What Does Radical Discipleship Really Look Like?

Ordinary Faithfulness Over the Long Haul

Like, look, the way that this is accomplished is ordinary faithfulness over the long haul. Like it is plotting. It is put one foot in front of the other, looking unto Christ and do that again tomorrow, right?

And you just, you keep at it. You can't be so focused and obsessed with the goals and all the achievements or you're gonna burn out. It's gonna be a sparkle and fade situation. And you're gonna become ineffective.

The Simple Life of Adam and Eve in the Garden

Yeah, I think that's entirely right. It's the thing about Adam and Eve in the garden. We don't have a lot of detail, but we can surmise some things about what they were called to. They were called to a relatively simple life.

They had fellowship with God. They had a perfect relationship with each other where they were naked and unashamed. The earth, the land, the space that God had given them to inhabit, they would take care of it.

And they were just to enjoy God's gifts and to enjoy the place that God gave them and enjoy each other. And they were to do this in relationship with the Lord, seeking to flee from sin, right? I mean, and obey God, yes.

But just to love him, be loved by him, to know him and be known by him. It was a simple life, man. And somewhere along the way, we have become very unenamored with that. And we would look at that kind of a simple life of knowing God, loving God, loving the people that God has put in my life, taking care of the things that God has given me and enjoying his gifts and his blessings.

We would look at that as a woefully insufficient Christian life. And to me, that's backwards somehow. Like we've introduced all of these things that one must be doing in order to be a radical disciple.

The New Testament Commands and Life in the Church

Well, we think it's ineffective. Like it's not going to do anything. God requires more of us. What I was going to say, and this perfectly dovetails with what you were just saying, Justin, is that when you think about the commands of the New Testament writers, they're very much focused on the relationship that we have with each other in the church, right?

Consider how to build one another up. Love one another, pray for one another, give to one another, fellowship, sing, right? Bear one another's burdens, right?

And fulfill the law of Christ. Even the prohibitions are about don't do this because it's going to hurt people. It's so simple in those regards.

Conversion, Local Church Discipleship, and Faithful Service

The God advances, he draws people out of the kingdom of darkness. He brings them from death to life through the ministry of the word, through the ministry of the church. When someone comes to Christ, sometimes, Justin, I've been involved in like evangelistic outreach ministries where they'll go into a city and all these thousands of people get saved or there's crusades or whatever.

And then they kind of like recommend a church. Well, what's interesting is that God has designed his people when they come to Christ to then be nurtured and discipled and cared for by the local body. That means you have elders who are trained and equipped, therefore teaching these young converts.

And there are older believers setting an example of what does it look like to be led by your elders? What does it look like to be discipled and trained and to give week in and week out? To the radical part of our faith is to say no to the world, say no to its desires in the flesh and say, I'm gonna exert my energy and my time with the people of God.

And I'm gonna use the mission of the church week in and week out through the preaching of the word, the fellowship, through singing and prayer, the sacraments. And I'm gonna do that as God continues to add.

And then I'm gonna take all of this energy and love and affection and the supernatural spirit coming in and strengthening my soul, I'm gonna use it to love my neighbor well. And that God might take the planting of that seed and water it and bring them to faith, right?

It's just plotting day in, day out, looking into Christ, the author and finisher of my faith. And after 40 years of your life, who knows what the Lord's going to do with that. But I would rather a faithful servant serve 40, 50 years in the church than one's been four years burnout.

They got real famous, but no one really was affected by it. And all we remember is, oh yeah, one day there was this famous person who had a TikTok or something like that. And now no one even knows who they are anymore.