The Practice of Spiritual Conversation

The following video transcript has been lightly edited

    Hi. We're starting a new series this week called Spiritual Practice How to Encounter God in the Every Day. What the Scriptures offer us and I think what the Christian faith offers us is there are certain actions that as we take them up in faith. Give us the ability to experience God in a concrete way.

One of the goals of our church is to help people build these spiritual practices, these habits and rhythms that allow them to experience God in the midst of their everyday lives. We're gonna talk about today is the value of spiritual conversation. What happens in the midst of spiritual conversation is it helps us do a few things.

It helps us experience and see the mystery and wonder of grace and reconciliation. What it also does, it helps remind us of our new identity in Christ that we are these new creatures as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5. And then finally, it's part of our role of being ambassadors. As ambassadors again, 2 Corinthians 5, we are to go out and share this hope that we have in from the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

So let's talk about each of these a little bit further. So in anything, when we get together and we talk about stuff that helps us experience it. It. And so whether you're talking about a great meal you've had or you're talking about the game you watched, there's a part of it in which as we talk about something, we relive it, we re-experience it.

What Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5 is that Christ has died and all have died in Christ so that we are these new creatures. We have been reconciled to God. And what he means by that is that the world's a broken place. There's all kinds of things that disconnect us from God and each other, but that God has taken care of all that in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

And so that is the mystery and wonder of grace and reconciliation. And so when you and I choose to enter into conversation with one another about what God is doing, what God might be up to, what things are not from God, where God might bring life out of death, you and I are rolling around and entering in, and it's gonna help us see how God is active and present in the world.

And so what you and I want to do is we want to build those habits because as you and I talk, and you and I get that excitement and connection to one another, that spiritual connection that you can have with another person where you feel like you're caught up in something bigger than yourself. Well, that's God at work. God present with grace.

We see in the scriptures that Jesus says, where two or more are gathered in His name that he's there also. So there's this mysterious reality in which christ through his, the Holy Spirit is present with us in these spiritual conversations. And so what we wanna do is we want to talk about it.

And I think the way to do that is to ask questions like, Hey, what is not from God? So Jesus tells us that the thief has come to steal, kill, and destroy, but he has come so that we might have life. So that helps us identify the things that are not of God. That's part of our conversation. Secondly, I think it's always helpful for us to ask the question of like, where might God be bringing life out of death?

And so here what we see is that life follows the pattern of resurrection. The broken world - Christ takes all of that in his life and death, but death does not win. There's a resurrection. And so for us, even in the midst of the brokenness. Even in the midst of the things that steal, kill and destroy, that are not from God, God is able to use those, turn them back on themselves to bring new life.

And so asking ourselves where we might find new life is a part of these spiritual conversations, and so as we learn to ask each other these questions, you and I connect with one another, connect with God, and have an experience of God at work, the encounter of God's spirit in our everyday lives. The second thing that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 5 at the end of that chapter, he says that we are these new creations.

Growing up, I ate boiled vegetables. That's sort of what we did. There was frozen vegetables. They got dumped in a pot, some water dumped on them, and they were cooked as long as whatever else was being cooked was cooked. And so most of the vegetables were really soft.

You could chew them if you want, but you could also just swallow them. The worst thing was boiled brussels sprouts. I can remember a time when my brother and I were told we couldn't leave the table until we ate them. I choked mine down, gagged a little. He tried to do the same thing and then threw up all over the table as an old creation.

But later, as an adult, for the first time, I had roasted brussels sprouts, chopped olive oil, salt and pepper. You know, maybe a little balsamic vinegar roast in the oven. Somehow, the way that those come alive with the caramelization and the sweetness. They're amazing. It's like a whole different experience of brussels sprouts like they're not even the same thing.

This is what God says to us, that in Christ, because of what Christ has done in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has made all of us new creations because our lives are caught up in Jesus' life. And so you and I are these wonderful new creations. We're not stuck in the old way, but we are free.

And so as we talk about that. We experience God and we see the work of God in our own lives. So we can say things like, Hey, how might I free myself from my past? So in our past, we have events, we have actions, we have patterns of behavior that clamp us down, that keep us trapped. But what Christ says, you're set free from that.

You don't have to hold onto that. We can ask ourselves, how might we grow? How might we grow and love and patience and peace and kindness and gentleness. And there again, as we think about growing, we're entering into God's kingdom. So we get an experience and encounter of God through God's spirit. If we wanna encounter God every day, we wanna ask these kinds of questions. We want to remind ourselves that mystery and grace meet us, and that we are these new creations. We're not stuck where we are.

Lastly, what Paul says is that we've become ministers of reconciliation. We are ambassadors to Christ. Ambassadors to the world for this hope that we have here. Again, I think the idea of an ambassadors are wonderful idea because as an ambassador, your job is to go build relationship, find synergy, connect, create a future vision together, and so what we see both from Jesus and Paul is they do this in a very human way. They engage with others around human need. Paul, as he visits Athens, points out different parts of the culture that actually point towards the reality of Christ. And so you and I, when we gather with others, we can enter into these spiritual conversations, whether people know it or not.

Not by saying weird Christian things, but rather just asking questions like, what do you hope for? What are you wrestling with? What's really challenging for you right now? Where are you finding a lot of joy? Because as we get into those things, those human need things, that's where we connect to the grace and the mystery and the transcendence. And we ourselves, as we wrestle and wonder, we too get to see God at work in the midst of our every day.

So build that habit, build that practice of spiritual conversation with your friends and your family, maybe even in the workplace, wherever it might take you, so that you too can experience and encounter God in the midst of your every day. I hope you have a great week, and I'll talk to you soon. Take care.