Seeing Jesus with Paul Miller

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about Jesus and how he loves. In the podcast, they reference a chart on the four ways Jesus loves that you can view here. "When Jesus sets up a boundary, it's because people want him to do something that, in the world's eyes, would be way more glorious or easy. He'll put up boundaries to keep to his mission that's actually much harder and more painful. The boundaries he sets up keep him on track to not what the world wants, or even what his friends want, but what his Father wants." "We talk sometimes about having our loves rightly ordered, but we also need our fears rightly ordered." "The act of gentle intrusion is fading away. People are so fearful of triggering someone. What keeps them from loving is their risk assessment, with the result that people's lives are narrowing around the self."

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about how Jesus lived as a human, looking at the footwashing scene in John 13. "Though footwashing was everywhere in the ancient world, it's only in John's gospel where we read a detailed description of the process of footwashing. And this account only exists because of the incarnated Son of God taking each step to do it. It's breathtaking: that the humility of the Son of God comes through in the very description of footwashing itself." "John wrote his gospel 60 years after the footwashing, but John had been so shocked by it, that he remembered every move." "When Jesus washes the disciples' feet, the room is filled with awkward silence. You'd think Jesus would talk as he goes, to get his point across, but it's so like Jesus to leave space. He's so riveting that his silence helps John remember what happened."

Paul, Jon, Adam, and Liz continue their conversation about discipleship, looking at the role of beauty. "Our first tagline at seeJesus was 'helping people see the beauty of Jesus,' and people really struggled to understand what we did. I thought that was because the beauty of Jesus is hard for people grasp if they don't understand the person of Jesus. But I've come to realize, that the church is actually weak on beauty itself…" "Seeing beauty requires attentiveness. But when you pursue it directly, you end up with a kind of a fake beauty or a hunt for emotional experiences." "They say if you can get a kid excited about reading, then you've opened up a world to them for life. I've seen a similar dynamic in discipleship, where if you get someone excited about Jesus and the beauty of Jesus, then discipleship is downhill, not uphill. Beauty puts energy into obedience."

Paul, Adam, and Liz continue their conversation about discipleship, looking at the role of the will. "Life is filled with these polarities: Grace or truth? Do I leave space, or do I draw near? At the crux is my communion with my Heavenly Father. Discipleship puts these decisions of daily life under a magnifying glass." "Your will is controlled by what you love, and the grip of that love is so powerful that you often don't even realize you're exercising your will." "When you slow down, you begin to uncover your will. You're really beginning to unmask your heart to yourself…. De-centering yourself and connecting that self with God is what the work of discipleship is. That's why teaching someone to pray is the foundational work of discipleship."

Paul and Liz begin a short new series sharing lessons learned over the years about discipleship. Adam Barker, Director of our A Praying Life Ministry, joins us. "One of the things I do when discipling Christians is I hold them individually accountable. I just go around and ask, 'Did you do the assigned reading?' Why do I do this? Probably because I have learned that my evangelical Christian friends in suburbia are no different than the inner city kids I used to teach when it comes to doing homework." "In the modern American church, we're so concentrated on gathering people and making them feel good about that gathering, and that often kills discipleship." "I was leading cohorts in a church that had a passive learning paradigm, so it took me a couple of weeks to even begin to break into that. When I got some negative comments from a participant during the second or third week, I was delighted. That was honest engagement, so I knew where he was at! You can't disciple unless you know where someone is really at."

Paul, Robert, and Liz continue their conversation about the resurrection of Jesus. "It was the apocryphal gospel of Peter that helped me to realize how much space Jesus left in this Resurrection scene. If you follow what the gospel of Peter says, Jesus comes back from the grave like King Kong - he fills up all the space. You can't even see his head, because it is literally up through the clouds!" "I want Jesus' DNA – to ask questions, to be slow to bring judgment." "In the story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene in Luke and John, Jesus is the same size as Mary. He leaves space by quietly being there until she sees him – and even then he doesn't say who he is but asks her questions. And because of that, we discover some of what Mary's like as a person. If Jesus had identified himself immediately, we'd have missed that glimpse of Mary."

Paul, Robert, and Liz finish their conversation about Jesus on the cross, slowly walking through his last seven statements. "Notice how short Jesus' sentences are on the cross. He has to push himself up on his feet to catch a breath and then to be able to exhale that breath without dropping… it makes it all that much harder to talk." "Everything about this person is supernatural!" "Jesus cries out, 'It is finished!' The job is done. In John 2, Jesus tells his mother at the wedding in Cana, 'My time has not yet come.' But now the battle's over. He's done the will of his father. For the disciples, at this point, it looks like everything has gone wrong, but they'll later realize that this is a cry of triumph."

Paul, Robert, and Liz continue their conversation about Jesus before Pilate, looking at how close Jesus gets to Pilate's heart. "Jesus has taken Pilate from a mocking question into opening up his heart, then he's received more mocking from Pilate and taken him to truth. The whole thing is kind of a journey, and Pilate follows Jesus." "Jesus is very lamb-like, but there's a lion right behind the bushes and you can feel it." "Pilate was not a fearful man. He was a crafty politician. He stayed longer, up to that point, than any other of the Roman procurators, so he's got good survival instincts; but here, he's afraid. In the end, he has a choice to save his career or to save Jesus' life; and as you know, in the end, he chooses his career."