¶ Coming Up...
This ain't your feelings ministry. This is surrender to the master ministry.
You'll make no disciples if you're not there to die over a lifetime to yourself as a pastor to see Christ formed again.
🎵 Music
Welcome back guys. No, that's not how we're gonna start. I like it, I like it.
¶ Make Disciples Before It's Too Late
Joe's gotta lean too. We all got we all got things, you gotta lean in like uh everybody's got their thing now.
I've heard this is my thing, my hands like this. I've been told. I've been told this is my face.
The mockery just.
Oh every everybody's everybody's normal just.
If I get rid of this thing, a new thing will come. So I'm just like I'm just gonna embrace the thing because
Welcome back.
I know.
Everybody's got a
Just pretend.
Like you're not here, which is what I always do. And then
Yeah, but you're not at pretending. Yeah.
Exactly.
You can do the claws with the eyes closed. Yes.
Pretending is not the show.
It starts fresh for you every time.
This is uh not how I act on camera, this is how I act all the time. For better and for worse.
Actually true.
We could do this as a rolling star.
Rolling Start.
All right.
Fifty seconds in now.
I'm glad you're here.
I'm glad to be here.
I'm glad you're here. I'm glad everyone is here.
Yeah.
There is
Gladys. Brian. The second Doug.
Yeah.
A second dog.
The young dog.
Doug, we're on now. We're on. All right.
And we're talking discipleship.
There it is. Well what I like whether this is at least intuitive um display of enculturated discipleship in terms of like creating norms in a passive aggressive fashion to start the show off. And part of that does relate to discipleship somehow. But
Right.
It does.
It absolutely is, uh yes.
It does because the timeship involves formation. Okay.
Nice.
And we should say discipleship. I think every pastor and Christian has heard of discipleship. And so people might be asking why are we talking about something so basic and vanilla? Right. Um well, we wouldn't be talking about it if we didn't need to talk about it. So we think there's some things to say about discipleship and disciple making. It's good.
Uh yeah, well that that may be worth I think getting out the way early. This personal thoughts about it, but uh I don't think Period. Most pastors, period, uh, that uh love Christ, evangelical tradition, Protestants broadly speaking, they know that our mission is to make disciples. Absolutely. They want to, they know the scriptures.
And they are disciples and they want other people to follow. So I don't think that this the the the shortcomings in discipleship uh that need to be addressed are for lack of clear understanding that that is what the church is called to be and do. Yeah. Be disciples, make disciples, nor do I think it's a lack of intentionality from the leadership. to make disciples. However, we find ourselves continually at a point of not affecting much discipleship.
It's true. And and we tend to find out that our method of making disciples is deficient a few years after we've been doing a deficient method. So it's not like four weeks into trying to make disciples, we're like, okay, we're at twenty percent. Right. So we we we we don't and we don't want our students, we don't want pastors to think they're making disciples, get a decade in and say,
Oh.
Oh. That they're they're not actually these aren't actually mature Christians. I can't go back a decade. So it's important in the beginning to say, well, what does the Bible say is disciple making? What are deficient views of disciple making?
So critical.
To your point about the there there would seem to be some somewhat of a um extreme lack of attention if I wanted to mature my children. Uh little infants I'm carrying around just just snuggling with wonderful. Uh but and then I don't realize that things are inordinate, going the wrong direction, not heading in the best best way. We're not finding success in well forming a human being. Right. And then I review that at ten. Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're eighteen, you've been lacking attention to detail. You're not even understand the task of actually uh help helping your your child grow up if that's the iterative nature in which you think about raising.
My youngest is my youngest is eighteen. And so I kind of I had the realization, oh, like I'm kind of done parenting. You are done. Well yes, I want to disciples them as they move through their late teens and twenties and all that. But I just realized like a course of c over the course of parenting, we make corrections. We're like oh this is this I don't there there's no more room to make corrections. Oh that's right.
Or you're reactive about it. Yeah. I my my my oldest is 18 now. So what that like Paige and I've had uh that discussion on like, hey, well. Like we we either were successful or we weren't.
Right. There's nothing you can do about it.
We're not wanting to club.
Out of time machines.
Just a fresh out.
But that deficiency is so key. I I think about Shaquille O'Neal, one of the worst free throw shooters.
I can't wait to hear this connection.
Yeah.
You and I
Actually I lived through that era. Yeah.
It was painful.
I don't know who he was.
It was a painful.
Right.
Oh gosh. So And then for the next several
Most free throws.
He missed most of us. Okay, some key free throws in the game.
That's
And so
Nobody wa nobody was not expecting that. Amen.
So he goes in early in the morning and in the evening and he's and he and um his trainer is bragging about him shooting a thousand free throws in the morning and a thousand free throws in the evening. It's great. Phil Jackson walks in.
Oh.
And says And then he says, I still missed him, Phil. He says, Well, I looked at what you were doing. You can practice all you want. If the way you're doing it is inefficient and You're just perfecting wrong.
Right.
Well he had if I remember correctly is he was so big as he had a technique that always looked like this when he was
I know.
Shot putting the ball. And uh I was a terrible free throw shooter myself, full confession. However, that I think that this I never tried that one. It just didn't tend to go very well. That's right.
Yeah.
That's true. So a lot of pastors just
Do a lot of
Something called discipleship, but if it's deficient and ineffective.
I know we're on the like basketball illustration, but I did spend a lot of time well, you know, for better or worse, uh, you know, dribbling the ball. But we I I I was I was a a a decent practice hero.
¶ Discipleship Isn't Intellectualism
And I think uh too many times it does relate to discipleship because you can be a practice here all you want. You can be a champion on the off days. But when you're actually in the game, that's when it matters whether or not you're you're you're actually getting buckets. That's right. And so it's the same thing in discipleship. You you can be talking to other pastors, other leaders at the luncheons, and you can be a
Books. Reading all the books. You can be a conversational practice hero, but if nobody's actually following Christ, then then it doesn't matter. That's good.
So two things that you just said that I think are helpful. Um one is you gave it's a great way of you you just sort of quickly and conversationally define disciple without defining it, which it helps avoid it being boring. But in case anybody missed it, following Jesus, that's what
I think I missed it, so I'm excited.
Jesus, right. That's what a disciple is, a follower of Jesus. But Jesus says if anybody wants to follow me, right, he must. Take up his cross, come after me. That's a follower of Jesus. That's what a disciple is. And then the second thing that you pointed out, which I think leads to one of the reasons why this isn't happening. Like, like we all said, um, this isn't like you got a guy who goes into ministry and said, I just want Um Cushy Paycheck. I just want
That's right.
This is just all I could do.
Peter says not to.
There are men who do this but the number of things.
No Phil C.
There's guys.
Um
Thank you for spelling that for us.
I was like, Yeah, that's a great
That's the King James, right? First Peter Five. Yeah.
We've got the
Amazing.
We got that new uh book review podcast. We'll start a spelling B one.
Well, I think it'd be possible.
Everybody's a bad speller now with uh spell check.
I'm terrible.
And so you could get it right.
Every time though.
And you're like, oh there's no spell
To your point, I was full of side but to the students in class, I'll tell them up front, hey, help me with my spelling, because I will misspell. And you can think what you want of me. I'm working on it.
I just scribble it and say what it is.
You blur the letters and you're like, No, no, that's what it is.
Back to the substantive point. The thing you said that I thought was really helpful was this. I thought that you you pointed out that um there there's a kind of guy who reads books, goes to conferences, um, could talk. He can talk.
Shop.
about making disciples, but he may he may not actually be doing it. And there's a lot of reasons why that might be, but one that came to mind right away for me was if he's the kind of guy who's always reading books, always going to conferences and that kind of thing. He may, because there are a lot of people who do this, have a very deficient understanding of what exactly a disciple is and what disciple making entails.
Right.
By which I mean he's reduced it. Whether intentionally or not, he has reduced it to simply not a matter of knowledge. The discipleship is simply about It's about learning some facts. It's about growing in your knowledge of doctrine.
Don't get me wrong, of course that's a part of it. Sure. Jesus taught even in even in the Great Commission, where he says, go and make disciples. He says to teach them everything to observe, though. Teach them to observe everything. He didn't say teach them to memorize everything. There's a there's a difference, right? Teach them to obey is different than saying teach them a lot of facts so they can win a sword drill competition and they can answer Bible trivia questions.
There's a huge difference. And and I honestly think a lot of the reason why you see a deficiency in in this area of of so many churches' ministries is for this reason. If you have reduced it discipleship to simply intellectual pursuit. Then you're thinking that guy over there reading lots of books, he's growing, he's he's obviously learning a bunch. And and we we ought to put fast track him to ministry.
Then he gets into ministry and what does he do? He thinks, well, how did I get here? I read loads of books, I went to conferences, I talked, I debated doctrine all the time. So he's looking around for more guys like that. And and it's a horrific, perpetuating kind of cycle.
Yeah, they're fundamentally missing that that uh disciples are human beings. So so they're missing actually who who we're training to be disciples. So there's much more of like a computer-based model of discipleship. I give it more inputs, I enter more data, saves it in the hard drive. Whoever has the biggest hard drive, that means I'm growing in Christ. That's right.
Right.
Fundamentally misses the the the point of the information that and growing in theology and understanding the scriptures and memorization is to uh exercise our muscles in life of following Christ. That's right. Absolutely so without that it's it's it's shocking
People thing. Tell'em about the uh uh time we went to Minneapolis in negative twenty three degree January.
And trying to forget that.
No doubt. Don't tell'em that part of the story. Tell'em.
Skylade. Skylade.
Tell it, tell it. I thought yeah it was great.
was you used the phrase just a moment ago. He he just preached a sermon on the uh Great Commission. Right. And I remember when he said, flip your Bibles in Matthew twenty eight, eighteen. I gotta be honest, man, I thought This it'll be a good reminder.
The old Baptist Seneca, you came out.
Martial defense. How many sermons have you heard on? And then I could like I could literally list a
hundred chapters of the Bible you've probably never heard a sermon on. And then it's like, and how many of you are heard on Matthew twenty eight, eighteen through twenty? And that would be to the moon. Right. And so I was like, all right, well it's gonna be another good reminder. Probably have heard everything I could hear out of this text. I'm sure not because I learned it all, because I've heard it so many times. And yet.
He got up there and spanked it out of the ballpark. It was amazing. Absolute grand slam. And his emphasis over and over again was this is what we do. We make people.
Make people.
Make people. Fully formed people who are made in the image of God, but they fall way short of that image because of sin. And it's our job to help them live up, to grow up into salvation, as Peter says, we make. people. Right. And that image was unbelievably powerful.
People formation. So and then that that that means it it entails everything that it means to be human. Right. That needs to be formed after Christ. Right.
So if if we've said bare theological knowledge or biblical knowledge, you know, being able to simply pass a theology or Bible exam.
¶ Discipleship Isn't Pietism
Isn't full form discipleship? What might be some other ways or pitfalls that pastors fall into, some deficiency, deficient views of discipleship?
Well, th it's a it's a corollary one that comes to mind. Again, it's it's kind of um bad pietism, okay, which ends in
Define piratism for us.
Well, essentially the the only thing that matters in terms of your Christian life is your uh inner life. your devotional life and your your your uh your affections being transformed and oriented rightly towards God. Yeah. So it it correlates to having right ideas and right understanding, but but essentially it's about your personal devotional life. without much reference to the activities that you carry out in life, in terms of your jobs, in terms of your relationships, in terms of
Every other area is just about your personal understanding and disposition towards God. And Pietism tends to overly emphasize that aspect of discipleship, which is which is very significant. But it's not everything. So it produces a lot of folks that wrongly equate because I have a decent thought that accords with the scriptures and my intentions were good. Then therefore everything else is okay.
So as long as I'm well intended, it doesn't matter if my actions actually accord or if my life is being conformed or if I'm actually turning from the things that don't accord and actually living in a different direction. It's much more about your your your personal felt state of being. And yeah, and and that's all that really crisis concern about. So so in a pop level way it always comes off.
with too many questions about how's your heart, brother. Right. That's what I'm really concerned about. How's your heart? Well, I I am concerned about your heart. And that does matter a bunch. In fact, we shouldn't denigrate that. Right. But it goes far beyond just I'm worried about your heart. I'm also worried about what you're doing.
And what you're saying and why you're why you're living this way and the activities that you just engaged in. Th those sorts of things. So it doesn't just end in it, you know, it's not just merely a personal devotion.
Right. Honestly, we could probably take the um so John Frame.
¶ Head, Heart, and Hands
Famous for many things, but he's going to be remembered for triangles forever, right? His his triads, his triperspectivalism, and all that. But I think it's he's he's on the trial.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
He's onto something. Dylan one time, he was in an interview and somebody was just like, you know, I I noticed uh that um patterns of three show up in your music a lot and um and and you know, you can you speak to why that is? And he said.
It's probably Trinity.
And uh in classic ball in classic Bob Dylan fashion refuses to explain. Probably a Trinity. And I thought that there's something to that. But anyway, John Frame. But I haven't done that in a long time.
Yeah, well.
You're right.
No. This is the third time. It's probably the trend.
Yeah. Head, heart, hands. You could take head, right, heart, hands. All all of them should be functioning at a healthy level, fully engaged. When we're talking about making a person, making a disciple on somebody who knows what's true. Right. They love what is good, right? And and they're actually doing what is right with what they know and what they love. Uh but you have examples of people who who just only one. You were talking about the guy who's just worried about your heart, bro.
And uh you've got people who are just focused on the head alone, kind of dead orthodoxy. You've got activists. It's just the hands, right? It's all right. It's so doctrine is literally inconsequential if it doesn't serve their purposes or their goals, what they're trying to accomplish in the world, that kind of thing.
Um, and and I think that it's just this is very basic. I didn't come up with it and lots of people have talked about this, but it's good it's just worth remembering because it's so easy. Uh, I think most people are aware that it's wrong to reduce it to one. So what's more common, I think, is we just kind of leave one of those three off. So we're we're like ahead.
church. Somebody would never say that verbally, but you look at their ministry and you're like, well, you got a lot of people who know doctrine and they talk and they pray and they talk a lot about the experience they have in worship, but they're not obeying the very basic teachings of Jesus.
Or we're hands church, we do the soup kitchen. We're not really sure he rose from the dead. Right. In fact, there's a lot of doubters here.
Serving the poor.
Most people are not really sure that the Bible's a word from God. Um, however We're we're serving people. We're s you know, that so so so it's it's a fragmentation of the disciple themselves. and uh wrongly dividing what God says we need to put together as those who are followers of Christ.
I think here would be a great place for people to just honestly do a a simple diagnostic and ask which of these three would I be most likely? It's like everybody's calling for Lub.
This is perfect and it's intellect defections and actions.
Everybody's heart car is a little out of alignment. If you're thinking about your own heart and your head in that way, you can think, Well, my life is always gonna veer a certain way if I take my hands off the steering wheel. So which way is it most prone to veer in? Which of these three am I most prone uh to leave off? And and and I think you just ask that question and then and then you can look around and say, Yeah.
Ha ha has my church full of a bunch of Sunday school teachers who uh teach a bunch of Bible facts and yet, and yet this guy's on his fifth marriage? Right. Not because his first four wives died. Right. You see what I'm saying? Like that's really basic. I mean, it's extremely basic. And and yet that's crazy common. Like that kind of stuff's pretty common.
This is to your question, John, I still think it relates to your last comment because I I still think there's a faulty understanding in a lot of churches, too many churches.
¶ Slaves of Christ: Submitting to the Master
of um four Christians, who is in charge? Who is in charge? They they teach the Bible Um, they they orient all of their programming, their discipleship, um, their educational, their institution, all all of their training. still uh with the fundamental affirmation that um we as individuals are in charge. We're we're the final deciding factor. on what we will do and not do, what we will obey and not obey, what we need to believe and not believe, what's opinion and what's perspective.
uh what's acceptable, what's what we need to tolerate. It's still fundamentally there's there's a a lack of understanding the lordship of Christ and discipleship. Christ is our authority. Uh he is in charge. He has given us a clear word, and we are to teach all nations to obey all that he commanded, obey. And the the only action for followers is to follow. So it's not we're leading and then Christ copilots with us and we we let him know when we're gonna get his input on things.
A disciple is one who is a slave of Christ. Right. So we've relinqu we've relinquished our authority and we are under full submission to the the good shepherd of our souls so that the faster I can figure out what he has for me. uh how great his grace is and what he tells me to do. I I am working on putting to death the old man who doesn't like it and embracing the new man that is delighting in all the goodness that God has. And therefore we submit.
So the Christian life is one of submission to Christ. But most churches don't have uh a I don't uh they don't have that at the base.
Or or they do, but it's on paper, but not in practice. Because how many churches would say, Well, no, Jesus is not Lord. He's not Lord of my life. You would just not find that. You but what you will find is people who give lip service to that. But then you look at people's lives and to borrow a phrase that you're always saying, um, p exactly it's cause it's exactly true. It's an accurate diagnosis of exactly what we're talking about. People Too m too many.
It's not all of them. I hope it's not most of'em, but far too many uh have adopted a kind of vision for discipleship. That is so fragmented and compartmentalized. Yeah. The par compartmentalization where it's like, well, Jesus is Lord of this area of my life. Right. But not this one. Right. I mean, so he can tell me how to spend my time on Sunday morning. And he can tell me that I have to give 10% to the church. And he can tell me who I'm allowed to sleep with.
But then it's like over here though, what I do with all my time, how I think about what matters in life, how I think about parenting, how I think about anything practically, like at an absolute functional level. He's functionally not Lord in their lives in those ways because they don't have submission at the base.
Not the base. And they don't think um s the clear understanding of who Christ is is is understandable and realizable. So there's a lot of maybe tropes or kind of things that float around the ether of leaders and pa pastors especially in their minds. Well, I don't want to meddle. Well Christ meddled in every aspect of everybody's life.
Didn't.
Uh sometimes explicitly, but definitely implicitly, indirectly, comprehensively. Mm-hmm. With with everything he said. So or I don't want to bind conscience, brother. Uh but they take it to uh uh they they never take it to the extreme. Because they always have some commentary that they add to the book. If they're being consistent, like our job as pastors is to help expound the the scriptures in accordance with this meaning and relevancy and application for life. That's what pastors do.
So so the the guy who's constantly worried about binding conscience, it's normally based on uh his own conscience in his own perspective and his fear of man and what he doesn't want to tell other people to do that he feels comfortable. So if he if he really was trying to be consistent with that kind of misunderstanding, he would just hand him a Bible and walk away. Yeah. But I can't say anything more than it actually is. And it's it's just grossly unfortunate.
But you know, earlier you spoke of surrender and living life in submission, and you went on a whole Good holy rant. Right. Which was also
Sure.
I mean, I I do that normally louder and more angry.
Amen sombani. But
So many pastors just never heard that.
Right.
So they weren't discipled by a man. who said what you just said and therefore they soaked in the deficiency as normative and right. And so when they operate in that in not hearing what you just said, they have no clue that they're deficient and in many ways just wrong. And so so many pastor just have not been discipled and um
Um
And so when they they just mutate and keep mutating and keep mutating more disciples from that deficiency, now we have multi generations of that. And I think we have to begin to grab back hold in discipleship to that word, like you said, submission and surrender. Take up my cross and follow me, which I don't hear a lot in discipleship. I remember my father who was an abusive man to my mother. um n alcoholic, just uh he was a rough joker. I never forget, man, he pulled up on me and
from New Jersey to North Carolina and told me, knocked on my door early in the morning, I thought it was the police. And he came, he s he called me Dark Boy. Dark Boy, open the door. It's me. So I opened the door and he says, Hey man, I don't put that liquor away. Mess with no more women. I'm walking with the mask. And I says, well, what what is that?
Oh.
Who's your master?
Right, right. And who's the master? And so I said, Do you mean Jesus?
Yeah.
And I wasn't a Christian and he said, um Yeah, I wouldn't call how do you get off calling him G? He's the master. I call people Mr. something. Surely I'm gonna call the savior of the world the master. The Bible calls him the master. So I gotta do what the master says. So that weight, the weightiness that he saw Jesus in discipleship meant.
He had to come up under everything he said. And I just don't think we're talking. I ain't saying say call him the master makes it weighty, but I'm saying I just don't know if we talk.
Well, I think you're right because I think a lot of a lot of pastors unintentionally are enculturated towards bad discipleship habits. Mm-hmm. Meaning meaning they're they're not building their assumptions about what it means to be a disciple from the scriptures. Right. That we have a clear word, that it's authoritative. They're saying actually who's in the driver's seat is the individual. And they ultimately ha have um they're they're the ones in control of dis of the final decision.
Will I follow the master or not? Yeah. And in some ways, from a philosophical standpoint, say, well course, they they have to make their choices. However, the the force of Christ is you need to follow me.
¶ "Gentle-Parenting" Discipleship in the Church
That's the choice that everyone must make. You should make. You must definitely should should actually follow. So
Discipleship
It is. So so they they hold wrong they hold wrong hugs, they hold wrong punches, that they they they hold wrong encouragement. But it but but they're just inconsistent because they've been enculturated in a bad way. If you think about think about nobody the the best parents, the most intuitive parents, parents that love their kids, which is most all of them by default, nobody looks at their kids as they're going astray and goes. I don't want to overstep.
They say, I am going to stand in your way of wrecking your life. I love you too much and I am going to help you discern the foolishness that is in you so that you can embrace wisdom and wonder and your life is going to go a whole different way. But because dad loves you.
Best believe I am gonna be in your way when you wanna go the wrong direction. Too many pastors don't love the sheep enough to go find the one that wandered up the hill and break their legs and throw'em on the back and say, We're gonna come back into the f into the fence. Yeah. Where it's actually They missed that. It's not fighting for the sheep.
Before your illustration, I just want to in-cap him. Eugene Peterson says this discipleship is a decision to live by what is true about God, right? Not what I feel about him or myself and others. To your point, like this ain't This ain't your feelings ministry. This is surrender to the master ministry. That's right.
There's a um we've had Tilly Dillahay on this podcast before and um She has an Instagram. My wife follows her and showed me a video that she posted the other day um where she said how Laura Ingalls from the uh little house on the prairie uh would sound if she spoke like Contemporary people today. So a lot of the jokes didn't land for me because I'm not a woman and I'm not on Instagram following other
w women influencers who are talking in certain ways, but there were a couple jokes that landed. They were they were hysterical. One of them was uh so she's like kneading bread while she's talking and she says, um, tomorrow we're going to the funeral of uh my nephew. He uh his parents practi he fell into a well. His parents practice gentle parenting.
And um it was a it's a it's funny joke'cause it's just it's fiction. It's a fictional story, but she's she's waxing eloquent on the fact that uh this boy fell into a well because he was the kind of boy who'd never been told no in his life. Right. Uh and uh it We should be able to see the insanity of that way of thinking about parenting. When it comes to uh pastoring, there are there are a lot of pastors who have been, to your point, uh Doug, they have been trained.
to think that this is what it looks like. You know, they've been warned not to be bullies, right? You don't want to bully pulpit. Don't so don't, you know, don't be a bully. And they've heard that message so loud and clear that they just don't sound they they don't sound like
John the Baptist
Or Jesus or any of the apostles in the way that they speak in the New Testament.
Yeah, repentance and faith requires what is called today in society bullying, which is It's not unconditional positive regard. You're already going in the right way. I never tell you no. I just hope and encourage that somehow I can deflect you in the right direction through what you already want to do. Right. Most of God's commandments are no. Turn this way and go this way. So it's a no to a yes always. That's what that's what repentance and faith looks like. No, that's loving.
Tell'em no, because that's destructive. Yes to something that's glorious and wonderful. We we just what's what's what's the most basic, plain understanding of what it looks like to follow Christ and his teachings is just overlooked because we've we don't we don't think about the
Tell the parents in our church, you can't be a better father than God.
That's right.
And so if he says no, and he does, and if he disciplines those And he does. Right. Then you are not more loving than him if you refuse to say no and you refuse to discipline your children. That's correct. So now take that over as a pastor, right? We we there are times we have to say no. There are times we have to get specific. I think we've actually talked about this before, but it's it's worth it's worth just like
Reading a couple verses, you remember in Luke 3, John the Baptist comes on the scene. He's preaching a message of repentance, preparing the way for the Messiah. He tells them the axe is already laid at the root of the tree, and every tree that doesn't produce good fruit will be cut down, thrown into the fire. What then should we do? The crowds were asking him, Luke three ten. And he said, just, you know, uh, repent, believe.
I don't cover it. No, he gets really specific. He says, Hey, the one who has two shirts? has to share with one who has none. And the one who has food wants to do the same with the one who does not. Tax collectors also came to him to be baptized and they asked, Teacher, what should we do? And he told them, Don't collect any more money than what you have been authorized to collect. And then some soldiers questioned him and said, What should we do?
And he said to them, Don't take money from anyone by force or by false accusation, and be content with your wages. Now we could go to so many passages in the scriptures that speak this way. I think the point is if if a pastor spoke that way today, to your point, it would be called bullying. It would be called meddling, which is a bit of an older word, but it would be called that. But it's not. But these things are modeled for us in literally every epistle in the New Testament.
Right. This this is just basic discipleship. Right. Again, this is called a f faith is taking God at his word. Right.
¶ Cosigning Doubt and Therapeutic Discipleship
And following. That's why they call it that that's why they're they're they're they're enmeshed together inseparably. It's the obedience of faith. Absolutely. I was reading a book this week um by uh social commentator in the larger church landscape. And he was essentially uh wrote wrote is a more recent book on um analyzing the mainline church. And most of his argument was there's a lot of a lot of folks in this broader tradition.
And they're properly understood as moderates. And they just want a space to go to church and have their perspectives across the continuum of views. Totally different than John the Baptist, but also be affirmed in they they want to they they have a lot of doubt. And and s and so the whole and and hi and a lot of a lot of the book's orientation was that's the type of spaces we need to create. Spaces where people are coming from everywhere and they're affirmed in their doubt.
This is fundamentally antithetical to discipleship because we're not cultivating doubt. We're helping people get off the doubt of the of the sandy ground onto the faith filled uh rock that is immovable so that they can actually obey and uh ob obey and build their lives. Right. So we're not so there's there's nothing wrong with having questions. Doubt in the right sense is is as Kirk Yarr said the other side of faith, if you will.
because I'm not sure about this, therefore I'm working towards what what is actually sure. But if it's just a state of being of unbelief. That's yes. Then that's not discipleship. That's right. Our job is not to create or cultivate Unbelief in folks, but faith in Christ that leads to following.
I know I quoted him last time, but I'm gonna do it again because I don't know anybody who's got a better a better piece of wisdom uh than GK Chesterton on this particular point. And and and and the fact that he gets quoted by me quite often is just a a a an advertisement. An advertisement for people to read it more often because the man reads like a guy who's live today and he wrote a hundred years ago. Correct. Anyway, he said What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place.
Modesty, by which he means humility, has moved from the organ of ambition, where it should have been, and settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself. But undoubting about the truth. And this has been exactly reversed. Hasn't it? Everybody's like, I believe in myself. I don't know about all that truth stuff. He says He says, therefore, we are on the road to producing a race of men to mentally modesty.
To believe in the multiplication tables.
That's right, yeah.
We are.
We said this in the thirties, right? And and and we're here. We are here. Uh and and and so when it comes to uh discipleship, right, is it there's too many there's two Too too many people like the man you're referring to, I know that guy who's pastored a couple churches into the ground. Sure. We're pontificating that, you know, what what it really means to make disciples is to make space for people to believe whatever they want, have their doubts, come as they are, remain unchanged.
The Bible never talks that way. It really doesn't. Right.
That's why the God God continues to remove those lampstands in those type of churches because they're not making disciples. And then everyone doubles down and says, I must be right.
uh and refuses to submit to what the scriptures teach him. So I mean, th this is this is back to your question originally, Joe, a little bit was that this is also because we live in a in a and we've mentioned this many times before, but we're in a we're in a culture that's awash with their Therapy is is the is discipleship for self-worship.
Yes.
That's essentially what it is, because essentially the self uh is uh the determiner of all things, right? Therapy becomes the means by which the self gets uh what it really wants.
How it mediates it too.
It's so so it's it's a it's a methodology to cultivate self affirmation. Yes. Uh your your feelings really are right, they're not wrong. Let me show you how they may actually benefit you if you felt a certain way. So so it's coddling towards self-worship and it's a mechanism for discipleship. When the church embraces uh f uh the self at the center, and then feelings as the means that uh are the primary means by which people are actually moved, shaped,
grow, then the means of actual discipleship are stripped out of the church. Because uh God's truth is not primarily concerned about your feelings, even though folks say that all the time, it's just the case. Truth is what is primary. And then love, we help people uh understand the grace of God that leads us into his truth. The orientation is the other way.
Yeah, we we only know love from the truth of the Bible. Yeah, that's right. And and and and back again to pastors. Follow me as I follow Christ. Don't follow me as I manipulate the word to make you feel good about following me. And and just the language of discipleship. Luke, um, it's been stated already. If anyone comes after me.
¶ Let the Bible Inform Our Discipleship
um becomes my disciple, let me let him deny himself. That's strong language, deny. um requires you to lay down everything, abandon everything, and fully adopt his way and adapt your whole life, your whole being to what the Bible says. And pastors That is the duty. And if people don't like you with that, I don't like vegetables, but my mother made me eat them. And I hated them and I'm glad for it and mad for it at the same time. But You're but if the popularity goals
Mm.
Mm-hmm. Then deny is two strike. Um take up your cross. What a statement. Right.
Yeah.
And take up your cross daily. It's it's too it's it's
Yeah, we we we still ha the the church has too often been been captured by a the the world's perspective on Jesus' words. Yes. So so Jesus' words of taken up your cross and follow me are liberation terms. If if what what you can do is stay in enslaved to the devil. Enslaved to disobedience, enslaved to chaos and destruction, and continue to orient your whole life in darkness and leading others um uh uh in the blindness that you have. So what what actually it is, you c you can remain there
Or you can take my yoke upon you that that that is that is that is light. Agreed. And that is easy and that is wonderful. So even even the like the vegetables is is a is great because rightly understandable. Well, right, we need to eat our vegetables. But some some of the presumption too in culture is Jesus has has a whole buffet of vegetables, steaks, dessert, everything magic for you. If you would just sit down at the Jesus uh at his table.
and indulge in all of the beauty that he has, it's gonna be a diet like you've never had before. And and too many folks think that they're the the the way they understand what's good for them, what's what's healthy in their life and what they need. Is not giving Jesus the presumption. Right.
Right. And biblical discipleship is also trying to avoid working against the Holy Spirit. So in in in the New Testament, you know
¶ Don't Fight against the Spirit, He Wants to Conform Your People
There are warnings against like don't work against the Holy Spirit because God has sent his spirit to sanctify us. And then the question is well What is the Holy Spirit doing in someone so I can work in concert with the Holy Spirit? And Paul's clear in Romans eight, those whom he foreknew, he predestined.
to be conformed to the image of his son. True. So the Holy Spirit's work in a Christian is to make them more like Jesus. Right. Right. So discipleship is, okay, that's what the Holy Spirit's doing. The Holy Spirit's not going to make this person more like anybody else. Yeah. Because Jesus is king and the exalted one. So in my discipleship, I'm gonna work with the power of God in a believer to make sure they become more like Jesus. Yeah.
If pastors understood this, they would stop standing in the way of the Spirit of God. The spirit that comes to dwell within us, the spirit of Christ, the spirit of God in us is already moving towards obedience to the word in Christ. Right. Why are you standing in the way when he's already given the power to every believer and they're ready to run and you're over there. Like like a bad coddling parent that doesn't want the the eagles to be set free and fly.
Rescuing them from God, right?
Продолжение следует...
We'll work with that.
Moses veiled his face, and therefore I w I want to make sure I veil all the goodness of God and keep it from you. Get out of the way, realize the spirit is with you.
There well, you asked the why question. I think there's a couple of answers that come to mind on why why someone would do that. Uh one that you've you've already uh reminded us d of, Doug, is that they they haven't been what to aim for. Right. And if you don't know what to aim for, you're going to miss that target every time. Right. And then that doesn't reduce responsibility. Okay. Um, it doesn't it doesn't
It it's not a full uh full orbed excuse. We don't let somebody completely off the hook just because uh they weren't taught well. It's like uh or uh d uh there's a judge the other day, he was like a twenty year old man. convicted of uh raping a woman and they sentenced him to life for sixty years or something. And the judge said, I just don't believe that's fair. That's the rest of his life. Never mind that he ruined somebody else's life.
Never.
Uh and she said, and I just think, you know, if he had better role models, uh he and and you know, a different system with all this against him, and he looked at her and said, Be I'd do it again. still reduced his sentence to something like thirty years and then with parole he'll probably be out in nine. My my point though, right? My point is
That's help us Lloyd. You do you do have so you do have some people who just don't even know what target they're aiming for. If you don't know what you're aiming for, you're not gonna hit it.
Also have self righteous do-gutters that uh r refuse to affirm reality. The man sat there and said Term that you mentioned by illusion, said, I'd do it again. And the in the the hubris, the arrogance of someone who sits there and goes, No you wouldn't. Yeah. I know better than that. That that th that type of leadership is the most destructive on the planet because it is so blind, so condescending.
So uh an abject uh rejection of what is real for human beings in terms of how sin works and how actually we we are called to act as human beings and how God works to redeem us from ourselves.
Right.
Then then you are willfully upholding what is destructive. Many pastors are like that judge though.
So it's not just okay, we've deficient knowledge of what a disciple is, you can't hit a target you don't know to aim for. There's also just an incredibly deficient understanding of what sin is and how it works.
Right.
So if you reduce sin to just breaking a couple of rules and then you're just like, well, that guy's not, you know, he's not murdering anybody. He's not raping people. He's not, you know, he's not like Doing the really bad stuff. I mean, he's he's he's pretty he's pretty good. He's probably making it fine. And then you just have like all these working assumptions that most people are just gonna operate.
from a a posture of they're probably gonna get it right most of the time. Right. And I'm just always like, what Bible are you are you reading? That's not the one I'm reading because that's not the way people tend to act.
Yeah, if your default assumption is that most people outside of Christ are already decent Christians.
oh gosh well that's impossible but yes
Well but it but still that that's there's no functional view of sin. Sure. So essentially Christ comes alongside to kind of give them a a little bit of creatine in their life. to strengthen their good moral fibers so that they'll actually go in the right direction. Discipleship is exactly the opposite of that. It's discipleship affirms what Christ says, I had to die for my enemies. Yeah. It's that left unto yourselves, we will Do egregious things.
that yes but I was even thinking more specifically not among not how they think of non-Christians but even Christians.
Well that's what I mean, is they they take that assumption into the church and therefore that there is you already kind of want the things of God. I just need to clean you up and sell some.
Jesus supplements.
Yeah, exactly. We we we we got so we got some encouragement for you, a couple little entertainment items. We got a big band for you. Everything's just dug.
I'm Rub.
Feels feels will get you going in the right direction. It's not a fundamental constitution reorientation.
A continual one. Tenual renewal, be be renewed and Yeah. There was a young man in a small group like 14 years ago. He doesn't live in our our city anymore, so I think it's safe to use this example, but um he was really bothered. by our teaching, our emphasis on the fallen nature of the human heart.
And he was like, Yeah, but I'm a Christian. He's like, I have a new heart. I was like, You do. He's like, so all these passages, it was Jer Jeremia seventeen was the one he was especially upset with, right? The heart, exceedingly sick, who can understand it? He's like.
That's talking about non-Christians. That's not talking about me, right? My heart is new. It wants the right things now. And I was like, what do you do with all of the passages in the New Testament? Like it's one of the themes Paul revisits in most of his letters of the old man. Who's still alive? He's been crucified with Christ, yes, but he's still alive. He has to be put to death. You have to put him off and put another one on. None of that language makes sense.
Unless
you still have a a heart that at some level doesn't always want to do what is right. And and so if you take that naive understanding into into into a pastor And then he's thinking, I got a church full of good people. They they they won't watch they just occasionally make mistakes. He he's gonna make a mess of discipleship, whether whether he wants to or not.
Absolute mess.
To what you guys just said, so many pastors see Christianity as the refurbished life and not the new life. They don't see it comprehensively, reorientation. They just want to tweak them. They just want to tweak some of the points that's wrong with your life. No, this is a call to die. This is a call to deny.
Yeah.
goes they don't want to go far enough. And and I'll add for me, um when I was jacking up discipleship from my deficiency, um Mines wasn't talk because nobody was listening to me. Mines was it wasn't working. And so when I started getting punched in the face in terms of the people I was shepherding just weren't growing spiritually. That's when I found out that I had a deficiency in my discipleship. So a lot of guys who have deficiency
It's not connected to real people. It's only thought. When my little stuff that I thought was dope was was gonna try, I tried it and Nobody, it didn't work. And so we have to continue to apply discipleship to real humans, not this theoretical idea. So when I was discipling people and it wasn't working, I needed to find out a way that was biblical and right. That also
Yeah.
And th and this is the point is the scriptures actually tell us to your point what a real human is. So pastors uh and again if you've been pastoring for a while, like all of us have, when when a when a wonderful sweet saint comes into the room and says I got some something I want to share with you. Um, I gotta be honest. It might um is heavy. Uh the pastor should be there with great kindness, great care, great love to extend grace and and Christ's mercy, but also uh we should also say
I've read the scriptures. I'm probably not gonna be shocked. Yeah. Because I already know what I am and what you are based on the scriptures. Mm-hmm. We we are apt to do evil things. Yeah. Evil things. I'm not shocked. You know what? There's mercy. because of the cross, but you're not going to shock me because the old man is wilding out. I the old man is there, whether or not you let him out, the question is whether you're going to put him to death continuously.
So pastors have to rightly see the people that they're caring for and building up as the Bible sees them. So it's as to wash.
Lord I feel it.
Yeah, that that's not just a platitude in the hymn that we actually sing or like well, not most people though. Not me. I don't wander. Not my church. No, not my church. We
Who wrote this?
People cannot hear your point, President, and then say I see what you're saying. Pragmatically, you guys are saying that the a biblical perspective kind of works for you. That's not what we're saying. What we're saying is what the Bible says about God and us as as human beings. is true whether we affirm it or not. Whether we see it or not. It's true. That's what who we are as as disciples.
Whether people like it or not.
We do it. That's right.
So if if we define what what deficient v a deficient view of discipleship is
¶ What Does Real Discipleship Look Like?
And we've also in contradistinction to that said this is this is what we're aiming for. Right. What does it look like? I won't even just say for pastors, I'll say what does it look like in a church if biblical discipleship is happening? Yeah.
I'll tell you what it doesn't look like. It doesn't look like a guy who
I thought we just covered the city.
To the positive.
Sorely. Okay.
I mean I thought we were A man in your church with he's got a very successful podcast and he's like going through
Are you about to rebuke us? No, it's okay.
He's going through Calvin's Institutes and he's got thousands and thousands of views on every episode. And um he invites you over for dinner, you go to his house. And his house is in complete disarray. There are holes in the walls, there are things that need to be fixed. Um it is an unsafe, untidy environment. His kids are buck wild. I mean paint the picture as su as much as you want, but this isn't that far from what you could see.
Yeah.
And then imagine leaving and thinking, you know what, that stuff's not a big deal.
'Cause the guy
The guy knows the Lord, he loves truth and
It was Cal. What else?
Right. And uh a lot of people listening to him, he's probably gonna make a great elder. Uh that that way of of thinking about discipleship just has to die. It has to be put to death. You you can't make progress until you recognize what your what what is the kinds of errors that are most likely to be made and you recognize They are significant problems. That's not a small like that's not a small thing. That guy's house is not in order. No. And so his life is not in order.
And if his life is not in order, it doesn't matter how much he knows about the Bible or Calvin or anything else. He's not doing anything with what he knows. And discipleship helps that man do something with all the learning that he's acquired.
Yeah, green screen Christianity cannot is is not genuine Christianity. It's it's a facade, it's a masquerade. But but nor is the other. Um, the guy who is just a wrangler of people, right? So um I I was thinking about my father was actually uh real great people personally. And he was typically captivating no matter where you're coming from. He just was able to he he was he was he was fun like that. Yeah. But
But that that's still not the litmus test of whether you're lur l you you can get people's attention. Maybe maybe gather some folks. Right. But where are you leading them? So so the the the flip side of that is the guy who's able to get a bunch of people in a building. Get a bunch of people in his house for a small group, but doesn't actually lead them to Christ is just as much of a failure as as the John Calvin Green Scam Green podcast got.
So if we're gonna take those negatives and turn them into positives in a church, very important.
Yeah.
Dis when discipleships happen biblically, we have healthy households, we have healthy relationships. Yes. Um and people discipling people, just having healthy relationships, even if it is an official discipleship relationship.
Garrett Kell wrote an article for Nine Marts and he talked about the replication of Jesus, not the replication of just, you know, pastors, but We dw um as a pastor, we call people to follow us as we follow Christ. So I think we need a I believe Matthew twenty-eight pushes the church towards a culture of disciples.
And I think when it's healthy is when not only um are the sermon um, the small groups, but the sermons, the small groups are readings, and if there is a podcast at a church, all those things are working in concert. to foster an atmosphere of maturity, accountability, and growth. And it's not just coming from the top, but there's little groups of people walking together in accountability.
all over that we as pastors hear about, that we don't necessarily fully orchestrate, but we lead by example in growth, maturity, repentance, and faith constantly, which sparks in my hope. as a pastor is the domino effect that ripples through the congregation so that we have an atmosphere of hope and an environment of maturity that we're always pushing one another to greater growth in Christ.
Yeah, and to and to your point, the c the cul the culture of discipleship flows out of our identity as a church, as as Christ's disciples. So t so what what what pastors should not hear what you're saying, and this unfortunately happens sometimes is
¶ It's Not about the Right "Program"
So I so I need to get the right discipleship program. And then I'm gonna get the small groups and I'm gonna get the I'm gonna get the training, uh, you know, teaching classes, I'm gonna get the gatherings, I'm also gonna get some right curriculum, maybe a little bookstore, and then everything's perfect.
So that that doesn't create a culture. Those are fixtures within a culture. Disciples are those who who have understand their primary identity in terms of how they live, move, and have their being. is that I'm a disciple of Christ. So discipleship is the is the organic outflow. It's the waters we swim in. Sure. And therefore all of these various programs, uh all all of these fixtures in the life of the church.
Compliment.
what it means to be a disciple. So everything is about discipleship, if you will. There's there's not I do discipleship over here. You are a disciple. Right. Questi so so it affects every area of your life. So capturing a comprehensive understanding or an identity understanding of what it means to be a disciple therefore creates the culture. And therefore you have facilitating structures that complement furthering the culture, not the other way around.
Paul speaks in Galatians four about this is after his rebuke in Galatians uh three. Well, and in one, but honestly a lot of the letter, to be honest. You remember that part at the very end of four where he's like, I wish I could be with you right now and change my tone. But I can't because I don't know what to do about you. Right. Right. It's it's a hilarious verse, right? I love that one. That one's for the tone police out there in the world.
Um
But just before the I wish I could change my tone, but I don't know what to do about you verse, he says, I am suffering what feels like labor pain. For you, for your sake, until Christ is formed in you. That's the replicating Christ thing. Until Christ is formed. The goal. The goal is not I just what what are the old measurements? Butts, bucks, and buildings, right? We got butts in the pew.
Sounds very Baptist to me.
Like a Baptist deal there.
We got uh butts in the pews. We got the bucks, the dollars are coming in.
Investment. That's for sure.
Yeah, what would you say? You would say we have we have uh yeah a Presbyterian version would be uh covenant covenant members.
Investments.
Invest uh investment securities.
A catechism memory of.
Keep going where we get too much trouble.
Communicate members.
That's not a good measurement. So there there does need to be, that's another B, but there does need to be a burden for Christ formed in people. And then the measurement of that. It is is n you can't reduce it to something so simple as I got people who are sitting in a building and we got dollars that are coming in. So I think things are going okay.
It's interesting because he he you when that that verse you quoted he says he is suffering as if with labor pains. Yeah. And none of us have had children. We know people who have. Yep. Um and it's pretty difficult. So it sounds like discipleship from Paul's perspective is going to be challenging. It's going to be labor. It's going to be painful. It's going to be suffering. So you shouldn't expect your discipleship to be like All roses.
This is back to your point as as Paul says in First Corinthians eleven, or follow my example as I'll follow Christ. Pastors need to be the the the chief burden bearers in the congregation till Christ is formed in themselves. and in those they're serving to build up. It ought to be a daily,
Burden.
to see folks delight in the goodness that Christ has, freed from sin and constantly conformed to his own. You'll you'll never have disciples in your church if you're not burdened to see it happen. If you just don't care. If you say, Hey, I did my did my duty on Sunday, I preached that word, brother, and then I just coaster the rest of the week doing some lunches and going to play golf and I don't care about the Saints.
Then you got raggedy sheep that you're not actually burdened for to see Christ's form. You'll make no disciples if you're not there to die over a lifetime to yourself as a pastor to see Christ's form to people.
Paul Tripp said to me one day, to your point.
¶ Making Disciples Takes Decades
He said, son, I'll call. To pastoral ministry and making disciples is a call to suffering and and suffering well for a long time.
Yeah, and it happens.
has to go hand in hand. There is no sidestepping the suffering, the struggle, the problems. Cause people are messed up and they're coming to us to help them be unmessed up.
Well that that's that to your point too also, your expectations may be tempered on what it looks like to see Christ formed in other people. It's over, it's over years and decades. It's not, you cannot microwave a disciple. It doesn't happen over a day and a week. or a couple good months or the fact that you had a dope sermon series. Right. And and then therefore that fall was fly. That you know, our fall series. If you don't know if you caught that, that that is wonderful, helpful, good.
food for the saints, but they are built up in and conformity to Christ over decades. So you need to be plotting, pruning, watering, tilling, watching, waiting,
Praying.
Serving, soliciting help, And and working in the garden day after day after day. And then it cultivates the richness of conformity to Christ. Without that, if you don't if you don't expect that's what the work looks like, then you're always gonna be disappointed, you'll never have any disciples. Amen. Agreed.
Just you've got that place where I mean this this analogy breaks down a little bit, but Jesus is with his disciples every day for three years since. And then look what they were like even after he was with them all that time. They s they still had their issues. And I know some will point out, the more learned among our listeners, well, Pentecost hadn't happened yet, and that was a game changer. That's true, but go to the New Testament. Paul spends sometimes as much as two years.
in some of the cities, planting these churches and meeting with house to house day by day. And then look at the letters he writes after he rolls out. And you're like, that's crazy that they were still struggling with that. And yet it's not so crazy when you re when you think about saying things about all that, but you also think, hey, wait, wait, wait. This is actually helpful for recalibrating our expectations on just how much time this stuff takes that we're talking about.
And it's not just time. It's time doing the right kind of work to bring to come full circle, bring your shack thing back in. It's not just, yeah, well I was in there shooting five hundred in the morning, five hundred in the afternoon, right? I did a thousand shots a day. Yeah, but it's the right kind of shots, right? Done the right way. It's not just time. Yeah. It's it's it's time poured into the right direction. And just too too many churches
Um, ministry feels so clean. Yeah. Like a laboratory, right? Where you go in, right? You put on your lab coat, you suit up. And when you're done though, you take it all off and you go home. And uh that's not how it it there's a more of a blue collar feel to ministry or there should be. Sure. Where the kind of the kind of work you're doing isn't the in in people's face, in their life, walking beside them.
kind of stuff where I mean the old old way people would put it is the shepherds would always smell like their sheep. That's right. Because they were living a mallet. That's right.
There's earth there's earthiness to it. It's not it's not a knock on sus I mean to to your point a little bit. It's not it's not it's that's a metaphor. You you can also put on your perfectly curated uh suburban kind of like uh low key uh gap outfit.
Yeah, we're wearing suits.
It's not it's not about the facade itself. It's not about the form, but the substance. My point is is it's uh it's you're you're not just up there to put a show on. That's right. It's a well polished show. Maybe not you're not a the traditional church, but it's still acting in a traditional fashion.
Because it's more about the forms, not the substance. There's not earthiness. There's not a grittiness to it, as you always talk about. And therefore, you're not going to see the type of fruit God intends. Right. Yeah. Without without actually getting getting them off. Right. Back to your question uh originally. I th I think uh discipleship, what is it what does it look like in a church? It looks like joy-filled spirit-led regeneracy.
¶ Disciples Are Joyfully Regenerate
And people who love the triumphant Lord and they are expecting to delight in Him, they know His victory, and they are overwhelmed with joy. to experience that continuously. Like the the what what is normative for a disciple is a regenerate heart, a understanding of the victory that Christ has brought.
the uh confidence in his mercy and finish work on the cross, an expectation of the eternal hope that we have in Christ and a guarantee that he is with us through it all, there is an anticipation that brings about laughter.
Feasting.
joy, excitement. That should that should be the air that everybody's breathing. Yeah. If it's stuffy in there, if it's kind of nasty, everybody's leaving real fast after the service. the all the conversation, there there's no depth, there's no texture, there's no there's no color to it. It's just real perfunctory and and s and superficial. That's not disciples. Agreed. You c you can you can
You can take in the spirit, I promise, in in a deep way in a church that actually is making disciples, because the spirit of God forms the people and and they just have the aroma of Christ on them. They just do.
And I think first th first Thessalonians five. um describes as well. He'd he's talking to the congregation. And after saying, Hey, make sure you submit to and respect your elders, he goes through a list very similar to what you said. So a congregation, he says, Now exhort you brethren, warn those who are unruly,
Comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. See that no one redo renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good, both for yourselves and for all. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Yeah. And everything give thanks for this, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Right. So that
Everybody might see the I don't wanna mourn the unruly. But everything rejoicing always, praying without ceasing, comforting the weak, upholding the faint hearted, like being patient with them all. That that just looks like a A congregation with joyful disciples. Yeah.
And as you know, the text goes on and says well also make sure you don't quench the spirit.
Don't quench the spirit.
Right.
Presbyterian left out.
We have no Presbyterians.
Let the spirit out.
Yeah. Yeah. Everyone who loves Christ is full of the spirit. They love it. They don't want to quench it. Agreed. And that's across the board. So
So that's great. Well, we we want those kinds of congregations. We want our congregation to be like that. We want our students to pastor congregations. So may the Lord make it so. Thanks guys for this discussion on Stoppership.
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