Does the Bible teach, "Strong Disciples Only?" | Theocast

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Hi, this is John, and today on Theocast, we are going to be talking about the nature of discipleship.

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We hear that once you become a disciple that you should have courage and boldness, be able to share your faith and have a progression in holiness.

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And then there are those who don't experience such changes. Not only that, we read in the

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New Testament about how there are secret disciples and disciples who waver and go up and down. They struggle with their own sin.

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There's a lot the Bible has to say about discipleship, and we don't think it's a clean, straight line to the top.

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We hope you enjoy the conversation. A simple and easy way for you to help support Theocast each month is by shopping at Amazon through the

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Amazon Smile program. When you make a purchase through Amazon Smile, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to our ministry.

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To learn how to sign up, just go to theocast .org slash give. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

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Conversations about the Christian life from a pastoral and Reformed perspective. Your hosts today are

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Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, and I am John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church, officially now back in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

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We've been down in Columbia, running two services in a small little building, but thanks to the

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Lord and the progression of COVID, we're back at our location.

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It's a big, big Sunday for us. One other thing, Justin, I'm just going to throw out there, we are officially going to be able to plant

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Patrick Crandall Covenant Grace Church in Columbia, and that'll be

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June 6th. When this comes out, it'll already be planted. But if you live in Columbia and you're listening, you should go to Patrick's church.

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They're meeting at Agatha's Classical School, and you can hear the gospel preached every week. That's really exciting stuff.

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Yeah, former participant on the White Horse Inn. Patrick's a great guy. I don't know that I need to say anything else other than that.

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Really excited for his work and for that church, and I know you guys have been working together for about a year now to see that thing started, and praise the

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Lord when we get to see some tangible fruit of labor. That's the thing to be the

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Theocast. Both Jimmy and Patrick were Theocast listeners who are now pastors. So if you want to plant a church, contact

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Justin and I, and we'll tell you all the hard work it's going to take. One other comment,

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I'm really glad to know that we used to just be Reformed in terms of the ways we had conversations, but now we're also

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Pastoral. Something has occurred. I think it's helpful. I think people understand, listen, we're pastors.

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We're not a bunch of professional podcasters. We're not professional podcasters. We're not academics.

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We are pastors who study the scriptures to teach and preach the scriptures to our people weekly, and we live life with saints who struggle in a fallen world, and we too are saints who struggle in a fallen world.

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So that's what we're doing, man, having conversations from that perspective. Weakness and fallen world.

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Tell them about our book giveaway, brother. Another great book. We're just going to segue seamlessly almost into these things.

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So we are giving away stuff like we always do on Theocast. This week we are giving away a wonderful resource by our brother and friend of Theocast, Michael Horton, and this week we're giving away his book entitled

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A Place for Weakness. It's a really good resource. And as always, we lean on the sovereign providence of God and also the means of the

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Wheel of Names. And so the Wheel of Names has selected this week

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Tom McArdle to win the giveaway. So Tom, you will receive a copy of Mike Horton's A Place for Weakness.

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If you don't get a message from us, just reach out, shoot us an email or a message of some kind and we'll happily get the book to you, man.

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And if you are listening to this podcast, it will release on a Wednesday morning. You can go to any of our social media accounts today on Wednesday.

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That would be Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, and you can learn more about how you can enter yourself into the drawing or the random selection process to be a winner of this book as well.

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And we'll announce the social media giveaway winner tomorrow, which would be Thursday as you listen to this.

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So, avail yourselves of that. And if you want to buy a copy of the book, it'll be in the show notes.

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Yeah, there's a link. If you use that link, it actually helps support us. Amazon actually pays us for every time you use that link.

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Through Amazon Smile. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, Tom's been supporting us from like day one. So thank you,

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Tom, for that kind of a thank you for your support. So, well,

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Justin, speaking of, we chose that book because of our subject today and a subject that you and I are very passionate about and talked about beforehand and I recently just preached on.

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So you can even connect the sermon in the notes below. But today we're going to talk about discipleship specifically as the title.

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What was the actual title that we picked for this, Justin? Strong Disciples Only. That's how we hear the

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Bible described, right? For those of you who are new in Christ, God has called you to himself, regenerated you.

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At that moment, you have been infused by the spirit and also because of the spirit now living within you, you now have a spirit of boldness and strength and evangelism is not what you're afraid of and you're willing and ready to die for Christ and to take on any kind of persecution.

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That's the way in which the New Testament describes true discipleship. Isn't that true,

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Justin? Well, yeah, you're strong, you're not weak, you're never afraid, and you never doubt or wrestle or struggle.

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Nope. As a matter of fact, I mean, we can take verses like when

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Jesus says in Luke chapter 14, verse 26, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father or mother or wife or children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

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I mean, this is like absolute radical life transformation that you have to be willing to forsake everything in order to become part of Jesus.

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And I said this on Sunday and I'll say it here. I'm like, well, if that's your interpretation, I could also make the interpretation that Jesus is saying basically

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I need to hate everybody and I don't like anybody anyway. So that just works out for me. I like that kind of discipleship, just me and Jesus and I hate everybody else.

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You can make that conclusion, but that's not what he says. And also in Luke 14, 33, when it says, therefore, anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

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We talked about this particular passage in the past, which is to take up your cross and follow me, which we'll link to that in the notes as well.

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But Justin, the problem we're about to face here is we're going to look at all of scripture and we're going to look at everything the

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Bible has to say about discipleship, and we're going to then look at the examples given to us and then compare it to what's being told of us today, which is all disciples everywhere, once they come to Christ, should be willing and ready and have no problems with fear.

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And unfortunately, that's just not what we're about to see. So any other thoughts before I go ahead and jump into a good example of this being

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John? Justin Perdue Yeah, no agreement, man. I think the presentation that so many people receive in the context where many people have either found themselves for a season or maybe still find themselves today, you get the idea that if you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, that you're kind of like a

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Green Beret, you're a special ops soldier, and you need to come and be a part of this force of people, and you need to be unafraid, you need to not waffle or doubt or struggle or wrestle or anything like that, and that's because only the strong survive, and that's the message that many people are given, that you must persevere, which is a true thing to say, but then it's implied.

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We do not have reasons to be afraid. If Christ is our

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Savior and God is our King, we don't have reasons to be afraid, but that doesn't mean people don't struggle with fear and doubt.

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Justin Perdue In our experience, we struggle with fear and doubt, and that is because we are still fallen.

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We are saints and sinners at the same time, and because of that reality, our experience and how we feel from hour to hour, day to day, week to week will ebb and flow, and so this presentation that one must always be ready to charge the wall and that you are never fearful, that you don't doubt, that you don't struggle, that you're not weak, is not something that squares with the

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New Testament presentation of disciples, and that's the kind of stuff we're going to look at today. My hope is, because we are having this from a pastoral perspective, is that it encourages the weary saints out there who know themselves to be afraid at points of various things and also know themselves to struggle with doubt and wrestlings of various kinds.

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Jon Moffitt I want to begin by reading our confession. I think it'll be helpful here, understanding that the position that we are presenting is a very old one.

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It's been concluded and argued over and written down to be confirmed as we confess as believers.

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As it relates to the moment you come to Christ, sanctification does begin the process of us being transformed, not only in our soul, but also in our mind, in how we engage

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God, how we think about Him. It isn't always an absolute moral transformation because some, you know, like my kids aren't morally struggling at the moment, but there is a mind transformation.

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And I think it's very helpful in how the writers of the confession write this.

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This is chapter 13 on sanctification, point two. It says, this sanctification extends throughout the whole person, though it is never completed in this life.

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Some corruption remains in every part. From this arises continual and irreconcilable war with the desire of the flesh against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

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And they quote reference some verses here that Justin and I mentioned quite often, which is like Galatians 5 .17,

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1 Peter 2 .11. And then in point three, it says this, in this war, the remaining corruption may greatly prevail at time, yet through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying spirit of Christ, the regenerate part overcomes.

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So there isn't a final, this is why we can take great comfort in the doctrine for perseverance or preservation of the saints.

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That is what they're teaching there. But they can acknowledge and do acknowledge that at times,

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Christians, the remaining sin that we still have, saint -centered reality, right? We live in a kind of a dualistic understanding.

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We are saved by Christ, but yet we struggle with the flesh. This is Galatians 5 .17. That discipleship isn't a straight line, right?

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There isn't this immediate upward. There isn't this immediate infusion of power to the point to where all struggle is gone.

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What really shook me, and go ahead, Justin, you have a comment. I was going to add one other little piece from the confession from a different chapter that I think speaks to some of these things too, before you launch in.

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So even in chapter 18 on assurance of grace and salvation, and again, this is from the 1689

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London Baptist Confession. In paragraph three, this language is helpful too, that we understand that assurance is ours in Christ Jesus, but we don't always feel it.

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That's right. They say this infallible assurance is not such an essential part of faith that it is always fully experienced alongside faith, and true believers may wait a long time and struggle with many difficulties before obtaining it, and then they go on and say other things.

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So I think we need to understand that our experience will not always be one of just this rock -solid confidence in Christ and in our standing in Him that would then produce this kind of fearlessness and would drive away all doubt.

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And so, because I think many times the presentation, just to reiterate and be crystal clear, is that if you are legitimately in Christ and you are a true disciple, then there are certain things that should characterize you, and there are certain things that should not.

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And if those things are characterizing your life, a la this conversation, fearfulness, doubt, then you should be concerned.

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And our posture as pastors is like, man, that's just piling it on the weary saint in a way that Christ doesn't, in a way that the gospel writers don't, and in a way that the apostles don't.

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And take us away, brother. Give us example number one. Well, the first example we're going to explain to you is that there aren't followers of Jesus and then disciples.

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That's kind of like there's those who are in the Navy and then there's Navy SEALs. It's not like two levels, right?

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You're right. That's exactly right. There are those who are in Christ and those who are not. To be in Christ is to be a disciple.

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That's right. So to be in Christ is to be a disciple. And to be a disciple, there are clear requirements.

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There are clear instructions. There are laws for us to obey.

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This is the new use of the law, third use of the law that we speak about. But we also know that there's grace, mercy, and repentance.

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So it's a very complicated situation that the clearest focal point we always have is

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Jesus. And so today we're going to talk about some of the complications that you may find yourself in and that the text leads us to and gives us examples of.

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A great example for me is I am finishing up John, and every time I get to a new section of John, I am always dumbfounded by what

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I don't know and just how amazing the gospel writers present the glory of Christ and the frailty of man.

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So Jesus is about to be married, and John writes the most unique account of the burial of Jesus.

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He mentions things and says things that all writers do not say. And his account is quite unique.

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So this helped me when trying to understand what it is that John wrote. John writes this probably about 30 years after the burial of Jesus.

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This whole letter is a good—John has had time to contemplate, to think, to research, to know what's going on.

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And he isn't writing wondering what's happening next. First, it's not fiction. He's not just coming it up with it in his head.

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And two, he's not videotaping it, wondering what's the next section, like it's a documentary.

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He knows what's about to happen because he experienced it. So what you have here at the high point of history, which is

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Christ's death, you have a changing of the garden some ways, which is really interesting in how

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John describes it. So Jesus is now dead. The disciples in chapter 20 are being described as hiding out in a room out of fear of the

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Jews. And I love the detail John puts there. The door is locked, as if that's going to keep the

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Jews out of the door. Well, sure. But they are. They are all afraid. Including John.

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Including John. They're afraid. They're disheartened. They're discouraged. They're despondent. Yeah, they are. So John isn't—what he's about to say, he's not writing as a form of criticism because he is describing his own self as a doubter, as one who's a disciple of Jesus who is afraid.

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So let's just make a real quick observation. You have Peter saying, Lord, I'll die for you.

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There's nothing that's going to separate you from me. Of course, we know of Peter's failure. And then at the point of the cross, you have a changing of—you have these disciples who are now running and hiding.

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And then you have these two disciples that John mentions that are quite fascinating. He describes

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Joseph of Arimathea, and he describes him in a really interesting way. So here in John 19, 38, this is what he says.

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After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus—stop. Full stop. He clearly describes him as a follower of Christ.

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There's not a question. There's not an apostate. A false professor is not what he says.

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He says that Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the

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Jews. So that's how John describes him, and then describes that John—Mark describes him as one who took courage because he had to go stand before Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus.

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You know, the last person that stood before Pilate in reference to Jesus died. And so I understood why, one, this is a courageous act.

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But listen who John couples with Joseph. He couples Nicodemus, verse 39. It says,

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Nicodemus also, who early came to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes.

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So what is interesting about the two men, you have Jesus dies on the cross.

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All the disciples abandon him. The two disciples who are secret disciples, right?

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One comes at night because he's afraid. The other one is being described as a secret disciple. I think—

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And that coming at night, for those who don't know, is in John chapter three. That's right. That account of Nicodemus coming to Jesus. Right, Nick at night in John three.

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Nick at night, baby. Which, if you go back to chapter 12, you can see that I think

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John is describing both of these disciples. Because again, remember,

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John's writing 30 years after, so this isn't unfolding as time. He says this, nevertheless, many of the authorities, both

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Joseph and Nicodemus are part of the synagogue. So they both would be well -known there.

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It says, many of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it so that they would not be put out of the synagogue, for they love the glory that comes from men more than the glory that comes from God.

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You need to take notice of a couple of facts here. One, John doesn't discredit their belief.

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Two, John does not say that they are false converts or false disciples. He actually gives both

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Nicodemus and Joseph the title of disciple, not one of the 12, of course, there were multiple disciples, but the point of it is that John, I think, very pointedly and purposely points out the fickleness of discipleship as it relates to fear, anxiety, pain, and following Christ.

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It's not simple. It's not a straight, like those who have

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Christ are radically going to be willing to die for him at any cost. If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called

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Faith vs. Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a

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Reformed confessional perspective. You can get your free copy at theocast .org

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slash primer. You already mentioned

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Peter, but I'm going to pick up on Peter. Yeah. Just for a minute. So many are familiar with the account of Peter denying

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Jesus in the Gospels and what occurred there for those who are not as familiar. Jesus, of course, had predicted his death and all these kinds of things many times.

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And Peter, at points, had even rebuked Jesus for talking about things like that. That's another conversation. But then certainly had pledged his undying allegiance to Christ and his fearless devotion to him that even if everybody else falls away,

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I won't do it. I'm not going to fall away. I will always be with you. I will always follow you. And Peter is told by Christ that this is on the last night of Jesus' life on earth, that he would, in fact, deny

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Jesus. And again, he rebuts that. He says, no, I won't. And of course he does.

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He denies Christ out of fear when he goes to the courtyard. He follows Jesus as he's arrested in the

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Garden of Gethsemane and he's taken before the council and he's in the courtyard at the high priest's house and all those things.

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And he's asked three different times or three different times he's confronted, you were with him. You were with Christ. You were with him, weren't you?

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And he says, no, I wasn't. I don't even know him. So that's his initial denial. But then something else that people might not be as familiar with occurs years later in Antioch.

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And Paul writes about this episode in Galatians chapter two. And Paul confronted

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Peter in Antioch because Peter was operating out of fear of Jewish believers.

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So we read in Galatians chapter two, verses 11 and following how in Antioch, Peter was there.

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Paul is there. And when Peter is interacting with Gentile Christians and there are no believers from Jerusalem, there are no

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Jewish Christians present. Peter just kind of kicks it with Gentiles and is acting as they do and is not worried about certain aspects of the law and all these kinds of things and is operating in freedom and things are going well.

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But then there are some Jewish believers who show up, certain men who came from James, right, who we know was in Jerusalem.

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And Peter completely changes his behavior with respect to how he's carrying himself and things that he's doing, not doing, eating, not eating, things like this.

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And Paul talks about having to confront him because he was operating out of fear of the

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Jews and fear of the circumcision party and was leading people astray through his hypocrisy,

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Paul says. So here you have an apostle in Peter who had already had this experience earlier where he had denied the

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Lord Jesus Christ and then had been restored and was now preaching, writing and all these kinds of things in the early church, but then is afraid of men.

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He's afraid of other people and what they would think of him. And so he changes how he operates, how he talks, what he eats and things of that nature so that he would be thought well of by other people.

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And so he was dominated in that sense by fear of man. And so that's another good example of how we can operate in fear, not just fear of authority or fear that we might lose something materially or that we might even lose our lives, but also we operate out of fear based on what other people will think of us.

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That's right. And such is our frailty. Yeah, go ahead. Well, and it connects back to John 12, the rebuke that he gives to those leaders there.

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Peter himself falls under. One other example.

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So if, sorry. No, keep going, man. Nope. Cool, man. All right. So this one is not so much fear as it is doubt.

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And I think those things are often related in our experience. And many are familiar with one of the 12 named

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Thomas. He is even referred to as Doubting Thomas, which is kind of an unfair title that we give to him.

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I just want to talk a little bit about his life. It's very interesting that this man who is known for doubting in John chapter 11, in the whole episode of Lazarus and his resurrection and stuff, when

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Jesus makes the decision that they will go to Jerusalem effectively, just outside of it, to Bethany because of Lazarus and his death.

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Jesus tells the disciples in John 11, 14, that Lazarus has died.

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And for your sake, I'm glad I wasn't there so that you may believe, but let us go to him. And then Thomas says in verse 16 of John 11, he says to the other disciples, let us also go that we may die with him.

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So he understands that their lives are going to be in jeopardy and that harm could come to them. And he's willing to go.

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But this same man, I think this is instructive for us, John, this one man who is so courageous in one moment, even if he's saying it half out of sarcasm, later, after Jesus dies, is the one who's like, yeah,

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I will never believe that he rose from the dead unless I see him for myself and I can touch him.

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And of course, we know the episode that Jesus appears to him and Jesus is not,

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I don't think we should see harshness at all. But he knows this man's frame, right? And he more or less looks at him and he says, here, you know, come and touch and see.

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I can hear Thomas in the background saying, fool me once. I gave up everything to follow this guy.

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And so, yeah, you'd fool me twice. It's not going to happen. So yeah, in John 20, verse 25,

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Thomas literally says, unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side,

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I will never believe. Then in the very next verse, Jesus appears to them and he says, he appears among them and he says, peace be with you.

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Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side.

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Do not disbelieve, but believe. And then Thomas replies, my

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Lord and my God. Right. And his faith is stirred and strengthened because Jesus condescends to his weakness.

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For he is gentle and lowly in spirit. Such is our frame, John, and such is our condition that we so often, some moments we're just like, yes,

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I believe. And I'm just like, man, I would run through a wall for Christ or I believe.

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And I just know that I know that I know that this is true. And then the very next day or the next week, we're questioning everything.

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And our faith feels very weak. And I think saints through history have had that very same experience.

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And Justin, how many times do you and I talk about this? And Christ's posture is so gentle. Oh, bro, on the regular, on the regular.

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Well, you know, sometimes I, this is going to be kind of a weird section.

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I'll say this and I'll throw it back over to you. Sometimes, you know, I'll hop on. We listen to the episodes just to make sure everything is good to go and clean, and I listened to his talk and I'm like, wow, we sound.

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And clean as in edits, not like we say bad things. No. Yeah. Like just make sure all the edits are correct.

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Anyways, we sound bigger and more professional. I mean, this is my opinion of myself.

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I listened to us and I'm like, wow, we sound great. And I know who I am. I know how small

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I am. I know how frail I am. Like, I just don't ever want listeners to hear us.

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And I'll speak for you too, because I know you agree. And just assume that because we do this podcast and we're pastors, that we are these like strong disciples.

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Like the weakness that I feel in many ways, I wanted to do this podcast because I'm over here going, well,

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I don't feel like a strong disciple. I feel like very weak. And I struggle with anxiety and fear often because of my frailty and what's required of me as a human being.

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It's overwhelming at times. Well, I can resonate with that. I feel, I've even today been feeling very intensely the battle against the flesh in various ways to where Paul's words in Romans seven, you know, wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death, thanks be to God, you know, through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Like, man, those words resonate. No truer words have ever been written from my perspective because yeah,

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I often, even as we sit down to record this podcast and mindful of ways that I doubt and wrestle or ways that I'm struggling against sinful thoughts, whatever in my own mind,

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I do not feel as devoted to Jesus as I want to be. I do not feel and understand myself to be trusting him as much as I want to trust him.

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And I need conversations like this with you, my brother in Christ, to stir me and to encourage me.

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And I've said this before, my mentor in the faith used to talk this way too. God, I think in one sense has made me a pastor in his providence because he knew that I probably wasn't strong enough to not be one, meaning that my job requires me to study

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God's word in order to teach it and preach it. My job requires me to point others to Christ.

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And as I do that, my own faith is strengthened. And I find myself so often preaching and saying things to other people.

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And I'm kind of having that weird out of body experience that you almost have regularly as a preacher where you're hearing yourself say stuff and your own mind, you're able to kind of process that.

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And sometimes you're struck by it and you're like, oh yeah, I think I really do believe that. Sometimes you're struck because you're struggling to believe and you're asking

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God to give you faith. I mean, such is my experience. And so, yeah, I would never want the listener to hear me say something.

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And I know that you feel the same. You just said so. And think that we just never doubt or we're never afraid because we are.

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And we too are frail, just like people listening to us talk are. And we all need the grace of God and we all need him to give us faith and to preserve us or we have no hope.

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He's utterly faithful, you know. So Justin, we're going to be able to cover this just for a little bit of time and then we're going to have to probably bring it all the way in to Semper Vermondo.

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Go ahead. Yeah. I have one other thought just about something that I'll decide. Where do you want to go? And then

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I can determine whether to insert now. Well, just where this attitude comes from. I think there's two main streams that have a massive influence.

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Let me insert this first then, okay? If we were going to ask the question, what is required to be a disciple of Christ?

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Yeah, that's good. The biblical answer to that is faith. I mean, what's required?

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Faith. And of course, faith is not of ourselves. It's a gift of God, right? But if you are trusting

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Christ to be your righteousness and the satisfaction for your sins, then you are his disciple.

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But here's the thing. Even faith can waver. So that's the challenge.

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My faith in Christ is what's going to end up producing fruit. We're born again by the

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Spirit of God. We trust Christ and then fruit is born from that in the form of repentance or in the form of good works, obedience and the like.

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But even faith will vacillate and waver at points. And that's how fundamental this battle is.

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And that's why we say that the fundamental battle of the Christian life is not even the fight against sin.

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The fundamental battle of the Christian life is the fight for faith, to actually believe what the

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Lord has said. And in particular, to believe what the Lord has said to us in his son, that good word of our acceptance and our forgiveness and our absolution and our righteousness that is through Christ by faith apart from works.

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And we have to battle for faith so often because our life and our experiences preach a different message than the one that God speaks to us.

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And so that's the experience of disciples everywhere. And it's been the disciples' experience of all time.

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I mean, I'm thinking about even the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, where he talks about weakness and how he was weak and how he learned that, even the

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Lord told him that through Paul's weakness, the Lord's strength was magnified and made evident.

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And so Paul says, I'm going to boast and rejoice in my weakness, actually, because it's there that the Lord shows himself to be strong and he shows his grace to be sufficient.

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And I think we all need to be reminded of that in this conversation when we are made to feel sometimes like only the strong survive.

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Well, actually, we're all weak. And the thing that we need to understand is that we are weak and that we need to cast ourselves completely upon the strength that is

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Christ's alone for us. Yeah, I think a lot of the frailty, even fear and anxiety, which we're going to get into in a minute, is caused by a confusion of what discipleship is in Christ.

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And people are so exhausted by trying to climb into the boat of assurance and holding on to the rail that they may not be tossed out, that they're so exhausted by that and they have the fear of that, that they're not able to enjoy the rest that truly is found in Christ.

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And I think that's caused by a lot of confusion in not only modern day teaching, but historical teaching.

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I can even think of the book, which I'll definitely reference more in the Semper Ephraimanda book,

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The Cost of Discipleship, is really what we're talking about here, right? You have prosperity gospel, believe it or not, creates a lot of fear and anxiety in people because for this reason, they don't see success, they don't see

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God blessing them, they see failure, and they realize, I haven't done enough as a disciple for God to approve my life and then therefore bless and take care of me.

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So the cost of discipleship they see is no blessings from God equals,

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I am not either one a disciple or I'm not a good disciple and they're not willing to do some of the things that are required.

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Like in some of this is having this outgoing personality in worship, being outgoing in public, you see this pressing in.

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I've been in context, even in churches where if your hands aren't raised and you're not emotionally charged by what's going on, then how can you truly describe yourself as a dedicated disciple?

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Because if you truly were, you would be invested into what's going on in the worship service and I look at that and I go,

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I'm pretty sure that's not what is required of a disciple to be invested emotionally and to whatever this event that you have created.

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And so a lot of people, Justin, I have met who are solemn, quiet personalities.

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They feel less than because they're not flamboyantly involved in a worship experience and so they feel less than.

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And I have other people who feel very strong about their discipleship as it relates to Christ because they are so involved in this worship experience.

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Yeah, I think another way that this kind of thing can manifest itself is maybe more in the

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Lordship Salvation Camp where, and just simply for our purposes today, where you see a confusion as to what faith even is because what ends up happening, not only is the law and the gospel, not only are they collapsed and blended together, but then you have effectively obedience and repentance and sincerity of devotion and all these kinds of things woven into the definition of what faith is.

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And so if one is going to have saving faith, then one also has all of these other things that are a part of faith.

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And so what that ends up producing for us is a standard that, frankly,

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I fear no one can really meet. And it's also a standard that no one can define either, but it's where levels of obedience and levels of dedication are required of us.

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And I would even say that progression in the battle against sin, in terms of getting increasing amounts of victory, there needs to be this ongoing transformation.

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And we do agree and uphold that our lives will be transformed. We are just trying to say, as we always do, that that transformation is going to ebb and flow some.

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It's going to go up and down, and it's not going to be clean and linear all the time, to where you may look at your life on any given day and have legitimate reasons to say, man,

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I don't know that this battle, this fight against my flesh is going as well today as it did yesterday or a year ago, because I find myself really struggling right now.

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And I think that is the common experience of many people. And when they are in a context where they're told that you need to be getting better all the time, then there's a tremendous cause for concern and worry and doubt and fear as to whether they're really in Christ.

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And I mean, I know in my own life, John, if one of the reasons that I can be discouraged in the faith, and I'm saying this as a host theocast and as a pastor, and I know this isn't true, but it's like my mind and my conscience and things that I heard for years still wage war against me because I will think, man, this fight against sin is really hard right now, or my affections are not where they were six months ago or whatever it may be.

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And then you start questioning things, you start condemning yourself. And even if you don't question whether or not you're in Christ, joy and peace and rest are taken away because you're constantly unsettled about your spiritual condition.

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Well, I think the cost of discipleship and even both of what we described, which is making

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Jesus Lord of your life, which we are going to do a review on that book coming in the very next few weeks, Justin and I are finishing up our preparation for that.

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So stay tuned for that. Certainly in the next couple of months. Yeah, I'm trying to not over -promise and under -deliver here,

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John. We'll get to it. Our listeners are very gracious and we're thankful for it.

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We thank you. But in both cases, you have unrealistic expectations.

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And one, we can't make Jesus Lord of our life because he is. And if the evidence of my

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Christian life is one, Jesus blessing me or two, me sacrificing everything, making Jesus Lord of my life, then no one is truly a disciple because no one's been able to truly do that on a level that—how do you—here's what ends up happening.

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Let me put it this way. We have to make the levels acceptable. And there is no acceptable level that the

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Bible puts it at other than faith. And even when it says faith without works is dead, like we don't even know what level of works

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James is speaking of other than, look, that's what you need to be pursuing, right? That's your focus.

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And I know that we've said this before, but for the newer listener, faith without works is dead, James chapter two.

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All we understand James to be saying is that faith will result in obedience and doing good works.

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We're not told how much, right? We're not told to measure it. That's all it is. And so it's not as though you need to weave works into the groundwork of your justification and your salvation.

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It is just simply a necessary—good works are a necessary consequence of faith. And God will produce them in you.

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And that's all James is writing to. That's right. Yeah. So we're going to move into a second podcast that we do.

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I'm going to give a couple of lead -ins, Justin, I'll let you have a comment on that if you want. I mean, why give one lead -in when you can give two?

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That's right. You know what I mean? Absolutely. You know, first of all, we're going to speak a little bit more to the two,

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I think, sides that we showed, which is the prosperity gospel slash Lordship salvation. I do want to talk about how the church has had an influence here.

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The church should be a place of rest and comfort. The shepherds should be feeding the sheep, not beating them.

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And I think often sheep come in and are beaten down so much that they become afraid of the shepherd, they become afraid of the church.

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So we're going to talk about that for a little bit and how we as reformers can help transform our churches back to a biblical reform perspective of what it is that we are supposed to be doing.

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And to draw in, I don't think lazy Christians, I don't think people who are nominal,

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I think people who are absolutely exhausted and beat down. How do we draw them back into our church that we might build them up into Christ and into the maturity of Christ, that they may truly know what it means to have strength that comes from something other than their own dedication to God?

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Because Justin and I will both agree, our strength is not found in our discipline and dedication because we're pretty bad at it.

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I mean, God help us if it needs to come from us. Yeah, that's right. I mean. Well, we're going to talk about the reform view of sanctification and all that kind of stuff.

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I don't know. Who knows it's going to go, but we do a second podcast. We enjoy, it's kind of our family behind the scene podcast where it's a little more unfiltered.

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And if you'd like to one, support what we're doing here at Theocast, two, join that podcast. And number three, be able to join a local community in your area to discuss it.

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That's what Semper Firmanda is. We are still in the process of developing those teams and groups, and we have online and local groups.

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If you want to be a part of any of that, you can go to theocast .org slash SR or just go to our website. You'll find it there.

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And Justin, go ahead. Yeah. If you are one of those people who not only if you're weary, but if you do know that you're weak and you struggle and you wrestle, you doubt, you're grieved at the fact that you don't obey

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Christ more than you do, then come join the rest of us who are just like you. That's right. And who are looking to Christ for everything because we understand

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Him to be our only hope. Come and be a part of this and be encouraged by other brothers and sisters who get this too.

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We have a Facebook group forum with conversations happening there as well. All right. We'll see you guys next week.