Apprenticeship

[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hey, everybody. Pastor Chuck Allen here, and I want to thank you for joining me on another weekday podcast. Today, I want to talk about. Matter of fact, for the rest of the week, I want to talk about what it's like to be an apprenticeship with Jesus. And today I want to talk about what it is to be more than a follower again. Hey, everybody. I'm Chuck Allen. I'm really glad you joined me today, because I want to talk about something [00:00:30] Speaker B: that's been working on me for a long time. Long time. It is this wildly growing conviction that a lot of people who say they are Christians are content to follow Jesus at a distance, when what Jesus actually [00:00:43] Speaker A: invites us into is an apprenticeship, not an admiration, not just agreement, not just attendance. Apprenticeship. There's a really big difference. A lot of us know how to follow in the modern sense. We follow accounts, we follow athletes or teams. We follow podcasts. We follow influencers. We follow people that we've never met and probably never will meet. We scroll, we like. We nod, we move on. We're informed and we're updated and we're aware. [00:01:14] Speaker B: But that's not the same thing as. Listen to this, y'. All. It's not the same thing as being formed. That's the issue. There's a kind of Christianity that leaves you informed about Jesus, but not formed by Jesus. [00:01:28] Speaker A: You can know the stories, know the songs, know when to stand up and sit down, know the right church words, even know how to post a verse on social media and still not actually be apprenticing your life to Jesus. And Jesus is after more than awareness. He is after transformation. Listen to what Matthew 4:19 says in Eugene Peterson's the Message. Come with me. I'll make you a new kind of fisherman out of you. [00:01:57] Speaker B: I'll show you how to catch men [00:01:59] Speaker A: and women instead of perch and bass. [00:02:02] Speaker B: I absolutely love that. I love fishing. I grew up around fishing. And Jesus doesn't say, believe the right things about me. He says, come with me. [00:02:12] Speaker A: He doesn't say, watch from the sidelines. He says, I'll make you into something new. He doesn't offer information, only he offers formation. That's apprenticeship language. It's the language of a craftsman standing in a workshop saying, come stand next to me. Watch closely. Try it yourself, and I will correct you. I will shape you. Stay with me long enough, and my way of doing things will become your way of doing things. [00:02:40] Speaker B: That is what Jesus is after. And honestly, that's both beautiful and a little unsettling because following you from a distance allows us to stay in control. Apprenticeship requires surrender. [00:02:57] Speaker A: Following lets us admire Jesus while keeping our habits. Apprenticeship means our habits, our schedules, reactions, relationships, spending, our words, our priorities, all under come, come under the loving authority of Jesus. That's a whole different thing, y'. All. It's one thing to say I follow Jesus. It's another thing to ask, am I learning how to live like Jesus in my actual Tuesday afternoon, in my marriage, [00:03:25] Speaker B: in my frustration, in my Traffic Jam on 285, in my email inbox and responses and my thoughts when nobody else can hear them. That's where apprenticeship gets real. [00:03:39] Speaker A: And maybe this is part of our problem. We've turned discipleship into agreement. If I agree with Jesus, then I must be growing with Jesus. But agreement's not the same as apprenticeship. I can agree that exercise is good and still eat chips on the couch. I. I can agree that sleep matters and still stay up too late watching one more show on Netflix. Agreement alone doesn't change anything or anybody. And yeah, I know [00:04:09] Speaker B: that got a little too personal for some of us, including me. But apprenticeship is different. Apprenticeship shows up in practice. Apprenticeship means I begin to arrange my life around the presence, teaching way of Jesus. [00:04:23] Speaker A: I start asking different questions. Not just what do I believe, but what am I becoming? Not just do I go to church, but is the life of Jesus being worked into my life? That matters because the world doesn't need more Christians who can quote Jesus. The world needs Christians who can actually resemble him. Christians who have learned how to forgive, Christians who know how to tell the truth without cruelty, Christians who can be [00:04:53] Speaker B: strong without being harsh. Christians who can disagree without dehumanizing. Christians who can carry peace into anxious rooms. That kind of life, it doesn't happen by accident. It comes to apprenticeship. [00:05:08] Speaker A: Think about any craft. Nobody becomes a carpenter by reading a book about wood. Nobody becomes a chef by watching two cooking videos and buying an apron. Nobody becomes a musician by owning a guitar. And some folks, they have to practice, because at some point, we all have to. At some point, you have to submit to process. At some point, your fingers hurt, your cuts are crooked, and your timing is off, and you keep showing up anyway. [00:05:38] Speaker B: That is apprenticeship. And it's also grace. Because Jesus isn't inviting us to impress him. He's inviting us to be with him. He's not saying, clean yourself up and maybe I'll take you. [00:05:51] Speaker A: He's saying, come with me and I'll make you new. He says, really take responsibility for being shaped and yield to the process, which is his process. So maybe today the invitation is this. Stinking simple. Before you rush into the rest of your day, pause and ask, am I content to admire Jesus or do I want to be formed by Jesus? Am I simply near Christian things or [00:06:20] Speaker B: am I actually in the workshop with the rabbi? That's the invitation, not casual association, not spiritual spectatorship, apprenticeship. And the good news is, Jesus is still calling ordinary people like me and [00:06:35] Speaker A: you, people like Peter, Mary, people like, well, us. People with mixed motives and unfinished stories, messy lives and a little too much confidence, I guess, in some places and a lot of insecurity in others. He's still saying, come with me. So come with him, not just as a follower who watches from the crowd, but as an apprentice who steps into the workshop and says, jesus, would you teach me how to live? [00:07:05] Speaker B: That's where life begins to change. I'll meet you back here tomorrow as we talk through another little bit of apprenticeship and what it is not just to follow, but to genuine get in the workshop. God bless you. [00:07:17] Speaker A: Thanks so much for joining today's weekday podcast.