August 14, 2023 Show with A. M. Brewster on “Practical Discipleship”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of Founding Father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

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Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 14th day of August 2023.

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And we are almost exactly one month away from the

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Future of Christendom Conference that I have helped to arrange with the

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Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society here in Pennsylvania, more specifically

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Lancaster County, and even more specifically Mannheim, Pennsylvania. The Future of Christendom Conference is the title of this conference on the theme,

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The Gospel at War. And there are a number of speakers, but the keynote speaker is Dr. James R.

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White of Alpha Omega Ministries, and this is being held Friday, September 15th through Sunday, September 17th at the

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Spooky Nook Sports and Events in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, a luxurious, beautiful event center where the gubernatorial candidate,

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Republican gubernatorial candidate during the most recent election here in Pennsylvania had one of his major fundraising events.

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And the theme of the debate that is included in this three -day conference, which is being held on Saturday, September 16th, 3 .30

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p .m. to 6 .30 p .m., is Is Gay Christian a

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Biblically Acceptable Identity for a Member of Christ's Church? That is a debate between Dr.

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James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who is rejecting or opposing that thesis, and Dr.

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Gregory Coles, who is approving or identifying with that thesis.

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In fact, he identifies as a gay Christian himself. So if you want to attend these events, this three -day event including the debate, please register as soon as possible at futureofchristendom .org,

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futureofchristendom .org. And by the way, when you register, free lunch and refreshments is included with this package on Saturday, September 16th.

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So register as quickly as possible so you get the lowest price for registering as possible.

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And now I'd like to introduce a returning guest who is a regular feature on this program.

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His name is A .M. Brewster. If anybody listening today is a regular listener, that name is definitely not a strange or unfamiliar name to you.

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He is president of Evermind Ministries, and he's a biblical counselor, author, podcaster, and conference speaker.

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And today we're going to be addressing practical discipleship. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, A .M.

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Brewster. Well, I mean, the name might be a little strange, not because it's unfamiliar, but just because it's associated with me.

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So hey, I'm super happy to be back. It's been a little while, and I'm excited about today's conversation. Well, remind our listeners about Evermind Ministries.

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Yeah, so Evermind Ministries, for those of you who are familiar, is a group of ministries.

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And within that group of ministries, we have various elements that specifically speak to various facets and needs within our lives.

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Because the mission of Evermind Ministries is to keep God's truth at the center of the human experience.

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And our daily, weekly, monthly, yearly experiences are very robust. Lots of things that we do and lots of places where we need

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God's truth injected into that. And so, specifically, there is truth, love, family, which speaks to parenting and marriage.

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There is celebration of God, that's where I was going with that. Celebration of God is specifically on the topics of personal and interpersonal discipleship, which is, you know, obviously we're going to be talking a lot about that today, as well as worship.

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And I believe, if we can throw it out there, there's a little bit of a tease. Chris and I are going to be having a conversation about worship next

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Monday at this time. That's the plan at the moment, anyway. So, that comes a lot from the work that we do in celebration of God.

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And then there's Faith Tree Biblical Counseling and Discipleship, which deals both with crisis counseling as well as the general discipleship and growth therein.

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And then AM Brewster Ministries, which is how I go out and travel and speak and write and things like that.

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And that is the totality at the moment of Evermind Ministries. And we have,

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I want to just tell everyone right now, we have an app. You can go to evermindministries .com and get a link to download that app.

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It's a free app, tons of amazing resources on there. It's growing and growing more and more. And anyone who's familiar with me on this show,

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I always try to create a page where you can learn more, you can kind of study more the topic that Chris and I are talking about.

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And that's normally hosted at truthloveparent .com. But now in the app, we will have a special tab where you can go and see the interviews that I do and the extra content that I put out there for you to continue your study of this topic.

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So, you can find that link at evermindministries .com. You can find that link pretty much at any of our ministries.

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So, there we are. I just threw a whole bunch at you. Steve McLaughlin Great. So, it's evermindministries .com, and is it forward slash iron or something?

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Chris Well, evermindministries .com is where they can get the link to the app.

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And once they get into the app, they'll be able to find it pretty easily, the interviews and this interview with you here.

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But then, yes, truthloveparent .com forward slash iron is also where they can access our previous interviews and get a link to this one as well.

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Steve McLaughlin So, you have those two different websites, evermindministries .com

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and also truthloveparent .com. Chris Yep. Actually, we have a bunch of websites trying to keep it all more streamlined, and the app is really helping keeping everything in one place.

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But, yeah, there's a website for every one of our ministries. So, Faith Tree and Evermind and Truth Love Family and Celebration of God.

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Steve McLaughlin Great. Well, we have a theme today that you have chosen with the theme of which is practical discipleship.

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Perhaps give an overview of what discipleship means.

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Every person who's been a Christian for any reasonable length of time should completely understand that or at least understand it to some level.

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But as I've said before, we have listeners who are brand new Christians and we have listeners who are not

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Christians at all. We have listeners who are atheists, agnostics, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, Roman Catholics, and I could go on and on.

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Even on occasion we hear from a member of a cult, but they may not be familiar with that theme as it is utilized by a

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Bible -believing evangelical Christian. So, why don't you explain, at least in summary form, what that means.

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Yeah, definitely. In fact, I just want to be fair. Yes, that long list of individuals you named and anyone else who doesn't necessarily familiar with the

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Christianese, as some people put it, the church language, sometimes high church language, definitely might be like, okay, disciple.

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I kind of feel like I understand what that means. But what about the actual church?

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And I'd have to say, just from my own experience, both with myself, but then with working with counselees and the like,

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I have found that really the average Christian doesn't have a really fantastic working definition and understanding of what it really means to be a disciple.

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And I know that saying that might cause the hair to raise in the back of someone's neck. Like, what is he talking about?

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You know, average Christian doesn't. Well, and again, this is just from my experience. I went really through probably multiple decades of my

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Christian life. I was saved at the age of nine by God's grace and engaged in sanctification.

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But with the exception of my parents, there really was very little life -on -life discipleship, personal individual discipleship that went on.

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Now, it may have been due to the fact that I moved around a lot as a young person and as an adult. I've moved 22 times in my life, which for some of you is like, you're like, wow, that's so much.

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And others of you, you haven't even touched how many times I've moved. But those of us who moved around a lot recognize that that does have an impact from time to time on our relationships, the depth and the length of them.

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And so, it really wasn't until probably my late 30s that I started to better understand, and definitely into my 40s where I started to better understand what discipleship requires of us.

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So, with that said, I wanted to just kind of bring everyone in today. I don't want anyone who's grown up in the church to be like, well,

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I've heard that word a lot. I know what that word means. I want us all to reevaluate our understanding of discipleship by what we're going to see here today.

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Not because I'm going to present a new concept or new ideas, but because I think we need to look at the material again, biblically, and come face -to -face with whether or not we're actually engaging with that.

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And so, I have three main points today. I want to make this practical. I want to make it relatively simple.

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But three main ideas that we're going to look at. And we're going to look at authority within the context of discipleship.

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We're going to look at time within the context of discipleship. And we're going to look at content. And I hope that by the end of this conversation today, those three things are going to really help us to better understand what discipleship is and then how it progresses in our lives.

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And if you want, Chris, I can jump into the first one or if there's something else you want to say. No, go ahead. Okay. I was trying to think about the order of these points.

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You know, where should I start? And I really wanted to start with time. I wanted to start with that one because I think that that's actually just a huge issue that we have in our modern

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Western Christian thought when it comes down to really practical discipleship is what we do with our time.

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But I realized that there was a more foundational thing I needed to discuss first, and that is this idea of authority.

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Now, when we talk about authority, so many things should come into our minds. So many things probably do come into our minds.

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Again, as a, you know, I don't know exactly Chris's demographic. I know people from all over the world listen.

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I've got a friend, a regular listener who listens in from the Philippines. But I will definitely say from a

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Westernized idea, the concept of authority is something that, you know, the quote unquote cowboy

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American really wants to push off, run away from, be free, be my own person.

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I don't want the man telling me what to do and stuff like that. But from a biblical context, authority, the

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Christian needs to be looking at it very differently from the worldling. And there are three types of authority that all have a significant impact on this discussion when we're talking about discipleship.

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The first kind of authority that we see in the scriptures is what I refer to as inherent authority.

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And I call it inherent authority because God has said because of your title or because of who you are or because of whatever other stipulations the

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Lord may list out in his word, you inherently have authority because thus saith the

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Lord. Because God, I said so, says God. And some examples of that would be obviously

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God himself. By virtue of the fact that he is the creator, sovereign God, king of the universe, he has all inherent authority.

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He gets to say how we live our lives. He gets to say what discipleship is. He gets to define our terms.

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He gets to set the expectations and the boundaries of our lives. Beyond that, though, and this is where we start to struggle.

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And by the way, tons of people struggle with that. The idea of submitting to a God that we can't see or who hasn't spoken to us face to face or so on and so forth.

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Very, very difficult for many people. But it's even more difficult oftentimes even for Christians because, yes,

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I understand that I'm supposed to submit to God and he does everything right and he does everything good and I trust him.

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But he wants me to submit to my parents. You see, my government, my husband, my pastor.

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You see, these people are flawed. Sometimes these people aren't even born again. And they do very wrong things themselves.

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They don't lead me the way they should. They're sometimes bad people. And yet God says, no, due to the fact that this person is your husband or he's your parent or because he's a government official or your pastor, you need to submit to him or her, depending, sometimes in certain situations.

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Obviously, with the parents and with the government officials, that can count. It won't count for the husbands and it won't count for the pastors.

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And we struggle with that because we like to justify that, well, I don't – I shouldn't have to submit to this person because they're not who they should be.

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That was, you know, growing up, I struggled a lot with that with me and my dad. My dad oftentimes had really great things to say, but I thought that he wasn't saying them in the best ways.

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I didn't like the way he communicated it. I justified not obeying him because I saw all the flaws in him and basically had that, well, who is he to tell me how to live my life type of an approach.

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But that's sin. God has given him inherent authority because of the fact that he was my father.

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And as a biblical counselor, I work a lot in marriage counseling, and it's difficult. It really, really is very difficult to see a woman and work with a woman who has an ungodly husband, an unsaved husband.

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But the reality is, unless he is commanding her to sin, she does have the responsibility to submit to his authority.

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And so, we have this idea of inherent authority, which is very real and very important.

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And one last thing to say about that, again, I've made it clear, but I want to kind of say it this particular way, is that this inherent authority has nothing to do with the person's character and everything to do with their position.

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That's basically what it comes down to. Beyond that, though, there is another type, actually two other types of authority that I've seen,

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I've witnessed in this world as we progress through life, things that we – how we engage with people.

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And this next one is invited authority, invited authority. And invited authority is really – it's pretty simple.

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It's when I invite somebody else to be an authority in my life, whether they deserve it or not.

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And this is a – this has a lot to do with trust. It has a lot to do with influence. I've had a lot of conversations with people about what it takes to be – to have a relationship with somebody where they trust you, where they can – as a biblical counselor,

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I do this a lot. What do I have to do to have a person feel confident they can open up to me?

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The reality is, is that I can do very little because people choose who they're going to trust.

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Every single day of the week, people are choosing to trust individuals who are, in fact, very demonstrably untrustworthy.

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And every day of the week, they're choosing not to trust people who have proven themselves over and over and over again to be trustworthy.

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The average young person, I think, is an unfortunately perfect example. They trust their peers and their entertainers and the influencers in their lives who are telling them to do things and live in ways that they shouldn't, but they don't trust their parents who are, you know, in this particular example

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I'm giving, are born again and are trying to help them to see life the way that God created it. And so, this invited authority is really a dangerous one because the authority in and of itself is wrapped up in me as the individual.

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I invite Chris or I invite this Instagram person or I invite this person into my life to have this authority in my life to tell me how to live my life based off of the fact that I've decided that you should have the right or means to do so.

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This is the basic idea of idolatry, you know? Someone sets a – the

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Bible talks a lot about people creating an idol and setting it up and worshipping it. Well, that person, the idolatry started first in themselves.

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They were worshipping themselves. They put their desires to have a God other than Yahweh in their lives.

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They had their desire, even like the children of Israel with the golden calf. They said, oh, well, even though he doesn't want us to create a graven image, we're going to make this golden calf and it's going to represent him.

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And because they decided that they were the ones who had the right to do that, it was an idolatrous authority.

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It was authority invested in them, which they then handed off to this other person or this other entity to say, hey, you have the right to tell me how to live my life.

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Again, this is internet influencers. These are friends, teachers, and other thought leaders. Sometimes it's just the mob.

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This screaming, rioting mob out there and we give them the rights to be our authority, to dictate to us how we're supposed to live our lives.

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And sometimes that is – that's because, you know, we like what they have to say.

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We agree with what they have to say and so, like, we get ourselves in this echo chamber and we just follow after them.

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And sometimes it's actually out of fear, communistic, socialistic, you know, dictatorial governments.

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The mob is something that says do what we tell you to do or else, and we capitulate out of fear.

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I think the early 2020 and 2021 gave us an example of what this – what happens when we get afraid of the mob and we're willing to capitulate to whatever they have to say.

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We've given them authority in our lives that they don't deserve to have and we've invited them. Now, those are the ones we interact with frequently.

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But there's a third category, a really important category when it comes to the topic of discipleship. Obviously, the inherent authority is super important because God gets to define discipleship.

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The invited authority is good, but it's also dangerous because oftentimes we invite people to speak into our lives who shouldn't.

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They shouldn't have the authority. But this last category is called inherited authority, inherited authority.

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And who has inherited authority? Well, honestly, everybody does, specifically

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Christians. But everybody has inherited authority, and I'll explain it this way.

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As a martial artist, when I would work with my students, sometimes I'd have to step aside to work with a smaller group or an individual in something.

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And the rest of the class would need to progress on, so we weren't wasting time. And so I would take one of the other students in the room and I would turn to them and I would bow to them.

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We would turn and we would bow to the class. And that was a symbolic action on my part saying that, okay, class,

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I have just taken my authority and I have imbued it in this student. This person who otherwise wouldn't be an authority in your life is now because I've given that authority to them.

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And they, the students in that class were then responsible to do whatever that other student told them to do as if I had told them to do it.

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Now, there's a responsibility on both sides in that situation. There's a responsibility on the white belts and the yellow belts and so on and so forth to follow after this green belt who isn't a black belt, isn't a third or fifth degree black belt.

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But they're supposed to submit to them as if they were. But there's also the responsibility on the green belt's side, the one who's

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I've given authority to lead the class. It's his responsibility to lead as I would lead.

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That's the whole expectation. I'm giving you my authority. He's an ambassador at that moment.

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His whole thing is to run the class the way I would run the class. And so, there's a weight on both sides.

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Well, biblically speaking, all Christians have that responsibility. And we'll talk a lot more about this in the third point, the content point of this discussion.

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But we all have the responsibility from God to speak his truth in love. That's Ephesians 4 .15, the main verse of Truth, Love, Family.

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That is our absolute responsibility and it's not speaking what I believe, how

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I would choose to do it. It's speaking God's truth in God's love. Now, when I do that, it's really not about my authority as Aaron Brewster.

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It's not about, well, you need to do this because I said so. That's inherent authority. I can do that as a parent.

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Now, I would say the best type of parenting and the best type of government and the best type of husbanding and the best kind of counseling and pastoring and all that kind of stuff is done with a mix of inherent authority and inherited authority.

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But specifically, inherited authority is, you know, listen, you don't have any –

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I have no inherent authority in and of myself, but I am speaking God's word. He has the ultimate inherent authority.

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And because I am saying what he says, you're really not submitting to me so much as you are submitting to God. Now, this has huge, huge application within the context of our discipleship.

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Because if we're not talking about just like personal discipleship, if we're talking about as we're working interpersonal relationship, working with other people, there has to be an authority structure.

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It's not just my friend and I get together, and we talk about God's word, and we say, hey, that's nice, and we walk away.

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No, there is an authority there. There is God's inherent authority. And sometimes, I'm going to just be honest, oftentimes what my discipling friend is going to have to do in my life, he's going to have to come into my life and he's going to have to say,

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Aaron, thus saith the Lord. It's not good enough just to mentally acquiesce to what this is saying.

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You've got to live this, man, and you're not. Like I said, we're going to talk a little bit more about how this breaks down and how it works later on.

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But if we don't have this concept of not just God's inherent authority, but of the body of Christ's inherited authority to be able to speak truth in love into each other's lives, to sharpen each other, to rebuke and exhort and admonish and reprimand, then our discipleship, really, it's going to be nothing more than just a bunch of friends getting together, you know, talking about which sports teams they like best.

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Well, we're going to go to our very first commercial break here. If you have a question for A .M.

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Brewster, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -S -E -N at gmail .com.

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As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Let's say you were involved in a church or perhaps right now are, and you believe that their approach to discipleship may be abusive in some way.

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Perhaps it's cultic, perhaps it's authoritarian, or perhaps it's the other way around, 180 degrees different.

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You have a church that does not practice discipleship in any way, shape, or form, and basically it is a free -for -all where people just hear a message or get entertained and then go about their business for the rest of the

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Lord's Day and for the rest of the week. It could be anywhere in between as well, but we understand why reasons like that, if you're a member of a church where you think that they have failed miserably in this area or you were a member, we understand that that would compel you to remain anonymous if you're asking a question about that.

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But if you're just asking a biblical question, a general question, please give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

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We'll be right back with A .M. Brewster right after these messages, so please do not go away.

26:48

The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023, The Gospel at War, September 15th to the 16th in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, featuring

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Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. We are excited to be including a formal debate in this year's conference.

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Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be debating Dr. Gregory Coles, author of Single Gay Christian, A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity, the debate topic.

27:17

Is gay Christian a biblically acceptable identity for a member of Christ's Church? So come join us for the sixth

27:22

Future of Christendom conference. The event will take place at Spooky Nook Sports in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, and will run from Friday evening through all day

27:29

Saturday, with an invitation to the Sunday morning worship service of the Independence Reformed Bible Church. This will be a weekend packed with practical teaching, with a theme of the

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Gospel at War in many areas of our culture, including government schools, the Supreme Court, missions, feminism, and even the church pulpits.

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Head to futureofchristendom .org. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

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I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd, on a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

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I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

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And there's more great news. Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 % discount off the registration fee.

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Go to g3min .org, that's g3min .org, and enter promo code

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Chris Arnson, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the

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G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, on the sovereignty of God. Make sure you stop by the

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnson while you're there.

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Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for your 30 % discount off the registration fee.

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This is Brian McLaughlin of the SecureComm Group, joining Chris Arnzen's family of advertisers to keep

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Getting a driver's license.

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Running a cash register. Flipping burgers. Passing sixth grade. Do you know what they all have in common?

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They all require training, assessments, and certifications. But do you know what requires no training at all?

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Becoming a parent. My name is A .M. Brewster. I'm the president of Truth, Love, Parent, and host of its award -winning podcast.

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I've been a biblical family counselor since the early 2000s, and what I've discovered is that the majority of Christian parents have never been biblically equipped to do the work of the ministry in their homes.

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That's why Truth, Love, Parent exists. We serve God by equipping dads and moms to be the ambassador parents

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God called and created them to be. We produce free parenting resources, train church leaders, and offer biblical counseling so that the next generation of dads and moms can use the scriptures to parent their children for life and godliness.

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That's royaldiadem .com. Make sure you mention Chris Armisen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with A .M.

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Brewster and our discussion of practical discipleship. Our email address is ChrisArmisen at gmail .com.

36:52

If you have a question, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Do you have anything further to say before you want to move on with more details on the third step, or do you want me to take a listener question?

37:09

There's one more thing I think it's important to say on the authority topic, and then yeah, let's definitely take a question. And this is something

37:15

I talk a lot about with parents. My son is 16, my daughter's 13, and they are both professing

37:22

Christians. They both, as far as I can tell, you know, I believe that they truly do know the

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Lord and are growing in that. Therefore, they have just as much responsibility to exercise their inherited authority in my life as I do in theirs.

37:41

And sometimes I think we see, you know, it's important for everyone to have their Paul. It's important for everyone to have their

37:46

Barnabas. It's important for everyone to have their Timothy. And sometimes in discipleship, we break those down into age categories.

37:54

You know, Paul's older than I am. Barnabas is my age, and Timothy's younger than I am. And yes, definitely, the older person should be wiser, should know more, but that is not always the case.

38:05

And we need to be very careful that we're humble enough to recognize that when somebody comes to me who's younger than I am, who doesn't have as much experience as I am, but they're speaking

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God's truth, I have the responsibility to submit to that. It's not because I'm submitting to them and their inherent authority.

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They don't have any in my life. But because they are speaking God's truth and He has ultimate authority in my life.

38:25

So that's just a really important thing I wanted to throw out there, because we get this idea that, you know, somebody younger than me can't disciple me, and that is 100 % not true.

38:38

But yeah, I'd love to take a question. Okay, great. We have Bruce in Yapank, Long Island, New York.

38:47

And Bruce says, isn't the best form of discipleship that we can have from the church that is not exclusively pastors, elders, and deacons to the congregant, but also

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Christian friends with whom you spend most of your time, perhaps, and are holding each other accountable when you are fellowshipping?

39:13

Oh, Bruce, man, you nailed it. You totally nailed it. And you got to my next point on time, for sure.

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But you also hit on the fact that this is not just a pastoral thing.

39:27

It's definitely, yeah, sure, it is a pastoral thing. But I don't know about your pastor. I know mine's finite.

39:32

Mine's human. Mine only has so much time and can only interact with so many people at a time. And the reality is that for too long in the

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Western Christian circles, we've had this idea that it's the pastor's job to do all the stuff. He runs all the committees.

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He teaches all of the lessons. He does all the counseling. And that's not how it's supposed to be.

39:54

I referenced Ephesians 4 .15 before, a few verses before that. We recognize that God gave us pastor -teachers for the equipping of the saints, that's us, the people in the pews, to do the work of the ministry, the work of service, as the

40:09

New American Standard says it, to the building up of the body of Christ. And what comes next is a detailed analysis of what that work of the ministry is.

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It's the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity and faith and the knowledge of the

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Son of God as we're becoming mature men and women to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

40:31

No longer children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

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But speaking the truth in love, this is the method of this work of service we're supposed to be doing.

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What is the end result? We grow up in all aspects and to Him who is the head, even Christ.

40:49

And it goes on even more detail, comparing it to joints and the bones being connected. We work, we're unified, we do the job that God's called us to do as we are doing this work of the ministry in each other's lives.

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That is discipleship. The work of the ministry is by definition discipleship.

41:08

And Bruce, you said that so well. I agree 100%. Is there another question or should we transition to the next point?

41:13

You should transition because I want to wait before I ask a couple of these other questions.

41:20

Yeah, perfect. Not a problem. Okay, so I mentioned that Bruce's question had a little bit to do with time, and it does, and that's our second point, time.

41:28

First of all, just an observation that I think we all know, but we all don't function as if it's true.

41:35

Again, I'm speaking a lot from the context of, you know, Western, modern thought, okay?

41:42

So this isn't going to be true in the case of everyone who's listening to this. But I think as the world is growing and kind of maturing and they're taking more and more on these ideas and as technologies and whatever else are allowing us to do more, the reality is we've created a culture of busyness, which on one side is already super dangerous.

42:03

But couple that with the fact that we're poor time managers. A culture of busyness, way too much to do, and yet we manage that time very poorly.

42:13

We have just – we've made life so difficult for ourselves. Our days are full of so many responsibilities, so many relationships, so many distractions, so much entertainment, so much that we want to do and don't do.

42:24

But our days really aren't full of so much of discipleship. It's like discipleship is that thing that we do when we get around to it.

42:32

Discipleship is that thing that we do maybe once a week or biweekly when we go to that person's home on Sunday evening, right?

42:43

And why is it we're not doing it more? Well, for a couple reasons. One, because we don't understand exactly what discipleship is.

42:49

We don't understand that it can be going on all of the time. But two, because oftentimes the idea is that there's just – there's quote unquote more important things to be doing.

42:58

And by that, like I want to be fair. We all understand discipleship is important, but like if I don't work my job, that's going to be a problem.

43:07

If I don't spend time with my kids, that's going to be a problem, right? If I don't even have some entertainment in my life,

43:13

I'll burn out or whatever. And so we say, well, we need these things. I've got to eat. I've got to sleep. I've got to work.

43:18

I've got to whatever. And the discipleship, that picture of discipleship that we have in our heads gets kind of pushed off to the side because, you know, in our minds it's not as important.

43:29

Lots of issues with that thinking. But we do have to acknowledge the fact that we've created a society where we – and I believe, honestly believe the machinations of the devil himself have been a big part of how we've gotten to this point.

43:40

Keep us too busy to be living the life that God created us to live. It's a huge problem.

43:47

So for these reasons – oh, go ahead, Chris. No, go ahead. Oh, okay. So for these reasons and a lot more, we have this idea of discipleship, and this was definitely the big idea as I was growing up.

43:59

My teens and early 20s, whatever else, discipleship was kind of just – it was a packaged curriculum. It was a six -week

44:05

Bible study where we meet for an hour, hour and a half maybe, and then we talk about things.

44:13

We pray for each other and whatever else, and then we go on from there. But that's not really the practice that we see in the scriptures.

44:21

What do we see in the scriptures? Well, in Matthew 420, Mark 118, we see that the disciples left their nets and followed after Jesus.

44:31

Aaron, are you telling me that I need to quit my job and follow after Jesus the way that the disciples did? You know, my answer to that question is maybe.

44:39

The question is whether or not we'd be willing to do so if that's what it took. As a biblical counselor, oftentimes when

44:47

I'm working with families, I ask people, so what's your marriage worth to you? What are your kids worth to you?

44:53

What are you willing to do? Yeah, I know you think that you need to work 70 hours a week to support your family, but what if I proved to you that you didn't?

45:00

Would you be willing to change your job? And it's amazing to me what people aren't willing to do. And you know why they're not willing to do it is that, to be honest, it's not that important.

45:08

It's not as important as the thing that they're being asked to give up. But we see people leaving their jobs to go live a different life because it's the most

45:18

Christ -honoring thing that they could do. We see people in Acts 2, 42 through 46, continually devoting themselves to teaching and fellowship, to breaking of bread.

45:30

This was a continual thing for the new baby church. In the book of Acts, we see these people on a regular basis.

45:39

Now, some of them took it too far. Some of them quit their jobs and they're waiting around on hilltops for Jesus to return. Obviously, you can go a very bad direction with that.

45:46

But that's what we see, this picture of this continual interaction with each other. We know from Matthew 5, 14 through 16 that there's never a time where it's appropriate to put our lights under a bushel.

45:58

It's impossible, truly, to hide a city set on a hill. And yet, so, you know, we can't – and I would say that broadly, yes, the salt and light passages have a lot to do with evangelism.

46:11

That's true, and that's a whole other conversation that, if we're being honest with ourselves, the vast majority of us don't take evangelism nearly as seriously as the

46:19

Bible says that we need to. But it also has a lot to do with this concept of discipleship, as I'm salt and light in another believer's life, sharpening them.

46:28

And there are any number of commands and scriptures to leave all that we have, including our possessions, our families, our very lives, that they are nothing compared to following Christ.

46:39

Luke 14, 33, Matthew 10, 37 through 39, again, a really powerful passage about this idea of what's really more important to me.

46:48

He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

46:55

And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life will find it for my sake.

47:05

Now, so there's this reality in scripture that there has to be something more important, and we get our priorities all messed up, because we've created a world where there's so much that distracts us in our lives.

47:19

But if you've been in the church for any amount of time, then you recognize that the word disciple really is synonymous with student, okay?

47:27

Now, I found that it's really helpful in counseling and things like that to help people to make comparisons between ideas.

47:36

In one concept, we understand it perfectly. Like, we totally get it. And in another, we're like, an identical concept, it doesn't make sense.

47:45

You know, when David was committing adultery with Bathsheba, he just really wasn't thinking about how wicked and awful it was.

47:52

When he had her husband killed, he thought that was the best thing.

47:57

Well, then the prophet comes to him and says, there's this guy who stole the sheep, and David's incensed.

48:03

And then he said, well, David, you are that guy. Praise God, David saw the metaphor for what it really was.

48:09

And I want us to take this metaphor, and I want us to see this. Think about being a student. If you took the amount of time that you dedicate to being a disciple, a follower of God, and you apply that to any other discipline— academic, jobs, whatever the case may be, sports—I think the vast majority of us would be very poor students indeed.

48:34

If we worked as hard on our soccer teams, in our martial arts, in our pickleball, as we do to be a maturing

48:44

Christian, we wouldn't be good at those sports. If we were graded in our discipleship the way we are graded in our schooling, we wouldn't get very fantastic grades.

48:58

And why am I saying this? Well, generally speaking—and of course, this varies a lot from institution to institution—a three -credit course in a college, right, taken over a full semester demands about nine hours a week of in -class or out -of -class investment.

49:11

Therefore, a part -time student is taking six credits, and a full -time student is taking at least 12.

49:21

Six credits, that's 18 hours a week. Twelve credits, 36 hours a week.

49:29

And most of us recognize that our children, elementary school and high school, are oftentimes in school doing those things for nearly eight hours a day.

49:38

And then they have hours of homework on top of that. They are students.

49:45

And we say, well, of course they have to dedicate that amount of time. Of course they've got to go to school. They've got to sit and listen to the course.

49:50

They've got to do all of the homework. They're students. They're learning. How are they going to get better if they're not—from that perspective, of course we want our kids to go to school.

49:59

We want them to do well. We want them to dedicate the time necessary. And we encourage them to get to their practices and to practice their instruments and to work on their martial arts.

50:10

But discipleship, well, we're not nearly as passionate and dramatic about that investment, are we?

50:19

How do I know that? Well, how many services do we attend?

50:25

How long is the preaching of those services? Yeah, hour -and -a -half long service, great. Thirty minutes of preaching, okay.

50:31

Once a week? Twice a week? Maybe three times a week? All right. How much time are you spending individually, personally, in your

50:39

Bibles? Five minutes a day? Ten minutes a day? I skip a lot of days because my schedule—you see where I'm going with it?

50:48

I know we see it, and I know how touchy it is, and I know how uncomfortable it is. Again, as a biblical counselor, these are conversations

50:55

I'm having with people all of the time. It's like you say you want this, you say you love the Lord, but you're not interacting with him at all.

51:01

And if I told you I loved my wife, but I never talked to her, every time she entered the room, I exited the room,

51:07

I didn't ever want to be around her, didn't ever want to talk to people about her, you'd be like, Aaron, you don't love your wife. And you would be right.

51:13

I don't love my wife. When you love someone, you want to passionately spend as much time with them as you can. Well, if being a disciple is being a student, are we good students of Jesus Christ?

51:23

And the answer is, for the most part—and I'm speaking of myself here, too—we're not. We don't have those expectations.

51:30

In fact, pick up right where you left off there when we return from our midway break. Will do.

51:36

And those of you who are waiting, and hopefully you're waiting patiently, but those of you who are waiting to have your questions asked and answered, we will get to as many of you as possible when we return from the break.

51:50

And for those of you who want to get in line, send in your emails to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

51:57

chrisarnson at gmail .com gives us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. This is a reminder, folks, please be patient with us, because the middle break is always a little longer than the other breaks in the show, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

52:10

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show so that they can air their own public service announcements and other local things in compliance with FCC mandates.

52:25

They have to geographically localize this program to Lake City, Florida, where they're located. And while they do that, we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

52:35

Please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the contact information for as many of our advertisers as you possibly can so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers.

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We hope that will often mean you buy their products, use their services and visit their churches.

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But when you cannot do any of those things, please, I'm asking you, please, to at least thank our sponsors by using the contact information you hear in the commercials.

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That will go a long way because we absolutely positively need our advertisers to exist.

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So please, at the very least, contact them to thank them for sponsoring Iron Trip and Zion Radio. And send in your questions to A .M.

53:17

Brewster, chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:22

Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. We'll be right back. Don't go away. The Mid -Atlantic

53:27

Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023, The Gospel at War, September 15th to the 16th in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, featuring

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Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. We are excited to be including a formal debate in this year's conference.

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Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be debating Dr. Gregory Coles, author of Single Gay Christian, A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity, the debate topic,

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Is Gay Christian a Biblically Acceptable Identity for a Member of Christ's Church? So come join us for the sixth

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Future of Christendom conference. The event will take place at Spooky Nook Sports in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, and will run from Friday evening through all day

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Saturday, with an invitation to the Sunday morning worship service of the Independence Reformed Bible Church. This will be a weekend packed with practical teaching, with a theme of the

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Gospel at War in many areas of our culture, including government schools, the Supreme Court, missions, feminism, and even the church pulpits.

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Head to futureofchristendom .org. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

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I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd, on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

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I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

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Chris Arnzen, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the

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G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on the sovereignty of God. Make sure you stop by the

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnzen while you're there.

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Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for your 30 % discount off the registration fee.

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

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Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

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One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank, since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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Joe O 'Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener, and Count Gilderoy Sancho.

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If you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers.

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. This is

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

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Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio financially. Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. And, of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God.

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

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Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church. We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

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We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt

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Christ. This is Pastor David Reis of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

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Getting a driver's license. Running a cash register. Flipping burgers.

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But do you know what requires no training at all? Becoming a parent. My name is

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Please visit us at TruthLoveParent .com Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,

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That's Solid -Ground -Books .com. Thank you very much. Before I return to my guest,

01:10:14

A .M. Brewster, I have a couple of important announcements to make. If you really love this show, folks, you look forward to it daily.

01:10:23

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click Support, then click Click to Donate Now. You could donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion.

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01:11:03

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01:11:17

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So send me an email to ChrisArnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. Also, folks,

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01:11:39

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click support, then click click to donate now. I also want to remind you about the three -day conference that my dear friend,

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries is involved in, September 15th through the 17th.

01:12:39

That's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and it's being held in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, which is in Lancaster County.

01:12:47

The theme of the conference is The Gospel at War, and on Saturday, September 16th,

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Dr. James White will be debating Dr. Gregory Coles, who identifies as a gay

01:12:58

Christian, on the theme, Is Gay Christian a Biblically Acceptable Identity for a Member of Christ's Church?

01:13:04

That will be on Saturday, September 16th, 3 .30 p .m. to 6 .30 p .m.

01:13:10

That is a part of the conference. I hope to see as many of you there as possible. Go to futureofchristendom .org,

01:13:18

futureofchristendom .org. Also, I want to remind you about the conference that is coming up, being sponsored and hosted by my friend,

01:13:30

Joe Jakowicz, founder of First Love Ministries and First Love Radio. First Love Radio is the ministry that livestreams this program, and he and my friend,

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Austin Huggins, a pastor in Baghdad, Florida, are going to be hosting and speaking at the

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Sanctification, How to Grow in Holiness. This will be Saturday and Sunday, August 26th and 27th, and this is going to be held at the

01:14:05

Reformed Baptist Church of Tama, Iowa. If you want more details, go to firstloveministries .org,

01:14:12

firstloveministries .org. And finally, if you are not a member of a

01:14:18

Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church, no matter where you live on the planet

01:14:24

Earth, I have lists of biblically faithful churches spanning the globe, and I may be able to help you find a church, no matter where in the world you live, as I have done with many listeners in the

01:14:35

Iron Sharpens Iron radio all over the planet Earth. Sometimes I've helped folks all over the world find churches that are only a couple of minutes from where they live, and that may be you too.

01:14:46

Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to AM Brewster.

01:14:54

On practical discipleship, chrisarnson at gmail .com gives you first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

01:15:00

Right before the break, Brother Aaron, you were saying that none of us could ever claim, without sinning and without lying, that we have received enough discipleship in our life.

01:15:14

We've basically arrived, and that is a part of our life that we can put behind us.

01:15:20

In fact, if anything is a clear evidence that you desperately and urgently need more discipleship, is if you ever arrive at that conclusion that you don't need any more discipleship.

01:15:33

If you could just pick up where you left off there. Yeah, really, being a disciple is a 24 -7, 365 calling.

01:15:41

You don't get to stop. It's not something that you'll reach a plateau, if that were a thing, sometime in this life.

01:15:49

We don't get to set down our crosses, embrace ourselves, follow after our own devices. We don't get to set aside any segment of our lives to be a student of self or a student of the world.

01:16:00

That's just something we can't do. Discipleship is not something like a church, that class you have to take to become a member of a church.

01:16:07

That's not what it is. Like, I took that class, and I'm done. It is a lifestyle. It is your identity.

01:16:14

You are a disciple of God, and you will be a disciple of God. To be honest, you're going to be a disciple of God for all eternity.

01:16:20

Even after you have been glorified from your sin nature, you still won't know everything there is to know about God because he is infinite.

01:16:31

And for all eternity, we get to learn more about him and deepen our understanding of him and live differently because of it.

01:16:39

And that will be a beautiful eternity to spend knowing more and more and more about our infinite God. So, you will always be a disciple, and the idea that you're done is ridiculous.

01:16:50

And to Bruce's statement, I guess I hadn't made that final point about the great observation Bruce had made. Yes, it is not just the pastor.

01:16:57

It's all of us in the church, but it's also that life -on -life daily stuff. The reality about what I was saying about all of the busyness and distractions we have in our lives is that we are too busy to do the stuff that we need to do the way we need to do it.

01:17:09

For thousands of years of human existence, this idea of life -on -life togetherness was not only work, it was required.

01:17:20

You had to do it to survive. Well, because of technology and whatever the case is now, and because of our concepts and our new worldviews, we recognize, we think anyway that being a loner, being a maverick, working from my home office, never interacting with people is somehow better, but it's not.

01:17:40

Jesus' disciples lived and breathed with him, and I have found from the experiences that I've had in my own family, as well as in the various ministries that I've had, the more time you're spending with each other, the more interaction you're having with each other, the better.

01:17:57

All the time and forever. And what we need to do is we need to reevaluate. We need to reevaluate how we're using our times.

01:18:03

We need to be more hospitable. We have to get more people in our lives with greater consistency. And I would actually say another thing, too, that we've been lied about in our culture is that, you know, we want to touch all of these people.

01:18:14

We want to have this influence on all of these people, but that influence is always more superficial. You want to have deeper, more significant influence, you're going to have to do it with a smaller and smaller group of people.

01:18:23

We see that in Jesus' own life. And so it would be better for us to really get in deep with a couple people where we're really sharpening each other and growing together than it is to have a broad, very superficial relationship with everybody in our church.

01:18:38

So, yeah, I mean, there's so much more I could say on all of these points. This last point's also super important, but I know you've got some questions waiting in the wings, too.

01:18:45

Where do you want to go next? Well, I'll take a quick question. I don't know if the answer will be quick, but the question is quick.

01:18:54

They never are with me. Trudy in Boca Raton, Florida says,

01:19:02

There have been churches that I have been a part of that I believe far exceeded their biblical roles in how to disciple their members in getting too much involved in the personal lives of the families.

01:19:22

I would call it authoritarianism. In fact, I think that something that they are trying to accomplish backfires because this kind of over -intrusive dictatorship of a church can actually emasculate the men in the home, where they have to ask permission constantly of their own elders for everything that they do.

01:19:46

Would you agree that this is a danger? I think that's an excellent question.

01:19:51

It's probably the minority problem in the church today, because most churches probably don't have any kind of discipleship or discipline.

01:19:59

But I know that this kind of thing exists. Thanks, God. I've never been in a church that had this kind of dictatorship.

01:20:07

But unfortunately, being a Reformed Baptist, I have to be honest, this kind of thing has been known to take place, probably not as much as it used to, but it has been something that has been known amongst

01:20:20

Reformed Baptists and authoritarian elders that have been in place in different Reformed Baptist churches and so on.

01:20:29

But what are your thoughts on this? Well, I'm going to tread lightly, because there's an assumption in this question.

01:20:37

And it's not necessarily a wrong assumption. The assumption could be 100 % right. There were no specifics given.

01:20:44

I was hoping that within the question there might be a clear specific, but there were just a lot of generalities. And yes,

01:20:50

I would agree that if a pastor is legitimately dictating what your family eats, then it gives your family a menu, he's overstepping his bounds.

01:21:06

But if that same pastor is getting with the father and saying, Listen, man, I get it,

01:21:12

McDonald's fries are addictive, but you recognize that you're not being a good steward of your finances, and you're not being a good steward of your family's health by eating

01:21:19

McDonald's every single day of the week with your family, because you and your wife just don't want to go shopping and cook every now and then.

01:21:28

Of course, they've got to go to Burger King once in a while. Arby's is my personal favorite, but obviously if you're spiritual you eat at Arby's.

01:21:38

So should a pastor step into your house and go through your music collection and delete stuff off of your iTunes?

01:21:44

Well, no, that's not his place. He doesn't have the inherent authority to do that. He does have the inherited authority to say,

01:21:50

Hey, listen, man, I know what your kids are listening to, and I know the types of things that you guys are listening to as a family.

01:21:56

I just want to encourage you that the stuff you're listening to is not making much of God. In fact, it's doing the exact opposite.

01:22:03

And so when I've heard people ask questions like this, sometimes they've asked it because it was truly a bad situation.

01:22:11

It was a dictatorial bad situation where the person was overstepping their bounds. Sometimes, though, they talk like it's a dictatorial situation, and then when

01:22:20

I ask some more questions to find out, well, what types of things are being dictated to you, it's just the pastor or the individual preaching

01:22:29

God's Word and saying, Hey, you need to stop living this way, because that doesn't please the Lord. I think that we're either

01:22:36

A, not personal enough, or B, we're too personal. And I'll tell you what, moderation is way harder than abstinence every single time.

01:22:45

Every single time. It's way easier to be extreme than it is to be moderate. And I think that the reality is we need to be more in each other's lives, but we need to allow ourselves to be functioning on the inherited authority, speaking

01:23:00

God's words and God's truth and God's love as we're confronting people, which is, again, part of the third thing that we're going to talk about.

01:23:09

Yes, and it could very well be that the listener is overreacting or reacting in an unbiblical way to something that her or his elders are requiring, but it also could be a genuine abuse.

01:23:28

Oh, for sure, definitely. I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt that it's probably right, but I wanted to see both sides of it.

01:23:34

Of course. Like I said, I have been privy to people that I've known who are reliable and people of integrity who are trustworthy, who have said that there have been abusive elders that have nearly destroyed marriages and homes and made eunuchs of the husbands because the husband had to go run to the pastor for permission for everything and where they would go on vacation and where they would move if they decided to.

01:24:09

That's a cult leader. That's what that is. Right, even if they happen to be believers in the 1689 London Baptist Confession.

01:24:17

True. I don't know what's going on with this cult today, but there was a movement that was very big in the 80s especially, the

01:24:29

International Church of Christ, which sprang out of the average run -of -the -mill

01:24:35

Church of Christ that traced their roots back to the restoration movement in the 19th century with Alexander Campbell.

01:24:42

Well, this was a Church of Christ group on steroids that even denied the salvation of the ordinary

01:24:50

Churches of Christ. And they had things called—the movement was called the

01:24:57

Shepherding Movement. And you had to have a discipler appointed to you, and you were commanded to confess every sin that you've committed either in deed or even in thought to this discipler, almost like you're going to a confessional booth with a

01:25:18

Roman Catholic priest. And obviously this is not a healthy or biblical level of oversight that elders should have.

01:25:32

And I just realized it was a woman, it was Trudy in Boca Raton that asked about that.

01:25:37

Thank you, Trudy. Thank you, Trudy. Why don't you move on to your next point that you wanted to make?

01:25:43

Sure, yeah. And to that authority thing, yeah, if we're trying to function like an inherent authority, and I get control of your life because I said so, that ends up being the thing that reveals the issue.

01:25:59

Whereas the inherited authority has got to find its root, its power, its everything in the

01:26:04

Word. And it's easy to twist the Word, I know that. It's easy to use it as a bludgeon on people, but that's the responsibility we have to all of us, to know

01:26:13

God's Word well enough to speak it to each other. So, the first point was authority.

01:26:19

The second point was time. We don't have enough time to get as personal as we should. We need to make that time.

01:26:25

We've got to change our culture of our church and of our families in order to do that. And this last point is the content.

01:26:33

What is the practical content of discipleship? And I'm not going to give a discipleship course or curriculum.

01:26:39

I am going to stop here, though, and just encourage people to check out the Evermind app. We do want to have resources there that are available to you, so all of the extra resources that can help spin off of today's conversation are going to be available for free on the

01:26:54

Evermind app. Definitely check that out. And a couple series that I've done, again, which are free, not selling anything, but can – and really not intended to be used in discipleship with another person, but is more so intended to help you better understand what it is itself so that you can help do it better with other people and yourself.

01:27:14

That's what these things are for. So, I have the Discipleship Spiral Series is one. Specifically, as it applies to parenting,

01:27:23

I have the Biblical Parenting Essentials Series, and I have a Biblical Parenting Essentials Conference, which there is a small $10 fee for that.

01:27:31

But these things are all designed to help you better understand these steps that we're about to talk about for the content.

01:27:39

And this is all really going to come from 2 Timothy 3 .16, and we don't have the time to do a deep dive. I'm going to go over it briefly, but I'm going to ask some really important questions, and I want you all to be honest with yourselves.

01:27:50

As we look at 2 Timothy 3 .16, we know the scriptures have been inspired by God and given to us for four things – teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be perfect, the early first unto all good works, right?

01:28:03

That is the goal, right? We want to be discipled. We want to be conformed to the image of Christ. Discipleship, sanctification, this is all mixed together.

01:28:11

It's all the same thing. And there are four really big, important parts to this, and we're going to see that our discipleship has got to include all four or it's failing.

01:28:20

And we're also going to see that most of our discipleship doesn't include all four. The first one is teaching. How much time do we, do you, invest in being taught from God's Word?

01:28:31

This includes, first and foremost, personal study of the Word. Secondly, church attendance. But then, yes, there are a ton of other additional resources – books and podcasts, sermons and things like that that can be valuable.

01:28:41

But other than our personal study of the Word, how much of that teaching time is actually face -to -face, individual -to -individual?

01:28:49

And as I go along here, you're going to see that the funnel is going to get narrower and narrower. You're like, well, yeah,

01:28:54

I go to church and I do read my Bible. Hopefully, you're doing that. And you do listen to Christ Honoring music and things like that, and you are reading books and whatever.

01:29:04

But the more specific we get in this, we're going to realize, man, we've got less and less of that involved in our lives than we thought.

01:29:11

And that's good. We need to see that we're not engaging with these steps as much as we should, and then we need to pursue them.

01:29:17

How much of that teaching is really face -to -face and individual -to -individual? Well, in our day and age, most of it is very virtual, which means, like, even right now,

01:29:26

I'm not talking to you specifically about your needs. I'm talking generally about truths that we all need. And that's good to a point.

01:29:33

But if most of our teaching is generalized teaching, we are going to find that we are going to be really in trouble when it comes to making those personal decisions that we have to make on a day -to -day basis.

01:29:45

So, how much of it is personalized for you? How much of it covers the entire gamut of real educational excellence?

01:29:53

Because education is – anytime in the world we're learning anything, there's the learning, there's the understanding, and there's the applying that needs to happen.

01:30:01

And a lot of our teaching doesn't do that. I talk a lot about this on our Truth Love Parent podcast and in the

01:30:06

Discipleship Spiral series that I mentioned earlier. It's not good enough to know something.

01:30:12

You have to understand it. But it's not good enough to learn it and to understand it if you're not actually going to use it and apply it.

01:30:18

And we talk a lot about application. We'll talk more about that in a minute. So, that's the first part. That's the teaching. And to be honest, you know, this category of discipleship is the one in which we tend to invest most of our time.

01:30:31

However, that's not always the case. Again, as a biblical counselor, I work with a lot of people who are going through a lot of difficulties, and the natural human reaction is that whether things are going really well or things are going really difficult, we run from God.

01:30:46

We just – we get so overwhelmed because our lives are so busy that we're not engaging as we should.

01:30:52

So, I hope we recognize, though, that even if we are, we do have regular involvement in God's Word, it's not really that much.

01:31:01

It's a lot, sure, compared to other people, but is it really – I mean, are we students of God?

01:31:08

Or are we just taste testing here and there? The second point from 2

01:31:13

Timothy 3 .16 is reproving. How many people – be honest about this question – how many people in your life are there that will actually stand in front of you with an open

01:31:23

Bible and tell you that you are wrong? How many? How many people in your life do that?

01:31:30

Listen, you're not fooling anybody. You're a sinner. I'm a sinner. I sin every single day. You do too.

01:31:36

There's not a single 24 -hour period that goes by that you don't sin at least once. But do you have people in your life who will love you enough and know

01:31:42

God's Word enough that they're saying, hey, this sin that you're doing, that needs to stop. Let me help you. How much time do we invest in discovering our immaturities, our sins, our faults, our iniquities, and our transgression?

01:31:53

How much time do we invest in asking people to confront and support us in our spiritual weakness?

01:32:00

You know, we talked about the book of Acts, how these new Christians were spending all of this time dedicating themselves to the teaching and fellowshipping, right?

01:32:07

The very first New Testament book likely that was written was the book of James. The book of James is filled with teaching necessary to the foundational concepts of what it means to be a

01:32:17

Christian. In James chapter 5, we see two really important concepts. We see somebody who's weak, who's struggling, doing what?

01:32:24

Inviting the elders into their life, calling on them, help me, I'm struggling. And yes, they are confessing their sins one to another.

01:32:32

That's obviously not going back to what Chris was saying, the bad version of that. But there is this confession,

01:32:38

I'm being honest with you about how I'm struggling so that you can speak truth into my life. And then the very last verses of James chapter 5 talks about a person turning somebody from the error of their way.

01:32:49

So, if the person is asking for help, we're giving help. If they're not asking for help, we're still there.

01:32:55

And how many people do you have in your life who are doing that, who you guys are being honest about the genuine real -life sins that are in your life and that need to not be in your life?

01:33:08

So, on the whole, very few Christians have discipleship relationships where they are regularly challenged about the sins in their lives.

01:33:15

In the average discipleship group, there's a lot of encouraging and there's a lot of edifying and validating and affirming, but there's very little rebuke, admonishment, confrontation, and reproof.

01:33:27

In part because oftentimes our relationships are very superficial. We don't know each other that well because we don't spend enough time with each other.

01:33:34

But also in part because we're afraid to do it or we've been told that that's not allowed. So, we're superficial.

01:33:40

We're dishonest in our relationships. We're not being honest about our struggles. We're afraid in our relationships of what would happen if I actually told you that you need to stop sinning.

01:33:49

And this happens because we don't understand this first point about authority, about God's expectations for one -anothering and how one -anothering includes rebuking and reproving and admonishing.

01:34:00

And to be honest, very few discipleship relationships encourage and expect reproof.

01:34:06

And this is why I tell people they need to give their disciple, their fellow disciples, quote -unquote, permission.

01:34:13

Listen, you don't need my permission, Chris, to reprove me, right? You've got God's inherited authority to do that.

01:34:20

But I find that it's really helpful to encourage our fellow disciples and disciple leads to say to them, listen, I want you to know.

01:34:26

I want you to feel free and comfortable to do this in my life. I need it. I'm a sinner.

01:34:31

I lie to myself. And I need someone like you to come into my life, speaking God's truth into my life so that I can help overcome this stuff.

01:34:38

So, do you have reproof in your life? Are you inviting people to have that type of a relationship with you?

01:34:44

My friends, we need it. This is practical discipleship. Two more points.

01:34:50

Next one is correcting. This is the idea of, you know, a boat going out to sea, getting stuck in a storm, and what does it have to do?

01:34:59

It needs to turn around and go back to port. That is the correction. I'm going the wrong direction,

01:35:04

I need to stop, and I need to go the other direction. So, how many people in your life are there not only to tell you what's right and to confront you when you're wrong, but are also there to help you stop doing wrong and start doing right?

01:35:19

See, we're all very opinionated and saying, hey, this is what you should do and this is what you shouldn't do. Those are relatively easy things to say, and we do it all the time.

01:35:29

Social media is filled with that. Media is filled with that. Government is filled with that. But what about the specifics?

01:35:35

I use this example a lot. You know, youth pastors are great. Tell the kids that they need to love God. That's awesome.

01:35:40

But what does loving God look like for Trudy when she is in school and she's being bullied in the bathroom?

01:35:49

What does loving God look like for Adrian whose parents are absolute jerks and whose brothers are so unkind to him?

01:35:59

What does that look like for them practically? This is the correction stage. This is where we need to know people's struggles, and we need to know

01:36:07

God's word, and we need to be able to help them take the practical necessary steps to change these things.

01:36:14

So how much effort is put into your life for you to formulate plans to stop sinning and repent?

01:36:22

How many people in our lives keep us accountable to real change? Because this, like I said, is basically the bread and butter of biblical counseling.

01:36:30

Once a biblical counselor has helped a counselee see their sin and their need for righteousness, so much of our time is put into helping them specifically develop daily, weekly, and monthly plans that they need to really change and to see that genuine repentance in their lives.

01:36:44

But think about it. When we use the word like counseling, right, most of the people in the church, we see that as something that we only need when we've really gotten into a ton of trouble that we can't get ourselves out of.

01:36:54

We've worked, we've failed. We've worked, we've failed. We've worked, we've failed. We finally like, oh, I can't do this. I need help, and we run to a counselor.

01:37:00

But the reality is that we all need this all of the time. My friends, you can't do it on your own ever.

01:37:08

Bare minimum, you need the Holy Spirit and the Bible. But I found that the people who make course corrections in their lives through the power of the

01:37:17

Holy Spirit and by using the scriptures are the ones who are most interested in having others of God's people join the process.

01:37:24

And then those who aren't interested in inviting God's people into the process are oftentimes the ones who are really not searching the scriptures and leaning on the power of the

01:37:31

Holy Spirit for personal change anyway. So, most of our discipleship is spent teaching.

01:37:36

And I know I'm going through this super fast. I break this stuff down in a lot more detail in some of those series that I've discussed. So, get the

01:37:41

Evermind app, start building your knowledge of these things. But most of our discipleship is spent teaching.

01:37:47

Very little reproof oftentimes is being done in our lives in these relationships, and even less correction is being done.

01:37:55

By the way, just one side point. I don't have time to talk about it now. But really, the understanding of what true application is, to take

01:38:01

God's truth and to apply it specifically with intense consistency is absolutely necessary in the correction state.

01:38:10

And if we're just kind of like, oh, this is how you should live your life, that's not real good correction. And then the last point, and we can take questions, and we can build this up more as we have time, is the training one.

01:38:19

And just a couple thoughts here. It doesn't really matter what academic endeavor you pursue, what physical feats you're able to accomplish.

01:38:26

If you don't continue training and growing, and at least working hard to maybe maintain your standard of achievement, you're going to slide.

01:38:34

You're going to deteriorate. You're going to fall back. Everybody, whether he's a mechanic or an

01:38:39

Olympian or a college professor, when they stop using it, they lose it. An old

01:38:45

German teacher of mine, he doesn't speak German as often as he used to speak German when he was teaching it all the time, because he has a different job now in the university.

01:38:53

And he admitted to me that his German isn't as good as it used to be. Olympic athletes, when they stop training for the

01:38:59

Olympics, they put on the extra unnecessary weights. They just can't do the things they used to do.

01:39:05

And that's not just like decades later when they've gotten older. Sometimes it's just a few years when they're done training. It's going to happen, and it happens in our spiritual lives too.

01:39:13

So, the question is, how many people do you have in your life who are right now helping you to continue training in the spiritual disciplines that you're not perfect at and won't ever be perfect until we see

01:39:23

God? With whom are you working to sharpen your righteousness, keep an edge on your maturity, and hone your

01:39:30

Christ -likeness? Too many Christians have a one -and -done mindset. They did a thing. They checked it off their list.

01:39:36

They moved on to something else. Others are okay with this idea of plateauing in their walk with God.

01:39:41

Of course, we know it's not really possible to plateau because if you're not drawing near to God, you will slip further from Him. And once again, this modern

01:39:48

Western mindset, at least when it comes to spiritual growth, is that we can maintain sanctification on our own.

01:39:55

Sure, we might need help to learn new things. We might need occasional reproof if we really, quote -unquote, fall off the wagon.

01:40:01

And it can be helpful for somebody else to give us advice if we really can't figure it out for ourselves.

01:40:06

But once we have the information, once we're kind of in a groove, we really don't think we need someone to continue reminding us and helping us and keeping us accountable to continue in the things we've learned.

01:40:16

And we think that way because we're delusional and we don't understand exactly how badly we need this constant reminder and training in our lives.

01:40:24

Okay, we have to go to our final break. So those are the three things. We have to go to our final break right now. Don't go away. We'll be right back with A .M.

01:40:30

Brewster. The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023,

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01:40:42

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01:40:49

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be debating Dr. Gregory Coles, author of Single Gay Christian, A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity, the debate topic,

01:41:00

Is Gay Christian a Biblically Acceptable Identity for a Member of Christ's Church? So come join us for the sixth

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Future of Christendom conference. The event will take place at Spooky Nook Sports in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, and will run from Friday evening through all day

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Gospel at War in many areas of our culture, including government schools, the Supreme Court, missions, feminism, and even the church pulpits.

01:41:29

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01:41:46

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend, Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia, again for the

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01:52:58

Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

01:53:22

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

01:53:32

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he shall be represented in the world.

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Or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654.

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Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And please make note of this update on Grace Covenant Baptist Church of Flemington, New Jersey's website.

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Their new website is gcbc -nj .org. gcbc -nj .org.

01:54:55

So disregard the website that you just heard in the commercial. We're now back with A .M. Brewster, and we have a listener in New Rochelle, New York.

01:55:06

Corny, and that is either a nickname for Cornelius, or our listener has very cruel parents.

01:55:12

One or the other. Ouch. Well, Corny— It could also be

01:55:19

Cornelia. It could be Cornelia. Who knows? Yeah, you're right. Corny asks, have you written a book on this subject, or can you recommend books about discipleship?

01:55:31

Great question. I have not written a book. I have done a lot of work on it. Again, the Discipleship Spiral series, which is a podcast series.

01:55:39

It can be read on the blog. It is something that I put work into. I did reference two books in the additional resources that I provide on the app to support what we've been talking about.

01:55:54

A lot of those resources come from the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, and there were two books that they had talked about.

01:56:03

One of them is in a parenting context, The Disciple -Making Parent. They did a review on that, and I have a link to that on the app.

01:56:12

And then also a book called The Trellis and the Vine that speaks to this as well.

01:56:18

So, no doubt there are a lot of other good books out there. They're not coming to the top of my head, but hopefully some of those can be a blessing to you.

01:56:25

And I have a lot of podcast episodes about discipleship on the celebration of God. Well, I've got a couple of recommendations.

01:56:33

Donald Whitney wrote a book that is now considered a classic by many, Spiritual Disciplines for the

01:56:40

Christian Life. It is published by NAV Press, and you can get that from CVBBS .com,

01:56:48

one of our sponsors. CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. And Solid Ground Christian Books, another one of our very prominent sponsors, has brought back into print— it may be the first time that this book has ever been brought back into print since it was originally published—

01:57:05

Counsels and Thoughts for the Spiritual Life of Believers by Thomas More.

01:57:12

Thomas More, not the Roman Catholic martyr, but Thomas More, who was an elder along with Charles Spurgeon at the

01:57:21

Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England in the 19th century. This is an extraordinary book, and you can get that from Solid -Ground -Books .com.

01:57:32

And also, there is a book that Solid Ground Christian Books carries—I don't believe that they published it, but they sell it—

01:57:41

Life in Christ by Jeremy Walker, a really wonderful brother in Christ who just preached at the church where I'm a member recently.

01:57:50

He pastors a church of his own in England. And Life in Christ, Becoming and Being a

01:57:55

Disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. So those are my recommendations. And I'd like you now to summarize in about a minute's time what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today,

01:58:05

Brother Aaron. Discipleship is an absolute necessity because discipleship is necessary for sanctification.

01:58:15

And when we recognize the authority of God and the inherited authority of the other believers in our lives and the part they need to play in this process, and when we make the time to know people, to give people permission to be part of our lives, and then when we're focused on the right content of knowing

01:58:38

God's truth, knowing what is right, what pleases him, and living accordingly, and when we don't, recognizing that it's a sin, allowing people to confront us, to be thankful for that, to embrace those opportunities to change in humility, and then really grappling with the correction phase.

01:58:57

How do I make this change in my life? How do I fight these temptations? What do I need to do to see temptation afar off and hide myself from it?

01:59:04

How do I overcome where I have failed all of this time in working together with others to do so? And then recognizing that we'll never have made it, but continually exercising the training, then we will be disciples that are glorifying

01:59:18

God and growing. Amen, and we're out of time, and don't forget about the website for Aaron Brewster, evermindministries .com.

01:59:25

evermindministries .com. I look forward to your interview next week on Monday, the 21st of August.

01:59:33

I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater