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When Pride Kills Discipleship | Jim Putman · Real Life Theology Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the Real Life Theology Podcast.
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  Today's episode features Jim Putman, who's going to share about a recent book that he
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  wrote on how pride kills discipleship and why the church's core mission is to make disciples.
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  I hope you guys enjoy this episode.
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  Good to be here.
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  I love this group of people and I love the honor that the Word of God has given here.
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  And I did get to write this newest book with Chad and what a privilege that was.
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  The amount of work that that guy has had to put in to put up with me has been incredible
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  and including over the last three years so many things going on in his own life and I've
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  just been privileged to watch him be a man of God in all the things he's been dealing
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  with and yet still be such a vital part of this book.
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  We're here at Renew Network and then the discipleship.org network because of a core
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  belief that we have, that we share as a leadership team for Renew and the discipleship.org group
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  is that the core purpose, mission of the church is to make disciples.
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  And we've got to clarify that even more because there are a lot of people that use words,
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  share words with others but we have slightly different definitions.
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  One of the things that the enemy loves to do is he allows us to use the same words that
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  others use but he slightly tweaks the meaning and when the words meaning is tweaked even
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  a little bit they lose their power.
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  And so we believe that a disciple of Jesus is one who is following Jesus, being changed
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  by Jesus, committed to the mission of Jesus.
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  And you'll hear a lot of King Jesus language because we follow Jesus because we recognize
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  who he is.
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  He is the Christ.
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  It's a title.
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  He's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
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  And so we follow him not only because he's the creator, he was a part of creation with
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  God the Father and God the Son, but he holds all things together and in the end he is going
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  to establish his kingdom for eternity with those who have chosen to be in the kingdom
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  with him.
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  And so what we do is we accept that discipleship is the purpose of the church.
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  We understand there is a biblical definition of discipleship.
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  Jesus gets to define what a disciple is.
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  Jesus gets to define what the truth is and he presents himself as the light in the world.
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  But some reject the light, some tried to kill the light, some came into the light and
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  accepted him and we have become a part of the kingdom of heaven.
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  Out of every tribe, every nation, we have become a part of the kingdom of heaven, humbled
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  ourselves before the King and allowed him to define the terms.
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  Now, this is something that we believe and we talk about often and we will every year
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  as we move forward in the Renew Network as well as in the discipleship.org group.
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  We are what Bobby likes to call discipleship first group.
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  This is a tribe of people out of multiple different kinds of groups that have said in
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  a world of division, in a world that is redefining terms and many are trying to come up with
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  a way to be culturally okay and a Christian at the same time, we've said no, Jesus made
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  it very clear.
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  The road is narrow that leads to salvation and we're going to follow it and we're not
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  going to give in, we're not going to follow other things, we're going to follow King Jesus
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  even and not because we want to be offensive but because the best way to serve Jesus and
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  to display his heart to the world is to relate to them that anything outside of the light
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  is dark and Jesus loves people in every command he ever gave us for our good because he loves
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  us.
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  We call people to the best possible life you can have in this life and in the next when
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  you follow Jesus even though you may have to suffer for it.
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  We are going to follow Jesus.
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  In the last few years, we've coalesced and Bobby has done such an amazing job along with
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  other teammates to say, okay, here's what we're about, here's what we're trying to do
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  and they've done a great job of putting together theology, historic theology based on the word
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  of God to stand as a guide and so these are all things that you're aware of but the book
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  in particular that Chad and I wrote, I think we didn't know it at the time but when we
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  started it, it was dealing with this issue of pride.
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  Chad talked me out of it but I wanted to call the book first, The Death of Discipleship
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  or The Death Nail to Discipleship and they were like, boy, that's not a very positive
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  name.
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  Can we name it something more positive?
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  But the concept was that discipleship dies when pride is involved.
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  There's a reason why God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.
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  God hates pride and pride profoundly impacts discipleship.
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  Let me give you some examples.
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  If you go back to Matthew 28 where Jesus had said, go and make disciples, he said, all
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  authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.
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  Go therefore and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the
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  Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you and lo, I'm with you always
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  even to the end of the age.
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  Here's the premise of this.
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  If I claim to be a Christ follower and I refuse to go and make disciples, then discipleship
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  dies.
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  If I refuse to submit to the Lord's authority and rather than going into the world, I actually
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  want Jesus to come into my life and bless my plans.
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  I actually want him to make me more comfortable where I am, get rid of my obstacles.
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  I want hell insurance and I want Jesus to bless my life by getting anything that makes
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  me uncomfortable out of the way.
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  There's a gospel that has been preached to our country that says, God's going to come
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  into your life and make your life happy and you're going to be whole and prosperous and
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  healthy and God's job is to do this particular thing, you know, take care of you.
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  Then we have denied the story we've been born into.
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  We've not understood the scriptures and we have denied submission to the Lord's work
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  and we won't go.
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  Pride says I won't go.
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  Pride says I want to negotiate my own individual contract with God where we kind of, you know,
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  rustle around a little bit and negotiate a contract that fits my life the way I want.
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  And so there's a lot of people that don't understand Jesus is King and he has a mission
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  and we are invited into it.
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  This is a little thing that I show at our church.
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  Let's make sure we call this the five spheres.
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  And I'll come back to that in a minute.
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  But I want you to understand this is on this graph and do you guys, can you guys see it?
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  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and we were supposed to have a relationship
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  with God.
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  Is that true?
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  We're supposed to God and man walk together.
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  God said, it's not good for you to be alone.
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  Man wasn't alone.
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  He was with God, but he said, you were made not just for me, you were made for people.
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  So he created a wife, right?
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  And so as you walk with Jesus, he says, you're going to have a family.
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  And then as you have this family, you're going to produce children and you're going to create
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  a community.
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  There's going to be a community of believers.
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  And then as that community grows, you also have work.
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  You interact with the world, you manage the planet.
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  You're going to walk with me in perpetuity.
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  So we were supposed to walk with Jesus for all of eternity in the garden with God and
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  us involved in this life that God designed.
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  God designed the earth.
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  He's the creator of the world.
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  He knows how all of our family and the world and everything was supposed to work.
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  But he said, you get to choose.
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  You get to choose if you're going to follow me or not.
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  This is a kingdom of choice.
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  So you're free to eat from the tree of the garden or all the trees of the garden except
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  the one.
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  Right?
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  Well, what did we choose?
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  We chose, chose to step away from God's design.
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  And that design that he had for all of our life became a cluster, became a complete mess.
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  You see Adam and Eve hiding from one another.
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  You see pride.
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  Now there's a battle in the home for who will control.
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  There's the work life.
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  Now there's thorns and thistles.
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  There's a spiritual battle going on now that, you know, you've got the whole thing became
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  a mess and God allowed the world to continue because he was hoping that we would discover
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  like the prodigal son.
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  When you go out there and get to do things that you want, you come to your senses.
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  But so God said, you know what, if you were to look at the entire plan and it's not working,
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  it's not moving, it's going, it died.
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  There it is.
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  God sent Jesus down to say, Hey, have you had enough of this yet?
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  Right?
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  And then he said, for those of us who received him, the Bible says that he came into our
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  life and this following Jesus being Matthew 4, 19, come and follow me.
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  I'll make you fishers men.
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  The following Jesus, the being changed by Jesus and committed to the mission of Jesus.
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  Discipleship is the process of God leading us back to the designers design.
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  He moves inside of our life.
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  He moved.
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  He worked on us pre Christ.
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  He works in us.
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  The power of the Holy spirit comes in.
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  We have the word of God, the people of God, the spirit of God.
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  And now we humbly allow him to change us, to walk with us.
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  We follow him back towards a life with him, with all the parts of our life in the, in,
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  in the places and in the ways they were designed to be.
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  I'll come back to that in a moment.
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  The death of discipleship happens when, when, first of all, I won't follow Jesus.
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  I like the saving Jesus without the King Jesus.
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  I won't follow him.
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  I won't let him sit, come in and rule in my life.
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  I will not follow him.
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  I will not be changed by him.
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  I will not be committed to his mission.
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  I reject it.
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  Matthew 28, if we won't go into the world, then we have denied who he is in our life
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  because we want him to follow us around.
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  We want to treat him like a dog, fetch something for me, Jesus.
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  Well, as a disciple maker, as a disciple, he becomes the authority in our life.
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  Okay, well, let's say, all right, I will go into the world, Jesus.
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  But as I go into the world, you know, you're sending me to go out into the world, Matthew 28.
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  I will go, but I want to negotiate terms for myself.
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  I will go and preach, but I want to get wealthy and prosperous and, and I, and I'll go,
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  but I want to be honored for my work, you know, kind of like what the Pharisees had done.
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  They, they wanted to follow God, they said, but really they created rules by which they
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  got to sit at the seat of the table, highest seat of the table.
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  They got to be in the leadership roles.
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  So I'll go as long as I'm honored to do it.
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  You know, I'm honored by people, I'm honored by you.
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  So I'll go as long as I get something from the deal.
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  So when you go and make disciples and you've negotiated that kind of a contract, you make
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  more a sentence of hell than you yourself are.
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  God turns you into the kind of leader who goes only to get, and that kills discipleship
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  as Jesus intended it, because he left heaven to come down and die.
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  He used his authority and his position to lay down his life.
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  It wasn't a position for him.
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  It was a responsibility because his authority was given so that he could lay it down to
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  minister to others.
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  And so if we don't go as Jesus went, we go to get, then it's the death of discipleship.
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  We make disciples that don't look like Jesus at all.
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  And when the messengers don't look like the message, then the message is discredited.
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  It's the death of this one.
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  Pride plays a part in discipleship.
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  I won't go or I'll go as long as I get.
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  Pride kills discipleship.
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  On the other side of this, if you do go, let's say you do go for the right reason and you
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  do go to honor God, but the people don't want the message that says, I will be taught to
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  obey all that you commanded.
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  It means that I'll take the salvation piece, but I won't actually obey.
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  I won't follow you as a disciple maker.
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  It leads to the death of discipleship.
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  So pride on the front, if I'm the disciple maker and I'm proud, it kills discipleship.
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  If I'm the disciple and I won't come underneath the authority of the ones that are being sent
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  out with the word of God and the spirit of God, if I won't come under the authority,
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  it means you'll have people in your church who will visit Jesus every once in a while,
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  but will refuse to actually submit to authority, refuse to follow Jesus, refuse to follow Jesus'
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  delegated authorities because he did create delegated authorities.
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  When people won't follow, it's the death of discipleship.
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  So when I won't go and I won't follow him and I'm proud, it kills discipleship from
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  a leadership perspective.
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  When I won't follow, it kills discipleship from the followership perspective.
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  Pride kills relationship with God because you can't have a relationship with the almighty
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  God if you won't humble yourself.
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  Pride kills your relationship with others because relationship becomes about me rather
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  than laying down my life.
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  Pride kills not only discipleship, it kills the heart of love itself.
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  Let me say it this way.
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  One of the things we say at our church a lot is there's a lot of people that they deal
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  with head.
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  We talk about head, heart, hands.
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  Following Jesus' head, heart being changed, becoming lovers of God and lovers of others,
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  right?
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  Jesus said all the law and the prophets hang on two commands, love God, love others.
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  Paul said you can know all mysteries, head, but if you don't love, heart, you're nothing.
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  Discipleship is about head, heart, and hands.
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  If I go and I start to talk about, okay, as Christians, it's about doing the right thing,
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  but you've missed the heart, you've missed it, but even if you, okay, do the right thing
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  and you're right, it's all about love.
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  Pride actually kills love.
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  Pride kills love.
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  Here's what I mean by that.
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  The Bible says, in 1 Corinthians, it says that love is what?
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  Because you definitely said without love, you're immature, you're a clanging symbol.
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  You can know all mysteries, speak in tongues of angels and of men.
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  You can offer your body to the flames.
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  You can sell all your possessions to the poor.
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  You can do all those things without love.
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  You can do all those things to show that you're better than everybody else or to try
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  to earn your salvation, which has nothing to do with love.
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  You can do all that if you don't have love, you're nothing, and it says love is something.
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  Love is patient.
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  Love is kind.
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  Agapolo is an act of the will.
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  Love God's definition of love is not lust.
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  It's not a feeling.
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  It's not attraction.
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  It is an act of the will to lay down your life for the good of the other.
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  So love, we talk about love as being super important and it is, but the basis of love
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  is humility.
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  Pride kills love because pride says you exist for me.
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  Pride says your job is to fulfill me, to complete me.
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  Pride kills everything that Christianity is about.
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  That's the short version of some of the premise of the book, but what we do is we say this,
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  we need a revolutionary discipleship movement because right now, right now, when you think
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  about revolution, you think about at least where I live.
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  I live in a very red state, Idaho.
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  Here's what I'm, here's what I'm hearing a lot of.
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  You can't take my guns.
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  My first amendment rights, my second amendment rights.
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  People are upset enough where I live, where the word revolution means something old.
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  I'm hearing revolution people, and you know who's talking most?
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  Those who claim to be Christians.
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  Those who say my boss is, this is their bumper sticker.
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  My boss is a Jewish carpenter.
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  Right next to, if you want my guns, you'll have to pry my cold dead fingers off of it.
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  Revolutionary disciple is not somebody who picks up guns and says, I won't wear a mask.
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  I won't get a vaccine.
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  You can't tell me what to do.
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  I'm not saying they're right.
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  I'm not saying that we shouldn't stand up and go, wait a second.
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  That's not the point.
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  There are places where we need to stand up, but here's the deal.
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  Christians right now know more about their first and second amendment rights, but don't
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  know what Romans 13 has to say at all and don't really care.
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  Jesus is the greatest revolutionary in eternity and he changed the whole world.
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  And right now there are all kinds of conservative voices out there that are saying it's time
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  to fight.
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  They talk about the black robes, the pastors in the revolutionary war.
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  They talk about Dietrich Bonhoeffer trying to kill Hitler.
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  They talk about all of these kinds of things, not understanding the backstory, not understanding
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  that those guys didn't just go from zero to kill right away based on taxation without
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  representation.
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  The point being is we as Christians need to say, we are called on to be Christ followers
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  part of the kingdom of heaven and our number one constitution is the word of God, not the
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  constitution of the United States.
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  Now I'm not saying there's all or nothing.
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  I'm not saying that the constitution isn't valuable.
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  I'm a history guy.
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  I love it.
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  It's the best document I think we've come up with for government.
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  And there are nuances to all of this, but a lot of people right now are, they're proud
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  of their pride.
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  They're proud of their nation.
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  They're proud of their abilities.
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  Christians right now are proud of their beliefs in that I'm right and you're wrong.
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  Not because being wrong means death, but because I'm right.
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  There is this humility that is required that is a part of the change that is happening
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  in you when you become a Christ follower.
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  If there is not growing humility before God and his delegated authorities, there's a problem.
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  So what we're saying in this book is to Christians, not in this black and white way that says
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  you can't be patriotic.
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  No, you can be patriotic.
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  But the question is, what is your first loyalty to and what does God's word say?
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  And you, and you check everything else based on the word of God.
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  The word of God is central to the lives of believers and they discern truth based on
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  the glasses of the word of God, seeing everything else, not looking through the glasses of the
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  constitution at the word of God.
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  One of the things that we talk about is it's unique about this book is what's called the
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  five spheres.
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  And this is something our church grew.
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  I introduced it in the beginning, but this is this, this graph, people are like, that's
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  a graph.
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  That's kind of scary.
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  What is that?
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  That's a symbol.
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  Conspiracy theory.
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  This is just the book of Ephesians.
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  Okay.
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  It's a visual of the book of Ephesians and Ephesians.
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  And I'll just briefly go through this, by the way, is there a clock here that tells
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  me how long I have back there?
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  Oh, there it is.
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  Here's what's going on.
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  The book of Ephesians starts out by talking about who we are in Christ.
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  The first 13 verses or 14 verses, 12 times says that we're in Christ.
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  And then it tells us how we got in Christ.
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  We were by nature, objects of God's wrath, but God was rich in mercy and you're saved
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  by grace through faith.
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  How we got in Christ and in our DNA, our new identity in Christ is we're part of the family
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  of God.
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  We're part of the body of Christ.
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  It's in Christ that we have all these access.
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  So our identity is in Christ first, we are, we are submitting ourselves to the authority
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  of the Christ in every area of our life.
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  Then what happens is he goes in the next three chapters.
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  He speaks more about the church than he does any other subject.
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  So he starts about Christ, then he makes a transition to the church and he starts talking
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  about the church and he makes it very clear.
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  The church has leadership, pastors, teachers, apostles, prophets.
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  What's their job?
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  You equip the saints for works of service so that the body of Christ will be built up.
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  It talks about the church.
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  How are we to behave in the church?
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  Don't let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth.
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  By the way, a lot of people who are Christians ignore that, right?
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  Uh, the Bible talks about who we are in the church, and then he talks about who we are
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  in the home.
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  And so he talks about husbands and wives.
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  And one of the things you'll see in every part of the life, there is the abiding relationship
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  in the first part of it, relationship with God in Christ.
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  Now there is the church.
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  What is the church supposed to look like?
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  God had designed for the church.
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  There's order.
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  There's a way of life in the church as a leadership structure.
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  There's a, there's a way it works.
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  Now there's a home.
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  There's a design in the home.
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  There are two genders.
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  They get married.
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  The, the husband has the leadership role, but what does he use his leadership for?
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  The way Jesus did, laying down his life for his wife, wives are to submit to their husbands,
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  children.
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  There's an order and design.
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  Then he talks about work life, slaves and masters, employers and employees.
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  And then he talks about, he closes it with the spiritual realm.
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  And he says, he says, uh, uh, in the spiritual realm, while you're abiding and walking in
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  God, who's giving you your identity, you're learning about what it means to be in the
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  church, the home, the world, the enemy is coming against you.
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  And by the way, he uses this term.
• 24:01
  You don't wrestle.
• 24:02
  Wrestling is the only biblical sport where you do not wrestle against the spiritual forces
• 24:05
  in the heavenly realms.
• 24:07
  There is something going on in the spiritual realm.
• 24:09
  Now here's, here's why the five spheres are important.
• 24:11
  A lot of people go, I know my doctrine, but, but I've never been discipled in my home,
• 24:16
  that there's a design in the home.
• 24:17
  I know my doctrine, but my church is in the woods and, and there's no order in the church
• 24:22
  church to whatever I want it to be.
• 24:23
  They weren't discipled that God had a plan for every part of the life.
• 24:28
  Business is business.
• 24:29
  Church is church.
• 24:30
  No God, who is your King out of reverence for Christ.
• 24:33
  You submit yourselves one to another in how many of the places in life, everywhere.
• 24:38
  God has a design for every part of your life and discipleship includes, yes, you need a
• 24:43
  relationship with God.
• 24:44
  You need to understand who he is and write doctrine, but you need to know how you're
• 24:47
  supposed to be in the church.
• 24:49
  You need to know how you're supposed to be in the home.
• 24:51
  You need to know how you, who you're supposed to be in the work life.
• 24:53
  You need to follow Christ in every part of it.
• 24:56
  And the spiritual realm putting on the armor, he wrote that to the church.
• 24:59
  Yes, there's an individual part of that, but in the church we fight together to follow
• 25:04
  Christ discipleship impacts every part of your life.
• 25:09
  So this is Paul's methodology written to the church to talk about every part of the life.
• 25:13
  By the way, some people go, why does Paul talk about the church before the home?
• 25:18
  Well because he's dealing with people who only knew how to follow their own culture.
• 25:23
  They didn't know what the husband was for or the wife was for.
• 25:26
  Where were you supposed to find out what that was like in a discipleship relationship within
• 25:30
  the family of God?
• 25:32
  You're to learn what spiritual leadership, what submission, what humility looks like
• 25:36
  so that it transfers to the home.
• 25:40
  The home is not less important, but how do you know how to be in the home if you've never
• 25:43
  been discipled?
• 25:44
  Which is why it's so important that in relationship we disciple people in every sphere of their
• 25:49
  life.
• 25:50
  All right, so, it's so hard to put 216 pages into 30 minutes, have you ever noticed that?
• 26:01
  The point being is this, humility before Christ is God, you are who I am, I am who you say
• 26:07
  I am, you are my Christ, you are my king in the church, in the home, in the world.
• 26:12
  You design, you're the designer, a man who hears my words and puts them into practice
• 26:15
  is like a man who builds his house on the rock.
• 26:19
  God's word tells me how to rebuild what became a complete cluster, but I'm having that restored,
• 26:26
  his design in my life as I walk in a discipleship relationship, I'm having my life redesigned
• 26:33
  and reordered and repurposed as he directs me back to my design.
• 26:38
  Is this making sense to you?
• 26:42
  Now, here's what the enemy does, and this is so important, first of all, when you give
• 26:48
  your life to Jesus, you've got all these other spheres of your life, when you give your life
• 26:51
  to Jesus, he grows in you and he starts to change every part of your life, you see that?
• 26:57
  See the graph?
• 26:59
  But here's what the devil does, Jesus comes into our life and then we start focusing on
• 27:06
  these other parts of our life, and we don't abide in Jesus, and what happens is the abiding
• 27:13
  sphere gets smaller and smaller, which allows the other spheres of your life to get bigger
• 27:18
  and out of order.
• 27:21
  Let me just tell you what's going on right now, as people are abiding less and less,
• 27:25
  and they're being drawn into the political sphere, this world sphere is getting bigger
• 27:31
  and bigger and bigger.
• 27:35
  Because those who may be not getting drawn into politics, the work sphere, my job gets
• 27:40
  so big that pretty soon that world sphere gets so big and there's no room for abiding,
• 27:46
  there's no room for church, there's no room for family, I'll just go to church on Christmas
• 27:51
  and Easter because I got saved, and my wife will take care of the leadership role in my
• 27:58
  home, spiritually, she'll do that because I'm just exhausted, because the work sphere
• 28:04
  has become so big and I'm so tired that I just don't have the time, and how do you know
• 28:09
  that your abiding sphere is not what it should be?
• 28:13
  The other spheres get bigger than they should be, and they take over because there isn't
• 28:18
  the abiding, walking with Jesus that sets the order, the power, and the direction of
• 28:23
  your life.
• 28:25
  Pastors, the church sphere gets really big and takes over the rest of your life, you
• 28:31
  don't have time for home, because your work sphere and your church sphere comes together
• 28:36
  and pretty soon it gets so big and what that tells you is you're doing too much for God
• 28:41
  and not spending time with God because God never asked you to give up your children for
• 28:45
  the sake of your church.
• 28:50
  How does he do it?
• 28:52
  How does he suck us out of the design in our life, pride?
• 28:58
  My work is so important to me.
• 29:01
  It's my identity.
• 29:02
  No, it isn't.
• 29:03
  You're a child of the most high God.
• 29:04
  Your work is what you do, it's not who you are.
• 29:12
  This book, what it really designed to do is to say we need to get back to being who Jesus
• 29:17
  says, we are humbling ourselves before him, letting him decide who we are in each of these
• 29:21
  spheres.
• 29:25
  And then when that happens, we start to get closer to the design and the closer to the
• 29:28
  design that God had for us, we get the more abundant life there actually is.
• 29:33
  Now on this side of heaven, there will be struggles and trials because the devil is
• 29:37
  constantly trying to tempt us out of our design that God had for us and we will fail, which
• 29:42
  is why we need God's grace and eventually it will be back in the design as it was intended.
• 29:50
  And right now our people need to come underneath the authority of Jesus in every sphere of
• 29:56
  their life, humbly before him.
• 30:00
  And that changes everything.
• 30:02
  The kind of revolution that Jesus wants in a disciple is one of humility before Christ
• 30:07
  in every part of their life.
• 30:10
  And that truly is revolutionary because there isn't a lot of that happening.
• 30:17
  Well I wanted to ask Chad to come on up here.
• 30:19
  Chad, you were such a blessing in this book and we did this together and I just wanted
• 30:24
  you to share, I mean that was like rambling and fast and a lot.
• 30:29
  Clear me up my friend.
• 30:31
  Fix what I just broke.
• 30:34
  That's not possible.
• 30:35
  Great.
• 30:36
  No man, that was awesome.
• 30:38
  Thank you for, I was encouraged by that and we spent a lot of time talking about this.
• 30:44
  Yeah I mean, it was funny.
• 30:47
  We started this three years ago and then we finished it in 2021 with 2020 behind us
• 30:54
  and we're like, wow, we really feel like this timeless biblical message is timely right
• 31:01
  now for the church.
• 31:02
  And so as it came out, we're like, man, like God, please use this because we all need to
• 31:09
  re-examine including us, the humility of Christ.
• 31:14
  And so Christ is the revolutionary disciple.
• 31:16
  It's funny to think about Jesus as a disciple, isn't it?
• 31:21
  But we learn in Hebrews that he, it says that he learned obedience through what he suffered.
• 31:27
  And then in the gospel of John, it says, he says that everything that I say, I learned
• 31:33
  from my father.
• 31:34
  Jesus is a disciple, right?
• 31:38
  Which is strange, but it also makes him, which is incredible because he's fully divine and
• 31:44
  he's the king of the universe.
• 31:45
  Yet he humbled himself and took on a body so that we could know exactly what it looks
• 31:51
  like to walk in humility.
• 31:53
  I think one of my favorite realizations about the identity and humility of Christ is Jim
• 32:00
  and I talked and wrote about it, right?
• 32:03
  Which is, is a challenging thing to do to examine the humility of Christ.
• 32:09
  What was so liberating for me as a person who has struggled pretty deeply with pride
• 32:14
  in my life.
• 32:15
  And then I'm asked to help write a book on it.
• 32:18
  It's like my worst nightmare.
• 32:19
  It's like, no.
• 32:20
  But what's amazing is that Jesus in Matthew chapter 11 said, come to me, all who are weary
• 32:26
  and burdened, and I will give you rest.
• 32:30
  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me because I am gentle and humble in heart.
• 32:38
  Christlike humility, well, Christlike humility doesn't deny one's identity.
• 32:47
  It knows exactly what it is and that everything is from the father.
• 32:52
  And it was so liberating for me to realize that, that you don't have to pretend that
• 32:56
  I'm humble or pretend that I'm overly proud or something like, I can just know exactly
• 33:02
  who I am in God because Jesus shows us that as the son, as God, the son.
• 33:09
  In John chapter 13, this was the big aha moment for me.
• 33:13
  Jesus is about to, it says, love his disciples to the end, to the max, to this extent by
• 33:21
  washing their feet.
• 33:23
  And by the way, it's pretty evident by Peter's reaction that this was the first time Jesus
• 33:28
  had washed their feet.
• 33:30
  And it says this, that Jesus knew where he had come from.
• 33:35
  He knew where he was going and he knew that the father had put all things under his feet.
• 33:43
  So he got up, humbled himself and washed their feet.
• 33:48
  Humility doesn't deny who we are and pretend that we don't exist.
• 33:55
  Humility knows precisely who we are and knows that it is all about what God has done, is
• 34:01
  doing and will do in our lives.
• 34:04
  That's true revolutionary humility.
• 34:07
  And like Jim, you said, it's almost absent today.
• 34:14
  As Christians, as disciples of Jesus, we have the honor and responsibility just like Jesus
• 34:21
  had to lay our lives down and to model that for the world and frankly, for the church right now.
• 34:29
  And so I love the fact that we can be liberated to use revolutionary language by this.
• 34:37
  Jesus says, come to me, all who are weary and burdened, wearied by what?
• 34:44
  Our pride.
• 34:46
  The Pharisees had created these heavy burdens, too much to bear.
• 34:51
  And he says, good luck with that.
• 34:54
  Come and take my yoke.
• 34:56
  It's easy and light.
• 34:58
  Now it is work, right?
• 34:59
  It's still a yoke.
• 35:02
  But it's not irritating or too much to handle.
• 35:05
  It fits just right because it's God's perfect design to follow Christ.
• 35:10
  And as we walk in that humility, things just work.
• 35:15
  And so we encourage you to journey with us through the five spheres of discipleship.
• 35:23
  We created this really with the church in mind.
• 35:26
  And so we even, both of our churches, it just so happened, just finished a series.
• 35:32
  It's a six week sermon series through the book.
• 35:35
  And so because we care so much about getting this message out, we created a whole suite
• 35:40
  of resources with the publisher so that other churches can do this.
• 35:46
  And so it's this, you know, discussion questions, sermon outlines, graphics, all that.
• 35:50
  You can take this book, read it for yourself, let God work in you as he's worked in us.
• 35:56
  And then you can spread this message to your churches.
• 36:00
  You can bring it home.
• 36:01
  And so you can buy the book at this back booth here, Hymn Publications.
• 36:05
  I'll be back there.
• 36:07
  Would love to chat with you and connect with you.
• 36:09
  I know Jim would as well.
• 36:10
  And we just, we just think, Lord, please humble us.
• 36:15
  And by the way, we don't have to wince when we pray that.
• 36:18
  It's a good thing to be, we're unburdening ourselves by asking God to humble us.
• 36:25
  And so thank you for listening today.
• 36:28
  I think that about wraps it up.
• 36:30
  Jim, if you wanted to close this out.
• 36:32
  Yeah, I would just say, this has been the hardest book I've ever written because it
• 36:37
  was so convicting all the way through.
• 36:41
  And Chad and I both go, okay, this is what we aspire to, but we fail at it a lot.
• 36:47
  And so we're so grateful for God's grace, right?
• 36:51
  So right thing to aspire to when we fall down, I love that passage, it says a godly man falls
• 36:55
  six times, gets up seven.
• 36:59
  And the cool thing about that is we fall six times and God helps us get up seven.
• 37:04
  This is the right thing.
• 37:06
  Our people, we're American, we're reformed, the Reformation movement came from rebellion
• 37:12
  against the Catholic Church, not saying there wasn't good reason for those things.
• 37:16
  But our whole movements have been, you will not tell me what to do, it's me and Jesus
• 37:20
  and the word.
• 37:21
  I will not follow the elders, I will not follow somebody, I only trust me, it's me and Jesus.
• 37:26
  And it's time for us to get back to going, humility should be a part of every part of
• 37:29
  our life.
• 37:30
  And when we fail, not if, we have a God who reminds us, gives us grace and we get right
• 37:36
  back up and we continue to pursue that.
• 37:38
  So that's it, thank you for coming, God bless you.
• 37:42
  Thanks.
• 37:43
  Thank you guys for listening to this episode on the Real Life Theology Podcast, please
• 37:52
  stay tuned for more great content down the road.
• 37:56
  If you guys are a senior minister or senior pastor, we'd love to hear from you guys and
• 38:00
  hook you into our learning communities, you can reach out to Mike at Renew.org for more
• 38:06
  information about that.
• 38:07
  I hope to see you guys on the next episode.