Parkview Training Podcast

Hey, Parkview family. My name is Andrea Gaston and I serve on staff here as our HR and women's ministry director. And I'm getting the opportunity to be a part of this series on what is a whole disciple, a whole disciple. The simple answer is a forgiven child of God who is taking the next step to learn Jesus, love Jesus and live Jesus. Now, what I have been tasked to do is to walk through what it is to learn Jesus specifically in the upward direction, and that means submitting to God's word, which is the Bible. So what does the Bible tell us about this aspect of being a disciple? Essentially, the entire Bible is telling us about this. It is one story about how we are to know Jesus, the Son of God. So really it's the whole Bible. There's not one part that is not pointing us to know Jesus.
But if you do want some specific passages, I have some of those for you too. Psalm 1 19, 1 0 5 says, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. That means it brings understanding to where we're going in John six. It has a lot to say about Jesus as the bread of life and what that means for us. And later in that that chapter, we hear Simon Peter say, Lord, whom shall we? Where shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God. So we are learning from learners who are with Jesus, his original disciples, that Jesus has the word of life, he is the word of life. He is the bread of life. And he and Jesus taught his disciples. He taught his 12, he taught his multiple.
He taught crowds. Jesus teaches about how we are to understand him. And so now we have that included in the Bible. It is so important for us to know Christ. It's the whole purpose of the Bible. And so what does this actually mean? Let me break this down into some just plain language like we're talking over coffee. How do we understand that this life that God has rescued us from, which is our sin and the world and the brokenness and the fallenness, and we've been re that we've been redeemed through Jesus and we are it. This life is given to us in the power of the spirit. How do we understand this? We understand it by knowing God. Well, how do we know that? By seeing Christ. well, how do we see Christ? We go to the Bible to see Christ. And so all of this is done in community.
It's not a solitary issue - practice, although it is, it's also to be done communally. And so we do that with one another. So let's also discuss what does health look like? And because this can get really tricky real quick, I grew up fairly legalistic and doing all the right things. And it really wasn't until my late twenties that I really came to understand the freedom and the beauty of Christ and just fully living in submission to God's word and not just out of fear. And so there is a healthy way that you can do this and there's some unhealthy ways we can do this. So first of all, submitting to God's word. It's, it's not just going to be about finding a Bible verse that's comforting or one that we like, that really helps us feel good about our life and how we're living it.
When we come to the Bible, we want to come letting the Bible tell us what our life is supposed to look like. Not coming to the Bible saying, show me how my life is okay, it is meant to change us. And the spirit does that. It's not just the words on the page, although the Bible we're told is alive and active, but it's the spirit's help that helps us to see the reality of the truth of the gospel. That is the good news of Jesus Christ. So really when we're reading the Bible, we want not to have our lives be supported in the way of we walk away every time just being like, yeah, I got this. I'm so comforted, I'm so encouraged. We really want to come to that time open-handed before the Lord and being ready to be molded by what we're reading instead of molding what we're reading by how we're living.
So I personally don't love like application applying God's word. It's semantics. I get it. What I really love is how do we respond to God's word? And the slight difference for me in this is that when we're applying God's life, to me it seems like how do I make God's word fit into my life that is already existing? And when we're responding to God's word, we're saying, how do I make my life change in light of what God is calling me to in light of what I'm learning about Christ? In light of what the Bible is saying, that is I am laying down my life as I prefer it to be, and I am choosing to listen to what is true and what I believe is true about Jesus and follow him in submission to God's word, the Bible. And so that is, there's a lot of ways that that can be healthy for us, right?
As Christians, as as followers of Christ, as learners and disciples of Christ. We want to come away having been changed in our hearts and our minds, sometimes in our affections, sometimes in our attitudes and behaviors. But we, we won't, we won't come away from that time not receiving anything because when God's word is is read, when it goes out, it does not come back void. And so that means that for our hearts and our minds, when we sit down and we read, we may not feel different. We may not feel like we are changing or like we've changed. But the good news is like the Bible does the work, the word does the work. And so we don't have to force ourselves to change on our own. We just submit to this work of the spirit and we walk in faith that that Christ is changing us.
Now, this may be a little bit more tangible in how I understand it. What is health? Health is growing, right? When we're healthy, we are growing. We're growing in thinking of children. They grow taller, they grow a little wider. Kids are growing in energy, they need more sleep. Thinking of adults, we grow in understanding we're continuing also like I think it's our skin that never stops growing. There's something that never stops growing. But basically health is when we're growing. And of course there's always outliers in that. And then think of what unhealth looks like. Unhealth the opposite. It'd be atrophy, right? If we don't feed ourselves, what happens? We literally waste away. We, we shrink, we become smaller to the point of even death. And so that's what we want to not do, right? There's no way that we can do, do either or or sorry, do both.
That's like feasting and famining. Famining, is that a word? And so basically when we come to the Bible, we are coming to God's word. And as Jesus said, he is the bread of life. He is like manna from heaven in the actual form, much like the Egyptian, no, the Israelites had experienced in the desert. God gave them manna, their daily bread. But we have Jesus who is sustaining and fulfilling us. And so when we come to the Bible, that's what we get. We get filled by Christ in the spirit's power. And so we want to be growing, right? So we wanna be people who are in God's word. And sometimes that looks like five minutes and that's great. Sometimes that looks like 30 minutes or an hour or some real serious saints more than an hour. But you know what? All you need is a few minutes with the Lord.
So if that's what you do and you're doing that consistently, that means you're feeding on Christ. You are feeding your soul, your heart, and your mind on the truth of who Christ is. And so some things I wanna talk to you about are practices. How? How do we do this? How do we get there? So first of all, very practically, just sit down and look at your calendar. How are you spending your time? Where are the places you're going? What are the things you are are spending yourself on? And then take a look and see where you may need to build an extra time to sit with the Lord, with the Bible, hopefully in a quiet space. But I also know that's not always possible. There's, there are many families with young kids. There's many people who have a lot of rambunctious stuff happening around.
I've got three cats. And although it's great, sometimes it doesn't make for a great quiet space. But what we do is what we have, right? We use what God has given us. And if we need to make time for me, that looks like getting up earlier than I want. I'm not a morning person, don't love it. But in order to feed my soul so that I do not waste away, that is something I have to submit to. I have to submit my entire life to pursuing Jesus, to submitting to who he is and who he says he is. So if you want to grow in this, if you want to learn how to do this, it's gonna take time. That's always the most frustrating part of learning anything is the time it takes and how we, we feel really foolish as we're trying new things, right?
When you think of riding a bike, how did you, how did you think of that? You were wobbly. You weren't really sure if that was gonna carry you, if you were gonna be able to, to stay up the whole time. It's a scary thing to do new things. It's a scary thing to pick back up something that you might have fallen off of once. And yet we are called to follow Christ. And so I would say it's gonna take longer than you want it to, to feel normal and to, to miss a day and feel like something's missing. Another thing is engage as many learning styles as possible. Are you listening? Are you seeing? Are you reading and writing? Are you maybe a kinesthetic learner? I know I have a friend who does a lot of movement to learn. In one of the retreats I was part of, we had our women to recite a Bible verse by doing different movements.
And that really helps us learn in different ways. And there's a bunch of resources that we've put together and, and they have different options as far as ways to learn. And so my last thing I wanna talk to you about is how do I do this with others? Because I'm not just called to follow Christ on my own. If that was the case, I'd stay home on Sundays in my pajamas, in my bed doing, being a bedside Baptist, if you will. That's what I always heard growing up. It's someone who stays in bed instead of goes to church. We can't do this on our own. There's no way. It's not possible. Even Jesus and his disciples, even the smallest number, he had three. And so we're, and then he sent the disciples what, out in twos. And so there, there is a, a communal aspect to this and there's also a helping one another.
Maybe I'm farther along in my understanding and my knowledge and my practice of learning Christ in the Word. There's a lot of people who are farther along than me. And so what that looks like is, Hey, do you wanna read the Bible together? You literally only need a Bible in another person. And you pick one spot, you start reading together, you study together, you learn Christ together. And that's how you grow as a disciple. That's how they grow as a disciple. And hopefully we see a waterfall effect in that way. That is what we long for, to be a church of disciples and disciple makers. And so these are very, very few quick tips and ideas and thoughts on what it looks like to submit to God's word. To believe that Jesus is the truth, he is unchanging because the Bible is innerant, that means without error.
And it was written how many thousands of years ago. And we still turn to it as our unchanging truth. And so if that is the case, if that's real, if that's true, then we need to be in the word with one another, consistently feeding on the truth of Christ. So that is my encouragement to you of what this can look like. I don't have all the answers. You may be watching this thinking, you missed so many different things. And I'm aware of that. I humbly admit that I do not know all that there is. And so if you have additional ideas, practice them, share them, talk with your community group, talk with your roommate, with your family about them, engage others. And that is probably, for me, one of the hardest things is engaging others in what I'm learning. So I'm challenged in this daily. This is not something I have down. So it is also my accountability sharing with you as well to be in the word of God because it is our life. And so I, with that, I encourage you Parkview family. I like to call you family and encourage you to be in the word, enjoy Christ in this way.