Latest / Coffee and Bible Time Podcast / Fighting Distraction with Spiritual Formation │ Kyle Worley

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Fighting Distraction with Spiritual Formation │ Kyle Worley · Coffee and Bible Time Podcast

• 1:01
  Speaker 1: At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Each week, we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: We are so glad you have joined us.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: This is Ellen, your host, and today we are asking a question that we all need to wrestle with what is forming you?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Whether we realize it or not, we are all being shaped, whether that's by our habits, our desires, our screens, our fears and, ultimately, by whatever we love most.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Well, our guest today is pastor and author Kyle Worley, whose most recent book, formed for Fellowship, becoming what you Behold, explores how spiritual formation is not just about doing more for God, but about being with him, seeing him, knowing him and being changed in the process.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: This book connects the dots between the formative practices that we talk about, like prayer, bible reading, obedience, and the God who invites us into relationship with himself and with others.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: If you've ever found yourself wondering why the Christian life looks the way it does, or feeling stuck in the how, this conversation is for you, kyle, welcome to the show.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: We are so glad that you're here.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Ellen, thanks for having me.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I'm glad to be here.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Well, I have had such a joy going through your book on these formative practices and form for discipleship.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: You created these as part of a curriculum correct with JT English and Jen Wilkin.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about how this book fits into these resources and what, in particular, you're hoping people are going to take away from this one.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thanks for asking.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Over the last 10 years, jen Wilkin and JT English and I have been working together to just try to address the crisis of biblical and theological literacy.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: That's why our partnership exists.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: We have a podcast called Knowing Faith Podcast, where we do this with one another.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: We have just released these books Formed for Fellowship is one of them as a part of something called the Deep Discipleship Program, which is a year-long theological discipleship curriculum that's published through Lifeway so that people can go through the entire Christian story, explore the essentials of Christian belief and learn the basic practices of Christian formation.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: So my book Formed for Fellowship is really addressing that third bucket.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: What does Christian formation mean?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: What does it mean to be formed into the image of Christ Jesus?
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: My hope is that as people read it, they would discover told.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: These are some of the rhythms of a Christian life, like prayer, bible reading, gathering with God's people for worship, fasting, evangelism.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: But very few of them can articulate why those things?
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Why not any number of other things?
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Why does God give us those practices for the Christian life?
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: And so the book is really an exploration of the why behind the why.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Why read your Bible, why pray, why share the gospel, why gather with God's people in Christian fellowship?
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: And then how?
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: How can you do that in a way that's simple and sustainable?
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: So my hope is that people walk away feeling like you know what God has so much more for me to discover in fellowship with him, and I now have a roadmap for how to do that in really basic ways.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: That's so wonderful.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: One of the things that really caught my attention was just some of the things that people don't think about.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Like you mentioned just loving God and the fact that God loved us first and that being a formative practice in and of itself.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I've been a little bit surprised.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Maybe some of your listeners will have read books about what are called the spiritual disciplines.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Spiritual disciplines of the Christian life are often those things that we talk about are kind of the mechanics, you might say, of walking with God in your ordinary days.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: I've been surprised how few of those books talk about love.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: And yet when Jesus is summing up the whole of the law, he says you know, you could sum up the law as love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: So it really seems like the first formative practice is receiving and extending God's love.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of the pattern for all of the spiritual disciplines God gives us, disciplines that are a reflection of his character, of his work in the world.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: We read God's word because God speaks.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: So when we read God's word we're listening to the voice of God, and the reason he commends and encourages us to preach God's word and teach God's word and read God's word and meditate on it day and night is because God wants to speak with us.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: It's not just because it's a great Christian practice that we should do, because we can be good Christian boys and girls, it's because God is speaking and he wants us to hear, so I just hope.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: I hope that people discover that there is a lot to see about God and his works and his nature as we walk in the spiritual practices he's given us.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that really, that really touched me.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about becoming what you behold.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: One part of this book that really set the tone for me was when you compared Adam and Eve seeing the forbidden fruit in Genesis 3 with Revelation 22, where we're told that we will see the face of God and his name will be on our foreheads.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: And you go on to write about how we become what we behold.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: So why is it so easy to focus on the wrong things, and how can we realign our focus towards God?
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, ever since the fall in the garden, we're just kind of born broken beholders.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Our compass for what's true and good and lovely is just skewed.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, why is it so hard to give our attention to what matters most?
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Well, because we in the world are broken.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: We got hooks all over our heart and our attention is drawn to a thousand places but God.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of how it was at the fall in Genesis, chapter 3.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: That Adam and Eve they look at the fruit of the tree, they desire it, they hear the false promises of the deceiver and they give into it and they turn their attention away from God and turn it towards creaturely things.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: That's what Paul says in such tragic words in Romans 1, right, they exchanged the worship of the immortal God for worship of creaturely and mortal things and in doing so became foolish.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Their minds just fell, and so you and I and everyone else who's lived after them.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: I've been born into this world with a desire to behold, a desire to give our attention to what is true, good and lovely.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: But the direction that it goes in is skewed, it's bent, it's broken, and so there is a real redemption arc in the story of the Bible with our attention.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: You know, you just mentioned this In Genesis 3, we turn, in Adam and Eve, our attention away from God and to lesser things.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: But in the new heavens and the new earth, in the new world, remade and reestablished, our attention is redirected towards the very face of God, and this is the goal.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: This is something that has been neglected, specifically in Protestant circles, for a long time.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: The goal really is to behold God like what old theologians called the beatific vision, the blessed vision.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: That's really the goal of this whole thing is to see God, to enjoy God, to delight in God.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: That's why we were created and that's why heaven will come to earth one day is so that we can live our whole lives in God's presence.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: And so if that's the grounds of our creation and then that's the goal of our creation, then certainly it's got to shape the pathway's the grounds of our creation and then that's the goal of our creation, then certainly it's got to shape the pathway between the grounds and the goal, between Genesis 1 and 2 and Revelation 21 and 22.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: And so the practices that God gives us are practices so that we can turn our attention back to God again and again and again, certainly in imperfect ways, but hopefully in faithful ways that grow our delight in fellowship with God, just being with him.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, and I love your book is so well written.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I know that you really set the stage for all of that in the opening of this and it really does make you feel like I want to be a part of that.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: I want to be in part of that.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I want to um be in closer fellowship with God.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: What are some of the common distractions that pull our focus away and how do we reclaim that focus?
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Well, we're on a distraction right now, aren't we?
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: I'm sure most people are listening to this on a phone or on their computer.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Certainly, our devices are a great distraction, but sometimes didn't have digital distractions.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Now we probably, three or 400 years ago, would be dealing with more, just matter of fact, earthly distractions, just kind of the hustle and bustle of survival.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Distractions abound in every age.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: They're not culturally situated In our current moment.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: A lot of our distractions are digital.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: A lot of them are other luxury distractions that occupy our time and attention.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: But there are also just the ever-present distractions of shame, fear, anxiety, insecurity, these things that really ask us to look at ourselves more than we look at God.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's what those things do.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: The quintessential distraction at the root of all of them is to take a thousand looks at yourself and one look at Christ.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: The quintessential distraction at the root of all of them is to take a thousand looks at yourself and one look at Christ.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: The old preacher Robert Murray McShane said for every one look at yourself, take 10 looks upon Christ.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: But the perpetual distraction for all of us is to look more upon ourselves than we do upon the Lord.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: So that's not culturally conditioned and you don't need a mirror or a phone or a laptop or a screen or anything to be able to do that.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: That's been there since the beginning.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: So how do we reorient ourselves?
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Well, we try faithfully, humbly, imperfectly, in ordinary ways, simple ways to look upon God.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: This is why we memorize scripture.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Why do we memorize scripture?
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Because our words are often skewed and they come to us quickly.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: And we memorize scripture so that God's word can come to us in the heat of the moment, in the midst of the mess.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Why do we read God's word?
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Because we want to hear what God has to say about who we are in the world, as opposed to just what our friends might say or our social media accounts might say or the news feed might say or the podcast might say, or our social media accounts might say, or the newsfeed might say or the podcast might say.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: So the way that we turn our attention back to God is through a prayerful approach to his word, his people, loving our neighbors.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I know it seems so simple and I'm sure listeners are like when is he going to really drop something profound that's going to break open the spiritual disciplines?
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: I really don't think what we need is more profound and pithy statements about what we could aspirationally do.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: I do think we just need more simple instructions on the very ordinary things God asks and invites us to do.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so let's talk about how to grow.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: We've learned about the importance of turning our attention to Christ, and now let's take a little deeper dive into what looks like practically for, especially for someone who might be feeling stuck in their spiritual growth right now.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: What are some practical steps that someone can take to experience a breakthrough and actually grow?
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my biggest encouragement when people tell me that they're stalled out.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: I got three pieces here.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: One if you've been reading the Bible, like if you've been reading it in small chunks, that's great.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: I'm encouraged.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I hope that you'll continue to do that in some form or fashion.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: But if you've been reading it and you feel like you're stalled out, try listening to the Bible.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Just try listening to the Bible.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: There are so many apps to do this and there's so many you don't have to pay for.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Or if you don't want to do that, go to YouTube.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Or if you live with a roommate or you live with a spouse and both of you are pursuing the Lord together, maybe use that morning time and go.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Hey, instead of us reading individually, we're going to take turns reading this out loud for each other.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: So this could be something you do on a device, it could be something you do in community.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: But if you've just been reading the Bible just in your head, get to a place where you're hearing the Bible, whether that's you reading it out loud, you having some sort of app read it out loud, you having another person read it out loud.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: The Bible is a book that's meant to be read, and the original audience for almost the entirety of scripture would have heard the words of the Bible, predominantly audio or audible.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: First Read the Bible.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to break through a little bit of that fog.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Another really simple way to do this is fasting prayer, and I say simple in terms of it costs you nothing.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: It's not simple in terms of actually doing it because it requires some sacrifice.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: But I often just will tell believers when was the last time that you took time to step away for appropriate fasting prayer?
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: And I talk about this in the book.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Jesus himself, when the apostles return at one point, says, hey, there are some of this work that will only happen by way of fasting and prayer.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: So Jesus himself tells you like, hey, there are some things, some stalls, some spiritual walls that you might hit, that really might only be overcome by means of fasting prayer.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: So I would just I encourage believers, especially if they're dealing with besetting sin, habitual sin, just a pattern of sin in their life.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: I'll often ask them hey, before you start paying for anything, before you try to build a whole system, have you just taken a day to just go be with the Lord and pray and fast and ask for his mercy.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: That's something God is inviting you to do.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: So that's the second thing.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Then I think the third thing is beginning to share the gospel.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: The spiritual practices of the Christian life are tied to gospel proclamation and for many Christians evangelism is the last thing they want to do.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And I think many Christians stall out in their growth and fellowship with God because they don't join in the sufferings of bearing witness to Christ.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: And I think that's a part, there's a reason why we see a vigor and a zeal and a vitality in the New Testament's witness about the presence of God, because once you begin to share the gospel of Christ with those who are resistant to it, you will begin to experience dependency on the spirit that I don't think you'll experience in any other time.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: So my encouragement is often, if you believe that your private spirituality has stalled out, it may be because you need to involve a more communal and corporate dimension to it and you need to join God on the front lines of his mission in your neighborhood or in the nations, in whatever way you can.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: And I think that if you step into those two very straightforward, very simple I'm not saying they're not sacrificial, just that they're not financially costly Anybody can do it.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: If you step into those two things very rarely do I find people will remain in that stagnant position.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: That's such great advice and something that you really have to be intentional about right, because no one's going to come and do it for you.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: It's something that you need to make time for and trust that God is going to work through that process.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Well, I'd like to just talk a little bit about experiencing deeper connections with God.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: To just talk a little bit about experiencing deeper connections with God, because I think there also are people listening that maybe are very faithful to their formation practices and are still yearning for a deeper connection.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: How would you suggest they go about doing that?
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what You're going to want more depth, this side of heaven, for the entire time you're here.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I got to say this I think I walk in greater intimacy with the Lord today than I did 10 years ago and I've never been more aware of just how far I am from him.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: This is the kind of paradox of personal piety.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Piety is the old word that the Puritans and church fathers use for holiness and spiritual growth.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: I like it.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: I like the word for reasons I get to in the book, but the more you grow in personal holiness, the greater your awareness of God's holiness will be.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: The greater your awareness of God's holiness will be, the more that you will feel far from him.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: This is something that I don't think we talk about enough as maturing Christians is that the deeper you go into intimacy with the Lord, the greater your awareness will be that he is God and you are not.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: This is entirely appropriate.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: When maturing Christians tell me they're walking in ordinary faithfulness and they feel some disconnect with God, I'll often tell them that's a sign of health.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: It's a sign of health.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: We don't say this enough.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: It's not that it's a sign of health for you to be far from God.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: It is a sign of health for you to increasingly realize that God is great and holy and you and I are not.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: That's a sign of health.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: That's a sign of maturity.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: And so it continues to move us into greater dependency and desperation.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Where we're coming before the Lord and we're going God, I don't have anything to offer you, and yet you're in your presence, is where there is fullness of joy.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: So grant me access, lord, be merciful.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: It's a reliance on grace.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: I think we think about maturity as increasing independence from God and we think the spiritual disciplines will put us on a road.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: If we walk faithfully in these formative practices or spiritual disciplines, we will increasingly grow independent.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: This is not how the Bible talks about spiritual maturity not as one of increasing independence, but one of increasing dependence, increasing fellowship.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: It takes us lower and slower over time.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Oftentimes Christians, new Christians, experience such zeal and their initial spiritual growth and, holiness right, we've all had that experience where you're like, wow, everything is so rich and textured and wonderful and there's a beauty to that.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: But there is a seasonality to it as well, the deeper that we go in our maturity to Christ.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: It doesn't become stagnant, but it does.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Our awareness of the difference between us and God grows and it does increase our felt sense of dependency.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: That it's not depth, is not easy, it is sacrificial, it is slow, it is low and it's typically accompanied by great weakness and occasionally by great suffering.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, and you know what?
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: That's exactly what I was going to say was.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I know you touched on it very briefly and you said this book is not about suffering, but you also mentioned that suffering is a point in which that we do feel so close to.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: God, and is that what you've experienced as well, kyle?
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, I talk about this in the book you really can't instruct suffering as like a hey, go out and suffer so that you can grow close to the Lord.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: And, truthfully, the Bible doesn't talk about suffering that way.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: It talks about it as something that's inevitable, but it doesn't talk about something that is commendable.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: It's not like hey, ellen Kyle, if you want to grow deeper with the Lord, go put yourself into the crucible of suffering.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: It just presumes that we're going to find ourselves there within the course of our lives, and this is true for everyone, and it's certainly been true in my life that the Lord has used seasons of suffering to incline my ear to listen more effectively and more desperately.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Now, in those moments of suffering, I am as tempted as you could be to incline my ear to lesser things, the things that promise false comfort.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: But if, in those seasons of trial and affliction and suffering, if we will continue to lean our ear and our listening to the voice of the Lord, in whatever meager ways we can muster and often they're very meager, they're very frail, they're very weak the Lord grows us in those seasons in a way that is disproportionate to our investment.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: At least that's been the case for me.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, I completely agree.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Well, we've talked a lot about the individual aspect.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: What role does community play in spiritual growth and what are the specific ways that believers could build deeper and more lasting Christian fellowship?
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, thank you for asking.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: This is my soapbox.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: We have arrived at my soapbox, which is that and this isn't only a problem for us here in America.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: It is uniquely a problem for us here in America because of how hyper individualistic our culture is.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: But when you look at spiritual growth in the New Testament, it is almost always communicated as happening within the context of community, specifically the community of a local church.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: The way that we walk with the Lord can be personal, but it cannot be private.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: It is meant to be done publicly, within the corporate gathering of God's people in a local church.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you, I really do think that if you try to walk in the Christian life as kind of an isolated individual, not only do I think you will not experience the formation that God has for you, the change and transformation that God has for you.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: I think it'll be malformative for you.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: I think it could do more harm than good.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Isolated spirituality is a very deceptive danger.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: It's a very deceptive danger.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: It's a very deceptive danger, and this has been true in the history of the church, and so my encouragement would be that the local church is the place where you gather every week to practice what you're going to do personally outside of the gathering the rest of the week.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: It starts the week.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: It's a demonstration.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: So we read God's word, we hear God's word, we sing to one another, we practice Christian fellowship.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Maybe your church receives the Lord's Supper weekly or quarterly or whatever.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: You see the story of your salvation played out again with baptism and all of these pictures, all of these stories, all these practices they're gospel show and tells that invite us into personally walking out what we have now corporately practiced together.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: So my strongest encouragement would be to, if you are listening to this and you're trying to follow the Lord and you're either trying to do it on your own or trying to do it outside the context of a local church, before you would pick up my book, before you would read my book, anything like that, before you'd listen to any other podcast episodes that Coffee and Bible Time do or the podcasts that I run, I would really encourage you to embed yourself, root yourself in the life of a local church.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: I think that's where health and vitality and the spiritual practices is often going to emerge.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think I would be or know as much as I do now, and I'm not claiming to know a lot, but I'm just saying I have grown more in my Christian walk by being a part of a couple different communities within our church, one being a mom's group community and doing Bible studies every year together with them and just being in fellowship.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: And then just our couple small group that we've met with and just do life together and support one another.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: And just seeing how other people are doing their walks has been incredibly encouraging, great.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's same for me.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Same for me, and I think the spiritual practices can be practiced in a healthy way, maybe even a healthier way when they're practiced within the context of Christian community, whether it's prayer or Bible reading or evangelism.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: You think about, like, when God sends out his followers.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: He sends them out in groups of two to go out and practice mission, to go out and do the work of an evangelist.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: He sends them out in community with one another.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: He tells them they're going to know you by the love that you have for one another.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: He teaches them in community, they listen in community, they eat together in community, they travel in community.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: This is the proper context for our walk with the Lord and fellowship with God.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Because the book is called Form for Fellowship, because the whole goal of spiritual formation is greater fellowship with God and greater fellowship with God's people.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Love God, love others, enjoy their love, enjoy God's love.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: This is why we exist why we exist.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about what just came to my mind was about just even like breaking bread together, having a meal together.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's just kind of like you know, from just discussing sermon notes or something like that to kind of just letting your shoulders down and being and having a meal together, I think is just so, so incredibly nourishing to the soul too, not just for the food.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Well, kyle, one thing that you write about is the tension we as believers have between being perfect in Christ and still being in the process of formation.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: How would you encourage Christians to navigate that balance?
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Hebrews 10, 14, the writer of Hebrews says for we have been perfected for all time, or for Christ is perfected by one offering for all time those who are being sanctified.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: That tension, perfected for all time being sanctified, that's the Christian life, that's our union with Christ and our communion with God is how I talk about it in the book I wrote before this Home with God that in Christ Jesus, you and I are perfect for good forever.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Right now, because we are in the perfect one and yet practically that's still being worked out.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: This is the difference between our justification, where we are declared righteous by God for good forever in Jesus, and our sanctification, where we are being made into what God has already said.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: We are in Jesus and this tension is really the adventure of the Christian life.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: This is the adventure of abiding in Christ, is beginning to become who God has already said we already are.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: That's the journey of Christian formation, is increasingly becoming like Christ, whom you are already identified with by God's grace.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: This is a real beauty in freedom.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: You think about how John instructs the church in 1 John 2.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: I love this because he captures this truth and this tension.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: He's writing to them and he says my little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: But if you do sin, you have an advocate with the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: John's saying it's better for you to not sin, it's better for you to walk in holiness and obedience.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: This is what is good for the Christian.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: But if you do sin, you have an advocate with the Father, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom God isn't waiting to make up his mind about his people.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: He's already declared us beloved for good forever.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that hope that we have is, I think, crucial to day-to-day living here on this earth.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Kyle, tell us, for people who want to just go deeper into what we've just scratched the surface on here, how can people find out more information about you and get a copy of Formed for Fellowship?
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you can get Formed for Fellowship wherever you get your books.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: So it's on Amazon, it's at Lifeway, barnes, noble, your local bookstore, it's everywhere.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: It's on Audible, it's on Kindle.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: So Formed for Fellowship is you want to get it?
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: In terms of finding me, you can go to kyleworleynet or you can find me on social media at Kyle Worley, on Instagram and X.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: That's where I'm at.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: So any of those places are how you can follow along the journey.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Fantastic, and we will make sure we include all those links in our show notes.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I have just a few questions that I have to ask you as being a guest here.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: The first one is what Bible is your go-to Bible and which translation is it?
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Great question.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: I love that you ask these questions at the end of these episodes.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: I love listening to other people's answers on these questions.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, me too Okay.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: So it depends for Bible translation.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: I have two translations I use pretty regularly.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: I use the ESV that's what I preach from at the local church where I pastor and I use the CSB.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: I got to tell you I prefer the CSB.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: For most of the kind of epistolary formats and most of reading through the letters in the New Testament, I prefer the CSB.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: I also prefer the CSB for most of the Old Testament narrative.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: I prefer the ESV for wisdom literature and anything in poetry or prophecy.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: So I'm a little bit of a mutt.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I preach from the ESV.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: My personal reading and study is really ESV and CSB, just depending on what genre I'm looking at Right Right.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I love that.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: That's really awesome.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, do you have any favorite Bible journaling supplies?
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I do.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: I actually I put some over here for you just because I knew you would ask.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: This is not an ad, but I do love these ESV journaling spiral bound because they can lay flat and they have like a ton of note space on them.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: So I got to tell you I started using these and it doesn't have to be this.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: I think most of the Bible translations now have these spiral bound For Bible study.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: I love having spiral bound so I can lay flat and I can take a bunch of notes when I'm doing my Bible study.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: So I love using spiral bound books of the Bible, or this is like the Pentateuch, so it's the first five books of the Old Testament spiral bound.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: But I love using spiral bound for Bible study and journaling.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: For pens, I have found I really use these iBiom.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: They're called fineliner pens.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: They just don't bleed through.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: So this is like my favorite.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: It's called iBiom B-A-Y-A-M, also not an ad.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: I favorite it's called I Buyum B-A-Y-A-M, also not an ad.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: I'm not like sponsored by these people, but they're great pins for Bible study.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: So for Bible journaling, bible study, I'm using Spiral Bound mostly and then I use those pins so that they don't bleed through.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, my goodness.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's awesome.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: We will make sure we include some links for those.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: And then, lastly, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Great questions.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the two that I use predominantly.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: I am a big Logos user.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: I use Logos for Bible study.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: So if it's like deep, like if I'm trying to like really do Bible study, like I'm talking like get into it a little bit word studies, cross references, anything like that kind of deeper Bible study, I call it well-digging Bible study.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: I would say Logos is what I use for that.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: And then, if it's Bible intake, I use a Bible app called Dwell and they have great audio for the Bible and Bible readers, a range of options, a range of translation.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: So if it's just Bible intake, I use Dwell.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: If it's like Bible study, I use Logos.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: All right, both of those suggestions are awesome.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: We will include links in the show notes for Logos, for sure, because I think we have an affiliate with them which I think our listeners can get a special deal on that.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: And actually they've done a lot of changes to Lagos to make it wonderful for people who are just starting to get into Bible study to be able to use it a little bit more easily and much less expensively.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: So that's really awesome.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: And Dwell is fantastic too.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: All right, well, kyle, it's been such a pleasure having you here.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for just giving some fresh new life to people as we're listening to the formation practices and the importance of, and just our overall desire to connect with God.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Thank you for helping us do that.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for having me.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: It was an honor to be here.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: And to our listeners.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I just want to encourage you all to check out our show notes, pick up a copy of Kyle's book.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you, it's so great.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: He also has a great sense of humor and a lot of really fun stories in there as well, in addition to all of the amazing tools and information.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: So check out his book, and we just thank you for listening to the podcast.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: God bless you and have a wonderful day.