Ok, I'm Christian Now What? | Ep. 1

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what happens to a person when they get saved? What happens to them eternally? What happens to them practically?

00:05

What are a couple of things that a brand new Christian must do immediately? Then he said, after the prayer, you are saved, sealed, and sanctified until the day of redemption.

00:15

And then I was like, all right. Now this might immediately make some folks turn us off and unsubscribe, okay?

00:22

But that's okay, because we're trying to be real. It can't be, this is who I was, Christ changed me, and I'm still who

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I was. I imagine that when we get to heaven, Jesus is going to say, hey, Nate, come here.

00:47

Welcome to Okay, I'm Christian, Now What? This is a brand new podcast dedicated to helping you walk in a manner worthy of Christ and his gospel from day one.

00:58

My name is Nate Zala. I'm trained as a teacher, speaker, pastor, and I'm also the president of an organization called

01:03

Wise Disciple, which is hosting this here podcast. So if you're tuning in on the audio version of this show, check out our

01:11

YouTube channel, Wise Disciple. You won't regret that, all right? Joining me is a good friend of mine, one of the pastors at Life Baptist Church in Las Vegas, Nevada.

01:21

It's Chuck Williams, whoop -de -whoop. Whoop -whoop, what's up, man? What's up?

01:27

Chuck, I'm so glad that we're doing this. First of all, because I just want any old reason to hang out with you, and then second of all, we have, man, such a past, such a friendship.

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Now, a lot of folks, probably through Wise Disciple, and especially listening to this podcast, they don't know about the nature of our dynamic and friendship.

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And people don't believe me when I tell them that we met because you were assigned to me as my parole officer. So I don't know.

01:58

But how did we really meet, Chuck? Man, so I had just entered into seminary, and I was taking an apologetics class.

02:08

And at the time, a guy named John LaGrange was like, you're taking apologetics? You need help with this.

02:14

You need to talk to Nate Sala. I was like, who is Nate Sala? And he was like, oh man, he's an apologist here at our church.

02:22

I was like, what? So we set up a meeting, and I remember, man, in the prayer room, me and you met for the very first time, and it was just love at first sight.

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It was definitely the beginning of a beautiful friendship, right? For sure, man, for sure.

02:40

You know, from the very first moment that we started hanging out, Chuck, we talked about our experience coming to Christ, and it wasn't ideal, right?

02:54

It wasn't... No, not at all. No, it wasn't what the Bible or Jesus certainly intended.

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I remember committing my life to Christ and acknowledging that by sort of raised my hand during an altar call one day back in 2009, and a church volunteer came over, he prayed with me, he was very gracious.

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All of that was great. But then he walked away after that with a kind of pat on the shoulder, and I was left to wonder, okay, now what?

03:21

But that was your experience too, right, Chuck? Absolutely, man. I gave my life to Christ at a young age, and my pastor, he walked me through repentance and faith and prayed with me, and then he said, after the prayer, you are saved, sealed, and sanctified into the day of redemption.

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And then I was like, all right. That was it. Okay, bye. Right. That's it?

03:48

That's all we do? Okay. Yeah, yeah. So that just led me to just look at other people and just try and do what they did.

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I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Okay, I know I need to just keep going to church.

04:03

I guess that's just what I keep doing. Right. No, and so that's why we...

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I mean, this podcast has been several years in the making. Because my experience and Chuck's experience is, unfortunately, a lot of Christians' experience after getting saved.

04:19

And so, if you are a brand new Christian, or a Christian that has been around for a hot minute, but you're wondering, okay, something's missing, right?

04:27

You can't quite put your finger on it. That's what we're here for. We're here to talk about all of that. We're here to talk about what you need to walk after the

04:34

Lord in the way that God intended for you to do so. So, on this episode, we're going to talk about the nature of salvation.

04:41

So, from the moment that a person gets saved, we're going to talk about what just happened to them, from an eternal perspective, what just happened, but also from a practical perspective, like, what should happen next as well.

04:53

You know, as a new Christian, what are the next steps for you? Now, in this series, Chuck, we're going to do a lot more. We're going to go into Bible translations, you know, which

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Bible translations you should read, how you should study the scripture, how you should not, right?

05:07

What kind of church you should be looking for, what kind of preaching you should be looking for. What else are we going to talk about, you think?

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Man, there's so much to cover in all of this, but I would look at this as just like the starter pack.

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Like, we're going to give you all the basics of what you need to do, because it's what

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I find myself constantly going back to. Like, going back to the basics, being a subject matter expert in those before we're trying to jump into the deep depths of eschatology.

05:40

Right. You know, so, Chuck and I were pastors together at this church in Las Vegas called

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Life Baptist Church. We were trained by the same mentor, and one of the things that our mentor used to say all the time, Chuck, is, you never outgrow the gospel.

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You always continue to grow into the gospel. And so, I love that. It's a matter of, you know, like, during your

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Christian walk, whether it's been six months, six years, 60 years, it's a matter of coming back to what you know to be true, because sometimes we stray, right?

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Right. We do, we do, and it's so good. Like, that quote hit me so much, because every area of theology stems from the gospel.

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We have to have a firm understanding of it, and it's like, I forgot who said it, but it's like, the gospel is like a diamond that you can look at from multifaceted areas, and it's just, it's so inexhaustible that it informs everything that we have as our walk in this faith, so.

06:37

That's so good. Well, there's so many things that we're going to discuss, and maybe in the future, should this podcast take off,

06:42

Chuck, God willing, of course, maybe brothers in Christ can come and join us and talk also from their experience and perspective about what

06:51

Christians should be doing. Maybe brothers that are more well -known in Christian circles can jump into the discussion, you know.

06:57

Also, at the end of the day, you know how to live your life in a manner worthy of Jesus Christ and His gospel. So, if you are not subscribed, please go ahead and subscribe, wherever you're watching or listening to the show, and stay tuned, because things are going to get good.

07:09

Well, what – we have a – you and I work together at the church,

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Life Baptist Church. Yep. Trained by the same mentor, experiencing things on the ground at the same time. What, Chuck, is the cringiest thing that you have ever done in church?

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Now, this might immediately make some folks turn us off and unsubscribe, okay? But that's okay, because we're trying to be real.

07:33

Go ahead. Yeah, it's about to get real. Oh, man. So, the most cringiest thing that I think

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I've ever done, I was in a position to where I would give, like, the announcements weekly, and at Life, we would always tell people to, you need to have intimate time with the

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Lord, spending time in the Word where the focus is on Him, just you and the Lord, your Bible, just having that good intimate time.

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So, I was given an announcement on an event that we host called Some Time Away, where the parents can drop off their kids and they can just spend time with their spouses.

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So, I said on stage that, you guys can drop off your kids and just spend some intimate time with your spouse.

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I know when I drop my kids off, me and my wife, we're gonna spend some real intimate time together. Oh, my goodness.

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There were so many people afterwards that came up to us, it was like, so, I guess we know what you guys do with the kids.

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Like, my wife was so embarrassed, so embarrassed. She's like, you can't say that from the stage.

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And you, knowing you, you're probably thinking, like, you know, we're gonna play chess, or we're gonna, you know, but...

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It's good. Yep. No, that's so good, man. What about you, Nate? What was your most cringiest moment?

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Now, again, we're just trying to be real with y 'all. We're trying to showcase, pull the curtain back, showcase some flaws so we can all have a good laugh, okay?

09:07

Um, so, you're gonna know what this is. Back in 2021, I was preaching a sermon, and it included communion at the end of the message.

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This was, you know where this is going. This was communion now, post -COVID, post -COVID communion.

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So, the materials for communion, I mean, already, arguably, they're strange, they're difficult. Post -COVID, they were even stranger and more difficult, right?

09:33

You remember the materials for communion, right? Yeah. It's like this two -layered, you know, sealed shut container where you had this top layer that contained the bread, right, the body of Christ, and then the bottom layer contains the blood of Christ, and for Baptists, it's juice, okay?

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Maybe there's another episode for another time, Baptists and Communion Juice, you know what I'm saying? But anyway...

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Yes. I'm walking through everything, you know, reading The Last Supper with everyone, and then

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I say this, now, let's take the bread together, and I go to open the top layer, and it will not open,

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Chuck. It will not open. It's like, and I'm pulling on this thing, mind you,

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I'm Samoan, so I typically have like Kool -Aid strength, right? You remember Kool -Aid, when he would just bust through the walls, you know, oh, yeah, right?

10:21

Freak all the kids out. That's why everyone's in therapy right now, Chuck, it's because Kool -Aid. But anyway, so, oh, yeah.

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So, anyway, I can't get the top layer off, so I have to make a decision. So, I take my two fingers, there's nothing in them, and I put them together, and then

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I just put my fingers to my mouth, and I pretend to take the bread, okay?

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And there's no bread in my hand. So, I do this, Chuck, it's so bad. Meanwhile, the only people who can see this are the worship team on stage, because there's a, you know, the audience and the congregation and everything are far away.

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So, the worship leader is standing like behind me to my left, and as I'm motioning, this is probably better if you can see this on video, but as I'm motioning to put something in my mouth that's not there,

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I look, and in the corner of my eye, I just see him staring at me like, like what? He looks over, he's just staring.

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So, anyway, after the service, so I go on like this, right? Next service, everything's fine,

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I can open it up, and I actually take communion, which is why I'm not going to hell. But anyway, I got it right the next time.

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So, I'm driving home, and I get a text message from the worship leader, and all he did was he went to the live stream, because this happened on the live stream.

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He sends me a screenshot. It's recorded. This is for real. He sends me a screenshot of my two fingers to my mouth with nothing in it, and he just, he texts underneath,

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I know what you did. Oh, man.

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Oh, my gosh. Yes, that's definitely cringe. That is definitely. I imagine that when we get to heaven,

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Jesus is going to say, hey, Nate, come here. Oh, my goodness.

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Anyway. Oh, man. If there's a principal office in heaven, I'm going to it. Well, anyway, well, let's get into the heart of episode one.

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So, friend, if you are listening and you are a Christian, congratulations, you have been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ.

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Praise the Lord. Amen. You have been saved, you've been redeemed by the blood of the

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Lamb, but wait a sec, Chuck, what does that even mean? What happens to a person when they get saved?

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What happens to them eternally? What happens to them practically? So, let's start with eternally. What do you think about that?

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Man, eternally, I would say that you're secure. I think that is the one thing that when a person repents of their sin and places faith in Jesus Christ, that they need to understand that eternally they are secure.

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You cannot lose the salvation that has been given to you as a gift. In John 10, 27, he says, my sheep hear my voice.

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And he keeps them in his hand and no one is able to snatch them out of his hand. And his father keeps them in his hand and no one is able to snatch them out of his hand either.

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So, it is this aspect of when you are saved, you are eternally secure.

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What would you say, Nate? Well, I cut to you because I thought you were going to - So, we're still figuring this out.

13:35

Well, I got more points, but I mean, that's, I think, one of the first things. It's like, you're eternally secure.

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I mean, I can continue to go on. There's a piece that you have, Romans 5 .1.

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The book of Romans is probably one of my favorite chapters because it says, therefore now have been justified by faith.

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You have peace with God. When we're saved, we need to understand that it's being saved from the wrath of God that will come upon those who are disobedient, who are rejecting him and who continue to live in this selfish, rebellious life.

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But when we are saved, we have given up our life. We have peace with him. We're made new. We're seated with him in the heavenly places.

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We're forgiven. We're redeemed from our sin and from eternal damnation.

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So, there's just so much, but I think being eternally secure is one of the first things that I needed to grasp when

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I placed faith in Christ. Yeah, that's so good. That's so good because you were resurrected spiritually, right?

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Yes. Your physical body was walking around this earth since birth. You lived your life, you made your decisions, but on the inside, you were dead.

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Essentially, you were a spiritual zombie, and this went, this actually, you can track this from the garden.

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So, the moment at the very beginning, Adam and Eve were warned, if you eat of the fruit of the tree, you will surely die.

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And what that means is not, as we can understand this now looking backwards, they were not going to physically die because clearly they did eat of the fruit, and they didn't physically die.

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Their death was a spiritual death. And so, in that sense, once Adam, our great, great, great, great, great ancestor died, then all of the people that were born after him also were born dead.

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And I'm trying to use a word that the Bible uses, right? The dead on the inside. Physical body walking around alive, but dead on the inside.

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And so, Ephesians 2 is a great passage to sort of unpack this.

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And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formally walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all formally conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

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But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead, there it is, dead in our transgressions made us alive together with Christ.

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And so, you know, this is also commensurate with what Jesus told Nicodemus in John chapter 3, right?

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Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you are born of water and the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God, right?

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So... I mean, that's one of the main reasons why we are called life here at Life Baptist Church, because of the simple fact, the founding pastor,

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Paul Godhart, when he was praying about what to call this church, he was in Ezekiel, and where, you know,

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Ezekiel's prophesy, the Lord is having Ezekiel prophesy over these bones. And Paul said, as he was sitting there, he was thinking, well, what does a dead man need more than anything?

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Life! Pete - That's right. Ben - That's what happens with us. We are dead in our transgressions and our sins, and we need to be resurrected.

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We need new life. We need, as the Bible said, to be a new creation, not this old thing that is dead and can't move and can't do anything in and of ourself.

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We need a resurrected soul, a resurrected body. We need that and that's what happens when we place faith in Christ.

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No, that's so good. That's so good. And this is the, so what we're saying right now is the consistent teaching of the scripture, right?

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Jesus, when he said, you must be born again, he's referring to Ezekiel 36, where God says that he's going to sprinkle clean water on his people so that he will make them clean, and then he's going to put his spirit within them so that they will obey his commandments.

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And that, that is what Jesus described as being born again, and you must be born again if you're going to see the kingdom and if you're going to enter into the kingdom.

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And so, that's a spiritual resurrection, and that's exactly what happened when you gave your life to Jesus Christ.

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So, congratulations. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, because you try to, so we're speaking in the abstract, right,

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Chuck? Right. You know, like, so, and I know that people, a lot of people are thinking like,

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I know this stuff on paper, it sounds really great, but what does it really mean, right? I think one of the, so now

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I want to shift to some of the practical realities of being a

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Christian, you know? And that is that because the Bible says now you are alive, now your spirit is alive, whereas once you were dead.

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Now the Holy Spirit is in you, right, to guide you, to intercede for you, to enable you to obey

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God's commandments. Now you have these new desires. Your desires, your behaviors are changing.

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It's funny, because I remember hating sushi as a kid. Do you like sushi, Chuck? Oh, I love it.

18:51

Oh, gosh. Why have we not, how many years have I known you, we've not eaten sushi together? Right?

18:57

That's amazing. Wow. Yeah. We need to put that on the list. Show's over. It's sushi day coming soon. Show's over.

19:03

It's done. We didn't eat sushi. No, that's good. And I used to hate it as a kid. I remember, you know, now

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I have two boys who are super finicky about whatever they eat, and they got it from me, you know, because it's amazing.

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When I was 12, I only ate hot dogs, hamburgers, and chicken fingers. And it's amazing

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I didn't have a heart attack. But anyway, my parents would try to get me to eat sushi. You're Samoan, though. I'm Samoan, so it's all good.

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Our arteries work differently. No, they don't. So, my parents would push it and they'd say, hey, just try it.

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Just try it. And I'd be like, no, that's disgusting. Meanwhile, I'd never eaten sushi, so what do

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I know, right? But then one day I was 22 and I tried it for the first time, and I actually enjoyed it.

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But the weird thing, Chuck, after eating it a couple of times, I started craving it. You know what

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I'm saying, Chuck? This is like what happens to your spirit. You never desired

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God. That's Romans 3, it makes that clear. And yet, when you got saved and committed your life to following Jesus, now you have these cravings, these new desires.

20:07

Right. No, absolutely, man. This is why I love, like, one of my favorite passages of Scripture is

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Galatians 2 .20. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh,

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I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and who died for me. Like, He is living His life in and through us, therefore

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I now have new desires. I have new wants. I have new things that I didn't experience and didn't do because of my old self.

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And it's often said like this, if the greatest basketball player to ever live,

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I would say Michael Jordan. You can argue and debate all you want about Michael Jordan. But if you had the spirit of Michael Jordan living inside of you, you will be able to do all of the great things.

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And we're talking about, like, championship Michael Jordan, not him now. Like, he's gotten a little bit old. But the spirit of Michael Jordan living inside of you, you'll be able to dunk, you'll be able to shoot, you'll be able to be the best who's ever played the game.

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So when we're thinking about the spirit of Christ in us, we are able to do all of the things that Christ has done and allowed us to do because He is living in and through us.

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He said that we will be able to do greater works than Him because of His spirit that lives inside of us.

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So it is that mindset when you are practically living this life, you're offering your body as a living sacrifice to God, as it says in Romans 12.

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That's good. And that means that your life is going to change. If you are saved, congratulations.

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The angels in heaven rejoice. But that means now your life here on this earth is going to change.

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That is the after effect of a radical transformation, a physical, or excuse me, a spiritual resurrection.

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And so, how this plays out practically is your behavior changes. So I've seen this,

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Chuck, and I'm wondering if you could speak to this. This happened to me too, by the way, and I would see this all the time with new believers. Some things change immediately.

22:12

It's almost like a light switch goes off. And then all of a sudden, these immediate behavioral changes.

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And what I mean by immediate is, or some of the things I'm talking about is like, now all of a sudden there's a desire to read the

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Word. Now all of a sudden, there's a desire to go to church and be among other brothers and sisters, right?

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And now, there's a desire to not do some of the sins that perhaps are more obvious that were in the person's life before they got saved, right?

22:41

And then there are these other categories of behavioral changes that slowly happen over time.

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And so, that's typically how I see it go. I mean, what's your perspective on that? No, I would agree, man.

22:56

There were some things that immediately I stopped. Like, I had a foul mouth growing up, and immediately when

23:02

Christ changed me and He came into my life, I was just like, oh, this is foul, but this is because I've spent time reading in His Word and in Ephesians 4 where it says, let no unwholesome thing come out of your mouth.

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That convicted me, and instantly, I was like, I can't let any unwholesome thing come out of my mouth because of the simple fact of who dwells within me.

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But then there were other sins where it took a little while in my sanctification process for me to die to and for me to stop continuing in those sins because the conviction would come a little later, or I didn't have the understanding, or I just didn't know.

23:43

Right. No, that's really great. Now, let's get ourselves into trouble, Chuck. If somebody professes that they are a follower of Jesus Christ, so Tuesday night they got saved, this is what they say, and you see them

23:59

Wednesday and there is completely no difference whatsoever. Then you see them the following Wednesday, completely no difference.

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Then you see them the following Wednesday, completely no difference. Was there a real change in their spirit?

24:14

So, I don't think I'm the one to say on that.

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I think it would be my job to go and disciple that person. Like, hey, you professed and you said this.

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Let me walk alongside you and let me help you like Paul did to Peter. He opposed him to his face.

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He said, hey, you're not acting in to how you are professing and how you said that your walk is.

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So, I think that my job in seeing that and witnessing that, knowing that this person made a profession,

24:48

I would go and take the intentionality of questioning them about it. We were talking with our young adult ministry and I asked them the question like, what should the first question that you ask someone who professes faith?

25:01

If they come to you and say, you know what? I repented of my sin. I placed faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus saved me. My first question to them would be like, why?

25:10

Why? Tell me why you made this profession of faith and then that will help me discern the inner workings of your heart on, you know, if this is a genuine profession, if you're just saying this to appease me, if there has been a real change.

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Because if there is a real change, a pastor, Matt Chandler says, experiencing Jesus and coming in contact with Him is like being hit by an 18 -wheeler truck and surviving.

25:35

You're never the same. Right. That's right. You're never the same. So, there needs to be a change.

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So, if I don't see a change in a person that professes faith, I'm going to inquire why. Yeah. And that's why next episode, we'll have

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Tracy Morgan on the show to talk about being hit by an 18 -wheeler truck. So, just stay tuned for that. No, that's really good.

25:56

And yeah, I'm going to see if over the course of this series, how much

26:02

I can get you in trouble. So, you handled that really well, Justin, didn't you? No, you all make really great points.

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There should be a caution, because I know that some people do this, because people ruin everything, where they sit here and judge a person's salvation and nobody can really know the reality of a person's heart.

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On the other hand, there are ways to adjudicate this, and that is fruit.

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And so, yeah, the best approach, if you see that somebody is not bearing fruit, is simply to come alongside, who professes faith in Christ, is to simply come alongside them and see if you can help.

26:42

So, that's really great. But let me go back to what we're so practically speaking, behavioral changes should be going on in your life.

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This happened to me, too. And these changes should move you, over time, away from sin and towards holiness and godliness.

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In other words, being with God, living out of the overflow of your relationship with God. You're going to hear that phrase repeated over and over again in this podcast.

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And so, maybe in your situation, you hung out with friends who like to go get drunk, you know, they go like to party, take illicit drugs, whatever.

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Maybe you hung out with some friends before you got saved, you just like to gossip, you like to mock people, make fun of people, you know.

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But again, you should either, immediately or over time, start to get what the

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Bible calls convicted by the Holy Spirit in continuing to act in such a way. You should feel that strongly, deep down in your bones, that this is wrong, and that you should turn from it.

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And that's repentance, it's turning away from your sin. And I went through this, too. I mean, I used to love horror movies.

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I used to love to watch horror movies. And don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that the category of horror movies is off -limits to the

27:52

Christian. But what I am saying is, movies that are communicating messages and themes that are antithetical to what the

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Bible says, or what the Bible teaches, I think those things are off -limits. And so,

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I used to watch horror movies, Chuck, where there was a strong nihilistic undercurrent in them.

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In other words, the underlying message was that there is no rhyme or reason to what happens, there is no justice or injustice in the universe of the films, there is only what people do to other people.

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And I think a perfect example of this is the so -called, I think they're called like the torture porn horror movies, like Saw, like Hostel, they're good examples of this.

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And I would watch those movies purely for the gore, the blood, the sensationalism of the killings, to the point where I actually became numb.

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My heart, I became apathetic to the horrific, and I was unimpressed with the garish, you know?

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But then when God saved me, it's like my heart felt young again, it felt raw,

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I got sick thinking about what these movies were communicating, probably because now

28:57

I was sensitive to the fact that human beings are made in God's image. And so, I ended up throwing out a lot of the movies that I had about torture, and voyeurism, and sadomasochism.

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So, those are the kinds of things that we're talking about here. For sure. There needs to be something that is different from the old man and this new creation that you are.

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If there's not, then you need to check your heart, you need to re -examine why you even profess faith in the first place.

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There has to be a change. There cannot be a person that professes faith but still lives in this old man that they once were.

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We have this thing when we're doing baptism at life to where people write out their testimonies.

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And in their testimony, it is, this is who I was, Christ changed me, and this is who

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I am now. So, there has to be a difference. It can't be, this is who

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I was, Christ changed me, and I'm still who I was. It doesn't work like that.

30:00

That's right. And the new desires that you should have should be, again, to spend time with the

30:07

Lord, to read His word, to worship, to be amongst other brothers and sisters in fellowship, to pray to the

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Lord. You know, those are the kinds of changes, practically, that we're talking about. Well, let's, in the spirit of those practical steps, what are a couple of things that a brand new

30:22

Christian must do immediately, immediately, right out of the gate? What do you think, Chuck?

30:27

Yeah, so, my top one is you have to be connected and be committed to a

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Bible -teaching church. You gotta get in the body. You have to be around other believers. It is a must.

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It is, you cannot be a lone sheep in the body of Christ.

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You can't be a finger that is detached from the rest of the body. You have to be in a local church, committed, being involved with the brothers and sisters of the faith.

30:57

So, that would be my first one. What about you, Nate? That's good. I think, it's funny how our brains work, right?

31:04

So, I'm probably a little bit more literal. I don't know if that's the right word. But I would say, and this is in no particular order, by the way, but I would say the first thing that we should do is get baptized.

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You know, the Bible says this a lot. You know, Jesus commands this a lot, that we should get baptized.

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And so, I think it's imperative. So, Mark's chapter 16, whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

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You know, Jesus gave in the Great Commission, Matthew 28, 19, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And I don't, Chuck, I don't believe that baptism is regenerative, right?

31:46

Maybe we can have that conversation on another episode. But I do see that baptism is something that Christ said

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Christians should do. You and I have both said this, but it's an outward sign of an inward reality.

32:02

Yes, absolutely. And I think that is the thing that just needs to be plain and clear for a new

32:09

Christian. It is not what saves you. It is an outward sign, a public proclamation to what

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Christ has already done inside of you. Mm -hmm. And it's an act of obedience to the command, because it is given as a command.

32:24

Yeah. Yes. But Chuck, let me see if I can get you to trouble here. Chuck, it's done in love.

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What happens if someone is a little too nervous, you know, maybe they profess faith in Christ, but they don't want to get baptized in front of other people?

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How would you handle that? What would you say? My first question would be why, because I would get them to understand that, number one, you're not the focus of baptism.

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This is what Christ has done in you, and you are making a public proclamation of what

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He has done in you. So, the focus is not on you for baptism. It's not. When people really think about that, yeah, you're the one that people sees, but Matthew 5 .16

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is a verse that I live by. Let your light shine in such a way that men will see your good works and glorify your

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Father in heaven. So, when I am being baptized and when other people are being baptized, the work that people see is glorifying

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God. It's not glorifying you. It's not putting you up on the pedestal or anything else like that. It is all for His glory.

33:33

So, my question would be, are you thinking that the focus is going to be on you or is it going to be on Christ?

33:39

Mm. Yeah, that's good. That's good. And we've seen this, you know, as we've walked through new people who are newly saved, trying to figure out, you know, how best to navigate those first few steps.

33:54

Yeah, that's really a great answer. So, let's go to the next thing. Now, I wonder if ours is the same.

34:02

So, maybe we can say... I don't know. You go first. Well, maybe we can say it at the same time.

34:08

Ready? One, two, three. Discipleship. Get a mentor. Yes. All right.

34:15

That's good. That's good. Well... Yes, absolutely. So, you know, what does it mean to disciple someone, right?

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And maybe I'll say a piece and you jump in, right? And in order to answer that question, which was one of the foci, is that plural focus?

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It was one of the things that I was focused on at life is, yeah, what does that mean?

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What does discipleship mean? And there's really no better way to answer that question without spending some time understanding the

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Jewishness of discipleship. And then by extension, I suppose the Jewishness of Jesus, you know?

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So, what did Jesus do with His disciples? Why did He do it that way? And when you think about that, you can see this pattern of discipleship, you know?

34:59

This kind of a four -step approach that really... So, there's a really great podcast out there called

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The Forgotten Jesus, and I think you and I are listening to it right now. It's really great. And it's attached to a book also by the same name,

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The Forgotten Jesus. It's written by Robbie Gallaty, who's a pastor in Tennessee, and he tracks these four steps that Jesus seemed to use with His disciples.

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And the first step was that Jesus would minister and His disciples would watch.

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His disciples being understood that they are His students, they're learning from the great rabbi, the great teacher.

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And then the next step was that Jesus would perform and teach and the disciples would help.

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They would assist Him in ministry, and so that's step two. And then step three is flipped. Now the disciples would do ministry and Jesus would help.

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And then the fourth step is that Jesus just sent them out, and then

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He would observe. Like, they would go off and preach the gospel, and then they'd come back and debrief and tell Him how it went. And so, that's the real major question is, how do we replicate that?

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How do we translate that into our first century context? And we can, but that's discipleship.

36:12

You have to be discipled as a Christian. That's the immediate next step. 100%. I would 100 % agree.

36:20

Now, I appreciate you bringing up the Eastern rabbi -disciple relationship, because that was one that I wanted desperately when

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I first placed faith in Christ. I wanted someone to show me what to do and walk through me and all this stuff.

36:37

And especially as you're reading the Bible, you see Jesus coming up to the disciples and saying, follow me, follow me.

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And this opportunity to walk in the dust of your rabbi. But we live in a

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Western culture, man. The things that they did, we don't do. We don't even have a concept of that.

36:57

So, 100 % discipleship needs to happen. I think that you should find a mentor.

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You should see a person that is walking faithfully. Because you're in a local church, because you've been baptized and you've had people pouring into you, find someone that you would want to imitate their faith.

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As the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11 .1, imitate me as I imitate Christ.

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If you see someone imitating Christ, go to them. Take the initiative. Go to them and ask to be discipled.

37:32

Because if you're waiting for someone to say, follow me, it's probably not going to happen as soon as you think it is.

37:38

That's right. No, that's so good. Now, I want to anticipate, you know, because again, this is episode one.

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Now, in a future episode, we're going to talk about how to find a good church, where to go to church.

37:50

So, I want to make sure that if you are a brand new Christian, you understand, there's overlap here.

37:55

So, we're assuming now that you are at a church, right? So, that's probably something that we should acknowledge is if you're a

38:01

Christian, you should find a church, start going somewhere. Even if it's not the church that probably will be eventually the one you stay at, your home church, you know, but you got to go somewhere, you got to be fed.

38:12

And in that dynamic, you should seek out a mentor. And maybe actually that is a way of determining whether that's a good church, is whether or not there's mentors there to help you.

38:23

Yeah. Absolutely. Right? Yeah. Yeah, you need a...

38:28

So, the dynamic in the scripture that we find, Chuck, is that Paul taught

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Timothy, the Apostle Paul taught Timothy, and then Timothy in turn taught others.

38:40

And so, that's kind of the dynamic that you should find yourself, you should wedge yourself in between that dynamic. You should have a

38:45

Paul that is pouring into you with the understanding that one day you will be someone's

38:50

Paul pouring into a Timothy, you know? And that means that, you got to sit down with a couple of brothers and sisters in a kind of a group format.

39:01

So, kind of going over the discipleship structure, you should, and I strongly encourage that when you do that, you stay with people of your own gender, because certain sins, when you confess sins, will stay within the confines of people who understand that particular sin, if you catch my drift.

39:17

And you'll be more open to do so. And you'll be more, that's right. And then in this dynamic of maybe three to five people of the same gender, you spend time praying together, reading the

39:27

Word together, memorizing Scripture, and confessing sin. Can we say something else about sin before we turn a corner?

39:35

Why is it so important? Why is it so key to confess sin, Chuck? Because I think it reorients your heart in a right posture.

39:44

Because if you're continuing to hold in your sins, you're being like Adam when he first said, okay,

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I'm not gonna go to God, I'm gonna hide myself, you know, maybe He won't say anything. If I don't bring it up, then nothing will come of it.

40:00

But even the psalmist says, when I hide my sin, my bones waste away. So, we want to be in a regular habit of confessing our sins.

40:08

We need to have someone that we can confess our sins to as we also confess those sins to the Lord, because He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

40:18

That's right. We must confess our sins. That's right, because if the goal as a Christian is relationship with God, what's the thing that puts a wedge in that relationship?

40:27

Unconfessed sin. That's right. That's right. Let's go to the third thing. So, Chuck, what is the third thing that Christians need to do immediately after getting saved?

40:38

So, I would say you need to make a daily habit of reading

40:44

God's Word. You need to make a habit of this, because number one, you need to know the

40:51

Word for yourself, because there's a lot of people that teach God's Word that are not sticking to God's Word.

41:00

They throw in their own soundbite and all this other stuff. So, you need to be able to study

41:06

God's Word for yourself. Read it for yourself. That was one of the first things that I did, not even having a mentor.

41:14

I continued to read God's Word. I just immersed myself in reading God's Word. I developed a habit to where this is my daily bread.

41:23

This is what I feed my soul with. As much as I want to eat every single day,

41:28

I want to read God's Word every single day. That's so good. So, as per usual, that is my answer as well.

41:35

Well, put it this way, I think I said the same thing, I just said it a little differently, you know?

41:40

And so, the way I said it was that you should know God, you know? And so, you know, one of the fundamental things that you should be doing, right, is to know

41:52

God. Jesus said in John 17, 3, that knowing God and Jesus Christ is eternal life.

41:59

So, it's the key to everything. And it's not knowledge in the sense of, oh yeah, I know that there is a

42:04

God, right? But it's knowledge in the intimate relational sense. Genesis 4 says that Adam knew his wife,

42:10

Eve, and they had a child together. In other words, that kind of close, intimate knowledge that eventually led to making children, that's the same kind of close, intimate knowledge that you should have with God, where you know

42:23

God, but God also knows you, right? And how do we do that? We spend time with God, where the focus is on God, and the primary way is letting

42:33

Him talk to you in the Word. God's words are written down. And so, my answer is your answer.

42:39

I love that. BD - Yeah, no, I mean, Deuteronomy 29, 29 is probably another one of my favorite passages where it says the secret things of the

42:47

Lord are for Him, but the things that He has revealed to us and for our children is for us to do them and to keep them.

42:54

So, He has revealed Himself through His Word. So, we need to constantly be knowing God through His Word, I love how you said, where the focus is on Him, not reading it just like another novel, but reading it with the intentions of Lord, help me to know you more.

43:09

Jared - That's so good. That's so good. Yeah, your sanctification flows out of the knowledge of the

43:21

Lord, but also the knowledge of who you are in the Lord. So, I was recently doing these reaction videos to Jordan Peterson, one of which gave me a copyright strike, so I'm in trouble now on YouTube, and yeah, we'll talk about that later,

43:34

Chuck. But anyway, I got two more strikes and I'm banned from YouTube, so we'll see what happens.

43:42

But anyway, I was noticing that Jordan Peterson, he does it kind of half right, you know?

43:50

So, first of all, he mentions God, but then what he does is he really puts the focus on using the Bible as a way to know yourself.

43:57

And that's not necessarily wrong, it's just that the only way that you know yourself is by first knowing

44:03

God, right? The infamous sort of Hebrew axiom that comes from the

44:08

Scripture is to know God. The ancient Greek axiom that is very famous and comes out of the

44:15

Matrix is, know thyself. And so, that's the distinction there, is in order to know yourself, you need to know

44:21

God first. And so, that comes out of reading the Word. You got to read the Word. Jews would say, if I want to talk to the

44:28

Lord, I'll pray, but if I want the Lord to talk to me, I'll read His Word. So, that's so crucial.

44:35

Well, we are out of time. Wow, man, this went fast. This went so fast. It did. It really did.

44:41

Well, here's where we're going, and I hope that you stick with us because this is going to be fun, it's going to be informative.

44:50

Next episode, we're going to talk about what Bible translation you should read. Now, I have a particular opinion about that, and so does

44:56

Chuck. And so, we'll see if our answers match. They do. And so, we'll get that next time.

45:03

It's the best translation. It's the best translation. So, we'll talk about those things, we're going to talk about a lot.

45:10

Look, at the end of the day, my desire and Chuck's desire is to see you thrive and grow as a

45:16

Christian. Particularly, if you're a brand new Christian, the ultimate thing that you need is to grow up in Christ.

45:22

That's why we're here. That's what the podcast is about. If you have any comments or questions about what we just discussed, let us know by either commenting below, if you're watching on YouTube, or emailing us at helloatwisedisciple .org,

45:33

and myself or Chuck, I just voluntold him, will answer your emails. Chuck, any final partying words before we close?

45:42

Chuck – Listen, we are rejoicing with you. You have made the best decision that can impact you now and for eternity.

45:53

This is, listen, I'm married and I have kids, two of the greatest things that happened in my life, but nothing compares to being a follower of Christ.

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So, praise God. Welcome to the family. Jared – Welcome home. Amen. More episodes are coming, so stay tuned.