Main Thing Podcast
This podcast encourages others to love God and people by leading them to know and follow Jesus’ truth.
Main Thing Podcast
How Do You Lead Others to Love God & People?
Discipleship requires complete surrender to Christ as both Savior and Lord, transforming belief into obedience and reproducing what God has placed inside us.
• Discipleship at its core means obedience and duplication of Christ's teachings
• Evangelism and discipleship function as two sides of the same coin
• Churches should balance winning the lost with developing believers
• Anything not growing spiritually is dying
• True salvation inherently includes lordship
Covenant Church
Amen are for us to recall in today's divisive and dark culture, From foundational truths and scripture to the hot topics of today's culture. Allow this podcast to inspire and motivate you on your faith journey.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Main Thing Podcast with Pastor Steve. So thankful you guys joined us today for discipleship. We're going to talk about discipleship today, so, pastor Steve, thanks for being here with us as always and I want to talk about discipleship today.
Speaker 2:So, pastor Steve, thanks for being here with us, as always, and I want to talk about discipleship today. But let's start with Matthew 28, 19 through 20. This is a verse that we kind of build what we try to do here on. So it says Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. You know there's so much that goes into the definition of discipleship. Would you just start today by giving us your definition of discipleship? What does it mean to be a disciple?
Speaker 3:Well, discipleship in its simplest form is obedience. I mean, we call that the Great Commission because it is the marching orders that Jesus gives us before he returns to heaven. This is your job, it's what I'm leaving you here to do, and that is to teach others what you have. And so, to further expound on the simple definition, it is duplication. It's reproducing that which is already inside of us in other people.
Speaker 2:You know, when I first became a minister of education, way back when this verse stood out to me and you had just basically said it in 2 Timothy, where Paul tells Timothy to me, and you had just basically said it in 2 Timothy, where Paul tells Timothy. You know what you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also, and to me that is the epitome of duplication.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:So what are some ways here at Covenant, what are some ways we seek to build disciples?
Speaker 3:Well, we do that primarily here through covenant groups. We have many, many groups that meet several times a year, hopefully with the purpose of helping a person go deeper in their faith walk, but also to learn to get outside of themselves and to serve to minister in a real and meaningful way. That's when a person begins to become a real disciple. It's not just in what we believe, it's in what we live out also, and so we have several of us on our team here that are ministers that have small groups outside of the C groups, covenant groups, where we try to mentor and bring people along, and so it's a process. You never totally achieve it, but you've got to always be working toward it, and so that's the primary means in which we try to accomplish that.
Speaker 2:So you know, we've got so many different flavors of small groups here or covenant groups. We've got Sunday morning, what we kind of think of as traditional Sunday school. We've got groups that meet in halls. We've got Wednesday night Bible studies, and I think all of those can be effective. All of those can be weak. But what does a really effective covenant group look like to you?
Speaker 3:Well, in my mind, an effective covenant group is a group that's going deep in the Word in some way and then, as a group, coming out of that study, living it better, or maybe for the first time in their lives, as they go about their day, their work, their recreation, whatever, understanding that they are a representative. An ambassador means literally that, and Paul tells us we're ambassadors, an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're representing him as they go to work, as they go to play, as they live in their homes, and so that's when it becomes successful discipleship, when it is actually lived out. It's more than academia, it's more than theoretical in our mind, it becomes reality.
Speaker 2:You know, when you look at discipleship and at least what we're trying to do here, it kind of falls into four categories. You know covenant groups, prayer, evangelism, accountability. Talk a little bit about prayer. How do the covenant groups help us to become better prayer people?
Speaker 3:Talk a little bit about prayer. How do the covenant groups help us to become better prayer people? Well, we've even had covenant groups that have focused primarily on prayer at different times. I think probably the anemia of the modern-day church is because we have made prayer a token. You know, we pray before we start the service or we pray at some point in the service and unfortunately that's usually to get us from point A to point B in the service. Prayer has to be so much more than that. It's got to be personal, yet it's got to be corporate. Personal, yet it's got to be corporate. It's got to be general, yet it's got to be specific. And I think as we pray we line up more Our prayer lives, help us line up with God's will for our lives, and therefore we're more willing as individuals to enter into a real experience of discipleship rather than just talking about it.
Speaker 2:You know, if we could go back in Southern Baptist history or church history over the years, I remember growing up as a kid we had Wednesday night prayer meeting and it was a prayer meeting. It was for the sole purpose of coming to pray. Why do you think that's changed over the years? Because we haven't done anything like that here at Covenant in a long time and I think it's just kind of fallen out of use in churches.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you'll remember, there was a time not too many years ago I lose track where we tried to do prayer focus on Wednesday nights and we started the first Wednesday night I remember vividly we had 130 people.
Speaker 3:I was so excited we had that many people interested in coming to pray and then it began to dwindle, week after week after week until we had like 15. I think we fall into the trap of trying to scratch people's itches what will they come for? You know, we tend sometimes or most of the times, I think all churches do to design their programming and I use that word loosely their ministry around what will get people in the door. And sometimes I think we'd be better served, especially in prayer, not to worry about how many come, but that some come, that some pray. I think you know, probably in truth, 20 people in serious prayer every week would be a lot more beneficial to the kingdom than 100 people sitting in a Bible study and nothing happening from it. And so, yeah, I think probably we're as guilty as anybody of not following through because we didn't see the interest in the activity.
Speaker 2:And I think what I hear you saying is we've made it an event, not a lifestyle.
Speaker 3:I think so, I think so yeah.
Speaker 2:That so reminds me of one of our covenant groups is on spiritual disciplines, and one of the spiritual disciplines it talks about is servanthood, and it makes a distinction. It says you either are a servant or you do services, and the goal is not to.
Speaker 2:I'm going to serve when the opportunity comes up. The goal is I'm a servant, always ready, and I think it's the same thing with prayer, right, I'm guessing what happened was well, we're going to pray because we're having an event at church, not that it's become a lifestyle. Yes, I agree, and I think prayer leads into. The next one I want to talk about is evangelism, and forgive me for not remembering the reference at the moment, but where Jesus said you know, the fields are wide unto harvest, pray to the Lord of the harvest that he'd send workers out into the field. How does praying about workers lead into evangelism?
Speaker 3:Well, we've got to understand that evangelism and discipleship are two separate sides of the same coin. You have groups and churches today that'll either focus solely on evangelism, absolutely convinced they're the only ones doing it right in the world. But the truth is, to do it right, you have to do both. You can't disciple someone who's not committed to Christ, who's not been saved, who hasn't come to the Lord. All you're doing is an intellectual exercise. If you've got lost people you're trying to disciple.
Speaker 3:What a lot of churches are doing is they just try to steal somebody that got saved over the evangelistic church and then tell them that they're going to teach them how to follow Jesus, and I think that's a sad state on today's church. But what we've got to understand is there's got to be a healthy balance. We need to be people who share our faith but then engage. Engage with them and help them, begin the processes of growing, whether that's getting them that initial book where they learn what it is they've done, getting them in that first few classes of covenant groups to understand what it means to be a Christian, what it means that God has gifted me, what he expects from me. You know, and we can sit here and say and I say this again not to disparage anybody, and I say this again not to disparage anybody.
Speaker 3:But there are churches that are not growing because two people got saved last year and they want to focus on those two people Almost until they can give them an ACT-style academic test to prove that they love Jesus. Well, in the book of Acts, when the church exploded by the thousands, it didn't stop growing because they were discipling people, and I think this keeps a lot of us from growing evangelistically, because it feels overwhelming sometimes, and so we've got to try to keep a balance on that, I think, at all costs.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I think at this point in history we haven't come up with anything new in the church that hadn't been done before.
Speaker 3:No, there's nothing new.
Speaker 2:And so when you say discipleship and evangelism are two sides of the same coin, and so when you say discipleship and evangelism are two sides of the same coin, it makes me think back to the 1950s and 60s, when churches used their Sunday school as an evangelistic tool. Yes, and you had. It was a natural extension, and we've gotten away from that, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, a lot of people are very critical. In the 70s and 80s, even into the 90s, there was taught that you use Sunday school as an evangelistic tool. And you went out in the community and you signed people up for Sunday school and what they knew was, if you signed up 10 people for Sunday school, one or two would actually come and they would see people come to the Lord as that result. And you had what I call the church anchors you know we shall not be moved who were absolutely vehement that we were putting all these people on the church rolls that were lost, and that wasn't the case at all. You were putting them on a Sunday school roll, not the church roll, and so there was conflict within the church body. Almost everywhere you looked, they were ruining the church.
Speaker 3:But the bottom line is conventions, denominations, exist to try to help us to do, or to get us to do, what it is. We ought to already be doing so. If you're a church that actually is trying to do evangelism, train your people in some avenues toward evangelism. You're trying to do discipleship. You don't really need an outside entity to come in and help you. You're being obedient, and that's the bottom line of discipleship is obedience. That's, in a nutshell, what it is. Jesus said, observing all things that I taught you. Now here's one of the good things about what we did in times past Forever. On Sunday night you met for an hour before church in what we call the old school training union. But in that old school training union you taught people the doctrines of the faith. You taught people the doctrines of the faith, and so you had an average church member who is we've all tried to get so cute and do it in the latest, greatest, coolest way I'm afraid the average church member sitting in church. They can't explain much to you at all.
Speaker 2:You know it's funny. You talked about the criticism earlier with the Sunday School stuff. I believe it was Dwight Moody when he told somebody well, I like my way of doing evangelism more than your way of not doing evangelism.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:I've always loved that quote.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, because there's always somebody that knows what you're doing wrong. Yep, yeah, they're everywhere.
Speaker 2:So kind of falling into. The next thing I want to talk about is accountability. Where does accountability fall in with discipleship?
Speaker 3:I think it's a part of discipleship, it's a part of the DNA of discipleship. You know, we live in this culture, in our society, where it's my life. Don't tell me what to do, it's none of your business. But when it comes to the family of God, we are to be accountable to one another and we should, I think, very lovingly encourage one another, almost in an aggravating way, to continue to grow, continue to stretch, continue to serve the Lord. If you're not growing I believe this firmly anything that's not growing is dying. We know that even concrete will grow stronger for 28 days after it's poured, and after that it begins to deteriorate, and so anything not growing is dying.
Speaker 3:So what we have fooled ourselves into as the Christian church is we have all these people sitting in church on Sunday and so many of them are not growing. They've not grown in decades, yet somehow or another they're lulled into this false assurance that they're good with God. And look, Jesus tells us to count the cost. He tells us that if we put our hand to the plow and look back, we're not fit for the kingdom of God. We are told by the Gospels up front. This is an all-in commitment, it's not an optional lifestyle and I'm afraid we've painted a picture to people. If they'll just believe, they don't have to do anything. Yet James tells us our faith without works is totally dead, it's useless. I think that's pretty clear. It's a no faith and while I know many would argue with me on this, can you truly say a person is saved who has absolutely no faith?
Speaker 2:That reminds me. I think all of us in here have gotten the question over the years do I have to be baptized to be a Christian? And my answer has always been okay. Baptism is the first thing God asked you to do after you're saved. If you tell God no to the very first thing he asks you to do, I think your answer is right there.
Speaker 3:You don't know God. Well, at the very minimum, you didn't count the cost. You don't understand what you signed up for. You know, and I think look, I'm not trying to be mean-spirited, but because we obviously believe in evangelism here we practice it. We believe in church growth. I think this new paradigm in America today, where you know it's mama, me and us three and we were real Christians, that's why our church doesn't grow is a lie of Satan.
Speaker 3:But I believe the other side of that is if we're not careful, we're so busy trying to fill the seats that we don't teach people the truth of what it means to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a total lifestyle change. It is going all in in a new direction. That's what repentance is, and you can't be saved without repentance. So again, can we say a person is a disciple? Are they saved? Are they a part of the family of God? If they came in, but they're not all in? You know it was a big thing that went on in the 80s and 90s and still in some circles this thing called lordship salvation. And so what we have is the same pastor that baptized 100 people last year. He baptized 75 of the same 100 next year because they were saved but they didn't accept lordship salvation. Well, I would contend they were never saved.
Speaker 3:Right, because lordship is salvation, that's right Lordship is salvation, and so it becomes great in the denominational papers. And so it becomes great in the denominational papers. Your church is recognized for being one of the highest-ranking baptisms in your denomination. But the reality is all you did was manipulate people. I mean, you're either saved or you're lost.
Speaker 2:There's no in-between there are no steps there to be more and more saved. It's like being a little bit pregnant that doesn't exist.
Speaker 3:And so we played word games with people. So I would say and I stand firmly behind this, if you're not growing in your faith and that's what it means to be a disciple growing, becoming more like Christ, and that results in how you live out your daily life, then you're lost, right? I believe that firmly.
Speaker 2:You know I want to circle back to something you said earlier, and look, all the ministers here. We can't answer to this because we'd have all been in grade school when this happened, but you were already pastoring, so I'll let you answer this.
Speaker 2:But back in the mid-'80s when, like Willow Creek, saddleback, all those big churches, they started doing something that kind of came to be termed seeker-sensitive and you had talked about we fall into the trap of just let's get them in the pews, how do you think that idea of seeker-sensitive affected discipleship over the years, when maybe churches didn't quite understand what Willow Creek or Saddleback meant by seeker-sensitive?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I sat under Bill Hybels. I sat under Rick Warren. I was in the room with them. I heard their hearts.
Speaker 3:I think if you really listen to what they said, their idea of Seeker Sensitive was make your building aesthetically pleasing, clean up your environment, your parking lots, paint the place, have comfortable seating. You know it was let's don't create barriers that keep people from wanting to come in. And their hearts both of them was to see people come to Christ. Now the argument against that would be is that what they did? They tried to create a service where lost people were comfortable, and I would say that you got to be careful with that. You can go too far where you create an environment where you don't want to offend anybody, but we know the gospel is offensive. We have people walk out routinely here. I never try to offend them, but the gospel is offensive. They will get up and leave. So I think their hearts were right.
Speaker 3:I don't want to disparage either one of those men. Think their hearts were right. I don't want to disparage either one of those men, but I think there were areas that they went. I heard them teach this themselves. I heard Rick Warren say they didn't sing the hymns because you know you're singing the old hymn, the Blood from Emmanuel's Veins, and people start looking around the room. You're thinking you're going to sacrifice a cat or something you know. Well, maybe in Southern California they would think that, but in the Southeast I don't think anybody would confuse it. I don't think anybody would misunderstand it. So I think there's areas where Secret S sensitive went too far, there's no doubt. I think there are areas where it's still going too far, where churches are just trying to be the cool church, the in-church, the flavor of the month, and I think that's very dangerous. You're creating a comfortable false believism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, if I could ask you one final question. Somebody walks up to you on a Sunday and they say Pastor Steve, I really want to know what it means to be a disciple. What do I do? How would you answer that question for somebody ready to be a disciple?
Speaker 3:Yes, my first answer would be let's talk about your salvation. Understanding. When you came to Christ, do you understand that he requires you to be all in that? It's all Jesus. He's in charge. To use a phrase a lot of people see as a negative he's my boss man. He's the one To use a phrase a lot of people see as a negative he's my boss man. He's the one I answer to. He's the one who demands how I live my life. Do you understand? That's what salvation means. And assuming that answer is yes, you then say no.
Speaker 3:The obvious thing is we've got to get our prayer life active. We've got to get in the Word of God. Those are basics. I remember when I came to Christ as a 15-year-old and it amazes me We've created this environment in America where you almost need to go take a class and get a certification to crank your lawnmower, and I think that has rolled over to the church. People feel like they got to be certified. You know, I just knew as a 15-year-old I should read my Bible. I don't understand why people don't get this. You need to start talking to your Savior and you need to start reading your Bible, because that's his love letter to you. That's where he tells you who he is, how he thinks, what his desires are for you, and so that would be the genesis of that conversation, and then we would direct that person toward what I would believe at the time would be the best covenant group for us to get them into, to get them on a solid footing.
Speaker 2:I appreciate your time. Thank you, good to be here. It's been informative, especially hearing about the olden days, but we appreciate your time. Thanks again, guys, for watching and listening. We'll catch you next time on the main thing podcast.