Embrace the Wilderness

In this episode, Charlie dives into Mark 1:9-13, exploring the significant moment of Jesus' baptism and his subsequent journey into the wilderness. This passage serves as a foundation for understanding the wilderness not as a punishment but as a period of necessary formation and permanence. Charlie encourages listeners to view their own "wilderness" experiences as opportunities for deep, permanent transformation rather than moments of punishment or despair.

Practical Application: 
1. Embrace the Wilderness: Recognize personal wilderness seasons as opportunities for growth and formation rather than punishment.
2. Practice Makes Permanent: Consistently engage in spiritual practices consistently to foster deep, lasting change in your character and faith.
3. Seek Formation, Not Comfort: Prioritize long-term spiritual formation over short-term emotional comfort.

Key Takeaways: 
1. The wilderness experience is integral to spiritual formation, designed to solidify our identity in Christ and our reliance on God.
2. Transformation requires practice; our spiritual disciplines should be as consistent and natural as breathing.
3. God's affirmation of Jesus before any miracles reminds us that our identity and worth are not based on our achievements but on being loved by God.

Relevant Scripture(s):
- Mark 1:9-13 - The baptism of Jesus and His time in the wilderness, emphasizing the Spirit's leading and God's affirmation.
- 1 Corinthians 4:20 - Highlighting the kingdom of God as a realm of power, not merely words.

Conclusion:
Embracing the Wilderness for Transformation calls believers to a deeper understanding of their spiritual journeys. Through the wilderness metaphor, Charlie presents a powerful narrative of preparation, identity, and divine calling that transcends mere survival to embrace the transformative work of God in our lives. This episode challenges listeners to shift their perspective on trials and to actively engage in practices that solidify their identity as beloved children of God, fully pleasing to Him.

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Tune in to the Charlie Mitchell Teachings Podcast for more insightful episodes that equip and inspire you to live a life of profound spiritual significance. Don't forget to subscribe and share this episode with those navigating their own wilderness, offering hope and perspective for the journey.

Transcript

Charlie Mitchell: 0:12

So check this out, get your Bible out, open up the app, do whatever you gotta do, get to Mark. Chapter one, we're going to be looking at a couple of verses right there. I'm going to look at verses nine all the way through to verse 13. I'm going to read it for you real quick. Here's what it says. In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth and Galilee and was baptized into Jordan by John. John was his cousin. So what's up cuz. As soon as he came up out of the water, As soon as Jesus came up out of the water, He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove. Now that's crazy. He saw the heavens being torn open. And the Spirit of God descended on Him like 11, this is where we're going to focus a little bit of our time today. Came from heaven. You are my beloved son with you. I am well pleased. Immediately the spirit drove him into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan. He was with wild animals and the angels were serving him. Now, this is a crazy passage of scripture. And this is just, I mean, this is just the beginning of Jesus ministry. But what I want us to point out is the fact that, going to the wilderness, he had to, he was forced. I don't know if you caught that word. I don't know if you caught that word. In verse 12, immediately the spirit drove him into the wilderness. See, we're kind of in a wilderness season right now. It's kind of dark. This is uncertain territory. This is a little bit different than what we are used to. And what he, and what he's saying. Immediately, he was driven, drove, he was pushed. And that word right there means he was compelled to leave strongly. Like it was like, yo, you're, you're a little chick, baby eagle, and you getting kicked out of the nest. You're out of here. Like you, it's time for you. And, uh, he had this deep urge, the spirit drove him into the wilderness. First thing I want you to see, going to the wilderness is not punishment. Going to the wilderness is not punishment. It's about permanence. Going to the wilderness is not about punishment. Man, we got, we got stuck out here cause we, we, we messed up and God just cursing us and this is, this is not about punishment. This is about permanence. There are things that God wants to do in you, that He wants to make permanent. He wants to, he don't want you to have no short term life transformation. He wants deep life transformation. There are things he wants to make permanent in your life, but you must. You must go through the process. One of the ways I'll say it is like this. I know, growing up, we've all heard this. Practice makes perfect. Practice makes perfect. Practice makes perfect. I disagree. I think that's wrong. Practice does not make perfect. Because what if you practice wrong? So now every time you pull up for a jump shot and you done been practicing, you've perfected the wrong thing. You should say practice makes permanent. Practice don't make perfect. Practice makes whatever it is that you do consistently. It makes it go down deep and it makes it Permanent, whatever you want to get good at. Listen, anything, any habit, any uh, virtue, any fruit of the spirit, anything you wanna get good at must be practiced so that it becomes automatic. And we see in Jesus' life what what is happening here in this passage is God wants his identity. God wants the identity to be forged. in Christ. He don't want him to get used to just doing things in his own energy. He wants that thing to be permanent. And so for many of us, We're sweating right now. This is called night sweats. This is called night sweats because many of us are sweating, and we don't know, and we've gone into the wilderness, and we're questioning, we're wondering, why am I here? What's happening? Why is all these things going wrong? Man, I got punched in the mouth by John Maxwell, a couple of weeks ago. He said, this season is God removing our tendency to take shortcuts. Let that sit on you. This season is God removing our tendency to take shortcuts. What are the shortcuts we have in our life? Oh, I'mma just show up at church and then I'mma get a good word. Oh, I'mma just, you know what I mean? I'mma just, I could just go, I could just leave the house when I'm tired of dealing with my family. Oh, you know what? I, I mean, I ain't got, I ain't gotta worry. I got enough money in the bank. I'm good. I'm good. I ain't gotta worry about, you know, depending on God and, and Jesus and all that. I ain't gotta have a prayer life. I ain't gotta have all that stuff. I, shortcut. All of these are shortcuts and God is removing our tendency to take shortcuts and now he's put us in the process. The nighttime is where the process is taking place. This is where practice becomes permanent. I want you to see, literally, we get caught up on the fact that Jesus went out into the wilderness and he was tempted by the enemy. We might talk about that at another time, but that's not the main thing I want us to focus on. I want us to focus on the very fact that the nighttime is for formation, not for fear. What God is doing, He's not doing this to cultivate more fear in you. Therefore, you're scared to engage with life. No, He's trying to make you more resilient. He's trying to develop muscles and develop you just like an athlete. An athlete, man, if you're a boxer, the only way you get good at boxing is not hitting heavy bags. That is not jumping rope. That's not how you do it. The only way you get good is if you, if you get into a fight, you got to get tested. For many of us, we hated doing sprints and stuff like that in school. We hated doing push ups and all of that, but what is it doing? It's developing the core muscles that we need to be strong and endure in life. The nighttime is for formation. It is not for fear. God wanted Jesus to be formed. He wanted him to be strong. He wanted him to overcome. The difference between us and Jesus in this story is that Jesus goes into the wilderness. With a deep sense of love and acceptance, and you walk into rough circumstances questioning whether you did something wrong or you're being punished for something. How did Jesus engage? Jesus engaged with the devil himself. If you go to Matthew, you'll see this whole thing played out and he had his whole long conversation. But Jesus's responses to Satan were not all the things that we would probably say. It was not to call his pastor. It was not to go and call on everybody in the church to do everything. It was not to go to Dr. Phil so I got feel good. No, no, no. It was not. It was to go to the word of God. It was his immediate response. So the only way you can get good at that thing is you gotta, you gotta sit with it. You gotta be tested. You gotta be tried. But the major key is do not go into this wilderness season thinking you were alone or you did something wrong. That is not what God is trying to do here. It's about formation not feelings. This is about formation not about feelings. If I cared about my children's feelings, there's a lot. I wouldn't make them clean. I wouldn't make them get up in the morning. I wouldn't make them do their schoolwork. If I cared about their feelings. I don't care about their feelings primarily. I do care about their heart. But I want to see them grow strong and develop. So listen, this is about formation. This ain't about how you feel. We often settle for fuzzy, feel good, warm feelings. Rather than deep rooted transformation. I want to be the type of person. That spends time in the presence of God every day of the week, not just on Sunday. I want to be the type of person that created a deep sense of trust and relationship with the word, with the word of God that has to happen Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. So for us, this is disorienting because a lot of us are having to develop the muscles now. You feel sore, and you're waiting for release. And I'm saying rather than waiting for release, let's just go deeper. I'm gonna be like a good coach right now. And we hate those trainers and coaches. Listen, you gotta do another push up. You gotta do another set. You gotta get back in the game. You can't get out now. And God is inviting us to be formed, to be fully formed, mature disciples. I don't want to just people that go up and down with their emotions. You saw what happened? Literally, Jesus hadn't done anything wrong and he was driven into But what did God say to him that transformed everything? If you are in Christ, Jesus says the exact same things about you. If you are in Christ, you put your faith in Jesus, what has happened? God does not see your sin. God does not see the things that you've done wrong. He sees the blood of Jesus Christ all over your life. So I need you to stop thinking that you have incurred the punishment of God. That is what the cross is all about. The cross was about the punishment of God. Now you live as a child or a son or daughter of God. And now I need you to think about this. He is making me into his son or daughter. He is making me. Look more and more like Jesus. He is making me stronger and more resilient. I need you to consider that this is pure joy because he's doing something in me. So family, that's what I need us to change our mind about this. His identity was rooted and his identity was rooted because he knew the word of God and he had cultivated a relationship with his father. I'm inviting us to do the same. exact thing. The same exact thing. How are we going to do that? Last week, hopefully you did the night vision focus sheet, and it gave you some tools to be able to look at the scriptures and, meditate on the word of God and whatever jumped off the page to you, that's what God probably was speaking to your heart in those particular areas. If you didn't grab that, go back and get that. Man, take that. That's something you can do weekly. That's something you can do with your family. You can do that anytime. This week, we're going to do the night vision sweatsheet, okay? We're going to sweat it out a little bit. Is that okay? We're going to sweat it out. So what I've done is, we've created another document for you. And I want you to download, and I'll show you how to do it. Very fast. All it is, is asking you three questions on each sheet. It's two different pages, and I'll need you to get both pages. The first one is, I need you to go down deep and deal with, look at some of the things that have been rising up in your life. The first question is, what has been your greatest fear? What do you worry about the most? Some of us have been worrying. And I know some of y'all are super saint, I don't worry about nothing because Jesus said, I ain't got to worry about nothing. Listen, you have been concerned. There have been things that are in the back of your mind. I want you to write it down. Second thing I want you to do. What do you rely on for comfort, to comfort you when you feel down or things go badly? Some of us have been comforting ourselves with Netflix. We've been comforting ourselves with busyness. We've been comforting ourselves, with food. We've been comforting ourselves with various things. Some of us start drinking, some of us get high, some of us do a lot of things. Whatever that is, there's no judgment. I want you to name what it is that you naturally go to when you just feel things are out of source. And then number three, third question on the first page is, What would Jesus say to you that you need to hear the most right now? Too many of us hear ourselves talking, too many of us hear our past. I don't want you to hear what your past is saying about you. I don't want you to hear what you would say about you. I need you to train your mind to hear what would Jesus say to you right now. And if you hear the first thing you hear, man, I'm disappointed. That ain't from the word. That ain't from God, some of us do need to repent and all repentance is, is come to me all you who are weary and burdened. I will give you rest. You've done it all on your own and come to me. I will strengthen you. I have love for you. Stop trying to do it all on your own. That's what repentance is. It's turning from how I was trying to do it on my own to doing it the way Jesus says to do it. So some of us do need to repent. So I will say, confess, man, Jesus, I've been, I've been messing up. I've been trying to do this on my own. Please Lord, show me in your word. How do I do it? Forgive me and show me the way. So that's sheet one. What would Jesus say to you in this sheet? The second sheet looks just like it, but the questions are different. I want you to engage with them. What does the Bible say about your Fear so look it up on Google. What does the Bible say about fear? Look it up go in the back of your Bible Some of us have these Concordances in the back and they have the word right here. So I pulled it open Literally, it says fear right here and it has a bunch of verses look them up and see what the Word of God has to say About the thing that you are most concerned about. What does the Bible say about what you think about? You need to train yourself on how to think. And I put some suggestions underneath in each box. Number two, what passage of scripture would bring you comfort when you feel down? So rather than going to Comfort Food or going to Netflix, what is a thing that you need to be thinking about that is going? to bring you comfort. And then the last one that I think is very important. I don't want you to miss this because it can seem like, ah, this is just trivia. I want you to write in that last box, I am a beloved son or a daughter in whom God is well pleased. I need you to write that as many times as you can in that little box. Because what I'm saying is, I want you to train your mind to see God as delighting in you. Not in the things you've done. I don't know if you know, Jesus hadn't done anything where he, when the heavens were ripped open and God spoke from heaven to say, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. Jesus hadn't done any, no miracles. He hadn't healed anybody. Hadn't done anything. I need you to know that when you wake up in the morning before you've said a word, God is already there. So I need you to train yourself. Write that down. I am a beloved son in whom God is pleased. You are a beloved daughter in whom God is pleased. You ain't gotta prove yourself to him. Listen, this is something that you can meditate on. You can go and get yours ready. I hope this is a blessing to you. Get your pen out, get your Bible out and let's Get to work. We own the night and we ain't backing down from nothing. Let me pray for you, Jesus. I pray