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Discipleship as Allegiance | Mark Moore · Real Life Theology Podcast

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  Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode on the Real Life Theology Podcast.
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  Today's episode, we are featuring Mark Moore, who's going to be talking to us about discipleship
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  as allegiance.
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  Here is the episode.
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  On February 7th of 2019, NBC did a news special on a mission organization in the Far East.
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  It was not a complimentary special.
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  This organization had children that were abused in the mission.
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  Because of where they were preaching the gospel, the parents would go and go preach the gospel
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  to these tribes and tongues, their children were at a boarding school, and 27 of them
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  were abused by a dorm dad in the boarding school.
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  One of the women who spoke, her name is Tracy, and she shared her story on national news.
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  She's also a member of our church.
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  She said that from the time she was 12 to the time she was probably about 14, she was
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  abused by this man in the dorm.
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  He has only confessed to seven of these abuses.
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  She knows because she was there, there were 27.
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  Never charged because it was on foreign soil.
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  The mission organization sent him back without any kind of discipline.
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  He was, again, no police charges, no prison time.
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  The lady from NBC, the news anchor, called him on the phone, he actually answered the
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  phone.
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  And she said, are you guilty of this?
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  And he said, well, seven cases, yes, which he lied.
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  She said, do you think you should have gone to prison?
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  And it was stunning.
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  You can go back and hear the report from NBC.
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  He said, I probably should have been beheaded.
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  That was Tracy's father.
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  And I'm wondering, how can you go on mission, go to foreign soil to proclaim the gospel,
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  and abuse your own daughter and 26 other girls, rape and molest girls and boys?
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  Clearly, knowing the Bible isn't enough.
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  So when I write a book like this, that here's the core of the Bible, and I suggest that
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  we do need to get into the Bible.
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  I'm not saying we need to know the Bible.
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  Because you getting into the Bible is not enough if the Bible doesn't get into you.
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  I think we all agree on that, right?
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  So let me just talk through a little bit of the strategy of that by sharing three passages
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  in the Bible on the Bible.
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  And what we know, we're not even guessing about this, studies have been done that demonstrate
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  conclusively the number one discipline for spiritual growth.
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  What will take you further faster is getting into God's Word, specifically Bible engagement,
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  meaning reading the Bible four times a week or more on your own is the most important
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  thing for every disciple to do to grow fastest, furthest.
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  Now, again, knowing the Bible isn't enough.
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  Tracy will tell you that.
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  But the Bible is core for our discipleship.
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  And so I want to share three passages about the Bible on the Bible.
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  The first is 2 Timothy 3, verse 16.
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  You know this.
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  It says, all scripture is inspired by God, useful for teaching and for correcting and
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  training in righteousness.
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  That is the Bible on the Bible.
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  Here's another verse, Hebrews 4, verse 12.
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  It says, for the Word of God is alive and powerful, that is sharper than the sharpest
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  two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow, it exposes
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  the innermost thoughts and desires.
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  The third passage of the Bible on the Bible, I'll read that in a minute, is chapter six
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  of the book of Ephesians, verse 17, the armament of God.
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  There's the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
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  So this is the Word of God on the Word of God.
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  What's fascinating to me about this, Bobby, is all three of these passages use a different
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  Greek word for word.
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  Have you heard of this?
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  The Word of God, the word for word in 2 Timothy 3, all scripture is inspired, is graphe, which
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  you hear the English word graphics, calligraphy.
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  It is the writing.
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  It is the document.
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  So when we talk about the book, that's the graphe.
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  And so Paul says to Timothy, I mean, he's in prison to the end of his life.
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  He says, bring me my scrolls.
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  He's a Bible guy.
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  I get that.
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  I'm a Bible guy.
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  But just knowing the word is not enough.
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  Tracy will tell you, just knowing the word is not enough.
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  The second word for word, and this is in Hebrews 4.12, it's not graphe, anyone know?
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  It's logos.
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  It is the embodied word.
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  Now when I say logos, what do you think of?
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  Any other passage come to mind?
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  John 1.1, Jesus is the logos.
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  Let me make a suggestion.
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  Anybody at Hebrews 4.12?
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  Let me make a suggestion that instead of reading that with the Bible in view, that you actually
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  think about John 1.1, that we're talking about Jesus, the embodied Word of God, not just
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  the written Word of God.
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  See if this doesn't make sense, because the translators have imported, it's not in the
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  Greek text, they have imported neuter pronouns, it.
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  What if we read it as he, like capital H, he?
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  Let me read it again, Hebrews 4.12, for the Word of God is alive and powerful.
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  Hello, that's Jesus.
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  He is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword cutting between the soul and spirit,
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  between joint and marrow, he exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.
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  And if we go to verse 13, this is where it makes most sense to me, nothing in all creation
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  is hidden from God.
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  Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we will give
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  an account.
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  And theologically, we know that's Jesus.
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  In other words, you don't know the Word until you live the Word.
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  And when you begin to embody the Word of God, then you start to understand the biblical
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  text.
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  So, let me just make this suggestion.
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  You know, we've all heard from St. Francis of Assisi, preach always, use words if you
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  have to.
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  I love that, and I hate it.
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  Because if you just live the Word of God, but you don't announce the Word of God, where
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  I live, I'm going to assume you're a good Mormon.
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  I might assume that you're Oprah Winfrey.
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  But I don't know that you're a Christian.
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  When I was in the eighth grade, I guess I was somewhat precocious.
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  I was using a Strong's Concordance.
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  They didn't have computers back then.
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  In fact, this was long before cell phones, even.
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  I'm dating myself.
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  But I found this Concordance of Strong's, and I read, because I went to a pagan high
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  school, where it was intimidating to share your faith.
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  So I was reading Matthew 10, where Jesus said, anyone who confesses me, I will confess to
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  my Father.
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  But anyone who denies me, I will deny him to my Father.
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  That's Jesus, not me.
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  This sounds like fair play, but it's also playing hardball, right?
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  So I assumed that confessing Jesus was with your life.
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  It's lifestyle evangelism.
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  It was the 70s.
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  It was all the rage.
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  And denying him would have to be verbal.
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  So I go to Strong's.
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  I'm in the eighth grade.
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  Guess what?
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  Even an eighth grader can figure out that the verbality is actually confessing.
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  That if we confess with our mouths, we should know that from Romans 10, but the denial is
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  a specific Greek word that means denying with your life.
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  So you can deny Jesus without saying a word.
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  You cannot confess Jesus without speaking it out.
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  Now this leads me to the last verse, which is Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 17.
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  It is the sword of the Word of God.
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  It is not graphe.
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  It is not logos.
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  It is the word rhema.
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  And rhema is a verbal declaration.
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  And the reason that I wrote this book is because in the church where I serve, we baptized
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  a lot of people last year.
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  Over 10% of our average attendance we baptized last year, which is huge numbers.
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  And so all these people are coming to Christ, but how are they going to grow in Christ?
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  They won't grow sufficiently by coming and hearing me preach.
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  They're not going to grow sufficiently even by going to a neighborhood group and sharing
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  with other Christians how they feel about the weekend's message.
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  How you articulate the Word of God in the life of someone that you are dealing with,
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  you don't fully know the power of God.
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  I've got a friend of mine, I just met him, he goes to our church, he's a Kawhi Leonard
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  shooting coach.
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  He's like all around these major NBA players.
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  He knows about the Word.
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  But what he's really wrestling with now is how do I speak the Word of God into the lives
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  of these men who desperately need it so much?
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  And I'm telling you, his next step in discipleship, and this is going to put him like over the
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  moon, is when he brings one of these players to Christ and baptizes them into Jesus.
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  You know it's true.
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  Your greatest growth is when you share the gospel and get to bring someone from darkness
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  into light.
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  And so what I've tried to do with this tool, and I hope it's a practical tool for you in
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  your church, is identify the 52 verses that are most important for spiritual growth.
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  And we've wrapped some exercises around them so that every week you have one verse, a short
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  essay, a tool for memorizing it.
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  You can go to core52.org and memorize each of these verses in front of you, in front
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  of a camera.
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  It's silly, it's goofy, and it's effective.
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  I thought people were going to think it's goofy.
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  People are loving those little videos to help them get into the Word.
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  Now by speaking the Word, I don't mean you have to quote it word for word.
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  But when you begin to apply the Word of God with a co-worker in the next cubicle, with
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  a teammate on the basketball court, when you share it with a next-door neighbor over the
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  fence, and you hear the Word of God coming out of you, that's when your spiritual growth
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  and discipleship will trend upward and to the right exponentially.
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  So we've tried to make these exercises simple and practical, but please, you all have the
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  book.
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  I'm just asking you, don't use this to get smart.
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  Use this to share the truth of God with people around you.
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  I started by telling you Tracy's story.
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  She allowed me to share it with our entire congregation.
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  And she's in one of our campuses on the south side of the city.
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  In the north side of the city, I went to visit, and this woman pinned my ears back.
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  She said, you've got to put me in contact with her.
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  You've got to put me in contact.
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  We've got to get together.
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  And she lived the same biography as Tracy.
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  Well, I can't just give out someone's name and number, so I called Tracy and said, hey,
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  would you mind if I shared your story?
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  So absolutely.
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  So the two got together.
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  Tracy's in her mid-30s.
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  This woman was in her mid-60s.
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  And they got together and began to pray what it would be like for them to not just believe
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  the Word of God.
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  And for Tracy, it's hard some days.
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  She struggles, as you might imagine.
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  But what would it be like if we began to share our stories because we believe the Word of
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  God, we speak the Word of God?
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  And because they did that, at camp this last year, a 16-year-old girl came up to me and
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  said, I heard Tracy's story, and I just got out of my own nightmare.
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  By connecting her to Tracy, she shaved off 20 years of recovery that it took for Tracy.
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  Because somebody didn't just believe the Word of God, but they spoke the Word of God into
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  someone else.
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  That's our discipleship journey.
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  Thank you guys for listening to this episode of The Real Life Theology Podcast.
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  Coming up next, we've got Matt Proctor, who's going to continue this conversation on discipleship
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  as allegiance.
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  Hope to see you guys on the next episode.