much as you can about what's going on culturally and historically and all these things. Like I hope you want to know more of those things. But I tried to help her in that moment say, hey, you're building a foundation, you're learning how to read and use the word of God, but it isn't going to just be to answer questions on a quiz, right? Like these things that your professor is trying to help you understand is actually to prepare you to be able to communicate who God is to other people with the truth of his word, and so that's what we're trying to do for ourselves and for others. So other misconceptions we need to. I'm looking at our time.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I was going to say this this leads very well into setting guardrails, I think, because what we're getting at is the difference between legalism on one side and then being noncommittal on the other side. So can you help us develop a picture of what that looks like? How do we live within those guardrails when it comes to our spiritual disciplines?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's good, because sometimes that's the misconception. Oh, I don't want to spend too much time doing what we're going to do over these eight weeks because I don't want to get legalistic and rigid right, Like you know. But that's where these guardrails come in. So, building some guardrails here, One of the guardrails that we have to watch out for there's a ditch right.
Speaker 1:Guardrails help protect you from a cliff or from a ditch right. So the guardrail on one side of the road that is protecting us from going off this cliff or into this ditch would be into legalism. How do we guard against legalism as we continue to grow, as we continue to hopefully increase in knowledge, but also even just in our actions, being more godly? I think one of the important things for us in establishing that guardrail is to understand even our ability to get better in a certain area right, Whether it's understanding, whether it's being more Christ-like in our words or our actions, and we start to see growth in that area. To just remember, our ability to do any of that does not come from ourselves.
Speaker 2:If you have time and you look back at the Colossians 129 verse that we had to skip over, it speaks to that exactly, and Paul is saying that everything I do, all of the toiling that I go through, all of that energy comes from the Lord and that's the only way I'm able to do the things that he's called me to do is because he is supplying the energy through his grace. And I think, just to give sort of like a general definition, if you're not really sure what we mean when we're saying legalism, it's that desire to be good enough in your own effort, right? I think that that's like a really a really solid way to explain it.
Speaker 2:And then when we're going into these spiritual disciplines, if you were viewing it from a legalist perspective, you would say I'm going to do these things to earn favor from the Lord. And what we're saying is we want to do these things because we love the Lord and because we seek to know him, not because we want to earn favor from him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so on that side we want to earn. Do with him.
Speaker 5:And, in fact, what they hated about Jesus was his godly character, right when he would show mercy in situations when he would give grace. It was shocking to them. Why would you do that? Why would you forgive sin? Why would you forgive sin?
Speaker 4:Why are you doing all?
Speaker 5:of those things so. I was just thinking along the lines of like if our spiritual disciplines are not producing a heart that looks like Jesus, that is full of a passion for the Lord, that's full of mercy and understanding for others, then it's probably gearing towards legalism and self-righteousness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So to know, right, some examples of how you know maybe you're starting to rub up against that guardrail of legalism. Let's say, man, you can look back, over the last month, you haven't missed a day reading your Bible. Okay, You've even memorized some scriptures along the way. And you're like, look at me, Like I, I, you know, I am getting godly here, we go, right. But then you look and you're like, but you know, I've been so impatient with my wife, Like I've been harsh in the way I've spoken to her, right, Like with my kids, Like I have, absolutely right, I've not been present.
Speaker 1:I've, you know I've been short-tempered with them. Right, I've not been present. I've, you know I've I've been short tempered with them, right, you know, like your time in God's word or your time with him should be like to Jason's point, right, there should be some Christ-like behaviors. Another example of how you know you're rubbing up against that guardrail would be right, if you are, if you, the more time you spend with the Lord, if it's causing you to look down on others who aren't where you are, then you are, you're missing the point. Right, You've moved. You've drifted way too close to this guardrail of legalism or self-righteousness to say look at me and look at what I know, or look at what I do. Right, there's got to be some. You know, if your heart isn't growing in grace with others, then yes, sir Abel, Because none of that is important to the person who has the right attitude.
Speaker 3:Because you should approach the scripture wanting to be changed. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't matter how many verses you memorize, it doesn't matter. You're going to be looking at yourself. You're going to be testing your faith, testing to see where you are as a Christian. You're going to be wanting to do and become more Christ-like in your actions and it's going to show in that, because you have to have that humility before God.
Speaker 3:That's the only way you're going to allow the Spirit to change you, because he's not going to forcibly change you. You have to humble yourself before the Lord and have that desire, and that, legalist, is one of the barriers that we're first talking about that.
Speaker 4:legalism prevents godliness.
Speaker 3:It's the antithesis of that, because godliness is a humble servant who's submitting before his God to serve other people and to love and know his Lord.
Speaker 1:That's good. That's very well put In my season of life sometimes.
Speaker 2:I mean I have a three-year-old, a two-year-old and then one due in December. I don't know if I said that already, but sometimes my Bible reading looks like having the Bible open on the kitchen counter while I'm burping one child and making dinner and another one is screaming at my feet and you're, you know you've got your Bible open. You really thought you were going to read this whole chapter, but you're really just reading one verse at a time with like a 20 minute space in between. And you know what. The Lord doesn't look at that and say like oh, shame on you, you did not have your 30 minutes of quiet time. He sees his daughter who really wants to know him and is doing her absolute best, with the context that she has at the time, to get to know his heart.
Speaker 2:And I know so many moms who are like I might as well not even try you know, try to pick up my Bible until after I'm out of this baby season, because it's just there's no way I can sit down for 30 minutes and it's really as simple as just having it open in the kitchen. Your kids are seeing you like come back and forth from the pages and I promise it won't. It won't return void, because it's like you were saying it's the heart posture that seeks to know the Lord. It's not that you were able to have this perfect quiet time with candles and really pretty highlighters for my ladies in the room, and you know it just doesn't look like that in motherhood most of the time. That's a really cool picture on Pinterest, but it doesn't actually happen and the Lord doesn't care.
Speaker 1:He cares about your heart and the heart posture. These three sections here where we talked about clearing up misconceptions and setting guardrails, and then the next one that you saw, evaluating our heart posture right, they all work. Those things are all working together here, like when our heart posture right to Abel's point and then Casey kind of sharing what that looks like in her life, right, when that desire is God, I want you to change me, right, like that's my focus. Right, I'm not looking at this as like a competition to see if I can do this better than this person, or to you know, because I need to impress somebody. So I'm going to do this Like no God, I just I need you, I desperately need you and I want to know you in deeper ways and I want to apply that knowledge to my life because I want to be changed and I want the people around me right to benefit from what you are doing in my life.
Speaker 1:Right, that heart posture helps to keep us away from those ditches on either side, the one ditch being just this inflated view of ourselves of I'm gonna do this so people around me know how spiritual I am.
Speaker 1:But the other ditch, right, which we have like a minute to think about that ditch here. That other ditch is none of this is important, right? Which we have like a minute to think about that ditch here. That other ditch is none of this is important, right? Like, why should I even really try to have any kind of consistency in God's word or any kind of consistency in prayer? Or, you know, I don't need to prioritize worship with other believers or community, like all those things? Those are fine for some people, but God understands, right? God understands my heart and I'm just gonna you know he knows why I'm not doing those things and why I've prioritized them out of my life, right? How do we stay away from that ditch that just says me and God have a deal worked out and it's okay. He'll understand during this season if I don't, you know, if I'm not at least trying to spend time with him and grow and be obedient to the things he's called me to do as his child. How do we stay away from that ditch?
Speaker 2:Building habits.
Speaker 1:someone said yeah, are habits bad things? Not always right In and of themselves, habits are not bad. It depends on what the habit is right. And so, yeah, clearing up misconceptions, setting those guardrails, having spiritual habits does not have to equate to dry and lifeless and boring and rigid, does it Like? Habits can be really good, good things that keep us growing, other ways that we stay out of that ditch of yeah, what'll happen will happen, and God really doesn't care. Jason, I think you've got to take Jesus at his word.
Speaker 5:There are so many very clear commands, right. There are so many very clear commands, right. If the only Jesus you get is on T-shirts, that allows you to just form your own version of Jesus and you don't hear things like if you want to be my disciple, you must take up your cross and follow me, and lots of other scripture passages that talk about bearing one another's burdens and doing the hard things. So you've got to take the full picture of Jesus and allow Jesus to correct a lot of that passivity.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:Something you can do really practically. I know we have like no time left, but to make that happen, what Jason is talking about is to have an accountability partner or a mentor, someone that's checking in on you and your spiritual walk, and if you don't have one, the church has a program for that. I mean, we have lots of discipleship opportunities, but specifically if you need someone to walk through Christian life with that can help remind you when you've gone into one of these guardrails that I have one, that can be very helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's good, all right. Well, we are absolutely out of time. I want you, though, don't close your book and forget about it until next Wednesday. There is a page where, like give you some practices this week, some things to start to do, maybe start a prayer journal. The other one is use the there's some space in your notebook to take an inventory of where you are right now when it comes to some of these habits or disciplines, like what are you doing now?
Speaker 1:Just be honest, and hopefully, when we get to week eight, as you take inventory, you're like oh, I've grown in some of these areas, so take a minute to take a little spiritual inventory. And then you've got a page of some what could be discussion questions, but it'll just be good for you to have a conversation with yourself or with your spouse about. You've got three questions there to spend a little time on, and then, when we come back next week, we're going to jump into what does it look like to feed ourselves on the word of God, what are some great practical ways that we can grow in doing that, and how does that benefit our lives as we do it? So we're gonna get real practical next week as we think through how do we study the Bible in really helpful ways. So thank you, guys. Hopefully this was a good intro and we'll see you back next week. Okay, thanks guys.