January 26, 2025 • 49 mins
This episode delves into the complexities of discipleship, exploring how it often creates burdensome expectations rather than fostering true fellowship with Christ. As we discuss the implications of law versus grace, listeners are called to rethink what it means to truly bear their cross in faith.
• Analyzing the true meaning of bearing your cross
• Exploring the role of love as the fulfillment of the law
• Addressing the dangers of legalism in church culture
• Emphasizing the importance of grace in our walk with Christ
• Encouraging discernment of truth over error in doctrine
• Reflecting on personal experiences with church doctrines
• Concluding thoughts on the path to freedom in Christ
Is there a distinction between discipleship and belief?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcement (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Waking Up to Grace
podcast, where we celebrate andexplore the finished work of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Tune in to the Waking Up toGrace podcast on every major
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You can also listen to ourepisodes and read our full
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And now here's Lenny.
Lenny (00:22):
Welcome back to the podcast, everyone.
Melissa (00:24):
Welcome back to the podcast.
Everyone, Welcome back.
Lenny (00:26):
So last week we left off talking about discipleship
doctrine and I don't think wereally came to a full conclusion
as far as our opinion onwhether we can be or can't be
disciples.
Did we, melissa?
We did not.
From my vantage point, I'm notsure how much it really matters
what we call ourselves as far asare we disciples or are we not
(00:47):
disciples?
I think, as long as we'relooking at it in a spiritual way
, that discipleship is aspiritual thing.
It's not a physical work thatwe do.
Melissa (00:57):
So not looking at it legalistically and putting
ourselves in some sort ofbondage over it, right?
Lenny (01:02):
So we did come to the conclusion that it's not
something we can earn, it's notpossible to work for, it's not
something that we can reallyachieve by effort.
And if that's the case, whatdoctrine are you going to build
on it, other than believe?
Melissa (01:14):
Well said.
Lenny (01:16):
I wanted to put the last proverbial nail in the coffin,
but I'm going to say the lastnail in the cross here, to just
prove that this wholediscipleship doctrine thing is
just kind of silly when wereally analyze it.
The verses we were goingthrough last week, some of them
Luke 14, 27, came to my mind,and that was a part of the
passage that I didn't reallytalk about.
(01:37):
So the passage reads whoeverdoes not bear his own cross and
come after me cannot be mydisciple.
So we did talk about it and Isaid well, who's going to bear
their cross?
Who's out there bearing theircross?
Christ is saying you have tobear your cross and follow me.
What does he mean by that?
What do you think he means bythat when he says that?
Melissa (01:57):
I believe a lot of people think that means they
have to walk as Jesus walked inthe Gospels.
Walk according to the law.
Lenny (02:06):
And scripture does tell us that we ought to walk how
Christ walked.
It does, and we've said thisbefore and I'll say it again how
is that?
That would be by faith.
Melissa (02:16):
Dependency on the Father.
Lenny (02:18):
Christ wasn't teaching us to live by self-effort.
Melissa (02:22):
But when I'm saying the way people are looking at this,
I think they're looking at itas self-effort.
But when I'm saying the waypeople are looking at this, I
think they're looking at it asself-effort.
They need to follow the TenCommandments.
Lenny (02:30):
Yes, and you could even say oh.
Bearing my cross is sufferingthrough the consequences of my
sin.
You could say it's sufferingthrough the consequences of
living in this world, maybe,maybe a health problem.
That's your cross to bear.
Yes, you could be somebodyelse's cross to bear under
today's analogies if you look atit that way.
(02:53):
But what was really meant bythat passage?
And I can tell you what.
I think that passage is veryclear on what it means, based on
what we learned last week,based on the fact that we
learned from these passages thatthere's no possible way you're
going to earn discipleship byself-effort.
Melissa (03:08):
Right, that was what we learned if you could, then why
do you need jesus?
Lenny (03:13):
yeah.
So if we take that simpleprinciple, which is pretty much
the extent of the gospel, youneed christ, you need god to
open your eyes, you need tobelieve in order to be saved.
But I would argue that it's thesame thing as being a disciple.
Salvation is the same and youhave people constantly saying,
under this discipleship doctrine, trying to pull these things
(03:35):
apart, pull this one truth apartand make it into two.
Make it into two.
Yeah, if you look at themeaning of this passage and in
the context of the rest of thatpassage that we went through
last week, we're going to seethat bearing your own cross
would be that's death.
Over the week we were having adiscussion listen, you were
(03:56):
listening to a podcast and youwere saying I was listening to
these guys talking about how theword cross, or even the symbol
of a cross, was nothing thatthey took lightly back in the
day.
Melissa (04:06):
Right.
They wouldn't even speak thewords, oftentimes because it was
superstitious, it was so awful,they didn't even want to say
the word.
Lenny (04:15):
It was tragic, it was scary, it was terrifying.
It was death punishingsuffering.
It was horrible.
Melissa (04:22):
Nightmares for the rest of your life if you ever
witnessed a crucifixion and ifyou were experiencing it.
Lenny (04:28):
Your body is killing itself slowly as a public
spectacle.
As these things are takingplace, your body is basically
strangling itself, to say itlightly the worst possible form
of torture, it's.
Why, would Christ say, you haveto bury your own cross?
Well, I think it's the samereason that Paul said in
(04:49):
Galatians 2.20, I've beencrucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live, butChrist who lives in me.
And the life I now live in theflesh I live by faith in the Son
of God, who loved me and gavehimself for me.
That's what it means to becrucified with Christ.
That's what it means to bearyour own cross.
You died and you had to die inorder to receive the benefits of
(05:11):
the life of Christ.
Your old self, when you came tobelief whether you believe it
was on your own accord or youbelieve God called you to
believe when you came to belief,your old self was crucified
with Christ and you were givennew life because of his
resurrected life that he gaveyou after he rose from the dead.
Melissa (05:30):
Inconceivable.
Lenny (05:32):
Absolutely Positively and in all ways inconceivable.
Melissa (05:36):
Truly Think about that, the way that he suffered, so
that we wouldn't have to.
Lenny (05:42):
All the sin that we have in our lives from start to
finish.
We deserved to be up there,suffering painstakingly and then
just have the life taken fromus, but instead he takes it and
gives us life eternally.
We always hear people wantingto.
In a sense, I hear people saythat word superimpose.
(06:05):
You can't get it out of yourhead because it sounds funny and
yet it's meaningful.
People are superimposing thisdiscipleship doctrine on people
and it's like turning grace intolaw, because they're giving you
the rules to live by faith.
Melissa (06:20):
It reminds me of what Martin Luther said about dressed
in evening clothes.
What is that quote?
Lenny (06:26):
He was talking about free will doctrine and he said, the
free will doctrine is aworks-based doctrine in evening
clothes.
In other words, it's dressed upin lingerie, it looks very
enticing.
Melissa (06:38):
Yes, that's how I see discipleship doctrine.
It looks enticing oh, this iswhat you need to be, have
fellowship and be friends withthe Lord but all it is is law
and bondage.
Lenny (06:50):
Yes, and when you speak out against it, you make
yourself look like one who'sspeaking out against good things
, and that's where it becomescomplicated.
Melissa (07:01):
Right.
Lenny (07:01):
Because a lot of these guys teaching this stuff they
mean well.
I don't think all of them do,but I do sense and can see
genuineness in many of them.
They truly mean well, butthey're in bondage so they can't
really help people be free whenthey're still in a bondage
themselves.
Melissa (07:17):
Right.
Lenny (07:18):
So there's certain areas that they just can't help us,
but then I can still learn fromthem in other areas.
When you start making rules andsuperimposing, if you will,
rules onto the Christian, itjust turns into a law all its
own.
In Galatians 3.20, paul saidthe law is not of faith, and to
me that's the same thing assaying self-effort is not of
(07:40):
faith.
The one who does these thingsshall live by them.
So, in other words, what Paul'stelling us is that these rules
that govern our behavior.
If we're going to make rules togovern grace, we're going to
live by rules, but if we'regoing to live by grace freely,
then we're going to live freelyby grace.
So which way are you going tolive your life?
(08:01):
I think the end result ofanybody that's passionate
spiritually is that I don'treally want to sin.
I want to try to provoke othersto live a more fruitful life, a
more loving life with thefruits of the Spirit.
Melissa (08:13):
I think that's something that tends to happen.
When you're born again.
You're convicted.
Lenny (08:18):
We have these desires, but then there's this vicious
fight as to how we get there.
The people at the rules areadamant about the rules and they
hate freedom.
And then the people underfreedom really despise rules
because they know what it does,but either way it turns people
against each other.
You have people saying no, weneed rules, and other people
(08:40):
saying no, it has to be freedom.
Well, which one is it?
Melissa (08:43):
One thing that comes to my mind is something that you
said to me not long ago.
We were talking about to adhere.
Disciples adhere to a teaching.
One way to describe a discipleis a convinced adherent.
So I was looking up adhere andit's to cling.
I love to remember that Paulurges us to cling to Christ.
(09:06):
He's always urging the churchto cling, and I was talking to
you about clinging and you saidyou believed that's what Paul
meant when he encourages us tomake every effort to do things
in scripture.
You said that's how we do this.
We cling to Christ.
That's how we make every effort.
Lenny (09:28):
Yeah.
Melissa (09:28):
That's our work.
Lenny (09:29):
So what's the Christian life?
It's making every effort towake up in the morning clinging
to the love of Christ and go tobed every night clinging to the
love of Christ, and all pointsin between.
Realizing the love of Christ isupon you, you're living in it.
It realizing the love of Christis upon you, you're living in
it, it's living through you andit's all around you.
And the more we realize that,the more we're taken by his love
(09:52):
and the less fun sin becomes.
It's as simple as that.
Melissa (09:56):
Yes.
Lenny (09:56):
It's not about reading your Bible more.
It's not about more quiet time.
It's not about more study time.
It's truly about love, becausethat's what's going to drive you
to all the things that are goodfor you.
Studying is good, reading thescripture is good.
We don't just automatically dothose things, though.
We have to have the love to dothose things.
(10:17):
We have to have the love toeven share Christ with somebody.
Melissa (10:20):
So the more we focus on the love of Christ, the more we
want to learn about him.
This Lord that loves us so muchthat he went to the cross for
us, rose again for us.
The more we learn about hislove, the more we want to learn
about who he is and the more wewant to do the things that he
says are good for us to do tohelp ourselves and to help
(10:43):
others.
Lenny (10:43):
In the letter of Romans, Paul reminds Jewish Romans hey
guys, love is the fulfillment ofthe law.
Do you remember?
Why is he reminding them ofthat?
Because that's the best thingyou could remind somebody of.
Hey guys, remember, this isn'tabout works and self-effort.
Love fulfilled the law.
Christ fulfilled the lawthrough love.
Therefore, love is thefulfillment of the law.
(11:05):
Therefore, stop thinking aboutthese things and start just
living by love.
He wasn't saying live by thelaw of love and love exactly how
Christ did, or you're going tobe out of fellowship.
No, he was just teaching themStop thinking that way.
Start thinking love.
Melissa (11:22):
That's right.
Lenny (11:24):
It's kind of funny.
I was thinking about itthroughout the week and it
dawned on me.
I just thought to myself wetalk about there's no prophets
today.
We talk about how all prophecyis fulfilled.
If there were to be a prophet,if we were to be looking for a
prophet today, what do you thinktoday's standards would be
looking for?
Would it be five years ofseminary, ten years of seminary?
(11:45):
Would it be a doctorate inlinguistics to be a prophet?
What would it take to be aprophet?
And you guys out there who arelistening, I mean, really think
about this.
Challenge yourself to think.
If I was to look for a prophet,or look for somebody who has
the truth, what's thequalifications?
Do they have to be on livenetwork television?
Do they have to have a hundredthousand television?
(12:05):
Do they have to have 100,000followers?
How big does their audiencehave to be?
How many people have to likethem on Facebook?
Melissa (12:13):
Everything that you mentioned is something that
we've been trained as a societyto look for.
That's not what scripture tellsus to look for.
It tells us to look for thetruth coming out of their mouth.
Lenny (12:25):
Exactly.
It doesn't matter what color,what gender, it doesn't matter
how small your church is.
Oh, we're a small, bible-basedchurch.
We're an intimate, small,bible-based church.
It doesn't matter.
Melissa (12:36):
You'll know them by their fruit.
You'll know them by the fruitof truth coming out of them.
Exactly, fruit is truth, oftruth coming out of them.
Lenny (12:42):
Exactly, fruit is truth.
Fruit is truth.
Error does not produce fruit.
Amen.
Christ produces the fruit.
Christ is truth.
Therefore, if you were going toproduce fruit, it has to be
based on truth.
Melissa (12:54):
Amen.
Lenny (12:55):
Yeshua taught that love was the fulfillment of the law.
Christ set us free from sinthrough love, so love is freedom
.
Paul says use your freedom forgood.
Why?
Because sin is bondage.
Christ taught that truth setsus free, so error is bondage.
If we let sin or legalismpermeate or saturate our hearts,
we become willing slaves.
(13:16):
Love has removed our shackles,and yet we put ourselves back
into a prison cell.
When we use our freedom forlove, we live out our freedom.
We put ourselves back into aprison cell.
When we use our freedom forlove, we live out our freedom.
When we use our freedom for sin, we find ourselves building our
own prison, and then, when weput ourselves under a yoke of
legalism, we do the same thing.
(13:37):
It's a prison being builtaround us by ourself and our own
thinking.
Rules and regulations do notproduce love.
Melissa (13:42):
No, they don't, and I think that's why Christians get
labeled as some of the angriest,meanest people you can come
across, because I think the onesthat are strangling themselves
with law are that way.
There's no love there.
Lenny (13:58):
People understand how just our Lord is.
He's a God of justice, he has ahigh standard, and then they
put that on themselves.
Melissa (14:07):
They can't breathe, just our Lord is he's a God of
justice.
Lenny (14:08):
He has a high standard, and then they put that on
themselves.
They can't breathe, but theyput it on themselves, either for
salvation or fellowship.
That's what you see inChristianity, and sometimes a
blend between the two, becausewhen fellowship is seemingly
lost, you start to have anobscure view of salvation.
Melissa (14:20):
Yes.
Lenny (14:21):
When you start imposing these doctrines onto fellowship,
you start risking thesedoctrines onto fellowship.
You start risking assurance ofsalvation and it could be, from
something that happened 20 yearsago, that you just can't
believe that God can really bein fellowship with you because
of I just think the more you tryto build a doctrine on
discipleship, the crazier itgets.
(14:42):
It just becomes worldly.
If you look at discipleshipspiritually, okay, but if you
start looking at it worldly as,it just becomes worldly.
If you look at discipleshipspiritually, okay, but if you
start looking at it worldly asbehavior, it becomes worldly.
Melissa (14:50):
Right.
I've heard it said by teachersof discipleship that you're
making your connection withChrist fuzzy, You're kind of
hindering the connection, andthen the next time I hear it
talked about by the same teacher, it's you're not a friend to
Christ.
Well, if he's disowned you as afriend, you're really starting
(15:13):
to dip your toes in the water of.
Does he love me?
Does he care about me?
Lenny (15:17):
Yeah, and then you think you're making discipleship a
worldly effort.
Okay, well, let's look at aworldly example of discipleship.
Let's look at the disciples.
When was it ever said thatdisciples were unfriended by
Jesus?
All I see is at the end of theroad, when he knew that where he
was heading, it is written thathe loved them till the end.
(15:38):
That's what's written about thedisciples.
And what did they do to earnthat, other than have, as Christ
in his own words said, you havelittle faith in doubt.
Questioning, arguing.
They followed him, yes, butwhat display of great works kept
(16:00):
them in his love all that time?
Only belief, which he gave them, which he gave them In his own
words that's unconditional love.
That's words.
That's unconditional love.
That's right, that'sunconditional love.
There's no conditions there andyou can't put a condition on
fellowship.
Agreed, that was his fellowshipwith his disciples, perfect
fellowship from him.
(16:21):
Lacking fellowship from them asfar as how they were giving
back.
What were they giving back inreturn?
Melissa (16:29):
Oh man yeah.
Lenny (16:31):
Oh, they followed him.
We read why.
Why are you still here?
Because I chose you.
That's right.
We've been talking a lot aboutchurch and I don't want to make
this whole thing about church,but these church institutions
just remind me of falsegoverning systems.
They're false governing systems.
They're false governing systems.
Melissa (16:49):
And maybe a lot of that is because so many of them are
connected to the government,which is insane when you think
about it.
Lenny (16:54):
Yeah, they're corporations, and so they become
, by nature, governing systems.
Melissa (17:00):
And even if they're not connected with the government,
they're set up like a business,so the motives get fuzzy.
Lenny (17:05):
Yeah, sadly, it's just kind of by design.
I was thinking about it and youhave these institutions
bringing people together in onemind.
Right In Acts you read theywere of one mind and spirit,
right.
Melissa (17:20):
Yes.
Lenny (17:20):
So this was amazing One heart and spirit and they were
thinking the same, all thesethings.
So these churches could easilysay well, this is what we're
producing.
We're creating one-mindedthinking, we're all on the same
page.
And if you don't think that way, you're breaking up our hive
mind.
Fellowship, our fellowship, isin this hive mind.
This is our hive mind.
(17:42):
That institution over there hasthat hive mind and this is how
we have fellowship.
Melissa (17:48):
We decide what mind we're of and then we all gather
in that and, on that note, Ijust heard it said that there
are something like 430 000different types of christian
doctrine yeah, what?
Lenny (18:04):
and then if you go into an institution and try to share
something that you see to betrue and that you're passionate
about, you get asked to leaveand you get accused of
disrupting fellowship or sinningin some way.
And then even people who don'tpromote church have let this be
pervasive in their lives, thisattitude to the point where they
(18:27):
feel like they're sinning ifthey don't go to church.
They feel like they're sinningif they break up any kind of
fellowship with error.
Because these people were happyin their error.
I should leave them alone.
And so you're letting peopleunite in error in the name of
Christ.
And I'm not saying that we haveany God-given right to go around
and break up these churches andcause problems.
(18:49):
I'm not even suggesting that,because it's pointless.
You're going to be asked toleave.
You're going to make anoccupation out of going church
to church and arguing Come on,that's stupid, that's not how
anything's going to get done.
But if we continue to supportthese things and continue to
pretend like we're the problemand just oh, I just got to lay
off, I have to silence myself.
(19:11):
We're not helping the problem.
If you believe that bothpolitical parties, for example
in our government were evil.
How are you benefiting anybodyby participating in that system?
Melissa (19:22):
You're really not.
Lenny (19:23):
You're supporting a broken system in that analogy
and I'm not trying to say oneway or the other, what you have
to believe but if that were thecase, if you had a broken system
, broken governing system, twocandidates that are evil, what
happens when you vote for one ofthem?
The broken system continues andyou continue to help it along
(19:44):
and encourage it, and that's whywe still have churches like
this today, because nobody cares.
They say, well, what am I goingto do?
And then, what do we do inresponse?
What are the truth seekers, thepeople that know truth, do in
response?
Well, you should really go to achurch if you can.
And what does that?
Do?
You have somebody you reallyrespect, that you follow let's
(20:05):
say a podcast, or a pastor thatyou follow and he says I
understand that you can't go,but you really should.
What do you think that yourattitude is going to be about
church?
Melissa (20:14):
You're feeling like you're doing something wrong if
you don't go.
And I know you and I were there.
We had a period of time likethat.
It's a big paradigm shift.
It's hard to accept that yourpastor might not be teaching
full truth and, like in oursituation, if you try to talk to
them and they don't care tohear what you have to say,
(20:37):
that's another big paradigmshift.
You just realize, whoa, I seehow it is Okay.
And then you and I prayed aboutit and we left for a while,
tried to go back and it justdidn't feel right because we
were supporting a broken systemand it seemed nobody cared to
fix it.
Lenny (20:56):
They just want to brush you out and move on and not have
any kind of arguments.
Melissa (21:02):
So for us, we believe there's no fellowship in error,
and there were major doctrinalerrors there.
So God put it on our heart tostep out and we began doing our
own studies, and we've neverbeen so rooted in Christ.
Lenny (21:19):
For us.
We never look back.
Melissa (21:21):
Well, we did go back at first, but after realizing,
like what are we doing?
Lenny (21:25):
We were really only going back because legalism hanging
over our heads were saying youdon't go to a church, but you're
a christian yeah, we struggledwith it a little bit because
that's planted in your mind thatyou have to go to a church
building and we try to go backand I'm not going to get into
the whole story, but god sent usa loud, clear message.
He did hey, stop feeling likethis.
You guys don belong here.
(21:45):
And that's not a bad thing it'sokay, because fellowship
doesn't have to be in thosebuildings.
Melissa (21:52):
That's right.
He gave us a piece about it andwe've never been so rooted and
we never learned so much as wedid once we left and we were
free to figure out what thetruth really is.
Lenny (22:04):
Yeah, we need to express ourselves in Christ.
Figure out what the truthreally is.
Yeah, we need to expressourselves in Christ.
If we're gathering with peoplethat don't really want to grow
in Christ, what good is it?
All I see when I look atchurches is bondage to error and
a severe suppression ofspiritual growth, because you're
not allowed to think foryourself in these environments.
You're just not.
If you go too far, you're goingto get stopped, and so what's
(22:28):
the solution?
Well, at the end of the day, ifyou keep acting up, just keep
it to yourself and you can keepgathering with us.
What good is that?
Melissa (22:36):
It's a terribly broken system.
It makes me very sad.
I wanted to share a verse inEphesians I came across recently
Ephesians 5.10, where Paul'sencouraging the truth to try to
discern what is pleasing to theLord.
That's what he was encouragingthe church to do, because we are
equipped to do that.
Christ lives in and through us.
(22:57):
We have the ability, usingGod's written word and using
prayer and clinging to Christ,we have the ability to try to
discern what is pleasing to theLord.
I know you would agree, lenny,that the Lord gave us waking up
to grace to do just that.
That's our mission, yeah, toencourage the body of Christ to
(23:22):
try to discern what's pleasingto the Lord.
Lenny (23:25):
Scripture and the writings from the apostles have
a definite theme to them.
They're trying to get people tobe united in truth.
That's the goal of fellowship,and when you look at the goal of
the church institution, that'snot what it is.
Melissa (23:41):
It's not.
It became something else.
Lenny (23:44):
They have decided that their truth is all that needs to
be in that building.
They can do that if they wantto, but why are we supporting
that kind of nonsense?
We can do better.
Melissa (23:54):
Especially when we see, like you and I talked about
what the early churches lookedlike.
Lenny (23:59):
Yeah, and on that note, what does it look like?
What is good fellowship?
So if good fellowship isgetting together and going to
church, it would follow thatthese mega pastors filling the
stadiums understand fellowshipbetter than anybody, wouldn't it
?
Melissa (24:14):
If that were true.
Lenny (24:15):
If you only have a church of a dozen people or less.
Where's your fruit, brother?
Melissa (24:20):
You might say, and that's if you don't understand
what fruit is.
Lenny (24:23):
Right, but you have people producing this idea of
fellowship.
That that's what it is isgathering, no matter what you
believe, basically or somehow,just agreeing to disagree and
attending an institution asfellowship.
But the apostles didn't deemthat as fellowship.
Their fellowship was with truth.
Melissa (24:46):
I also had mentioned that I had heard there were
something like 430,000 differenttypes of Christian doctrine
430,000?
.
Lenny (24:56):
Yeah, 400?
, not 43?
.
Melissa (25:00):
No 430.
It's something like that andthe 400,000 types of Christian
doctrine, not like all kinds offaiths and religions.
Ephesians, chapter 4,.
Paul says I therefore, aprisoner for the Lord, urge you
to walk in a manner worthy ofthe calling of which you have
(25:21):
been called, with all humilityand gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of
the spirit in the bond of peace.
There is but one body and onespirit, just as you were called
to the one hope that belongs toyour call.
(25:42):
One Lord, one faith, onebaptism, one God and Father of
all, who is over all and throughall and in all but grace was
given to each one of usaccording to the measure of
Christ's gift.
Therefore, it says he whodescended on high, he led a host
(26:03):
of captives and he gave giftsto men.
In saying he ascended, whatdoes it mean?
But that he had descended intothe lower regions, the earth.
He who descended is the one whoalso ascended, far above all
the heavens, that he might fillall things.
And he gave the apostles, theprophets, the evangelists, the
(26:25):
shepherds, the teachers to equipthe saints for the work of
ministry, for building up thebody of Christ, until we all
attain to the unity of the faithand of the knowledge of the Son
of God, to mature manhood, tothe measure of the stature of
the fullness of Christ, so thatwe may no longer be children
(26:48):
tossed to and fro by the wavesand carried about by every wind
of doctrine, by human cunning,by craftiness and deceitful
schemes.
Rather, speaking the truth inlove, we are to grow up in every
way into Him, who is the Head,into Christ, from whom the whole
(27:09):
body, joined and held togetherby every joint with which it is
equipped, when each part isworking properly, makes the body
grow so that it builds itselfup in love.
I know that's a bit lengthy, butthat really struck me and I
believe he was talking about theapostles at that time, apostles
and prophets.
You know, paul was running arace and he completed his race
(27:33):
and I believe we reached thatcompleteness, the truth he was
teaching at that time.
He finished his race, so he gotto the point he was supposed to
get having us all be completein Christ.
So the things he was teachingat that time should be what
we're clinging to today Throwaway all these other doctrines.
What are we doing?
And it was the whole body.
(27:54):
He wanted the body of Christ toall attain to the unity of the
faith and the knowledge of theSon of God, to mature manhood to
the measure of god, to maturemanhood to the measure of the
stature, so the height of thefullness, completeness of christ
.
We can do that.
Paul says we can.
He says we can mature to thatpoint amen to that.
Lenny (28:15):
You have a lordship doctrine that does a similar
thing as discipleship doctrine,where we're describing how
discipleship doctrine basicallytells you you have to love like
Christ in order for Christ to beyour friend, kind of thing.
Lordship doctrine would say thesame thing.
But if you don't do thosethings, it's not just a sign of
a loss of fellowship, it's not asign that you're out of
(28:37):
fellowship or Christ isn't yourfriend, it's a sign that you're
not saved.
And so there's this terrifyingbondage that those people are
under that, when one goes fromlordship to discipleship,
there's a great relief.
The only thing on the line ismy relationship with god, and so
one might think that they'renow free where they weren't
before, and in a sense they are,but it's still not all the way
(29:00):
there right, we were talkingabout where the idea of
discipleship doctrine might havecome from.
There are some well-meaningpeople teaching it, but Well,
the core theology aboutdiscipleship doctrine and the
whole core of it being afellowship issue comes from the
doctrine that people make offellowship not being the same as
(29:21):
salvation.
So they pulled discipleship outof belief and made discipleship
and belief two different things.
They pull apart one thing,which is just belief, and turn
it into belief and discipleshipTwo categories.
They do the same thing withsalvation and fellowship.
They just stretch salvationuntil it pulls apart and then
(29:42):
they made two categories out ofit.
Fellowship and salvation aretwo different things now and
they're not in scripture.
I can assure you when it comesto our fellowship with God, our
fellowship with God isunbreakable.
When we're born again asChristians, we enter into
unbreakable fellowship with God.
This is a vine and branchesrelationship.
(30:02):
The born-again Christian is nota branch that's going to get
broken off of the vine which isChrist.
So our fellowship with God isperfect because of Christ.
But that's not always the sensethat we see it used in
Scripture.
I've come to realize that whenwe see the word fellowship in
Scripture, we often misinterpretthat with this fellowship
(30:25):
between us and God, when it'sreally talking about fellowship
between people, betweenChristian and Christian.
Our fellowship with otherChristians isn't always perfect.
Our fellowship with otherChristians can become very weak
when we are drawn to error andconsumed in error instead of
truth, and all that comes from afalse understanding of 1 John.
(30:48):
1 John, 1.9 specifically, is ahuge problem.
I say this a lot, can't reallysay it enough.
It's a big problem.
That understanding of thatpassage is always what it comes
down to when it comes to thesedoctrines.
Before I talk about that somemore, I wanted to say a bit
about lordship doctrine and ourexperience with that view that
we struggled under for a while,and not in a way that you would
(31:11):
think Lordship doctrine teachesyou to behave a certain way or
it's a sign you're not safe.
So we're contrasting andcomparing discipleship and
lordship and that what wediscovered is that for several
years we started to feelisolated because of truth we did
because that's thepsychological mess that can
(31:32):
happen when we come to a greatertruth than people are willing
to accept.
And that's why I can't sayenough about how we got to
encourage each other in truth,not error, because you have
people that are waking up andstruggling.
So we woke up to truth and themessage we were receiving wasn't
100.
True, there was some errormixed in there in subtle ways
(31:55):
and we didn't pick up on itright away.
We picked up on much of thetruth, but not some of the error
, and some of the error that wediscovered later was that
lordship doctrine had kind ofmixed its way into the truth to
the extent that suddenly, if youdidn't believe it, the full
gospel, the full way, the waywe're sharing with you, guys
(32:15):
like you, got to set yourselffree if you didn't believe it.
That way, it was a sign thatyou weren't a believer right now
think about that for a minute.
How many people you know outthere that don't have it quite
right and all of a sudden you'reworried about their salvation?
I wasn't worried about my own,but I started to wonder if I was
even amongst Christians ever.
Where are they all at Right?
(32:36):
Where are all the Christians?
Melissa (32:38):
Because with that 400-some-thousand number we put
out there about the amount ofChristian doctrines out there,
you're going to have somethingdifferent with someone today.
Lenny (32:51):
But when your message is radically different than all of
them.
I know for a fact that when youlisten to different people that
have had this experience,people that are out podcasting
and sharing their experiences,there's a struggle, because
people in the grace circles arenot of a great number, and it
tends to be that the people thatcall themselves christians tend
(33:12):
to be our worst enemies withtheir words.
I always think about this thingthat paul was saying when he
was talking about shipwrecked Iwas beaten 40 lashings minus one
by the jews, and he's namingall these things, and one of the
things that he names is that hewas persecuted by false
brothers.
Melissa (33:30):
Yeah.
Lenny (33:30):
And you think about that and you would normally think, at
least in the mindset I hadbefore at one time, I was just
associating that withnonbelievers, false brothers,
false believers.
They weren't real believers.
But if he's calling thembrothers, is it necessarily an
unbeliever or a brother that'snot a brother.
Or is he saying brothers thatwere in error, basically People
(33:53):
that were believing falsely andpersecuting him because he
didn't agree with their beliefs,even though they were Christian
?
Melissa (33:59):
Based on what we experienced, it seems likely it
could be the latter.
Lenny (34:04):
I think it was the latter .
I think it was the latter.
I think it was very common, andwith Judaizers and things, if
you had a Christian that was inthe Judaizer crowd, I think it
could get ugly.
I think they might have beenfacing death several times and
people that were actually bornagain, and I think we'd see the
same things today.
If it was legal to persecutepeople in such ways, I think
these churches might bestringing us up.
(34:24):
If it was legal to persecutepeople in such ways, I think
these churches might bestringing us up.
Sorry, honestly, I think someof these churches would crucify
Christ if it came down to it,because of his radicalness.
Melissa (34:31):
I know that's why we're doing what we're doing.
Lenny (34:33):
Yeah.
So I wanted to just talk alittle bit about the classic old
1 John 1-9 passage.
I just wanted to present a wayof looking at this passage where
you might be able to see itfrom a different angle.
I think that when wemisunderstand this passage, we
make a major error and then westart to impose that error on
other Christians.
(34:53):
It's my belief thatunderstanding this passage is
very important.
I think that the things thatJohn is writing about in this
first chapter of his letter it'sabout belief versus unbelief.
Going into this first chapter,I believe what he's writing
about is unbelief and he'swriting it to believers so that
they won't fall for thatunbelief.
(35:13):
I used to often say that thisletter 1 John and the first
chapter and sections of hisletter weren't written to
believers.
My argument would be that itwas written to believers and
non-believers alike,evangelically right.
Melissa (35:27):
Yes, but.
Lenny (35:28):
I'm kind of presenting a different view under the same
idea.
Let's say it was written tobelievers, about unbelievers.
Go into this with the view thathe's writing to believers about
unbelievers.
We can take this view for areason In 1 John 2, verse 21,.
He tells us that aboutunbelievers.
We can take this view for areason In 1 John 2, verse 21,.
(35:48):
He tells us that.
You often hear this argument itwas written to believers.
It was written to believers,period.
Because he says it was.
He says I'm writing to you guysand he's talking about
believers.
But this is where you come torealize it's not necessarily to
unbelievers, it's about them.
It could be to them, it could.
Hey, I want these guys to hearthis.
Yeah, but he specifically saysto these believers I write to
(36:11):
you not because you do not knowthe truth, but because you know
it and because no lie is of thetruth.
Who is of a liar?
But he who denies that jesus isthe.
This is the Antichrist.
He who denies the Father andthe Son.
No one who denies the Son has aFather.
Whoever confesses the Son has aFather.
(36:31):
Also, let what you heard fromthe beginning abide in you, if
what you heard from thebeginning.
Abides in you, then you toowill abide in the Son and in the
Father, and this is the promisethat he made to us Eternal life
.
I write these things to youabout those who are trying to
deceive you.
I write these things to youabout those who are trying to
(36:55):
deceive you.
Did you hear that?
Melissa (36:57):
Yes.
Lenny (36:57):
But the anointing that you receive from him abides in
you.
He's telling them that theanointing abides in them, which
means they abide in Christ andyou have no need that anyone
should teach you.
But as his anointing teachesyou about everything and is true
and is no lie, just as it hastaught you abide in him.
And what do we say?
Abide in him means Remain.
(37:19):
Just remain, remain in him.
How do you remain in him?
Melissa (37:24):
To remain in him.
He's in us and we're in him.
We're born again.
So that's just our state ofbeing is remaining in him.
Lenny (37:31):
And what is it that we remain in based on this?
They're talking about Christ'struth.
Christ is setting you free.
What is it that we're remainingin?
Melissa (37:40):
The gospel.
Lenny (37:41):
We're remaining in the truth about Christ.
Right, his finished work, hedid it all.
That's what we're remaining in.
To abide in Christ is to abidein him in his work.
It's not to abide in hisbehavior, because you can't
Abide in his behavior means toabide in what he did for you.
We might actually behave morelike him if we understood that.
(38:03):
So true, because he abided inthe Father.
Melissa (38:07):
Yes.
Lenny (38:08):
So if abide is to believe , then why is he telling his
fellow Christians to abide?
Why would anybody tell aChristian to abide in Christ if
abide is to believe?
And I think the answer to thatis far more simple than we
realize.
When we're a born-againChristian, we can still stop
believing.
(38:28):
These people that John waswriting to were being deceived.
They were no longer believingthe truth about the finished
work of Christ Yeshua.
So what we then see is beliefin two different ways.
It's not two different ways ofbelieving.
There's the way of believingthat you were saved by and you
(38:52):
went into salvation, and thenthere's the belief that you have
to continue in.
You have to abide in thefinished work of Christ.
You have to abide in belief.
This might well be the biggestproblem in our church today.
Just like those who John wroteto, we have largely forgotten
about the finality of the crossand have put ourselves into a
mindset of unbelief.
(39:13):
We have born-again Christiansdoubting the finished work of
the cross and even going upagainst it.
John is calling on theseChristians to continue abiding
in what they believed in thebeginning, abiding in the truth
that saved them.
If you weren't saved by works,how can you suddenly be made
right by works.
(39:33):
If you were saved by grace, whydon't you live by grace?
It's that simple.
In light of that, I just wantedto read through this passage.
So this is 1 John.
It's pretty much the firstchapter.
We'll just kind of read throughit and talk about it a little
bit.
So he starts out.
That which was from thebeginning, which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and
(39:54):
have touched with our hands,concerning the word of life.
The life was made manifest andwe have seen it and testify to
it and proclaim to you theeternal life which was with the
Father and was made manifest tous.
That which we have seen andheard, we proclaim also to you
so that you too may havefellowship with us, and indeed
(40:15):
our fellowship is with theFather and with his Son, jesus
Christ.
It's a lot to take in rightthere.
Why is he proclaiming this tobelievers?
Why is he doing that?
It's a reminder.
He's just reminding, remindingthem.
He's reminding them of thingsthey already know, and he said
that we just read in chapter twoyou know these things.
I'm writing to you about thosewho are deceiving you.
(40:36):
So it's like hey guys, guesswhat christ is lord remember and
we always need reminders.
Melissa (40:43):
That's why we're to we're to be constantly clinging,
reminding ourselves.
Lenny (40:48):
What happens when you're being deceived.
That means you're starting tobelieve something that's not
true.
These people were starting tobelieve the liars that Christ
didn't do it all.
They weren't abiding anymorebecause they stopped believing.
He writes so that they wouldhave fellowship with them and
(41:08):
indeed their fellowship was withthe Father and His Son, jesus
Christ.
I write these things so thatour joy may be complete.
So when we look at fellowship,this is a different view of
fellowship.
He's saying this to believers Iwrite this to you so that you
can have fellowship with us.
Our fellowship is with the son,the son of god, and with the
father.
We have fellowship with christ,in truth, and we write these
(41:32):
things to you so that you canhave fellowship with us.
He was writing this to believersso that, I think, is what
confuses people, and rightly so.
They're like oh well, sofellowship could somehow be
broken, and that's where theycome up with that.
But he's not talking aboutfellowship in the sense of what
we read in most other passages,where it's the same as salvation
(41:54):
.
He's talking about fellowshipin truth.
He's talking about humanfellowship with one another.
When we have human fellowshipwith one another, what is it in?
If it's Christian fellowshipit's in truth.
Therefore, if we'refellowshipping with people in
error, that doesn't reallyqualify as Christian fellowship.
Even if we both believe, we'renot really accomplishing any
(42:16):
kind of fellowship.
According to the context that Isee in this passage, I see he's
not talking about behavior.
He's talking about fellowshipin true doctrine.
That's why he's proclaimingtrue doctrine to them.
See what I'm saying, right?
It's a matter of how you seefellowship in that passage and
how we perceive it.
If you start perceiving that assalvation, it starts getting
(42:39):
confusing.
If you start perceiving it asbeing wrong or right with God,
for some reason, we start tobuild a funny doctrine.
But all he's saying is I wantyou guys to have fellowship with
us so that we can have joy, sothat my joy will be complete.
He says I want to have a joyfulfellowship with you guys, and
(43:00):
the only way we can do that isif we're talking about the same
stuff.
And the only way we can do thatis if we're talking about the
same stuff, is if we'rerejoicing in the same stuff and
it's not the stuff that theseguys are telling you.
You're not going to share joywith me.
Then See what I mean, right?
So we read on.
He says this is the message wehave heard from him and proclaim
to you God is light and in himis no darkness at all.
(43:22):
If we say we have fellowshipwhile we walk in the darkness,
we lie and do not practice thetruth.
And if we look at John's gospeland I want to do this
eventually, I was telling you Iwant to do a John's gospel
versus epistle because there'sso many parallels.
But the people that walked indarkness were the non-believing
Pharisees, the false teachersthat spoke out against Christ
(43:45):
and against his finished work.
So he's talking about Judaizershere.
It's very clear if you compareand contrast these two things.
But if we walk in the light, hesays, as he is in the light, we
have fellowship with one anotherand the blood of Jesus, his son
, cleanses us from all sin.
Now he's talking aboutsalvation fellowship.
What fellowship is it?
(44:06):
It's fellowship with Christ.
If we walk in the light,because Christ is in the light,
meaning we have Christ, we havefellowship with one another.
So he's more or less saying likecome on, guys, stop
fellowshipping with error.
Fellowship in where you're at,you're of the light.
See what I mean?
Wow, he's pointing out to themthat we have this fellowship,
(44:29):
but yet he's having to tell themI want this with you because
they're drifting away from truth.
It's not because they're not inthe light, it's because they're
starting to act like they'renot believing.
They're starting to proclaimunbelief with their words and
there's no fellowship in that.
And he says if we say we haveno sin, we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us.
Who would have said they haveno sin?
(44:49):
Pharisees thought they wereperfect, based on the law.
They didn't think they had sin.
They didn't think they neededMessiah because they were doing
all the stuff right.
Melissa (44:59):
Right.
Lenny (45:01):
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and tocleanse us from all
unrighteousness.
So if these people that deniedsin would just say I'm a sinner
and accept the Messiah, theseJudaizers that are in the
darkness, if they would just say, I believe he'd cleanse them.
This is what he's telling themabout those who are deceiving
(45:22):
them, those people who aredeceiving you.
If they did this, they'd besaved and they'd be clean.
Then he goes on to say if wesay we have not sinned, we make
them a liar and his word is notin us.
There again, denying sindoesn't get you anywhere.
It's no good, my littlechildren, I'm writing these
things to you so that you maynot sin.
(45:42):
But if anyone does sin, just goback to 1 John 1.9,.
He says, just kidding.
He says but if anyone does sin,we have an advocate with the
Father, jesus Christ, therighteous.
Right after telling you whatpeople see people see this
saying that we have to ask forforgiveness for our sins, that
(46:03):
we have to self-cleanseregularly to stay in fellowship
right after proposing whatpeople see as this idea, he
tells them we have an advocate.
He's the propitiation for oursins, meaning the full
satisfaction for our sins.
If we do sin, we have a fullsatisfaction.
Why would he tell you thatright after telling you to
(46:24):
confess and ask for forgivenessover and over?
Why would he remind you of that?
Because that's not how he sawsin.
That's not how he saw it.
He was telling you Christ didit all, and he said not for ours
only, but also for the sins ofthe whole world, gentiles too.
And by this we know that wehave come to know him.
If we keep his commandments yougot to keep the 10 commandments
(46:45):
, melissa, you know the whole613 if you keep those, if you
obey those no, that's not whathe's saying if you keep those,
if you keep the truth of christ,if it's yours to keep, that's
how you've come to know him.
Whoever says I know him but doesnot keep those commandments is
a liar.
So the Pharisees, the Judaizers, oh, they say that.
(47:09):
Oh, they got it all figured out.
They didn't keep the truth ofChrist, they didn't buy it, they
didn't believe it.
Whoever says he abides in himought to walk in the same way
which he walked by faith.
It's that simple.
Keeping his commandments iskeeping the gospel.
And who keeps the gospel?
Those who the Father has givenhim.
(47:30):
Everyone who believes has beengiven to Christ by the Father,
bypassing your human ability, sothat you can be guaranteed and
assured that salvation andfellowship are yours.
To keep, all you have to do isbelieve it.
Believing is keeping and youcan't stop.
(47:50):
Anyway it's yours.
But he's saying hang on to that, to the effect of what you were
saying Cling, cling to that.
That's where I thinkdiscipleship doctrine stems from
that view.
I think those two things gohand in hand.
That whole fellowship and thewhole idea of being a disciple
(48:10):
keeps you in fellowship.
It's one and the same.
We could pretty much have nevereven covered discipleship,
because we cover fellowship allthe time.
It's the same thing.
It's the same error, just in adifferent way with a different
stamp on it.
I kind of don't really likestamping the word discipleship
on Christianity for that reason.
It doesn't mean that it's wrongto think you're a disciple,
(48:33):
it's just what it's turned intohas kind of become crazy.
I think that's what we got forthis week and I'm looking
forward to seeing you guys nextweek for some more.
Announcement (48:41):
Have a great day out there, you guys, thank you
for listening to the Waking Upto Grace podcast brought to you
by the finished work of our LordJesus Christ.
If you enjoyed today's episode,we would love to hear from you.
You can send encouragement ourway right from our episodes and
transcripts page or reach Lennyprivately from the contact form
(49:02):
at wakinguptogracecom.
Hello and welcome to the Waking Up to Grace
podcast, where we celebrate andexplore the finished work of our
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Tune in to the Waking Up toGrace podcast on every major
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transcripts atwakinguptogracecom.
And now here's Lenny.
Lenny (00:22):
Welcome back to the podcast, everyone.
Melissa (00:24):
Welcome back to the podcast.
Everyone, Welcome back.
Lenny (00:26):
So last week we left off talking about discipleship
doctrine and I don't think wereally came to a full conclusion
as far as our opinion onwhether we can be or can't be
disciples.
Did we, melissa?
We did not.
From my vantage point, I'm notsure how much it really matters
what we call ourselves as far asare we disciples or are we not
(00:47):
disciples?
I think, as long as we'relooking at it in a spiritual way
, that discipleship is aspiritual thing.
It's not a physical work thatwe do.
Melissa (00:57):
So not looking at it legalistically and putting
ourselves in some sort ofbondage over it, right?
Lenny (01:02):
So we did come to the conclusion that it's not
something we can earn, it's notpossible to work for, it's not
something that we can reallyachieve by effort.
And if that's the case, whatdoctrine are you going to build
on it, other than believe?
Melissa (01:14):
Well said.
Lenny (01:16):
I wanted to put the last proverbial nail in the coffin,
but I'm going to say the lastnail in the cross here, to just
prove that this wholediscipleship doctrine thing is
just kind of silly when wereally analyze it.
The verses we were goingthrough last week, some of them
Luke 14, 27, came to my mind,and that was a part of the
passage that I didn't reallytalk about.
(01:37):
So the passage reads whoeverdoes not bear his own cross and
come after me cannot be mydisciple.
So we did talk about it and Isaid well, who's going to bear
their cross?
Who's out there bearing theircross?
Christ is saying you have tobear your cross and follow me.
What does he mean by that?
What do you think he means bythat when he says that?
Melissa (01:57):
I believe a lot of people think that means they
have to walk as Jesus walked inthe Gospels.
Walk according to the law.
Lenny (02:06):
And scripture does tell us that we ought to walk how
Christ walked.
It does, and we've said thisbefore and I'll say it again how
is that?
That would be by faith.
Melissa (02:16):
Dependency on the Father.
Lenny (02:18):
Christ wasn't teaching us to live by self-effort.
Melissa (02:22):
But when I'm saying the way people are looking at this,
I think they're looking at itas self-effort.
But when I'm saying the waypeople are looking at this, I
think they're looking at it asself-effort.
They need to follow the TenCommandments.
Lenny (02:30):
Yes, and you could even say oh.
Bearing my cross is sufferingthrough the consequences of my
sin.
You could say it's sufferingthrough the consequences of
living in this world, maybe,maybe a health problem.
That's your cross to bear.
Yes, you could be somebodyelse's cross to bear under
today's analogies if you look atit that way.
(02:53):
But what was really meant bythat passage?
And I can tell you what.
I think that passage is veryclear on what it means, based on
what we learned last week,based on the fact that we
learned from these passages thatthere's no possible way you're
going to earn discipleship byself-effort.
Melissa (03:08):
Right, that was what we learned if you could, then why
do you need jesus?
Lenny (03:13):
yeah.
So if we take that simpleprinciple, which is pretty much
the extent of the gospel, youneed christ, you need god to
open your eyes, you need tobelieve in order to be saved.
But I would argue that it's thesame thing as being a disciple.
Salvation is the same and youhave people constantly saying,
under this discipleship doctrine, trying to pull these things
(03:35):
apart, pull this one truth apartand make it into two.
Make it into two.
Yeah, if you look at themeaning of this passage and in
the context of the rest of thatpassage that we went through
last week, we're going to seethat bearing your own cross
would be that's death.
Over the week we were having adiscussion listen, you were
(03:56):
listening to a podcast and youwere saying I was listening to
these guys talking about how theword cross, or even the symbol
of a cross, was nothing thatthey took lightly back in the
day.
Melissa (04:06):
Right.
They wouldn't even speak thewords, oftentimes because it was
superstitious, it was so awful,they didn't even want to say
the word.
Lenny (04:15):
It was tragic, it was scary, it was terrifying.
It was death punishingsuffering.
It was horrible.
Melissa (04:22):
Nightmares for the rest of your life if you ever
witnessed a crucifixion and ifyou were experiencing it.
Lenny (04:28):
Your body is killing itself slowly as a public
spectacle.
As these things are takingplace, your body is basically
strangling itself, to say itlightly the worst possible form
of torture, it's.
Why, would Christ say, you haveto bury your own cross?
Well, I think it's the samereason that Paul said in
(04:49):
Galatians 2.20, I've beencrucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live, butChrist who lives in me.
And the life I now live in theflesh I live by faith in the Son
of God, who loved me and gavehimself for me.
That's what it means to becrucified with Christ.
That's what it means to bearyour own cross.
You died and you had to die inorder to receive the benefits of
(05:11):
the life of Christ.
Your old self, when you came tobelief whether you believe it
was on your own accord or youbelieve God called you to
believe when you came to belief,your old self was crucified
with Christ and you were givennew life because of his
resurrected life that he gaveyou after he rose from the dead.
Melissa (05:30):
Inconceivable.
Lenny (05:32):
Absolutely Positively and in all ways inconceivable.
Melissa (05:36):
Truly Think about that, the way that he suffered, so
that we wouldn't have to.
Lenny (05:42):
All the sin that we have in our lives from start to
finish.
We deserved to be up there,suffering painstakingly and then
just have the life taken fromus, but instead he takes it and
gives us life eternally.
We always hear people wantingto.
In a sense, I hear people saythat word superimpose.
(06:05):
You can't get it out of yourhead because it sounds funny and
yet it's meaningful.
People are superimposing thisdiscipleship doctrine on people
and it's like turning grace intolaw, because they're giving you
the rules to live by faith.
Melissa (06:20):
It reminds me of what Martin Luther said about dressed
in evening clothes.
What is that quote?
Lenny (06:26):
He was talking about free will doctrine and he said, the
free will doctrine is aworks-based doctrine in evening
clothes.
In other words, it's dressed upin lingerie, it looks very
enticing.
Melissa (06:38):
Yes, that's how I see discipleship doctrine.
It looks enticing oh, this iswhat you need to be, have
fellowship and be friends withthe Lord but all it is is law
and bondage.
Lenny (06:50):
Yes, and when you speak out against it, you make
yourself look like one who'sspeaking out against good things
, and that's where it becomescomplicated.
Melissa (07:01):
Right.
Lenny (07:01):
Because a lot of these guys teaching this stuff they
mean well.
I don't think all of them do,but I do sense and can see
genuineness in many of them.
They truly mean well, butthey're in bondage so they can't
really help people be free whenthey're still in a bondage
themselves.
Melissa (07:17):
Right.
Lenny (07:18):
So there's certain areas that they just can't help us,
but then I can still learn fromthem in other areas.
When you start making rules andsuperimposing, if you will,
rules onto the Christian, itjust turns into a law all its
own.
In Galatians 3.20, paul saidthe law is not of faith, and to
me that's the same thing assaying self-effort is not of
(07:40):
faith.
The one who does these thingsshall live by them.
So, in other words, what Paul'stelling us is that these rules
that govern our behavior.
If we're going to make rules togovern grace, we're going to
live by rules, but if we'regoing to live by grace freely,
then we're going to live freelyby grace.
So which way are you going tolive your life?
(08:01):
I think the end result ofanybody that's passionate
spiritually is that I don'treally want to sin.
I want to try to provoke othersto live a more fruitful life, a
more loving life with thefruits of the Spirit.
Melissa (08:13):
I think that's something that tends to happen.
When you're born again.
You're convicted.
Lenny (08:18):
We have these desires, but then there's this vicious
fight as to how we get there.
The people at the rules areadamant about the rules and they
hate freedom.
And then the people underfreedom really despise rules
because they know what it does,but either way it turns people
against each other.
You have people saying no, weneed rules, and other people
(08:40):
saying no, it has to be freedom.
Well, which one is it?
Melissa (08:43):
One thing that comes to my mind is something that you
said to me not long ago.
We were talking about to adhere.
Disciples adhere to a teaching.
One way to describe a discipleis a convinced adherent.
So I was looking up adhere andit's to cling.
I love to remember that Paulurges us to cling to Christ.
(09:06):
He's always urging the churchto cling, and I was talking to
you about clinging and you saidyou believed that's what Paul
meant when he encourages us tomake every effort to do things
in scripture.
You said that's how we do this.
We cling to Christ.
That's how we make every effort.
Lenny (09:28):
Yeah.
Melissa (09:28):
That's our work.
Lenny (09:29):
So what's the Christian life?
It's making every effort towake up in the morning clinging
to the love of Christ and go tobed every night clinging to the
love of Christ, and all pointsin between.
Realizing the love of Christ isupon you, you're living in it.
It realizing the love of Christis upon you, you're living in
it, it's living through you andit's all around you.
And the more we realize that,the more we're taken by his love
(09:52):
and the less fun sin becomes.
It's as simple as that.
Melissa (09:56):
Yes.
Lenny (09:56):
It's not about reading your Bible more.
It's not about more quiet time.
It's not about more study time.
It's truly about love, becausethat's what's going to drive you
to all the things that are goodfor you.
Studying is good, reading thescripture is good.
We don't just automatically dothose things, though.
We have to have the love to dothose things.
(10:17):
We have to have the love toeven share Christ with somebody.
Melissa (10:20):
So the more we focus on the love of Christ, the more we
want to learn about him.
This Lord that loves us so muchthat he went to the cross for
us, rose again for us.
The more we learn about hislove, the more we want to learn
about who he is and the more wewant to do the things that he
says are good for us to do tohelp ourselves and to help
(10:43):
others.
Lenny (10:43):
In the letter of Romans, Paul reminds Jewish Romans hey
guys, love is the fulfillment ofthe law.
Do you remember?
Why is he reminding them ofthat?
Because that's the best thingyou could remind somebody of.
Hey guys, remember, this isn'tabout works and self-effort.
Love fulfilled the law.
Christ fulfilled the lawthrough love.
Therefore, love is thefulfillment of the law.
(11:05):
Therefore, stop thinking aboutthese things and start just
living by love.
He wasn't saying live by thelaw of love and love exactly how
Christ did, or you're going tobe out of fellowship.
No, he was just teaching themStop thinking that way.
Start thinking love.
Melissa (11:22):
That's right.
Lenny (11:24):
It's kind of funny.
I was thinking about itthroughout the week and it
dawned on me.
I just thought to myself wetalk about there's no prophets
today.
We talk about how all prophecyis fulfilled.
If there were to be a prophet,if we were to be looking for a
prophet today, what do you thinktoday's standards would be
looking for?
Would it be five years ofseminary, ten years of seminary?
(11:45):
Would it be a doctorate inlinguistics to be a prophet?
What would it take to be aprophet?
And you guys out there who arelistening, I mean, really think
about this.
Challenge yourself to think.
If I was to look for a prophet,or look for somebody who has
the truth, what's thequalifications?
Do they have to be on livenetwork television?
Do they have to have a hundredthousand television?
(12:05):
Do they have to have 100,000followers?
How big does their audiencehave to be?
How many people have to likethem on Facebook?
Melissa (12:13):
Everything that you mentioned is something that
we've been trained as a societyto look for.
That's not what scripture tellsus to look for.
It tells us to look for thetruth coming out of their mouth.
Lenny (12:25):
Exactly.
It doesn't matter what color,what gender, it doesn't matter
how small your church is.
Oh, we're a small, bible-basedchurch.
We're an intimate, small,bible-based church.
It doesn't matter.
Melissa (12:36):
You'll know them by their fruit.
You'll know them by the fruitof truth coming out of them.
Exactly, fruit is truth, oftruth coming out of them.
Lenny (12:42):
Exactly, fruit is truth.
Fruit is truth.
Error does not produce fruit.
Amen.
Christ produces the fruit.
Christ is truth.
Therefore, if you were going toproduce fruit, it has to be
based on truth.
Melissa (12:54):
Amen.
Lenny (12:55):
Yeshua taught that love was the fulfillment of the law.
Christ set us free from sinthrough love, so love is freedom
.
Paul says use your freedom forgood.
Why?
Because sin is bondage.
Christ taught that truth setsus free, so error is bondage.
If we let sin or legalismpermeate or saturate our hearts,
we become willing slaves.
(13:16):
Love has removed our shackles,and yet we put ourselves back
into a prison cell.
When we use our freedom forlove, we live out our freedom.
We put ourselves back into aprison cell.
When we use our freedom forlove, we live out our freedom.
When we use our freedom for sin, we find ourselves building our
own prison, and then, when weput ourselves under a yoke of
legalism, we do the same thing.
(13:37):
It's a prison being builtaround us by ourself and our own
thinking.
Rules and regulations do notproduce love.
Melissa (13:42):
No, they don't, and I think that's why Christians get
labeled as some of the angriest,meanest people you can come
across, because I think the onesthat are strangling themselves
with law are that way.
There's no love there.
Lenny (13:58):
People understand how just our Lord is.
He's a God of justice, he has ahigh standard, and then they
put that on themselves.
Melissa (14:07):
They can't breathe, just our Lord is he's a God of
justice.
Lenny (14:08):
He has a high standard, and then they put that on
themselves.
They can't breathe, but theyput it on themselves, either for
salvation or fellowship.
That's what you see inChristianity, and sometimes a
blend between the two, becausewhen fellowship is seemingly
lost, you start to have anobscure view of salvation.
Melissa (14:20):
Yes.
Lenny (14:21):
When you start imposing these doctrines onto fellowship,
you start risking thesedoctrines onto fellowship.
You start risking assurance ofsalvation and it could be, from
something that happened 20 yearsago, that you just can't
believe that God can really bein fellowship with you because
of I just think the more you tryto build a doctrine on
discipleship, the crazier itgets.
(14:42):
It just becomes worldly.
If you look at discipleshipspiritually, okay, but if you
start looking at it worldly as,it just becomes worldly.
If you look at discipleshipspiritually, okay, but if you
start looking at it worldly asbehavior, it becomes worldly.
Melissa (14:50):
Right.
I've heard it said by teachersof discipleship that you're
making your connection withChrist fuzzy, You're kind of
hindering the connection, andthen the next time I hear it
talked about by the same teacher, it's you're not a friend to
Christ.
Well, if he's disowned you as afriend, you're really starting
(15:13):
to dip your toes in the water of.
Does he love me?
Does he care about me?
Lenny (15:17):
Yeah, and then you think you're making discipleship a
worldly effort.
Okay, well, let's look at aworldly example of discipleship.
Let's look at the disciples.
When was it ever said thatdisciples were unfriended by
Jesus?
All I see is at the end of theroad, when he knew that where he
was heading, it is written thathe loved them till the end.
(15:38):
That's what's written about thedisciples.
And what did they do to earnthat, other than have, as Christ
in his own words said, you havelittle faith in doubt.
Questioning, arguing.
They followed him, yes, butwhat display of great works kept
(16:00):
them in his love all that time?
Only belief, which he gave them, which he gave them In his own
words that's unconditional love.
That's words.
That's unconditional love.
That's right, that'sunconditional love.
There's no conditions there andyou can't put a condition on
fellowship.
Agreed, that was his fellowshipwith his disciples, perfect
fellowship from him.
(16:21):
Lacking fellowship from them asfar as how they were giving
back.
What were they giving back inreturn?
Melissa (16:29):
Oh man yeah.
Lenny (16:31):
Oh, they followed him.
We read why.
Why are you still here?
Because I chose you.
That's right.
We've been talking a lot aboutchurch and I don't want to make
this whole thing about church,but these church institutions
just remind me of falsegoverning systems.
They're false governing systems.
They're false governing systems.
Melissa (16:49):
And maybe a lot of that is because so many of them are
connected to the government,which is insane when you think
about it.
Lenny (16:54):
Yeah, they're corporations, and so they become
, by nature, governing systems.
Melissa (17:00):
And even if they're not connected with the government,
they're set up like a business,so the motives get fuzzy.
Lenny (17:05):
Yeah, sadly, it's just kind of by design.
I was thinking about it and youhave these institutions
bringing people together in onemind.
Right In Acts you read theywere of one mind and spirit,
right.
Melissa (17:20):
Yes.
Lenny (17:20):
So this was amazing One heart and spirit and they were
thinking the same, all thesethings.
So these churches could easilysay well, this is what we're
producing.
We're creating one-mindedthinking, we're all on the same
page.
And if you don't think that way, you're breaking up our hive
mind.
Fellowship, our fellowship, isin this hive mind.
This is our hive mind.
(17:42):
That institution over there hasthat hive mind and this is how
we have fellowship.
Melissa (17:48):
We decide what mind we're of and then we all gather
in that and, on that note, Ijust heard it said that there
are something like 430 000different types of christian
doctrine yeah, what?
Lenny (18:04):
and then if you go into an institution and try to share
something that you see to betrue and that you're passionate
about, you get asked to leaveand you get accused of
disrupting fellowship or sinningin some way.
And then even people who don'tpromote church have let this be
pervasive in their lives, thisattitude to the point where they
(18:27):
feel like they're sinning ifthey don't go to church.
They feel like they're sinningif they break up any kind of
fellowship with error.
Because these people were happyin their error.
I should leave them alone.
And so you're letting peopleunite in error in the name of
Christ.
And I'm not saying that we haveany God-given right to go around
and break up these churches andcause problems.
(18:49):
I'm not even suggesting that,because it's pointless.
You're going to be asked toleave.
You're going to make anoccupation out of going church
to church and arguing Come on,that's stupid, that's not how
anything's going to get done.
But if we continue to supportthese things and continue to
pretend like we're the problemand just oh, I just got to lay
off, I have to silence myself.
(19:11):
We're not helping the problem.
If you believe that bothpolitical parties, for example
in our government were evil.
How are you benefiting anybodyby participating in that system?
Melissa (19:22):
You're really not.
Lenny (19:23):
You're supporting a broken system in that analogy
and I'm not trying to say oneway or the other, what you have
to believe but if that were thecase, if you had a broken system
, broken governing system, twocandidates that are evil, what
happens when you vote for one ofthem?
The broken system continues andyou continue to help it along
(19:44):
and encourage it, and that's whywe still have churches like
this today, because nobody cares.
They say, well, what am I goingto do?
And then, what do we do inresponse?
What are the truth seekers, thepeople that know truth, do in
response?
Well, you should really go to achurch if you can.
And what does that?
Do?
You have somebody you reallyrespect, that you follow let's
(20:05):
say a podcast, or a pastor thatyou follow and he says I
understand that you can't go,but you really should.
What do you think that yourattitude is going to be about
church?
Melissa (20:14):
You're feeling like you're doing something wrong if
you don't go.
And I know you and I were there.
We had a period of time likethat.
It's a big paradigm shift.
It's hard to accept that yourpastor might not be teaching
full truth and, like in oursituation, if you try to talk to
them and they don't care tohear what you have to say,
(20:37):
that's another big paradigmshift.
You just realize, whoa, I seehow it is Okay.
And then you and I prayed aboutit and we left for a while,
tried to go back and it justdidn't feel right because we
were supporting a broken systemand it seemed nobody cared to
fix it.
Lenny (20:56):
They just want to brush you out and move on and not have
any kind of arguments.
Melissa (21:02):
So for us, we believe there's no fellowship in error,
and there were major doctrinalerrors there.
So God put it on our heart tostep out and we began doing our
own studies, and we've neverbeen so rooted in Christ.
Lenny (21:19):
For us.
We never look back.
Melissa (21:21):
Well, we did go back at first, but after realizing,
like what are we doing?
Lenny (21:25):
We were really only going back because legalism hanging
over our heads were saying youdon't go to a church, but you're
a christian yeah, we struggledwith it a little bit because
that's planted in your mind thatyou have to go to a church
building and we try to go backand I'm not going to get into
the whole story, but god sent usa loud, clear message.
He did hey, stop feeling likethis.
You guys don belong here.
(21:45):
And that's not a bad thing it'sokay, because fellowship
doesn't have to be in thosebuildings.
Melissa (21:52):
That's right.
He gave us a piece about it andwe've never been so rooted and
we never learned so much as wedid once we left and we were
free to figure out what thetruth really is.
Lenny (22:04):
Yeah, we need to express ourselves in Christ.
Figure out what the truthreally is.
Yeah, we need to expressourselves in Christ.
If we're gathering with peoplethat don't really want to grow
in Christ, what good is it?
All I see when I look atchurches is bondage to error and
a severe suppression ofspiritual growth, because you're
not allowed to think foryourself in these environments.
You're just not.
If you go too far, you're goingto get stopped, and so what's
(22:28):
the solution?
Well, at the end of the day, ifyou keep acting up, just keep
it to yourself and you can keepgathering with us.
What good is that?
Melissa (22:36):
It's a terribly broken system.
It makes me very sad.
I wanted to share a verse inEphesians I came across recently
Ephesians 5.10, where Paul'sencouraging the truth to try to
discern what is pleasing to theLord.
That's what he was encouragingthe church to do, because we are
equipped to do that.
Christ lives in and through us.
(22:57):
We have the ability, usingGod's written word and using
prayer and clinging to Christ,we have the ability to try to
discern what is pleasing to theLord.
I know you would agree, lenny,that the Lord gave us waking up
to grace to do just that.
That's our mission, yeah, toencourage the body of Christ to
(23:22):
try to discern what's pleasingto the Lord.
Lenny (23:25):
Scripture and the writings from the apostles have
a definite theme to them.
They're trying to get people tobe united in truth.
That's the goal of fellowship,and when you look at the goal of
the church institution, that'snot what it is.
Melissa (23:41):
It's not.
It became something else.
Lenny (23:44):
They have decided that their truth is all that needs to
be in that building.
They can do that if they wantto, but why are we supporting
that kind of nonsense?
We can do better.
Melissa (23:54):
Especially when we see, like you and I talked about
what the early churches lookedlike.
Lenny (23:59):
Yeah, and on that note, what does it look like?
What is good fellowship?
So if good fellowship isgetting together and going to
church, it would follow thatthese mega pastors filling the
stadiums understand fellowshipbetter than anybody, wouldn't it
?
Melissa (24:14):
If that were true.
Lenny (24:15):
If you only have a church of a dozen people or less.
Where's your fruit, brother?
Melissa (24:20):
You might say, and that's if you don't understand
what fruit is.
Lenny (24:23):
Right, but you have people producing this idea of
fellowship.
That that's what it is isgathering, no matter what you
believe, basically or somehow,just agreeing to disagree and
attending an institution asfellowship.
But the apostles didn't deemthat as fellowship.
Their fellowship was with truth.
Melissa (24:46):
I also had mentioned that I had heard there were
something like 430,000 differenttypes of Christian doctrine
430,000?
.
Lenny (24:56):
Yeah, 400?
, not 43?
.
Melissa (25:00):
No 430.
It's something like that andthe 400,000 types of Christian
doctrine, not like all kinds offaiths and religions.
Ephesians, chapter 4,.
Paul says I therefore, aprisoner for the Lord, urge you
to walk in a manner worthy ofthe calling of which you have
(25:21):
been called, with all humilityand gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of
the spirit in the bond of peace.
There is but one body and onespirit, just as you were called
to the one hope that belongs toyour call.
(25:42):
One Lord, one faith, onebaptism, one God and Father of
all, who is over all and throughall and in all but grace was
given to each one of usaccording to the measure of
Christ's gift.
Therefore, it says he whodescended on high, he led a host
(26:03):
of captives and he gave giftsto men.
In saying he ascended, whatdoes it mean?
But that he had descended intothe lower regions, the earth.
He who descended is the one whoalso ascended, far above all
the heavens, that he might fillall things.
And he gave the apostles, theprophets, the evangelists, the
(26:25):
shepherds, the teachers to equipthe saints for the work of
ministry, for building up thebody of Christ, until we all
attain to the unity of the faithand of the knowledge of the Son
of God, to mature manhood, tothe measure of the stature of
the fullness of Christ, so thatwe may no longer be children
(26:48):
tossed to and fro by the wavesand carried about by every wind
of doctrine, by human cunning,by craftiness and deceitful
schemes.
Rather, speaking the truth inlove, we are to grow up in every
way into Him, who is the Head,into Christ, from whom the whole
(27:09):
body, joined and held togetherby every joint with which it is
equipped, when each part isworking properly, makes the body
grow so that it builds itselfup in love.
I know that's a bit lengthy, butthat really struck me and I
believe he was talking about theapostles at that time, apostles
and prophets.
You know, paul was running arace and he completed his race
(27:33):
and I believe we reached thatcompleteness, the truth he was
teaching at that time.
He finished his race, so he gotto the point he was supposed to
get having us all be completein Christ.
So the things he was teachingat that time should be what
we're clinging to today Throwaway all these other doctrines.
What are we doing?
And it was the whole body.
(27:54):
He wanted the body of Christ toall attain to the unity of the
faith and the knowledge of theSon of God, to mature manhood to
the measure of god, to maturemanhood to the measure of the
stature, so the height of thefullness, completeness of christ
.
We can do that.
Paul says we can.
He says we can mature to thatpoint amen to that.
Lenny (28:15):
You have a lordship doctrine that does a similar
thing as discipleship doctrine,where we're describing how
discipleship doctrine basicallytells you you have to love like
Christ in order for Christ to beyour friend, kind of thing.
Lordship doctrine would say thesame thing.
But if you don't do thosethings, it's not just a sign of
a loss of fellowship, it's not asign that you're out of
(28:37):
fellowship or Christ isn't yourfriend, it's a sign that you're
not saved.
And so there's this terrifyingbondage that those people are
under that, when one goes fromlordship to discipleship,
there's a great relief.
The only thing on the line ismy relationship with god, and so
one might think that they'renow free where they weren't
before, and in a sense they are,but it's still not all the way
(29:00):
there right, we were talkingabout where the idea of
discipleship doctrine might havecome from.
There are some well-meaningpeople teaching it, but Well,
the core theology aboutdiscipleship doctrine and the
whole core of it being afellowship issue comes from the
doctrine that people make offellowship not being the same as
(29:21):
salvation.
So they pulled discipleship outof belief and made discipleship
and belief two different things.
They pull apart one thing,which is just belief, and turn
it into belief and discipleshipTwo categories.
They do the same thing withsalvation and fellowship.
They just stretch salvationuntil it pulls apart and then
(29:42):
they made two categories out ofit.
Fellowship and salvation aretwo different things now and
they're not in scripture.
I can assure you when it comesto our fellowship with God, our
fellowship with God isunbreakable.
When we're born again asChristians, we enter into
unbreakable fellowship with God.
This is a vine and branchesrelationship.
(30:02):
The born-again Christian is nota branch that's going to get
broken off of the vine which isChrist.
So our fellowship with God isperfect because of Christ.
But that's not always the sensethat we see it used in
Scripture.
I've come to realize that whenwe see the word fellowship in
Scripture, we often misinterpretthat with this fellowship
(30:25):
between us and God, when it'sreally talking about fellowship
between people, betweenChristian and Christian.
Our fellowship with otherChristians isn't always perfect.
Our fellowship with otherChristians can become very weak
when we are drawn to error andconsumed in error instead of
truth, and all that comes from afalse understanding of 1 John.
(30:48):
1 John, 1.9 specifically, is ahuge problem.
I say this a lot, can't reallysay it enough.
It's a big problem.
That understanding of thatpassage is always what it comes
down to when it comes to thesedoctrines.
Before I talk about that somemore, I wanted to say a bit
about lordship doctrine and ourexperience with that view that
we struggled under for a while,and not in a way that you would
(31:11):
think Lordship doctrine teachesyou to behave a certain way or
it's a sign you're not safe.
So we're contrasting andcomparing discipleship and
lordship and that what wediscovered is that for several
years we started to feelisolated because of truth we did
because that's thepsychological mess that can
(31:32):
happen when we come to a greatertruth than people are willing
to accept.
And that's why I can't sayenough about how we got to
encourage each other in truth,not error, because you have
people that are waking up andstruggling.
So we woke up to truth and themessage we were receiving wasn't
100.
True, there was some errormixed in there in subtle ways
(31:55):
and we didn't pick up on itright away.
We picked up on much of thetruth, but not some of the error
, and some of the error that wediscovered later was that
lordship doctrine had kind ofmixed its way into the truth to
the extent that suddenly, if youdidn't believe it, the full
gospel, the full way, the waywe're sharing with you, guys
(32:15):
like you, got to set yourselffree if you didn't believe it.
That way, it was a sign thatyou weren't a believer right now
think about that for a minute.
How many people you know outthere that don't have it quite
right and all of a sudden you'reworried about their salvation?
I wasn't worried about my own,but I started to wonder if I was
even amongst Christians ever.
Where are they all at Right?
(32:36):
Where are all the Christians?
Melissa (32:38):
Because with that 400-some-thousand number we put
out there about the amount ofChristian doctrines out there,
you're going to have somethingdifferent with someone today.
Lenny (32:51):
But when your message is radically different than all of
them.
I know for a fact that when youlisten to different people that
have had this experience,people that are out podcasting
and sharing their experiences,there's a struggle, because
people in the grace circles arenot of a great number, and it
tends to be that the people thatcall themselves christians tend
(33:12):
to be our worst enemies withtheir words.
I always think about this thingthat paul was saying when he
was talking about shipwrecked Iwas beaten 40 lashings minus one
by the jews, and he's namingall these things, and one of the
things that he names is that hewas persecuted by false
brothers.
Melissa (33:30):
Yeah.
Lenny (33:30):
And you think about that and you would normally think, at
least in the mindset I hadbefore at one time, I was just
associating that withnonbelievers, false brothers,
false believers.
They weren't real believers.
But if he's calling thembrothers, is it necessarily an
unbeliever or a brother that'snot a brother.
Or is he saying brothers thatwere in error, basically People
(33:53):
that were believing falsely andpersecuting him because he
didn't agree with their beliefs,even though they were Christian
?
Melissa (33:59):
Based on what we experienced, it seems likely it
could be the latter.
Lenny (34:04):
I think it was the latter .
I think it was the latter.
I think it was very common, andwith Judaizers and things, if
you had a Christian that was inthe Judaizer crowd, I think it
could get ugly.
I think they might have beenfacing death several times and
people that were actually bornagain, and I think we'd see the
same things today.
If it was legal to persecutepeople in such ways, I think
these churches might bestringing us up.
(34:24):
If it was legal to persecutepeople in such ways, I think
these churches might bestringing us up.
Sorry, honestly, I think someof these churches would crucify
Christ if it came down to it,because of his radicalness.
Melissa (34:31):
I know that's why we're doing what we're doing.
Lenny (34:33):
Yeah.
So I wanted to just talk alittle bit about the classic old
1 John 1-9 passage.
I just wanted to present a wayof looking at this passage where
you might be able to see itfrom a different angle.
I think that when wemisunderstand this passage, we
make a major error and then westart to impose that error on
other Christians.
(34:53):
It's my belief thatunderstanding this passage is
very important.
I think that the things thatJohn is writing about in this
first chapter of his letter it'sabout belief versus unbelief.
Going into this first chapter,I believe what he's writing
about is unbelief and he'swriting it to believers so that
they won't fall for thatunbelief.
(35:13):
I used to often say that thisletter 1 John and the first
chapter and sections of hisletter weren't written to
believers.
My argument would be that itwas written to believers and
non-believers alike,evangelically right.
Melissa (35:27):
Yes, but.
Lenny (35:28):
I'm kind of presenting a different view under the same
idea.
Let's say it was written tobelievers, about unbelievers.
Go into this with the view thathe's writing to believers about
unbelievers.
We can take this view for areason In 1 John 2, verse 21,.
He tells us that aboutunbelievers.
We can take this view for areason In 1 John 2, verse 21,.
(35:48):
He tells us that.
You often hear this argument itwas written to believers.
It was written to believers,period.
Because he says it was.
He says I'm writing to you guysand he's talking about
believers.
But this is where you come torealize it's not necessarily to
unbelievers, it's about them.
It could be to them, it could.
Hey, I want these guys to hearthis.
Yeah, but he specifically saysto these believers I write to
(36:11):
you not because you do not knowthe truth, but because you know
it and because no lie is of thetruth.
Who is of a liar?
But he who denies that jesus isthe.
This is the Antichrist.
He who denies the Father andthe Son.
No one who denies the Son has aFather.
Whoever confesses the Son has aFather.
(36:31):
Also, let what you heard fromthe beginning abide in you, if
what you heard from thebeginning.
Abides in you, then you toowill abide in the Son and in the
Father, and this is the promisethat he made to us Eternal life
.
I write these things to youabout those who are trying to
deceive you.
I write these things to youabout those who are trying to
(36:55):
deceive you.
Did you hear that?
Melissa (36:57):
Yes.
Lenny (36:57):
But the anointing that you receive from him abides in
you.
He's telling them that theanointing abides in them, which
means they abide in Christ andyou have no need that anyone
should teach you.
But as his anointing teachesyou about everything and is true
and is no lie, just as it hastaught you abide in him.
And what do we say?
Abide in him means Remain.
(37:19):
Just remain, remain in him.
How do you remain in him?
Melissa (37:24):
To remain in him.
He's in us and we're in him.
We're born again.
So that's just our state ofbeing is remaining in him.
Lenny (37:31):
And what is it that we remain in based on this?
They're talking about Christ'struth.
Christ is setting you free.
What is it that we're remainingin?
Melissa (37:40):
The gospel.
Lenny (37:41):
We're remaining in the truth about Christ.
Right, his finished work, hedid it all.
That's what we're remaining in.
To abide in Christ is to abidein him in his work.
It's not to abide in hisbehavior, because you can't
Abide in his behavior means toabide in what he did for you.
We might actually behave morelike him if we understood that.
(38:03):
So true, because he abided inthe Father.
Melissa (38:07):
Yes.
Lenny (38:08):
So if abide is to believe , then why is he telling his
fellow Christians to abide?
Why would anybody tell aChristian to abide in Christ if
abide is to believe?
And I think the answer to thatis far more simple than we
realize.
When we're a born-againChristian, we can still stop
believing.
(38:28):
These people that John waswriting to were being deceived.
They were no longer believingthe truth about the finished
work of Christ Yeshua.
So what we then see is beliefin two different ways.
It's not two different ways ofbelieving.
There's the way of believingthat you were saved by and you
(38:52):
went into salvation, and thenthere's the belief that you have
to continue in.
You have to abide in thefinished work of Christ.
You have to abide in belief.
This might well be the biggestproblem in our church today.
Just like those who John wroteto, we have largely forgotten
about the finality of the crossand have put ourselves into a
mindset of unbelief.
(39:13):
We have born-again Christiansdoubting the finished work of
the cross and even going upagainst it.
John is calling on theseChristians to continue abiding
in what they believed in thebeginning, abiding in the truth
that saved them.
If you weren't saved by works,how can you suddenly be made
right by works.
(39:33):
If you were saved by grace, whydon't you live by grace?
It's that simple.
In light of that, I just wantedto read through this passage.
So this is 1 John.
It's pretty much the firstchapter.
We'll just kind of read throughit and talk about it a little
bit.
So he starts out.
That which was from thebeginning, which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and
(39:54):
have touched with our hands,concerning the word of life.
The life was made manifest andwe have seen it and testify to
it and proclaim to you theeternal life which was with the
Father and was made manifest tous.
That which we have seen andheard, we proclaim also to you
so that you too may havefellowship with us, and indeed
(40:15):
our fellowship is with theFather and with his Son, jesus
Christ.
It's a lot to take in rightthere.
Why is he proclaiming this tobelievers?
Why is he doing that?
It's a reminder.
He's just reminding, remindingthem.
He's reminding them of thingsthey already know, and he said
that we just read in chapter twoyou know these things.
I'm writing to you about thosewho are deceiving you.
(40:36):
So it's like hey guys, guesswhat christ is lord remember and
we always need reminders.
Melissa (40:43):
That's why we're to we're to be constantly clinging,
reminding ourselves.
Lenny (40:48):
What happens when you're being deceived.
That means you're starting tobelieve something that's not
true.
These people were starting tobelieve the liars that Christ
didn't do it all.
They weren't abiding anymorebecause they stopped believing.
He writes so that they wouldhave fellowship with them and
(41:08):
indeed their fellowship was withthe Father and His Son, jesus
Christ.
I write these things so thatour joy may be complete.
So when we look at fellowship,this is a different view of
fellowship.
He's saying this to believers Iwrite this to you so that you
can have fellowship with us.
Our fellowship is with the son,the son of god, and with the
father.
We have fellowship with christ,in truth, and we write these
(41:32):
things to you so that you canhave fellowship with us.
He was writing this to believersso that, I think, is what
confuses people, and rightly so.
They're like oh well, sofellowship could somehow be
broken, and that's where theycome up with that.
But he's not talking aboutfellowship in the sense of what
we read in most other passages,where it's the same as salvation
(41:54):
.
He's talking about fellowshipin truth.
He's talking about humanfellowship with one another.
When we have human fellowshipwith one another, what is it in?
If it's Christian fellowshipit's in truth.
Therefore, if we'refellowshipping with people in
error, that doesn't reallyqualify as Christian fellowship.
Even if we both believe, we'renot really accomplishing any
(42:16):
kind of fellowship.
According to the context that Isee in this passage, I see he's
not talking about behavior.
He's talking about fellowshipin true doctrine.
That's why he's proclaimingtrue doctrine to them.
See what I'm saying, right?
It's a matter of how you seefellowship in that passage and
how we perceive it.
If you start perceiving that assalvation, it starts getting
(42:39):
confusing.
If you start perceiving it asbeing wrong or right with God,
for some reason, we start tobuild a funny doctrine.
But all he's saying is I wantyou guys to have fellowship with
us so that we can have joy, sothat my joy will be complete.
He says I want to have a joyfulfellowship with you guys, and
(43:00):
the only way we can do that isif we're talking about the same
stuff.
And the only way we can do thatis if we're talking about the
same stuff, is if we'rerejoicing in the same stuff and
it's not the stuff that theseguys are telling you.
You're not going to share joywith me.
Then See what I mean, right?
So we read on.
He says this is the message wehave heard from him and proclaim
to you God is light and in himis no darkness at all.
(43:22):
If we say we have fellowshipwhile we walk in the darkness,
we lie and do not practice thetruth.
And if we look at John's gospeland I want to do this
eventually, I was telling you Iwant to do a John's gospel
versus epistle because there'sso many parallels.
But the people that walked indarkness were the non-believing
Pharisees, the false teachersthat spoke out against Christ
(43:45):
and against his finished work.
So he's talking about Judaizershere.
It's very clear if you compareand contrast these two things.
But if we walk in the light, hesays, as he is in the light, we
have fellowship with one anotherand the blood of Jesus, his son
, cleanses us from all sin.
Now he's talking aboutsalvation fellowship.
What fellowship is it?
(44:06):
It's fellowship with Christ.
If we walk in the light,because Christ is in the light,
meaning we have Christ, we havefellowship with one another.
So he's more or less saying likecome on, guys, stop
fellowshipping with error.
Fellowship in where you're at,you're of the light.
See what I mean?
Wow, he's pointing out to themthat we have this fellowship,
(44:29):
but yet he's having to tell themI want this with you because
they're drifting away from truth.
It's not because they're not inthe light, it's because they're
starting to act like they'renot believing.
They're starting to proclaimunbelief with their words and
there's no fellowship in that.
And he says if we say we haveno sin, we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us.
Who would have said they haveno sin?
(44:49):
Pharisees thought they wereperfect, based on the law.
They didn't think they had sin.
They didn't think they neededMessiah because they were doing
all the stuff right.
Melissa (44:59):
Right.
Lenny (45:01):
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and tocleanse us from all
unrighteousness.
So if these people that deniedsin would just say I'm a sinner
and accept the Messiah, theseJudaizers that are in the
darkness, if they would just say, I believe he'd cleanse them.
This is what he's telling themabout those who are deceiving
(45:22):
them, those people who aredeceiving you.
If they did this, they'd besaved and they'd be clean.
Then he goes on to say if wesay we have not sinned, we make
them a liar and his word is notin us.
There again, denying sindoesn't get you anywhere.
It's no good, my littlechildren, I'm writing these
things to you so that you maynot sin.
(45:42):
But if anyone does sin, just goback to 1 John 1.9,.
He says, just kidding.
He says but if anyone does sin,we have an advocate with the
Father, jesus Christ, therighteous.
Right after telling you whatpeople see people see this
saying that we have to ask forforgiveness for our sins, that
(46:03):
we have to self-cleanseregularly to stay in fellowship
right after proposing whatpeople see as this idea, he
tells them we have an advocate.
He's the propitiation for oursins, meaning the full
satisfaction for our sins.
If we do sin, we have a fullsatisfaction.
Why would he tell you thatright after telling you to
(46:24):
confess and ask for forgivenessover and over?
Why would he remind you of that?
Because that's not how he sawsin.
That's not how he saw it.
He was telling you Christ didit all, and he said not for ours
only, but also for the sins ofthe whole world, gentiles too.
And by this we know that wehave come to know him.
If we keep his commandments yougot to keep the 10 commandments
(46:45):
, melissa, you know the whole613 if you keep those, if you
obey those no, that's not whathe's saying if you keep those,
if you keep the truth of christ,if it's yours to keep, that's
how you've come to know him.
Whoever says I know him but doesnot keep those commandments is
a liar.
So the Pharisees, the Judaizers, oh, they say that.
(47:09):
Oh, they got it all figured out.
They didn't keep the truth ofChrist, they didn't buy it, they
didn't believe it.
Whoever says he abides in himought to walk in the same way
which he walked by faith.
It's that simple.
Keeping his commandments iskeeping the gospel.
And who keeps the gospel?
Those who the Father has givenhim.
(47:30):
Everyone who believes has beengiven to Christ by the Father,
bypassing your human ability, sothat you can be guaranteed and
assured that salvation andfellowship are yours.
To keep, all you have to do isbelieve it.
Believing is keeping and youcan't stop.
(47:50):
Anyway it's yours.
But he's saying hang on to that, to the effect of what you were
saying Cling, cling to that.
That's where I thinkdiscipleship doctrine stems from
that view.
I think those two things gohand in hand.
That whole fellowship and thewhole idea of being a disciple
(48:10):
keeps you in fellowship.
It's one and the same.
We could pretty much have nevereven covered discipleship,
because we cover fellowship allthe time.
It's the same thing.
It's the same error, just in adifferent way with a different
stamp on it.
I kind of don't really likestamping the word discipleship
on Christianity for that reason.
It doesn't mean that it's wrongto think you're a disciple,
(48:33):
it's just what it's turned intohas kind of become crazy.
I think that's what we got forthis week and I'm looking
forward to seeing you guys nextweek for some more.
Announcement (48:41):
Have a great day out there, you guys, thank you
for listening to the Waking Upto Grace podcast brought to you
by the finished work of our LordJesus Christ.
If you enjoyed today's episode,we would love to hear from you.
You can send encouragement ourway right from our episodes and
transcripts page or reach Lennyprivately from the contact form
(49:02):
at wakinguptogracecom.
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