Followers of Christ, very good, very good. Part of the reason I wanted to put this, that's a nice succinct definition, follower of Christ, is that there is, and I just kinda wanna give a little introduction to this because in American churches what's happened is an interesting problem and turn your Bible to Matthew chapter 28 Matthew chapter 28 Matthew chapter 28 and somebody read that verse 19 28 and 19 Okay, now we'll stop there for a second. That one says, go, therefore, and make disciples. Does anybody have an old King James? And what does yours say? All right. Go and teach This one says, make disciples of all nations. The Old King James says, teach all nations. What's the difference between making a disciple and teaching? When we think of teaching, can you all see that pretty good? When we think of teaching, we think of sitting in a room and covering a certain list of facts. Right? You go to class at the university and maybe the teacher will lecture. I've had classes with 300 students and I've had classical Greek classes where it was just two of us. So that was like being tutored. But in the university, there's a class, 300 students on this big, you know, seating, what do they call them, high risers, bleachers, like a theater. And the guy just talks. He teaches. What's the problem is this. Teaching, when you hear the word teaching, it speaks of information. communicating information, facts. I want to give you the date of Caesar's birth. I want to give you the date of Napoleon's wars. And you sit there, okay, I'll be able to regurgitate this on a test. And then you get tested for your knowledge. So everything is about information, information, information. The biblical term does not mean simply information, it means information for transformation. In other words, it's information, yes, we need to know that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, we need to know all the great doctrines of the faith, and we have theology books that will list the attributes of God and list the Gospels and the harmony of the God, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But the issue is we've got to be transformed by that. Transformation is the key. It's not enough to be able to pass a test that says, yes, I can give you the names of the 12 disciples. I can give you a proper eschatology, when's the rapture pre, you know, and all the proof texts for it. Why is it not enough to simply have all the great information that we need? And we need the information. I'm not undermining information. Goodness, I teach all the time. But the goal of the information has to be life transformation. Why is that crucial? Right, it's about obedience. The Christian... Let me word it this way. Satan can pass your test, right? Satan, he knows more than you do. I mean, he can easily give all the verses. He quoted scripture to Jesus in the wilderness, but his life's not changed. His life's not transformed. And the problem is, in American churches, what's happened is this. It's called easy believism. Anybody heard that term before? Easy-believism. What it says is, here you are, this is a chaotic line of sin. Someone tells you about Jesus and you say, yeah, that's fantastic. I believe that. So you believe the facts. Oh, I didn't know that Jesus was God in the flesh. That's interesting. I didn't know that he worked miracles. That's interesting. I didn't know that he died on the cross. That's interesting. I didn't know he raised from the dead. That's interesting. I believe all that. Am I saved? No. Because salvation is not simply believing facts. Salvation is trusting and depending and relying upon Christ. So here's what happens is this. The biblical model is here you are living in sin. Someone tells you about Jesus and they say you must repent and believe the gospel. So repentance is a desire to turn away from sin. So if someone is continuing to sin, And so here's what happens. This is the typical church. This squiggly line is their sin. They say, yes, I believe these facts. And what happens with their life? Doesn't change. They continue in sin. How many of us have met somebody who claims to be a Christian and they are unrepentant living with their girlfriend. I shared a couple of examples yesterday in the evangelism team. There was a guest speaker, spoke at a seminary, and the seminary president was driving the guest speaker back to the airport. And as he was driving back to the airport, he passed a liquor barn, big old huge place full of every kind of booze you could possibly swill. And the guest speaker said to the seminary president, imagine how many marriages have been destroyed, how many women have lost their virginity in bars, how many diseases have been spread, how many fights have been caused, how many children have been left fatherless because of all of this liquor and booze. The seminary president said, yes, isn't that horrible? I know the man who owns that. And the guest speaker said, oh, you know the man who owns the liquor barn? And the seminary president says, yes, he's one of our deacons. Now, in this model, you can have that, can't you? You can have people who persist in sin And once in a blue moon, they'll do something nice, but they pretty much sin. Then once in a blue moon, they'll do something nice. They might throw a couple bucks in the plate. They might show up for church. They might be a deacon. But their life is persisting in sin. When this person dies, what does the Bible say? Where do they go, heaven or hell? How do we know that? Turn over to the book of 1 John. 1st John, just a couple of books before Revelation, and look at chapter 3, and look at verse 5. Chapter 3, verse 5 of 1st John, and who would read verse 5 for me? This is 1 John. All right, the other 1 John. So when Christ came, did he come just to take away the penalty of our sin or to take away our sins? That's what it says. So when He died on the cross, He paid the penalty for our sin, but He wants to take away our sin. He wants our life to be radically transformed. And so read verse 6. So whoever abides in Him, whoever's been born of God, whoever's saved, and what does the next phrase say? Does not, and I'm going to put a gap, sin. The question is, does that mean does not ever sin? It can't mean that because 1 John 1.9 says if we confess our sins, right? In fact, it even says in 1 John, if we say we don't sin, we're a liar. So we know that believers sin. So it can't mean does not ever sin. So it must mean does not practice. Excuse me. Yes, go ahead. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Right, and remember where that is? Romans chapter seven. Oh, wretched man that I am. The good I want to do, I don't do. The bad I don't want to do, I do. So here's what happens. You talk to a false believer, and they will justify their sin. Right? They'll say, don't tell me I'm not a Christian, and this is a different age anyway. You know, the Bible doesn't have to apply. Back in the first century, maybe you shouldn't live with somebody, but in our day, you kind of have to live with somebody because the cost of living is so high, and so they begin to rationalize it. That's a false believer. A genuine believer begins the process of climbing the mountain of sanctification and they slip. And then they get up and they climb some more and they dust the gravel off their knees and they slip. And they go up the mountain a little bit more and they slip. That's what Paul's talking about. He's saying the good I want to do, I want to do it all the time without fail in my thoughts, words, attitudes, and actions. But the reality is this is a war. So the biblical disciple is at war with sin. But the overall flow of their life is sanctification. That means a progressive change into the likeness of Christ. Does that make sense so far? This is very crucial to understand because this is the position of most churches. As a result, they don't exercise church discipline because, hey, we're all living in sin. We're all sinners. Who are you to judge me? In the scripture, it's like we're at war with sin. We're trying not to sin. We're trying. And so here's a good example. If you are an Olympic athlete, Do you run a perfect mile every time you run? Do you lift the exact amount of weight every time you lift the weight? Do you do the exact number of sit-ups or whatever the sport is? I don't know, let's say it's discus throwing and your goal is 100 yards and you throw it 90 yards. You're not gonna be perfect every single time, but what's your goal? I'm on the Olympic team and I want to be a gold medal athlete. And you're constantly checking your time, your weight, your diet, you're listening to the coach. The coach says, listen, we're going to have to do some extra work because you're beginning to lag behind on something. You see what I'm getting at? You don't say to the coach, I'm sleeping in, forget it. You're saying, I want to be a gold medal athlete. So tell me what I have to do. Just point me in the right direction. See the difference? These guys don't want to be gold medal athletes. They want their sin. They want to persist in sin. And so, look at the same chapter, 1 John 3, and look at verse 7 with me. Can somebody read that? So the word doeth, does anyone have a different translation? Practice. Doeth or practice. He who practices righteousness is righteous. Very crucial to get this clear in your mind because what's happened is The churches have been deceived into thinking... I'll give you a perfect example. I was out evangelizing, knocked on a guy's door, he came out covered with tattoos, and I started witnessing to him. And he goes, oh, I know that verse, and he completed it for me. And I said, whoa, how'd you learn that? And he quoted another one, and he quoted another one, and he quoted another one. And then he went through the Roman's road, quoting all the verses. I said, are you a believer? He said, no. I said, you're not. He said, no. I said, well, how in the world are you spending your time memorizing scripture to talk to guys like me at the door? He said, no, I went through Awana. When I was a little kid, learned all of these Bible verses. Yeah, and now it's stuck in his mind. He's on drugs, he's drinking, he's living with his girlfriend. And I said, so tell me about where you, what do you think about yourself in relation to Christ? He goes, well, you know, if I'm wrong, at least I'm going to heaven. I said, well, tell me more about that. Well, in Iwana, I prayed a prayer. So they told me in Iwana, and he quoted a verse. And he said, so I got saved, therefore, even though I don't believe in that anymore, I'm still saved. If it's true. Right. But this is, I mean, if you talk to people in churches, this is their position overwhelmingly. Overwhelmingly. They've not been genuinely born again. That's why they have no hesitation sinning and sinning. I mean, we as believers sin. But when we sin, we're like, oh, Lord, I shouldn't have done that. Please forgive me. Help me to be different. Spirit of God, fill me, control me. I want to yield to you. I don't want to grieve you. And we're praying and we're apologizing to whoever it needs to be apologized to, right? These people don't do that. They're like, oh yeah, I'm doing this, that, and the next thing. And they have no inner compulsion. There's no power to stop. There's no drive to stop. There's no motivation to stop. There's no urge and urgency to stop. Amen? Everyone tracking on why this is such a damning doctrine? So as a result, the word disciple You go to a pastor that teaches this, which is the majority of pastors in America, you go to a pastor who teaches this easy believism, and you say, what about being a disciple? What about all the commitments involved in discipleship? You know what they'll say? Anybody have a guess what they'll say? Yes, that's a second What they'll say is, oh, that's a second commitment. Right. Right. So they'll say, well, to be saved, all you have to do is believe these facts. But to be a disciple, you have to make a second commitment. And you say, all right, I'm tired of being a drug-dealing Christian, I'm tired of being a murdering Christian, I'm tired of being a gossiping, lying Christian, I'm tired of being a backstabbing Christian, you know, whatever it is. Now I need to become a disciple. Has anybody heard the term Keswick? K-E-S-W-I-C-K. That is a teaching that took hold in Keswick, England. About... I'm trying to remember the exact date. I don't remember the exact date. I sure wish the folks out there would have come and we've still got some sitting in the lobby. They needed to hear this. But the Keswick theology is you are saved when you hear the Gospel and believe the facts of the Gospel. And so now we need a second experience that elevators you up to living the Christian life. Now, has there been people who thought they were saved and then made a commitment to become a genuine disciple? Yes. When did they get saved? This is when they get saved. But can you think of what kind of scripture they would use to justify this idea of a two-step Christianity? Well, the Bible says you're saved by grace through faith, so there can't be any other commitments involved. See how they tear discipleship from Christianity? So what ends up happening is, well, if you're saved by faith, then you're saved. And you just persist in sin. The problem is their definition of faith is wrong. Their definition of faith is simply mental agreement with facts. That's demonic faith. All the demons believe the facts. We know you, who you are, Holy One of God. Are you here to torment us before the time? That's what they said. They knew that Jesus was the Holy One of God. Also, what's left out is repentance. The Bible repeatedly says we are to repent and believe the gospel. We're to repent and believe the gospel. So repentance is, I've got my sin, and someone says, hey, you need to be saved. I'm like, oh, really? Tell me more so I'm not fully repentant. Well, Christ died for your sins. He wants to break your addiction to sin. He wants to free you from sin, and He wants to give you a new life. Well, I want to go to heaven, but I don't want a new life if it means going to church and reading my Bible. I mean, I used to hold on to a sin. That's it. That's right. And what's interesting, he's not getting the best of both worlds. He's getting what he thinks is conversion. But part of the greatness of the Christian life is the freedom from sin. Amen? Fellowship, hearing the Word, feeding on the Word of God. I mean, you know what it feels like to sit down and feed on a steak dinner at a really good restaurant? Well, that's how we feel, genuine believers feel, when we're digging into the Scripture. It's like, wow, this is awesome stuff. So I want to make sure that we're clear that this is a false gospel. but you will hear it all the time. You'll find books at the Christian bookstore or on Christian book that says, hey, you're a Christian and you're wallowing in your sin for 10 years. You need to become a disciple. And so they push this second blessing or the second experience. But the Bible doesn't teach that. If you look at a concordance The disciples were called disciples first. When did they start being called Christians? They were called Christians in Antioch. So they were called disciples first. But what we end up doing is we don't use the word disciple, we say, are you a believer? Make sense? Problem is, yes, the Bible does say that Christians are believers. But the definition of believer today, as opposed to what the Bible teaches, are like radically different. So what the Bible teaches as a believer is a disciple. What's taught in the world today is that you become a believer when you believe these facts, and then later in your life, you become a disciple. So churches are packed with unbelieving believers. They're unsaved Christians, they're pseudo-Christians. We know, go back to Matthew 7 with me. Matthew chapter 7. And look at verse 13, 7.13. And somebody read that one for me. That's all right. And it's interesting, the old King James uses the word straight gate. And in the American mind, what does straight mean? Straight, a straight line. Have you ever heard of a straight jacket? It doesn't mean a straight line jacket. It means a restricted jacket. That's what the word straight means. It means restricted. Think of it as, you know, you can walk in. Let's say there's a gate. Well, you're driving down a highway, and it's an 18-lane highway. And it says, welcome to Miami or whatever. That's a wide gate. But if you go through the turnstile, Right? And you've got a bunch of stuff with you. What happens? You can't take it in with you. You go click, click, click. Do they still have turnstiles? Yeah. So you go through the turnstile, click, click. You know, I mean, it's restricted. It's a straight gate. It's a restricted gate. It's a narrow gate. That's what it means to get saved. Getting saved is not driving down a highway, an 18 lane highway. Hey, how are you doing? How are you doing? It's where we offload our junk and walk through a little turnstile. OK. Verse 14, because verse 14, narrow or restricted is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life. Well, how can it be difficult if it's a free gift? So here's what this group will say, no, salvation's a free gift, it's not difficult. We would say it's a free gift and it's absolutely difficult. Can you think of how getting a free gift might be difficult? Swallowing your pride, turning away from your sin, and you say, God, I don't want this sin, take it away from me. That's hard, that's hard on your emotion, it's hard on your desires. Imagine that I said to you, you live in a Muslim country. And I say to you, I have a 20 acre plot of land with a beautiful mansion for you in Montana as a free gift. It's free, but you gotta now figure out how am I gonna get there, right? You say to your family, hey, I'm, in order to get this mansion, you have to be a Christian. I'm Muslim. Now your life is at stake. Now you gotta pretty much go in hiding, leave everything valuable behind, you know, duck under cover, go in the cover of night. You're trying to get out of an Islamic closed country, and it's a long trip, a long trip, Think about the people who came from Cuba. Remember the wet foot, dry foot doctrine? Anybody remember that? In 64, they said, if you are from Cuba, as soon as your wet foot gets on dry land, you're a citizen, free gift. No waiting, no applying, you're free gift, you're a citizen. You know how hard that trip was for a lot of them? Right? They're on dinghies. I heard of one guy who came over on a windsurf board. I mean, you know, horrifying trips for some of them. And some of them, you know, were threatened with their life to come. Here's a free gift, but it's very hard. It's difficult. That's what we're trying to say. For some people, finding the free gift of eternal life means a massive journey. It means breaking friendships, breaking family. People who you thought were a part of your life are not going to be a part of your life to really follow Christ. All right, so that's the introduction to the why be discipled. So let's go actually into the introduction. And who would read the introduction for me? The first paragraph. So that's the point that I'm trying to make with all of this. All right, the second paragraph, who will read that? Very, very crucial. If that's the case, that discipleship is not optional, We are a disciple. When we're born into the family of God, we're born as a baby disciple. But now we need to be discipled. That's called discipleship. So what is the definition of a disciple? The best word I can pick nowadays is an apprentice. So I want to show you this here. This will revolutionize your Christianity. If you get this down into your heart and spirit, you will experience victory over sin. You will experience the power of God in your life. I mean, I can't stress the importance of it. So let's go to Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight. And somebody read verse 29, Romans 8, 29. What does God say we are predestined to be? So we are predestined to be conformed to Christ's image. And if you're a genuine believer, you want that, right? That's what we long for. We long to get to heaven, not simply to sit at a banquet table and gorge. That's part of the deal. But we long to get to heaven so that we'll be finally conformed to his image. No more anger, no more lust, no more fear, anxiety, all the junk that we go through in this world, gone. Say it again, Todd. No more sin. That's right. That's right. And all the effects of sin. So that is predestined. Now, remember, there's two sides to predestination. One is the sovereignty of God and one is the responsibility of man. We have to be in the Bible hours a day. We have to be evangelizing. We have to be in prayer constantly. Pray without ceasing. Just when you're walking down the road, just have a constant conversation with God. You're driving down the road, have a constant conversation with God when you're listening to the sermon. I remember when I was in seminary, I intentionally said, God, I'm not smart enough to learn Hebrew and Greek and classical Greek and theology and church history, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I'm, talk about prone to wander. Remember the old song, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. That's my mind. My mind was prone to wander. And so I sat either, like, I mean, the poor professor, I'd be either right under his nose or on the second row if he had notes and stuff piled on there. And the whole time I'm listening, you know, I'm looking at, just like I'm looking at Ida, I'm looking at the professor, and I'm praying, God, please help me to understand what he's saying. Please don't let my mind wander. Please help me to grasp, because this is gonna mean something for hundreds, maybe thousands of people's lives. It's gonna change my life. I'm gonna preach it to other people. And I'm having this daily conversation with God, hourly, every single class, you just have that conversation. So when you're in the preaching of the Word of God, I cannot emphasize strongly enough, it is a spiritual dynamic. It is a real spiritual dynamic. And the Holy Spirit will speak to you. Sometimes you don't want Him to. I remember one guy, I was talking to his wife, first time they'd come, this was, I don't know, 10 years, 15 years ago, and I'm standing here talking to his wife, and she is just like beaming, like really happy, and out of the corner of my eye, I see this red-faced guy, big guy, Scott, that was his name. He comes up, and, when did my wife talk to you? And she instantly got fear. And I said, she didn't talk to me, we're just talking now. No, she had to have talked to you before this sermon because nobody could know all the things that you said in the sermon about me and you were preaching about me throughout the whole sermon, I know it. He was furious. He couldn't believe that the Holy Spirit was talking to him. And I've seen it time and again here. People will go out, some of them angry, some of them happy. It all depends on how you're going to receive the word of God, right? It's whether you want to listen, whether as you're hearing the word of God, you're saying, please, Holy Spirit, speak to me. Let the word of God apply to my life. Touch me in my heart. So we know that God's plan for us is to be conformed to the image of Christ. That's not a really good image of Christ. That's a little bit better. But at least we'll lose a lot of weight if that's what we look like. So, the second question, what would you like especially in your life to be like Christ? Anybody want to? Humility, very good, that's an unusual desire. Naturally, we don't want humility, we want pride and arrogance. But wow, isn't that a mature request? What other kind of things would you like? Say it again. Being perfect. Yeah. Amen. Perfect. Finally. Finally get there. You know, this is more for you to fill out on that question number two because it gives you that chance to really think through, okay, what needs to change in my life? Question number three. Who will read that for me? I remember when I first learned that truth, I was pretty angry. because I was like, you know, the church that we had gone to, in fact, interestingly, I mentioned Keswick, what was the name of the school you went to? Yeah, when Lori went to school when she was little, it was called Keswick Christian. And they were a church that believed this two-stage Christianity. You get saved in 1990 and you become a disciple. If you want to be, you really should. And some guys will really, really preach hard that you should want to become a disciple in the year 2000 or the year 2020 or whatever it might be. This two-stage thing. And as a result, The churches and the preaching do not put the fear of God in you. You're not worried about not being a genuine believer because you believe a list of facts. And so if you're dabbling in sin or wallowing in sin, you're not really worried about it. I mean, you think, well, I really shouldn't do that because one day I'm going to have to become a disciple. But until then, I'm all right. So here's the term that I've got there is BASE. You want to make sure you get on base. So what needs to change? Number one is the beliefs. You need to be taught important life-changing theological truths. We need to learn great historic theology. And mark it down if it's new, it's not true. If it's new, it's not true. And if it's true, it's not new. All right, so when someone comes up with a wacky idea about something, ah, that's a wacky idea, it's wrong. I remember I had a wacky idea when I was a new believer that I was kind of thinking there might be four members in the Trinity. And I was thinking, well, you know, the Bible talks about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but wow, the way it talks about the Bible, the Bible is holy, the Bible is perfect, maybe there's, wacky idea. But that was my unguided, undiscipled mind. I didn't have anybody to kick that through with. So I was just sort of trying to work it through. And then attitudes and actions, number two, to build a love for God and people that result in the corresponding actions. The S is skills. Learn how to do Bible study methods. How to pray effectively. How to resolve conflict. Do we ever have conflict? No. Well, if we do, the scripture says the genuine believer will be the easiest person in the world to resolve conflict. Because they'll say, I already forgave you when it happened. I already forgave you, no big deal. You know, the Bible says you are to be easy to be entreated, easy to be approached, easy to talk things through. But what is it when There's a conflict and the person doesn't answer your call, doesn't respond to your call, won't meet with you, won't talk things through. That's not the mark of a disciple. And then four, evangelistic reproduction. That has to happen. Disciples make disciples. We have to be disciples who make disciples. All right, well, put a mark on your page for where we stopped, and we'll pick that up next week. And I encourage you, encourage folks you know that need to hear this. Just say, hey, come. We're doing a Discipleship 101 series, and it is really helpful. You know, just encourage them to come. Father, we come before you in love and adoration and praise, and thank you for your mercy toward us. Thank you for your grace toward us. Thank you that you are in the process of molding us into the conformity to the image of Christ. We want that to happen in our life, and we rest in you, Jesus. Amen.