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Reactive Living
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Reactive living, fueled by external pressures, leads to insecurity and a sense of being unwanted.
This is amplified by social media and our media-saturated world.
Jon Tyson
So unintentionally, because of the time of history we live in, we live reactive lives. If all you do is react, you will never have an inner sense of rootedness and you’ll be perpetually insecure. You won’t know who to believe or what to trust. You won’t know if you’ve done enough, if you’re good enough, and so you’ll always be slightly hesitant, wondering if you’ve got what it takes to respond to the events that are being thrust On you. And then, if we’re not careful, this can produce a sense that we’re unwanted. How many people, though we don’t use the term FOMO anymore, still feel this acutely? Something probably happened this weekend that you saw on social media that you didn’t know about, and now you’re here in church looking for the Holy Spirit to comfort you because you Feel left out because your friends did1min Snip
Jon Tyson
Do not let that be your story. You are not destined by God to live a reactive, insecure, unwanted, hopeless, and exhausted life. God has got more for you. Well, how do you access that more? Well, we’re going to talk tonight about the idea of everybody’s favorite word, vivification, okay? The idea of vivification. This is one of those theological terms that we don’t talk about very often. In fact, how many of you have ever in your life heard a sermon on vivification? Okay, absolutely nobody in this room. So boy, do I have some good news for you tonight. Vivification is the process by which the Holy Spirit imparts new spiritual life to those who believe, listen to these words, animating them with the life of Christ and empowering them To live in obedience, faith, and love. It’s the positive aspect of sanctification. Three weeks ago, I spoke on sanctification. Last week, I talked about mortification.-
Proactive Faith
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Move from reactive to proactive faith.
Recognize the freedom and agency between stimulus and response.
Jon Tyson
Now, this is going to require that we move from a reactive to a proactive understanding of how we live our faith out. Now, I’m about to give you a little model here. This model is the rest of my sermon, and it’s taken a combination of Viktor Frankl, who was a psychologist who survived Auschwitz and came up with a school of philosophy called logotherapy. And he basically wanted to answer the question, when he was in Auschwitz and he tried to figure out who despaired of life and gave up in the Nazi death camps, and who made it through and Went on to build a resilient life that would flourish. And he tried to answer the question, what was the difference between these two people? And he realized there was this one potent truth, and here was the truth, between stimulus and response, there is a world of agency and freedom. Stephen Covey talks about this in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. A lot of times, something happens to us. Our culture puts pressure on us, anxiety on us. Maybe your roommates do, your boss does. You’ve got all of these things coming at you, and most of us just distribute and pass along, like a rugby pass straight to the next person, everything that is coming at us. But he says, no, there is a world of freedom that you can live into and draw from that enables you to be a kingdom presence in the world. Now, in our world today, the majority of people, if you were to look at their innerDisciplined habits of attention — whether spiritual practice or knowledge capture — compound over time. Understanding builds on understanding. The challenge has been a lack of tools to integrate observations from the outer world in a way that reveals the inner, connecting what we encounter to what we believe. pkm capture-
Inner Power
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Modern mindfulness techniques are insufficient for dealing with the pressures of modern culture.
People are both victims and perpetrators of this culture, and looking inwards for solutions is like trying to fix a problem with the tools that created it.
Jon Tyson
That’s the problem with modern mindfulness techniques. You are living in a culture that’s destroying you. You are not only a victim of that culture, but a perpetrator of the very same culture. And now the solution is to go inside yourself to find the answers for the very thing that you’ve helped create, to help you deal with the thing that you’re struggling with. That’s-
Jon Tyson’s New York Optimism
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People ask Jon Tyson why he doesn’t move to an easier place to pastor than New York.
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They suggest that New York is struggling spiritually.
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Tyson responds that he doesn’t view New York through the lens of sociology or statistics, but rather through the heart of God and redemptive history.
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He believes New York may be the perfect place for God to break in with extraordinary power.
He has a kingdom imagination, not a victim-based identity, believing God can do more than he can imagine.
Jon Tyson
There’s not a lot here. And a lot of times people will come to me and they’d say, look, dude, why don’t you move somewhere easy to pastor? Go somewhere where it’s not as intense and people stay longer. And New York, like, isn’t it struggling spiritually? And I’m like, according to which dynamic? When I look at New York, I don’t look at it through the lens of sociology or statistics, I look at it through the heart of God and redemptive history. And everything says to me that this may be the most beautiful, perfect place for God to break in with extraordinary power and for something to happen. I’ve got a kingdom imagination. I’m not just culturally ruminating on brokenness, and I haven’t got a grievance victim-based identity. I’m believing that God can do more than I can-
Care for Your Inner World
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You must care for your inner world.
No one can do it for you—not the church, a mentor, or even God.
Jon Tyson
So how do we care for our inner world? Just a couple of practical thoughts and we’ll respond. The first one, you’ve got to care for your inner world. You’ve got to care for your inner world. You cannot outsource the building and care of your inner world.-
NYC and Inner World
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New York City prioritizes your productive capacity, not your inner well-being.
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You are responsible for cultivating your inner world.
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Neither the church, mentors, nor even God can do this for you.
It’s a personal commitment crucial for navigating the city’s demands.
Jon Tyson
New York City is not committed to the prosperity of your inner world. It’s committed to your capacity to produce for whoever you happen to work for. You’ve got to care for your inner world. So you’ve got to keep the stream. John Altberg wrote a beautiful book called Soul Keeping, and he opens the book with a parable. And I’m going to read this parable to you, okay? Because I think-
Protecting Your Inner World
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Take care of your inner world and what you let into it.
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No one else can do this for you, not even your community or accountability groups.
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Mindless activities like doomscrolling can rob you of communion with God and the wisdom He offers.
Be mindful of the media you consume; sometimes, it’s better to walk away from negative content to protect your soul.
Jon Tyson
It is so important that you take care of what you let into your inner world. No one else can do this for you. Your community group, your accountability group can’t. You’ve got to get a vision of building an inner world where Christ loves to dwell. That’s why just mindless doom scrolling is not sinful. It’s just stupid. Listen, it’s robbing you of communion with the God who can help you. It’s robbing you of the voice of love and not comparison that can reassure you. It’s robbing you of the wisdom to succeed in your job if you just listen to God’s advice on what to do vocationally. And so, so often we just let anything into our hearts and then we wonder why we’ve got so much condemnation, so much exhaustion, so much fear, so much guilt, so much shame. Those of you who know me know I’m a psycho of what I let in. The amount of movies I’ve walked out of because I’m like, I just don’t need this crap in my soul. But you paid $8. I got an eternal soul. I-
Treat Life with Reverence
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There’s a life of staggering possibility.
Don’t treat it trivially.
Jon Tyson
No one else will do this for you. There’s a life of staggering possibility. Do not treat it as a trivial thing. Number two, you have to learn to renew your heart. Not just keep your heart, you need to learn to renew it. Rebecca LyonsThis is the possibility of technology . ecology-of-technology capture-
What the World Needs
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The world needs people operating with a different spirit, vision, and power.
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These individuals step into chaos and offer humanity a different future.
They bring light to the world and recreate it.
Jon Tyson
What a vision. Do you know what our world is aching for? People operating from a different spirit, people with a different vision, people with a different power, stepping into the chaos of our world and offering humanity a different future. New York Magazine this past-
Build an Inner World
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Build a strong inner world to handle external pressures.
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Be a deep person in a shallow world.
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Prioritize knowing God over knowing culture.
Experiment with your faith and go beyond the superficial.
Jon Tyson
Your options are hope. Listen, I’m pleading with you. Got to build an inner world. I’m pleading with you. Be deep people in a shallow world. I’m pleading with you. Don’t know everything about culture and nothing about God. Get into the secret place and do an experiment on
