June 20, 2017 Show with Josh Buice on “Knowing God: A Biblical Understanding of Discipleship (Part 2)”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania it's iron sharpens iron a radio platform on which pastors Christian scholars and theologians Address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us. Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage quote we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and Directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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Afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at iron sharpens iron radio .com. This is Chris Arnzen your host of iron sharpens iron wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 20th day of June 2017 and I would appreciate it if Those of you listening could Make a point to pray for me today.

June 20th is a bittersweet date for me. It is my wedding anniversary and my late wife As many of you know went home to be with the Lord for eternity in 2011. Today would have been our 25th wedding anniversary so I would appreciate your prayers that the Lord gives me peace of mind and heart today and That he does not allow Sadness and grief to overcome me as it occasionally does Visiting me in waves unexpectedly, so I would appreciate that very much.

Well today is the is also the day before I head off to New York City to the foundations conference that is the sermon audio conference that they Began recently as an annual event in the Chelsea area of Manhattan and Please pray for me play pray for my friend Joe Ignacio who's being who will be accompanying me there.

He is the second oldest son of the woman who led me to Christ 30 years ago and he is not saved. He's not a born-again believer and He actually requested that he if he could accompany me to this event, and he is God willing he's gonna be Picking me up tomorrow morning early as we head off to Amtrak and then head to Manhattan for the next three days, so please pray that the Lord blesses us during those three days and especially that Joe Ignacio receives the gift of eternal life as a result of Hearing the great men of God speaking at this event.

Some of whom are mutual friends of my guest today That is Pastor Josh Bice senior pastor of Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia. He's a blogger at delivered by grace Dot-com and he's director of his own annual conference the g3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia and Today pastor Josh and I are going to be continuing a discussion that we began last week Which is also the theme of the conference?

Knowing God a biblical understanding of discipleship and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to iron sharpens Ion radio pastor Josh Bice.

I'm glad to be with you Chris and.

Let me give our listeners our email address. It's Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. If you have any questions. That's CH RIS a RN Z en at gmail .com and please give us your at least your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old USA and.

If you need to remain anonymous because your question involves a personal private and intimate matter. We understand that and we will grant your request to remain anonymous. That's Chris Arnzen at gmail .com.

And if anybody wants to find out more about pastor Josh Bice. We've already have we already have had him give his testimony many times in this program. You can go to praise mill calm PR a Y s Mill and my ll .com that is the website for praise mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia.

And you can find out more about him and that church. But pastor Josh. As you know Because I'm assuming you picked the theme for the conference the g3 conference coming up in January. Knowing God a biblical understanding of discipleship.

Is that theme and is our theme today? Can you define? Discipleship.

Yes, sure to define what a disciple is and so a disciple is merely Jesus Christ and so you could certainly say that about Anyone for that matter, but as far as Christianity is concerned, it's people who follow Christ so you hear people often Defining themselves as a follower of Christ.

What does that mean? It means they're a disciple of Christ and the word disciples just boiled down to the basic Necessity of a definition would mean a learner and so People who are learning about Christ and following after him following his teachings, you know Jesus said if you love me keep my commandments and so people who follow Christ That they seek to live a life that's in complete submission to Jesus.

And so making disciples and then also teaching them in an ongoing Cross go and make disciples of all nations. You know confuse that as going and just making converts and then the the work is over but that's just you know, really that's where the work begins and so once a person professes faith in Christ they must then be nurtured and they must be under the faithful teaching and the exposition of the Word of God in the context of a local church and that's Really the that you might say the the basic element Surrounding what it means to be a disciple and what discipleship looks like and.

The theme of the 2018 g3 conference coming up January 18th through the 20th, correct?

That's correct. Actually on the 18th. We're going to be holding our first annual Spanish conference and We'll be having several guest preachers preaching in Spanish on Wednesday. And I'll be giving more details during this broadcast about that conference, but the theme is very interesting because.

Some might take a glance at that theme and there they may say to themselves. Wait a minute. This seems like it's two different topics knowing God and a biblical understanding of discipleship. They seem like two different topics but in reality.

Being a disciple. Becoming a disciple is how you do. Because how you do come to know God deeper and deeper. Is that right?

That's right. So being a disciple you are you are learning more and more about God all anemic Christianity today. There's an awful lot of superficial shallow Christianity. So the local church in many contexts unfortunately is what we might say.

It's um, it's a mile wide but it's only an inch deep and so there's not a lot of theology. That's being taught so people might you know go through, you know, the context of their local church life. For 15 or 20 years and really not be able to define propitiation.

They might not be able to tell you what you know. The hypostatic union is and so when we think about knowing God, we need to know some things about God. We need to know about his attributes. We need to know about what he has done in salvation in saving sinners.

So these things are you know, extremely important and so once or twice a week. It's more than just you know, knowing John 3 16 or having a Bible with your name on it. You know, so Christianity is far greater than that.

So at the heart of Christianity. The local church should be pressing upon the body of Christ in that particular context. To really put some effort into knowing God. We'll put effort into a lot of things.

Such as sports, you know business and various other things that we have passions for. But if we really are children for God, we should desire God. We should want to know more about him and so Discipleship is really not one thing that the church does.

It's really amen and and as our mutual friend.

James white has put it and I am paraphrasing because I don't have a A transcript of this from him, but he has said something to the effect. If you really love your wife You are not going to be ignorant about the color of her eyes.

You're not going to be ignorant about Her favorite foods her favorite pastimes the things that she finds most precious and delightful in her life and therefore if those things would not Be a mystery to you if you truly love your wife Then how on earth could you love God truly love him and be totally ignorant of very important aspects About him his character and what he teaches and what he commands.

Right. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean if we think that we love God we need into knowing more about him knowing who he really is. And so it's one thing to know. You know a god of your own imagination. It's amen.

And speaking of James white, can I have a drum roll, please? I'll just imagine I hear a drum roll. Or perhaps even trumpets sounding um. Dr. James R. White after a long absence from iron sharpens iron radio is returning as our guest.

God willing this coming monday June 26th 4 to 6 p .m. So please mark your calendars. For this monday, june 26 4 to 6 p .m. Eastern time for our interview with dr James R. White of alpha and omega ministries.

It's been so long since uh, dr White has been on this program. I think we were recording the programs with reel to reel at that time. I mean, it's been seems like it's been ages. Uh, and he actually was my very first guest Ever on iron sharpens iron when I began the program in 2005 2006 somewhere in that area in new york.

And then he was also, uh, the first guest that uh launched The program when I relaunched it in 2015. So, uh, he is a very dear Friend and very important to me in my life, but mark your calendars for that.

He's also speaking at the upcoming g3 conference. So i'm looking forward to seeing him face to face and having fellowship with him. We already have a couple of uh questions for you pastor josh. We have jenny in ben salem, pennsylvania.

Would you kindly go over some points on why and how a christian should have biblical understanding concerning discipleship. It often appears to me that most christians actually shy away from discipleship because they simply do not know the fundamentals of discipleship.

And I would probably add to that that it may sound even like a frightening concept to some people. But uh, if you could pastor josh answer jenny from ben salem pennsylvania's question.

Yeah, so jenny asked a really good question. I think that she's getting to the heart as we think about the subject of discipleship. It can be it can be a very intimidating thing because we often think we have to go to.

You know, you know a lot of different resources or we have to read a lot of different books and become experts on a particular discipline. That we have um, if you think about it our driving guide and foundation for what it means to make disciples and to disciple disciples of jesus.

And so there's much said in the bible about how we are to go about this business. And if you look at say titus 2 for instance, you see the older brain the younger. And you see that type of pattern as far as god's church in the early days.

You know where the rubber meets the road is the commitment of the local church to the preaching of god's word. And if the if the church has a high view of methodology of discipleship. But where there's a low view of what happens is you tend to be more engaged in pragmatism.

And various other things that might say you define pragmatism as the golden rule of pragmatism. Unfortunately, so many to that type of thinking. Really what we need is we need to have a high view of the scriptures that drive us to Preaching the word of god teaching the word of god explaining the word of god because if you want to know god you have to Go to the source his own revelation of himself, which is found in and god has Defined himself.

He has revealed himself for us Through creation, but in spec have god's own self-revelation of himself. And so we Go to that we study and we read and we find out what the prophet said and then we come to the new testament.

We see what the apostle said and we just continue to build our understanding of god and his character. And how he loves to save sinners and so. You know, it's okay to read great books since you can read other books, you know from more of a modern day.

But the fact of the matter is simply this if you want to really understand how to make Healthy disciples how to engage in in growing a church in a healthy way. You know really we just need to be bound to the scriptures.

And you know any church that has a high view of the word of god really? Teaches the people to surrender and then to gather in small groups and do the same thing and then to encourage one another Through the faithful, you know reading of the bible meditating upon god's word.

That's where you're going to really start making disciples and then discipling those disciples as they come to faith.

Amen well, uh, thank you so much, uh, jenny for the question and uh, jenny, uh, we have uh, Your your city and state in ben salem, pennsylvania. Please give us your full mailing address because you have just won a book by one of the speakers At the g3 conference coming up in january Of paul david tripp you have won his book parenting four gospel principles that can radically change your family.

And that was a winner of the evangelical christian publishing association's book of the year award for christian living so, uh retailing for $22 .99 quite uh a pricey book there and that is yours free of charge.

Of course if you're not a parent Please read it glean what you can from it and give it to a parent If that is your wish, but that would be a good idea and we thank you for Uh participating in today's show with a great question uh, we have a listener Uh in eastern suffolk county, new york We have ronald Who says uh, this may be a bit off topic, but it relates because you are having a conference.

How do you react to a group of christians? Who constantly repeat the refrain i'm so conferenced out. There are far too many conferences going on and I think it is taking away from the primary functions Of our duties and responsibilities to the local church.

How do you uh respond to that? I've heard that too. I don't know if you've heard it.

Yeah, I certainly have a lot of conferences. Um, if you're conferenced out, maybe you're going to too many conferences or maybe you're just going to the wrong ones. And that's certainly true, I mean you can you can really go to some some bad conferences and there are some bad conferences out there, but.

But the fact of the matter is simply this when it comes to the local church. You know our commitment any parachurch organization or ministry that exists side the church not to You know get the car let the tail wag the dog exist to help the church.

It's really good conferences. Where you put forth some effort and knowing and learning and growing in your faith can be local church. Imagine if you had Just you know 15 or 20 families from a local church That went to a good solid theology conference each year.

Imagine how that would help, you know promote Healthy methodology and healthy discipleship within a local church. And so.

Again.

I would say that if you find any parachurch ministry is trying to take the Priority away in the spotlight away from the local church. Then you need to avoid that type of ministry that I know of and I know that this is the commitment of the g3 conference.

Is that we want to church and encourage the local church and we want everyone to know when when the conference ends is that? You can't be a member of the g3 conference that you're a member of your local tangible visible new testament church.

And it's time to go home and get back to work. If you're conferenced out. Maybe you need to take a season off of going to so many conferences and maybe pull back and go to one or two a year. As into how god could use you in your local context.

And I think that another thing that should be considered is people need to Re-evaluate their priorities because a conference can be a real Breath of fresh air. It can be an energizing thing. It can be a a thing that really Returns zeal back into your life uh and Those people who are conferenced out and i'm not saying as as you Obviously you you agreed for the legitimacy of that feeling or belief but at the same time You if you feel conferenced out you should be asking your question.

Are you? Feeling too tv'd out. Are you feeling too footballed out or baseballed out? Or hockeyed out. Or basketballed out or movied out or whatever it is that you like to do.

Uh.

And another thing to consider and i'm sure you agree with this, uh pastor josh, even though you are a pastor. Your pastors can't be an expert on everything. And one of the reasons you have a conference i'm sure pastor josh is that you don't even think you're an expert on everything.

Otherwise, it would be the pastor josh bice conference. And uh, even if you have somebody of the intellectual level. And the level of brilliance of our mutual friend. Dr. James r white. He is not an expert on everything.

He.

Shies away from discussions on eschatology because that's just not his Area of study and there are other things. That uh are not his areas of study. I don't know how much he knows about sweden borgianism.

But uh, but you. Your pastor your local pastor cannot possibly be an expert on everything and uh. There's nothing wrong with going to conferences to learn things that your pastor doesn't know just like.

There's nothing wrong with reading books and reading commentaries. And uh listening to a sermon audio and all that kind of a thing. Am I right?

Yeah.

Yeah, absolute programs like iron sharpens iron for instance, and it's a way to it, you know. Be encouraged. Another thing is Going to conferences. You tend to rub shoulders with people that you don't normally, you know.

Have the opportunity to rub shoulders with. That's right. I look for you know, uh, these conferences like the g3 I look for you know. Just great opportunities to reconnect with old friends and to be encouraged.

And how god's using them and they're pretending. But again, we're reminded at the very last. Amen. Of that confident to get back into the trenches. Sometimes it's not always like the breath of heaven, you know a one.

And people that are young in the faith. So, you know, i'm not one that that looks at conferences as a bad thing. But I do look at conferences. As a parachurch ministry something that can never take the place of the local.

Amen.

Well ronald in eastern suffolk county, new york. You have also won a free book by one of the speakers at the g3 conference uh paul david tripp. He wrote the aforementioned parenting for gospel principles that can radically change your family.

So you'll be getting that. Uh, probably in about a week or so. So, please give us your full mailing address and we'll have cumberland valley bible book service ship that out to you. And by the way for those of you who have been patiently waiting for any books or bibles that you've won By submitting questions to iron sharpens iron radio. I just received word today That the owners of cvbbs .com Todd and patty jennings are caught up now.

Uh, they're caught up shipping out everything that was backlogged And waiting to be shipped out to our listeners. And I apologize for any tardiness in that uh whole thing and that whole matter and uh, so god willing you'll be getting Your books and bibles In about a week or so since apparently everything has been shipped out that is due to be shipped out.

Um.

And in fact before i'm going to go to a break right now because I don't want to Interrupt you mid-sentence. We're very close to Uh the time that we are supposed to be going to a break. Uh, in fact, you know what i'm going to do is i'm going to uh, email you a question from slovenia and Our listener joe our faithful listener in slovenia Has a question for you and i'm going to email it to you.

So you have it right in front of you and you can mull it over during the break. And i'll read it right now and you can answer it when we return. Dear brother chris. Thanks for blessing us today with pastor.

Josh. Please address the question about how local church pastors are best. Our two best disciple believers during the regular sunday worship gatherings, especially in light of the fact that the majority of southern baptist convention churches See worship services as mostly geared toward evangelizing the lost who may be in attendance.

Is this traditional tendency originating with finney? An appropriate focus for many churches. Well, I assure you if it originated with finney, it can't be. It can't be or it can't be an appropriate. It is an inappropriate but can't be appropriate but anyway We'll have pastor josh.

Uh answer that question when we return from the break and if anybody would like to join Joe from slovenia with a question of your own. Uh, give us an email at chris arnzen at gmail .com. C-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail .com.

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Paul wrote to the church at galatia for am I now seeking the approval of man or of god? Or am I trying to please man. If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

We are a reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do Than how men view these things.

That's not the best recipe for popularity. But since that wasn't the Apostles priority it must not be ours either. We believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and To be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us and to build up the body of Christ in truth.

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Hi, I'm pastor Bill Shishko inviting you to tune in to a visit to the pastor's study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m Eastern Time on WL ie radio www .wl ie 540 a .m. Dot-com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions.

Our time will be lively Useful and I assure you never dull join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time For a visit to the pastor's study because everyone needs a past welcome back.

This is Chris Arnson if you just tuned us in. Our guest today for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is Pastor Josh by senior pastor of praise middle Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia blogger at delivered by grace calm and director of the annual g3 conference and we will be discussing in a bit one that is coming up in January.

Our theme today is a continuation of the theme that we began last week Knowing God a biblical understanding of discipleship. If you would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is Chris Arnson at gmail .com.

Ch r is a r n z n at gmail .com. And before the break a pastor Josh. As you know, I read a question to you from Joe in Slovenia Who says please address the question about how local church pastors are to best disciple believers during the regular Sunday worship gatherings?

Especially in light of the fact that the majority of Southern Baptist Convention churches see worship services as mostly geared toward evangelizing the lost who may be in attendance is this traditional tendency originating with Finney and an Inappropriate focus for many churches.

Thank you very much for addressing my question.

Yes, Joe.

Or the commitment of Primarily focused on just preaching to the unbeliever what it means to again. And the assumption would be that the majority of the people sitting out there are unbelievers. And if it's the majority of the people servers Then you probably need to spend the majority of the time preaching the gospel to them and doing evangelism but then they must be treated like Believers and they must be Discipled in the faith and there's can do this is the Word of God.

And if you go and see how The Apostle Paul Church at Ephesus and that chapter 20 he said that he had preached the full council or the whole county to do is we need to be committed to rightly handling the Word of God preaching not just the easy text or The evangelistic.

Massive problem when you think about churches that are anemic They're a mile wide and it's in many cases is because you have ministry full of God's Word and disciple and believers for instance. Since I live in the Atlanta a different games and It's interesting when you go to a gates in many different cities.

There's an awful lot of stuff that's going on around the game in these modern baseball parks. You'll notice that there's you know during the game You can walk you can find that there are people Engaged in the last dirt shops and all the games going to like I'm being I think you need to evaluate Word of God and I believe that that is indeed the case.

Then pinching the word faithfully disconnect for regular preaching of the word and there's going to be problems in it. Amen.

Well, thank you Joe in Slovenia. And I know you're a parent because we have your daughter's mailing address in Georgia where to ship the book that you've just won parenting for gospel principles That can radically change your family one of the many written by one of the many speakers At the upcoming g3 conference in Atlanta Paul David Tripp and We thank you for giving us your daughter's mailing address in Georgia.

To make it much more affordable to ship to you. Or should I say to make it much more affordable for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service to ship to you? At no cost to you or to orient sharpens iron radio.

And as I said to you last time Joe Please try to make arrangements to get to the United States In January during that period of time the 18th through the 20th to attend the g3 conference in Atlanta. And you can you know, you can have a combined purpose in that visiting your daughter and whoever else You have here in the States in your family and Of course to keep your priorities, correct.

You should be going to the g3 conference first. But I would love to meet you face-to-face and have fellowship with you, so please try to make those arrangements. And speaking of that question that Joe asked although this has been a caricature thrown at us who are reformed the caricature Doesn't exist for no reason at all because unfortunately there are some reformed churches that very rarely ever evangelize the lost during their sermons, which very often can be Lectures and so on now, that's not the kind of preaching that you and I are used to by any stretch of the imagination.

But I know that it exists. I visit I have visited reformed churches and No slam intended against our Pato Baptist brethren, but they usually are Pato Baptist churches that have sometimes Nothing more than an academic lecture and of course, so this is a this would be a minority amongst those Thoroughly Calvinistic on fire Presbyterian churches.

I'm not trying to broad brush by any stretch of the imagination. I'm talking about a minority of Presbyterian churches that can Have the atmosphere of a seminary classroom rather than hearing any evangelism to the lost so is the opposite problem something That you are equally Concerned about these of the problem opposite to what Joe and Slovenia was talking about.

What. Definitely. I think that as I would say we're committed to preaching the word Preaching a warmed-up John 3 16 sermon every single week. I think that each week you can do a faithful job of Preaching to and speaking to the unbeliever that might be in attendance.

I know at our church on a weekly basis.

So I'm.

It's it's very people on a weekly basis in the church gathering. That aren't genuine followers of Christ that aren't genuine Christians. And so I want to make sure that at some point in that sermon I take an opportunity to point them to Jesus Christ to cast Themselves upon the mercy of Christ to call upon the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.

I want to make sure that I'm doing that on a regular basis because for one Chris, I was a lost church member. So, you know, just as I said before I think that we don't need to assume that you just that's right.

You know in the Bible Belt where I serve There's an awful lot of people that have you know Become members of local churches that don't really have any clue as to what the gospel is. So I want to make sure that I'm preaching the gospel and Telling people pointing people to faith in Christ alone for salvation.

But that's not the main topic of the sermon okay, as I am through Ephesians and you're coming to and you're dealing with the armor of God the imagery that the Apostle Paul employs. About being prepared for the you know in life.

You can still preach the gospel in that sermon. You can still point people to faith alone in Christ alone. And so I think that it's called to preach the Word of God needs to be Consistently preaching the gospel and pointing unbelievers to faith in Christ.

Amen, and as one of your g3 conference speakers has informed me Todd Friel. He was an ordained Minister and discovered that he was lost. I mean that phenomenon is not without precedent. Abraham Kuyper was led to Christ as a pastor by an elderly woman in his own church.

That's right. It's very common. In fact, I preached my first sermon 12 days before the Lord saved me. Wow. It's there any given Lord's Day genuine. We don't need to neglect pointing people to you know.

To faith in Christ because again, that's our hope and so it doesn't matter. It's not as if we need the gospel to be saved and then suddenly we don't need the gospel anymore. So I think that you have on one side of the coin you might have people that are guilty of not preaching the totality of the Word of God because they're just Basically doing evangelism every week and then on the flip side of the coin you have people that say well.

You know people that are already saved. They don't need to be hearing the gospel consistently. Well, yes, they do. They we need the gospel every single moment of every day.

Yes, and as my dear friend Peter Jeffrey of Port Talbot, Wales. As he has said in the title of a book that he wrote a number of years ago Christians need the gospel to. The gospel is not just for the lost.

That's right and.

And Let's see, we have another listener RJ and White Plains, New York That He asked do you think there are too many? celebrity churches or churches where the pastors think their celebrities or our wannabe celebrities.

Where they just preach and they're finished their sermon they duck behind the pulpit and they're never to be seen again until the following Sunday and The church has really become More like a theater where people hear music and may hear a sermon perhaps even an edifying one.

But there is no shepherding taking place. Is this phenomenon more widespread than we may realize?

We think that it is out there as I know that there are very much involved in. I do think that there is. You know, basically the pastor them. I've had people call me and ask happy to give advice of the day.

But I'm not. I'm not putting that particular individual if they're not a member of my church spending time with them. And again, I think they have the church that very much interested in and that's a trap.

Yes, and that's don't you think that's one of the dangers of Growing a megachurch or a very large church. Now some Churches by God's grace have been preserved in their theological purity and their ability to shepherd very large flocks.