Following Jesus in the Way | Bill Dogterom

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Intro/Outro: 00:08

You're listening to GARDEN CHURCH Podcast. We're in a series called Church on Fire, a journey through the book of Acts. This is the story of ordinary people filled with the spirit carrying the presence of Jesus into every corner of the world. The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is alive and in us today. Join us as we step into the call to be people set on fire for his mission.

Bill Dogterom: 00:32

Yeah. A couple of weeks ago, shout out to all the folks in Centimeters as well. And just again, reminder for all my Vanguard peeps, you're one fifth of the way through the semester, so good on you. Don't don't don't let it lag now. It's time to dig in.

Bill Dogterom: 00:50

Yeah? Couple of weeks ago, like I mentioned, Ramin alluded to this, I kind of poked Aaron with the hope that he would get chapter 19 right. And like the overachiever he did, he we now have a mini series of like 83 different sermons or something, I don't know, coming out of coming out of this. And in some ways, it's not inappropriate to really spend some time because Acts chapter 19 is the high watermark of the book of Acts. It's downhill from here.

Bill Dogterom: 01:21

We don't have any I mean, we've got some colossal, enormous things happening in the next couple of weeks that what we'll talk about today kinda sets the stage for, I think. But from here on out, Paul, the the enemies are are on the prowl. He is gonna end up It it it's just almost this kind of drifting towards his execution at the back end of the of of the book. But Acts chapter 19 indicates, kind of a high watermark of the mission to the Gentiles with, as we will learn, over the next couple of weeks, what I think legitimately could be called revival breaking out in that in that city. And so with that in mind, I'd I I I wanna kind of underline what foundationally gets us to that point.

Bill Dogterom: 02:19

Revival, renewal, the moves of the spirit come often incubated in spaces and people's hearts through an intentional devotion. And we see that kind of happening in this in this moment. We we are looking at this extended conversation and trying to think through how do we, not again, how do we imitate them in in in what they did but what what's the posture? What's the heart that that sets us up for whatever it is whatever it is that the Lord might be doing? Not not just the triumphant celebratory moments, right, but the hardship and the difficulty because I really think that mountaintop experience that we'll look at here in the next couple of weeks really kind of dominoes towards some of the things that are coming, challenges, difficulties, problems that are coming and we don't wanna think this is the work of God and this isn't.

Bill Dogterom: 03:27

We don't wanna think the the the the wonder that we'll be engaged in and just the societal transformation. Right? That's the work of God. And and and then he leaves the building and no, no, no. God is as present in the on ramp as he is in the journey, right, in the celebration and as he is moving to depth.

Bill Dogterom: 03:57

And so I wanna invite you to consider that because my guess is that there are there are people in our communities whether here or or Centimeters or in overflow or watching online, become aware of how many folks there are all over the world for whom this moment is a moment of meeting. And I I wanna I wanna suggest that it while we love the mountaintop experiences, we're not built to live there and and life is always transition and where we get stuck is by making any place our permanent home when God has moved on, when he is up to something else. And Paul exhibits this for us here. You know he has promised earlier on a couple weeks ago, again, were in this passage where he passed through Ephesus and the people there wanted him to stay and stick around and preach and he said he couldn't, he had to catch a boat to make it to the festival in Jerusalem time to fulfill a vow and so he said, if it's the Lord's will, I'll come back And apparently, it was the Lord's will and in the planning and here he is in this city.

Bill Dogterom: 05:23

He has encountered some folks who are disciples but who have not the full understanding of what their discipleship means, which by the way is all of us. Can we just say that? It's it's it's all of us. We're If if we're not if if we're not reaching after the one that we claim is Lord, we're a disciple of a lesser Lord. Right?

Bill Dogterom: 05:53

He is our understanding of Jesus continues to grow, continues to stretch and that's important. These guys had some doctrinal issues to get straightened out and some work of the spirit to be completed and then we pick up the story in chapter eight, chapter 19 verse eight rather. Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months arguing persuasively the kingdom of God. But some of them became obstinate. They refused to believe and publicly maligned the way.

Bill Dogterom: 06:46

So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord. So Paul's typical practice to take advantage of his training as a rabbi, to take advantage of his kind of implicit invitation goes into the synagogues and begins there to boldly preach Jesus as the Messiah for whom we have been praying and making the case apparently, persuasively, boldly such that there were enough folks who who thought it was worth resisting. That there was a tension and I want you to notice how Luke describes these folks.

Bill Dogterom: 07:50

Some of them became obstinate and refused to believe and then publicly maligned the way. This isn't the main core of what I wanna talk about but I I want to underline, Paul is preaching persuasively. We've made this case over and over and over again that people are not brought to faith by a clever argument. Not even by the declaration of the truth. We have to do that.

Bill Dogterom: 08:19

We have to be wise. We have to be proclaiming. We have to But but it's not a simple, oh, I get it now kind of kind of a thing that happens as people turn the corner towards faith especially if they are invested as these folks were in the older system that didn't accommodate this understanding of who Jesus was. And the language that Luke uses here is really interesting. They dug their heels in.

Bill Dogterom: 08:51

They became obstinate. Paul is is is taking ground. Right? He is he is winning the argument. He's winning, if you will, the popular opinion about Jesus and and and the who who these men are, we don't know.

Bill Dogterom: 09:09

We we kinda gather them up in formal biblical terms as the Judaizers, those who who have this connection and then even when they come to faith sometimes they want to maintain that connection with circumcision and various other things but at least we don't even know if they have made that turn yet. At this stage of the game, they just realize that if if if what Paul is saying is true, their privileged position is at risk and and and feel that their privileged position is worth holding onto enough to resist what they Please, they refused to believe. That's interesting turn of phrase. They recognized they recognized the truth of what Paul was saying. They recognized the through line of his argument.

Bill Dogterom: 10:04

They recognized that he had gathered up this core truth and it wasn't that they were persuaded, it's that they refused to believe. Anybody else find yourself sometimes in that place? Where you are are brought to an awareness, brought to clear and solid understanding of the truth of of something but because it will require a change in you, because it will push you off center, because it will reduce your role, you refuse to believe. You double down on stupid. Any anybody want some of that action?

Bill Dogterom: 10:54

I mean, just the two of us, thanks bro. I'm so glad you're here because that happens, doesn't it? I mean and and and we could look we could we could work histories on this. I mean, you know, the the quartz crystal watch, the epic of time keeping invented by the Swiss and guess who else invented the digital timepiece? The Swiss.

Bill Dogterom: 11:19

They didn't think anything could be made of it so they sold the rights to SACO and Timex. Anybody have a crystal watch that keeps time by you don't even know what I'm talking about. Your your phones are are so okay. Okay. Rameen.

Bill Dogterom: 11:39

How's the old guys stick together here? Yeah. Yeah. But do you know what I mean? It's like that when the paradigm shifts, everything goes back to zero and those who have leveraged to their advantage the old paradigm are the most resistant to that.

Bill Dogterom: 11:58

That's right. And that is true whether you're whether the issues we're talking about are Jewish or Christian or technology or or or whatever else it is. There is a reason Los Angeles does not have a functioning transit system. Back in the sixties, we had the strategy of a red line that would get us from Long Beach to Pasadena to Los Angeles and the powers that be petroleum interests and so on and so forth decided that we would do better with freeways than transit systems. When you are invested in the old, it is really hard to let go of your position of privilege.

Bill Dogterom: 12:42

And before we start to point the finger at those people, remember the three that are pointing back at us. And we do it theologically, we do it we do it in all kinds of ways. They became obstinate, they refused to believe and then they started to smear the name. They started to malign the name. They started to malign the way.

Bill Dogterom: 13:12

This is how the disciples of Jesus were known, not people who believe the right things but people who were following in the way, the philosophy, the way of wisdom of Jesus. That's what that phrase gathers up as you know. So it's not just a belief system that has has, you know, come under question under the magnifier, it is it is it is they are starting to And and Paul gives us some sense in Romans and others of his letters what this might look like. Oh, these are people who are borderline cannibals. They eat his body and drink his blood.

Bill Dogterom: 13:48

Ick. Or if grace is such a good idea, why don't we just sin so that grace abounds? And you can hear a mis a deliberate misunderstanding and misstatement of the nature of the gospel. And so after three months, Paul applies the wisdom of Jesus and shakes the dust off his feet and moves out of the synagogue and rents a hall. The Hall Of Tyrannus, we don't know anything about it except that the the it's not a particularly complementary name of the owner, a tyrant.

Bill Dogterom: 14:33

It could be a businessman, it could be somebody who rented out spaces in ancient Ephesus much the way that here we are in a rented out space and maybe maybe the the tradition suggests that that folks would work during the cool of the day, early morning until around 10:30, 11:00 and then when the heat they would move into a that Mediterranean climate would move into a siesta period. So Paul is renting the hall, if you will, from roughly 11:00 until throughout the hot hours of the afternoon until late afternoon and he is now bring and notice he's he brought the disciples with him. So that original crew, the 12 from the first part of the chapter plus whomever else has joined. Now Oh, people of the way and disciples are synonymous terms. They are those who are still learning about Jesus, they don't have all of the details nailed down as do none of us in this room but they have determined to course correct, to set the trajectory of their lives towards the following of the way of Jesus.

Bill Dogterom: 15:51

And in so doing, have have begun to self identify as his disciples. And unfortunately, that term has has gotten hijacked by Christianese and it has come to mean much much less than it used to mean. Disciples has has this notion of some and and we've talked about it often enough that perhaps that's not accurate in this sense but it's somebody who has decided that the master, the rabbi is worthy of emulation. Not just correct in his teachings but has has figured something out about life that is worthy of of of of embodying. Right?

Bill Dogterom: 16:39

They see things in him that Oh man, I wish I wish I knew how to be angry like Jesus knows how to be angry. I wish I could treat women with the safety, dignity and respect that made them feel completely and 100% safe the way Jesus did. I I I wish I didn't have to have the last word all the time the way Jesus didn't have to have the last word. I wonder what he did to get to that point that if I started to do it, maybe I would get to that point. That's a disciple.

Bill Dogterom: 17:24

Think apprentice. Think somebody who wants to learn plumbing or or or to electric electrician and and finds a master or a journeyman at least, a master, somebody who's a little further down the road, who knows how to read the blueprints, who knows how to calculate loads on the various legs of the circuit breakers, who knows how to how to run the cable through the through the walls. Right? And and I I wanna I I wanna learn how to do my life as an electrician in the way that this master has has learned how to do it. I was an apprentice electrician for just under a year.

Bill Dogterom: 18:13

It was necessary for the job that I was doing to help pay my way through through college and and my I was with a a journeyman, actually, was a master electrician and we were doing mostly sound installations and and so on and so forth in these buildings and and, you know, various fire detection and all of the all of the things and he had a very particular way of tying wire and it was You count it how many times. He had a very particular way of coiling extension cords. To this day, I mean, is this is forty years later, I still, whenever I've got an extension cord that I'm coiling, I still coil it the same way that he taught me to because we Over and over, no, that was wrong, do it again. Oh, no, that was wrong. Do it over.

Bill Dogterom: 19:05

Talk about a tyrannus. I mean, was that kind of dynamic. Right? You you learn how to do things by watching the master do things that you then decide that you are going Nobody wonders whether they're an apprentice, a disciple of the master. You don't have to wonder that.

Bill Dogterom: 19:29

Is the way you're living reflective of the way the master is living? If it is not, you have no reasonable ground to consider yourself his disciple. I believe everything the master believes. I just don't do a thing that he does. I'm sorry.

Bill Dogterom: 19:49

You might be a student but you're not a disciple.

Intro/Outro: 19:52

That's right.

Bill Dogterom: 19:53

You're not an apprentice. That's right. You haven't you haven't gotten up a great while before it's yet day to go to a lonely place to pray because that's what he did that you actually can do. Right. Yeah.

Bill Dogterom: 20:05

So if you're not If we're not if we're not doing what he did, why should we apply disciple to us? We want the outcomes without the inputs. This is the this is the the challenge. So when he takes the disciples, the people of the way into this lecture hall, he now opens up the conversation to a broader audience. Gentiles perhaps would feel a bit uncomfortable coming into the synagogue, a lecture hall rented for business might not be the case.

Bill Dogterom: 20:42

When we started, we were a in a cigar a lounge in Downtown Long Beach and we had people coming in, wandering in that would not join us on Even in Even this morning because it was a neutral space, a third space for them. And so similarly, this is happening and it goes on now, Luke tells, for two years he is doing this. Two years, 11:00 in the morning till roughly 06:00 in the evening. Two years. Day by day, the disciples are with him and Luke just euphemistically says, by the time they're done in two years, the gospel, the message, the way has been promulgated throughout that region of Asia Minor.

Bill Dogterom: 21:37

There's not a city that has not been influenced. Of course, Ephesus was a central location, people would be coming in to do business, they would be coming in to to trade, they would be coming in for entertainment, they would be coming in because it was the kind of the center of idol worship. The major temples were all there, they would be coming in and then and then maybe maybe the buzz on the street, maybe the gossip in the in the Starbucks would, hey, have you had Come on over. You you're like Strange things that he's saying but something something, something. And over the course of two years, it appears that what Paul did was disciple him.

Bill Dogterom: 22:18

Just verse by verse, leading them through the story. It wasn't all evangelism, I'm guessing. I think it was teaching them more completely, fully, the way Ananias and excuse me, the way Priscilla and Aquila did with Apollos, more adequately the way of the Lord. More adequately the way of the Lord. Oh, I see you're I see you're a tent maker.

Bill Dogterom: 22:40

Let me let me talk to you how you can make tents in Jesus name. Oh, I I see you're a merchant. Well, let me suggest that being a merchant as a disciple is different than being a merchant who's not a disciple. Oh, you're a soldier. In the Roman army.

Bill Dogterom: 23:02

Interesting. Can you think with me for a few minutes about what it would look like for you to be a soldier in the Roman army in Jesus name? Can you imagine what that let's talk about that together. About what because if discipleship is ticking the box on the on the exam, not not a problem. But if discipleship is learning to live my life the way Jesus would live my life if Jesus were living my life, then it's gonna be case studies.

Bill Dogterom: 23:41

Then it's gonna be questions. Oh, I see you're a tax collector, interesting. I think you can be a tax collector and a disciple of Jesus. Now it's gonna change the way you think about collecting taxes. You you you you you can't be one for the government and one for me.

Bill Dogterom: 24:02

You can't be doing that anymore. You can't be doubling your rates so that people pay more under cover of authority. You can't you can't be doing that. You see, what happens for disciples is is a couple of things. One is they start to realize everything I do is informed by that primary identity.

Bill Dogterom: 24:25

I'm not first a a husband or a wife or a son or a daughter or an employer or an employee. I'm not even first a man or a woman, I'm first a disciple of Jesus and that starts to work its way up into how I am a man or a woman, a husband, a wife, a son or a daughter, an employer or employee and fill in fill in in in the gaps. Yeah? Yeah. So so so so this this two two years of soaking in this extraordinary teaching, Paul must have been a machine.

Bill Dogterom: 25:00

Yeah. Be able to do this over this course of time, I mean, just an astonishing ringing out of his life for these folks. Yeah. And we're gonna see the passion they have for him when it comes to say goodbye because they recognize and he tells them, I'm never gonna see you again. I'm checking out of here.

Bill Dogterom: 25:26

So think about think about your role. Maybe some of you sitting there are students. How would Jesus be a student if he were you? Now, you know, not if you were Jesus. That's not discipleship.

Bill Dogterom: 25:41

We already have Jesus. We don't need any more. We have one and he is perfectly adequate to the task. Yeah. What we don't have is you.

Bill Dogterom: 25:52

So you want as a disciple to learn to be you as Jesus would be you if he instead of being born to Mary and Joseph were born to your mom and dad. That's the nature of disciple making. I'm never gonna be the master electrician that my teacher was, never. But I can learn how to do as I would do it if he were me and it still influences the way I think about things, the way I manage things and the way I read a blueprint and the way I look at those things even even now. So so so learning is not just about academics, it's not just about content and I just Can we just underline how brilliant the Holy Spirit is?

Bill Dogterom: 26:40

Right? Paul probably thought, maybe maybe it was strategic given who Paul is and his genius, maybe, but I'm I think he was If it would have been me, would have been bummed at having to leave the synagogue because we had a comfortable place, we had a place that we knew what was gonna go on, we knew and and and finally, it's untenable. We can't live, we can't be here anymore. Is it a strategic decision on Paul's part to go to the lecture hall of Tyrannus? Maybe.

Bill Dogterom: 27:10

But just as likely accidental or not. Is it possible that the Holy Spirit has you in the place that he's got you, maybe as a result of some disappointing news elsewhere, a layoff, a notice that the rent's going up and you have to find yourself in a new location. Is it possible that if you embrace your identity as a disciple that there might be some strategic initiative of which you are not yet aware but that might lay the groundwork for something that the holy spirit is building towards? Is that possible? Yes, boys and girls.

Bill Dogterom: 28:02

That's possible. And why do I say that? Because if we embrace our role as disciples of Jesus, he calls us in another place salt and light. You, where you are, having been formed to live your life in whatever form it is as the CEO of a corporation or a stay at home dad or mom as a as a as a You are the pinpoint of the kingdom of light breaking into the kingdom of darkness. You are a transformative presence that will make a Now, you won't be able to do that if you're a disciple of you.

Bill Dogterom: 28:48

But if if if you have taken Jesus seriously and have learned to live your everyday ordinary life as Jesus would if he were you, Don't be surprised. Don't be surprised. Don't be surprised if when you are filled with the same Holy Spirit that filled Jesus, that quickened Jesus, that gave power to Jesus' life, that same Holy Spirit dwells in you, yes? Well, in five of you then?

Intro/Outro: 29:15

Yes.

Bill Dogterom: 29:19

Same Holy Spirit dwells in you that dwells in him. Now can you imagine that Holy Spirit breathing new life into a body that has been formed by the deliberate imitation of Christ who have taken him seriously, not just the words that he said but have This is what And Jesus himself by the way, he said this, yeah? If if you if if you do nothing but write my words down and have study sessions upon them and and think how brilliant I am as a teacher and don't build your life on them, you are like a person who built his hand life on the sand. Don't be surprised when the winds blow, the storms rage, the water, your house is gonna fall down. I don't want you having study sessions on my word if you have no intention of putting them into practice or if your study sessions, you think that's obedience rather than what the word actually calls you to do.

Bill Dogterom: 30:23

This is a concern. I mean, I've talked to him over the years of teaching school. This is this is a concern, isn't it? Where where my devotion becomes nothing more than preparation for my ministry. I wanna have a relationship with Jesus that has nothing to do with what I do for him.

Bill Dogterom: 30:43

Yes. Right? So we have this this vision of who Jesus is. We have an awareness of the kind of life that he lived. We have an intention, a desire to move out of the the broken places that we have lived with and and and this hit me the other day.

Bill Dogterom: 31:01

Was working on something else and it realized, it occurred to me and then this is really embarrassing for me to say, but there are some sins I don't intend to give up. I've gotten comfortable with a certain level of arsenic in my system, a certain level of poison, a certain level of stage four aggressive cancer and I've convinced myself there's a certain amount of it I can live with. What do you intend? Does it make sense? Is there an intention to leave the boats, to leave the nets, to leave the previously defining relationships and start to put your footprints in his?

Bill Dogterom: 31:55

And then there are the practices. Prayer, solitude, silence, study and meditation on the word. All of the things that Jesus did that we can do. We've talked about them over the years here. So it's Oh, one one final thing.

Bill Dogterom: 32:11

Disciple is not, biblically, is not a class of super Christian. It's like everybody kinda believes the same thing but if you're gonna be a disciple, sign up for school of ministry. No. No. Really.

Bill Dogterom: 32:31

Do your divos. In the bible, there is no such thing as a super Christian. You're either a disciple who have decided to align your life around the way of Jesus or you're not. And it's not rocket science. If you say getting on the freeway here, I'm gonna go to Costa Mesa and you turn left on the 405.

Bill Dogterom: 32:52

No, you're not. You could No, you're not. Your intention is undermined by your action. So here we are as disciples of Jesus. Do I intend to let Jesus be the boss of my money?

Bill Dogterom: 33:11

Because if it doesn't get down to that level, friends, what are we talking about? I mean, really. If it doesn't inform how I am a husband, if it doesn't inform how I manage my sexuality, if it doesn't inform how I handle relationships, how I handle tensions and difficulties and if it doesn't inform that, what what what are we doing? And over the course of two years, you can feel this slow and steady, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done, but two years? You can imagine the foundation now that is laid for what comes next when when this movement starts to work its way out into how we do business.

Bill Dogterom: 33:55

When this movement starts to work its way out in how we handle ourselves in relationships. So here's the question I'd like you to think through with me. By whom or by what are you being discipled? What is influencing your thinking about the economy, about the political process? What are the podcasts you're listening to that are discipling you in a certain way of thinking?

Bill Dogterom: 34:26

Sometimes we we kind of put Christian values, virtues as an icing on the side. Kind of over the top of an otherwise managed life. A disciple says, I have no life to manage except what I give to him. Let's pray. Oh Lord, as we sit with this challenging text and yet really inviting because in it is this is this awareness that if we will start to take this seriously, you will take us seriously.

Bill Dogterom: 35:04

And I pray, oh God, perhaps even some here this morning will have a clear and solid sense, oh, I've been believing the things about Jesus but I've not really been a disciple and it's time to turn the corner and make that deliberate decision to be numbered among those who are now stepping into the way of Jesus. And there may be some of us, oh Lord, who recognize I'm being formed by things other than the way of Jesus and it's time for me to move past intention to action. I pray that you would give us courage, oh Lord, to follow. Amen.

Intro/Outro: 35:57

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