The Practices of Jesus

Piano Anecdote

One of the great joys of my life is music—I was in choirs growing up, loved singing in a group, I learned guitar from Molly, I played trumpet in the marching band in high school, but my the thing that has brought me probably the most joy is playing the piano. There’s hardly been a day of my adult life when I haven’t played piano or at least wished I could have. And it might seem kind of weird to say, but for me playing piano is like a kind of prayer to God—whether I’m banging on it as loud as I can or playing something soft and mild, it’s jut a really important part of my life.

But I didn’t always like it as much as I do now. I started taking piano lessons from this very kind woman, Ms. Bader, in about second grade, and I liked playing, but I didn’t really like practicing. I wanted to play what I wanted to play, I didn’t always want to play what I was assigned. But I kept up with it. Later I started with another piano teacher, and he was a great teacher, but he was also much more intense and had higher expectations. If you didn’t practice your scales and exercises and the songs you had for that week, you would feel his consternation. I remember sitting and badly playing a song that I had not practiced, and he would sit for a second, as I struggled, and he would say, Cambron, that’s how he said my name, Cambron, did you practice this week? And I would have to, sheepishly, admit that I hadn’t. And he would say, well, let’s move on then.

When I look back on the experience of learning piano, I am so, so grateful that I was encouraged and sometimes forced to practice—to do my scales, to do my arpagggios, to play classical music I never would have chosen for myself, to have this challenge of doing something again and again and again until it is like muscle memory in your fingers—because even though now I just play piano for fun, I can sit and have this freedom to play music, and to make up songs, and to learn new songs, and it’s like one of the things in life that I enjoy the most, that I would never have experienced without years of practice. At times painful years of practice. My niece and nephews are learning violin, my sister is too, with them. And if you’ve ever heard someone learning the violin, it’s this horrible noise. It’s like this horrible screeching, whining noise. But after some years of practice, what is more beautiful than a a beautifully played violin?

Intro Series and Spiritual Practices

We are in our series called the Way of Jesus—we’re thinking about what it means to be an apprentice of Jesus, what it means to be with him, to become like him, and to do as he did. Jesus is our Lord, our Savior, and he is also our Rabbi—and that means he has a way of life, a yoke, that he wants us to learn and to adopt for ourselves. And a huge part of what a rabbi would teach his disciples, his apprentices, was how to have a spiritual life. How to have a life of rich, deep communion with God. And he would not only teach about it, but he would live it, be a living example of what it looks like to offer your life and heart to God.

Last week, we talked about spiritual formation, and that for a Christian, the goal of our spiritual formation is to become like Jesus in our hearts, in our spirit. And the way this works is that the Holy Spirit transforms us and does this work, but he does it in cooperation with us. As we change our habits, as we replace the lies of this world with the truth of scripture, as we live in a deep, loving community with other apprentices of Jesus.

And today we’re going to continue that conversation by thinking about spiritual practices. I want to talk about what they are, that they are for, what they aren’t for, and then briefly look at some of the spiritual practices of Jesus.

“A discipline is any activity I can do by direct effort that will eventually enable me to do that which, currently, I cannot do by direct effort.” -John Mark Comer

In music this looks like playing scales, over and over and over, so that someday you can play Beethoven. Which by the way, I still can’t play Beethoven, so I still have practice to do. In sports this is doing drills, running laps, strength training, scrimmages, so that you can be great when you actually play a game. (YMCA kids soccer game…) A practice, or a discipline, it’s something you do again and again and again so that you will be transformed, to be able to do things in the future that you can’t do today.

And this is true in our life with God, our spiritual life. It is practice that we need as apprentices of Jesus in order to become like Jesus. Spiritual practice. And these look like disciplines, habits, rhythms of life, that we intentionally and consistently do again, and again, and again, so that God by his Holy Spirit could make us able to do things that we never thought we could.

Worshipping with your church community, what we are doing right now, is a spiritual discipline, a practice. If you are someone who comes weekly to worship with others, you already are practicing one of the central spiritual disciplines. There are Sundays when your alarm clock goes off, you have this fleeting thought, I could just sleep in…I could go to First Watch and have brunch…I could sleep another hour…I think I’ve heard everything Cambron has to say…but your habit kicks in, you get dressed, and you come even on a day when you don’t feel like it. And that’s when the magic happens. When we start to practice the things of God even when we don’t “feel like it,” that’s when God really starts to change our hearts. But that’s how we become like Jesus, by adopting and practicing these spiritual disciplines.

As Methodists, the way we tend to talk about these spiritual practices, is we call them the means of grace. This is what Wesley called them.

The means of grace are “outward signs, words, or actions, ordained of God, and appointed for this end, to be the ordinary channels whereby he might convey to men, preventing, justifying, or sanctifying grace.” - John Wesley.

In other words, the means of grace are what we do, not in order to earn our salvation, but so that we might open our heart and our life to the work of God. They are the things that we do, to make ourselves available to the transformation that only God can do.

It’s like, if we were horribly thirsty. Like it’s a hot day, we forgot to bring our giant water bottle, and the only thing that will help us is to drink some water. That’s our situation spiritually. And only God can quench our spiritual thirst. Only God can provide what we need. Only God can save us. We can’t provide the water ourselves or find it anywhere else. But God, in the spiritual practices, is saying, this is where the water is. This is where I promise to quench your thirst. This is the means by which I will save you and transform you.

Spiritual Disciplines: “The practices that are based on the lifestyle of Jesus that create a time and space for us to access the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, and in doing so, be transformed from the inside out.” -John Mark Comer

So this is essentially, what the spiritual practices are for. They are an essential part of our transformation into apprentices of Jesus, an essential part of our sanctification, our journey of becoming more like Christ.

Now what are they not:

A way to prove how righteous we are before others, or how much more Christian we are than others…we must be on guard about spiritual pride, hypocrisy, etc. (Pharisees)

A way to earn God’s favor…God doesn’t love us more because we do spiritual practices, there is not some spiritual scorecard with good and bad, going up and down. This is NOT the way the Christian life works

A way to earn eternal life or get into heaven (same idea, but this is only grace)

A way to show our spiritual authority

As apprentices of Jesus, we want to observe and imitate Jesus’ spiritual life.

Mark 1:35–39 NIV

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

1. Jesus prayed.

Jesus frequently withdrew to solitary places to pray, demonstrating the importance of personal communion with God.

Luke 5:16: "But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed."

Mark 1:35: "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed."

2. Jesus fasted.

Before beginning His public ministry, Jesus fasted for forty days, highlighting the role of fasting in spiritual preparation.

Matthew 4:2: "After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry."

3. Jesus memorized and meditated upon scripture.

Jesus often engaged with Scripture, teaching from it and fulfilling its prophecies.

Matthew 4:4: "Jesus answered, 'It is written: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

4. Jesus worshipped in community.

Jesus participated in communal worship, attending synagogue services and celebrating Jewish festivals.

Luke 4:16: "He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom."

5. Jesus served and gave of himelf for the poor.

Jesus demonstrated humility and servanthood, notably by washing His disciples' feet.

John 13:4-5: "So he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet."

6. Jesus frequently sought silence and solitude.

Jesus sought solitude to recharge and commune with God, emphasizing the need for quiet reflection.

Mark 6:31: "Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, 'Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.'"

A lot of people, when it comes to spiritual practices, a couple of things happen:

we fill up our lives with busyness, and there is no time for spiritual practice; we fill up our time with good things, and those good things crowd out the best thing; my prayer, my hope, is that you would figure out really quickly how to become less busy. Busyness is killing the church, and often it is suffocating our hearts, cutting us off from the presence of GOd

we are lazy and unintentional with our time when it comes to our life with God; we schedule everything else except the most important thing; Dallas Willard says grace is opposed to earning, not to effort; and so sometimes we just need to own up that we’ve been lazy in our life with God, and strive to make a change

we equate doing for God with being with God; we think our busyness in the life of the church is the same thing as actually praying and focusing our attention upon God; pastors are the ones who are the worst at this; but it can happen to anyone. Church busyness is not a spiritual practice…

we’re so afraid of legalism, that we’re hesitant to make any effort at all when it comes to our spiritual life; if I do something everyday it will become a ritual and not mean anything…but y’all, this is not our problem. Culturally we are some of the least spiritually trained to have ever lived. We desperately need ritual and habit, if we ever hope to become the people that GOd wants us to be.

we don’t have anyone to hold us accountable to the spiritual life

we don’t have a good picture of why we should do so!

Jesus in every facet of his life, was modeling for his apprentices, how to have a rich, life-giving, honest, beautiful, captivating relationship with God. He was showing what is looks like to have communion with our Father…he was modeling for us, what we were made for as human beings. He is showing us how to to become who we want to become. How to become at peace, how to be happy, how to experience wholeness in this life, how to experience freedom in our souls, freedom with each other, freedom before God. And he’s saying to us, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. This is how you do it. This is how you live as a human being.

I want you to imagine what your life would be like if you prioritized the spiritual practices of Jesus. What would happen to our hearts, if every single one of us, every morning, began in the embrace of our Father in heaven? What if we began our days, acknowledging that Jesus is King, and that he loves us, and that our God wants to take care of us? What would happen in our hearts, if we fasted together, regularly, as a community, seeking God’s presence together, in holy desperation? What would happen, if we scheduled time in our life for solitude and silence to be with our Father? What would happen in our hearts, if every week, every Sunday, we showed up to worship our God, to adore him, and if we showed up every week to be with each other—imagine the depths God might take us to, with that kind of consistency?

Practical Application:

Replace a bad habit with a spiritual practice of Jesus

Practice reading scripture before phone every day this week