Devoted, Disciplined, Duplicated: The Blueprint for True Discipleship

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brent McQuay (00:00):
Tried to say PlayStation or Game Boy,
and it combined to be Playboy.

Ti’heasha Beasley (00:04):
I think I was here.

Boy, that was a long time ago.
She said it was straight face and
we all were dying. Like, hilarious. The.
The previous worship pastor was literally on
the floor laughing.

That's so funny. I'm gonna go into
the intro.

Okay.

Ready or not, Ready or not.

Asa Slaughter (00:26):
Here I come.

Five, four, three, two. Hey, everybody, and
welcome back to another episode of between
sermons. We have had all kinds of
technical difficulties today, so for those of
you that are jumping on this live,
that were also jumping on the last
live, my apologies, but hopefully we've got
things worked out now. I'm Brent McWay.

(00:52):
I am currently the lead pastor of
Christian Life Center. But that all changes
in February because then I will be
the lead pastor of Disciples Church. What's
really fun about that is I'm not
going anywhere. You're not going anywhere. It's
just the name of our ministry. The
name of our church is changing. And
if you missed that announcement last week,
this is shocking news for you. That's

(01:14):
really why you shouldn't miss church or
an episode of this podcast. But for
those of you that are new, just
jump into this conversation. I'm so glad
that you're here to be a part
of this. Really, what we're trying to
do with this podcast is just take
our Sunday sermons and move away from
just a monologue of somebody on a
stage talking at people and really being
able to create a conversation. And so

(01:35):
you can kind of view this as
like you're getting a glimpse into what
a small group talking about Sunday sermon
would look like. And so in order
to help me do that, I need
other people to talk to. And Tyisha,
you get to be that person.

Well, I'd rather be the person you
talk to than at.

Well, sometimes it's a mix of both,
right?

Yeah. Yeah. And when you said smart,
I'm like, does this mean I'm a
part of your small group on between
sermons all the time?

I mean, that's what co hosting it
means. Our group just gets to add
in a third member.

Yeah. So I guess it's fine.

Well, I guess I'm happy to be
here in y'all small group. Thanks for
inviting me.

Well, yes, let's introduce you, even though
you need no introduction. Thank you for
joining us, Pastor Asa.

No problem. Hey, I'm Pastor Asa here
at Christian Life center for now, but
things are changing soon.

Yes. Yes. Are you excited about the
change? I think we've been.

Yeah. I'm fired up I like change.
I got a wife that, like, change
is, like, real close to the devil.
And me, I'm like, change, Jesus. Yes.

Let's go.

I'm good with change.

Okay, so what about the change makes
you excited?

Just the direction. I mean, we've read
in the Bible, I have for a
long time that Jesus told us to
go make disciples. And I knew it
was something more to it than probably
what I've embraced or done, even though
I could look at some moments where
I say, yeah, I probably helped bring
somebody to Jesus, but was I intentional
about making a disciple? I don't know.

(03:05):
But now I'm going to be moving
forward from this day forward. I vow
to make disciples.

I like it.

I like it. I got to ask
the super important question, maybe the most
important question of the day. Are you
wearing a Bears hat in honor of
the packers losing yesterday?

No, I just wear it because it's
the only good hat I got right
now. What you want me to do?

We're celebrating a Packers loss.

That's always nice. That's always a good
thing.

As bad as the Bears are this
year, at least the year's over.

So let's just.

So this is gonna be.

Actually, no. I saw somebody do a
post yesterday that the. So far, the
Bears are undefeated in 2025.

Undefeated.

And the packers haven't won a game
in 2025.

They are defeated.

So this year, we are undefeated, and
the packers are only defeated.

Let's take a win wherever we can
get it.

We need the little easy ones.

Right, the little easy ones.

So are you, like, football? What are
they doing? Why are we going there?

I was going to ask a very,
like, silly question.

Who are the Packers?

I was going to say, if that's.

The question, we got a problem. What's.

No, I was going to say, who
did they play? They played the Bears.

No.

Okay.

The Philadelphia Eagles.

Yeah, they played against the Eagles.

Okay, good. All right.

We were at a wild card game.

Yeah. We were at a restaurant, actually,
when the Bears won, and the whole
restaurant went like, yay.

It's a shame when you win a
game for the first time since October.
October. And everybody fired up. But, man,
we had to get off the snide.
It was bad.

We just got really excited about losing
a draft spot.

Hey, right. But, you know, it is
what it is.

Even when we win, we lose as
nervous fans. Anyways, this podcast. This is
not a sports talk show. Like, what
is it? What are we.

It's not. It could be.

I think that was my fault. I'm
the one that brought it up.

My bad. No, it's okay.

What are we actually talking about today?

So he's like, get to the point.
No, yesterday you taught an amazing message
on B1, so I. I can't wait
to dive into conversation about that, because
my thoughts. But before I give my
thoughts, and I always say this, I
would like to know your thought on
the sermon. Like, what were your thoughts
about the sermon that was taught yesterday?

Well, she looking at me, so I'm
assuming the question. My thought on the
sermon is the question that Pastor Brent
preached.

Yeah. Tell me how I did.

Let's see. How did he do? I
thought the sermon was the most.

Awkward part of the sermon.

I know, I know, but just get.
Just be okay. You did good.

It was horrible. No, the sermon was
good. I enjoyed it. Be one. Like
I said, that part of it is
inspiring, but that part of it is
a concept that I kind of know.
And I say I kind of know.
For this reason, I'm well aware that
what I have to give to somebody
in this world when it comes to

(05:42):
Jesus is what I'm putting in. In
other words, if I'm not spending time
with Jesus, if I'm not reading my
Word, it's going to be hard for
me to translate that, get that, share
that with somebody else. So the B1
is of the utmost importance because you
just can't give somebody something you don't
have.

Oh, that's good. Yeah, that's good. What
did you think about Pastor Brett when
he said the Cafeteria Christians? Because that
took me out.

That was good. I enjoy it. Gives
a great picture of. Of what it
is. So, yeah, I really enjoy the
Cafeteria Christian. And that. That's something that
works my nerves, too. So when you
said it, I'm like, yeah, a lot
of people just want to pick and
choose what they like out of the
Bible. And that's not ideal. That's not
the way to do this.

It's funny. I've. I've. I've talk Bible
study in that context. Like, some people
treat the Bible like a buffet, but
I never really turned it into that
whole, like, cafeteria. So, like, that wasn't
my phrase I was gonna say. No,
no, no. I heard it somewhere, actually,
just this week. This is what's really
interesting to me is what's happening right
here at our church is not isolated
to our church, which is actually really

(06:46):
encouraging for me because it's like, when
the Holy Spirit's doing something, you want
to have confirmation that you're right. That
he's doing something. And not that you
ate bad pizza. And so, like, super
random, but. So Craig Groeschel, maybe the
largest church in the country, one of
the most influential pastors on planet Earth.
On Sunday, while I'm preaching about last

(07:08):
Sunday about, you know, Christian isn't really
the term and all this stuff, he
was preaching a message where he talked
about being Christian, ish.

Oh.

And I was like, that, man, why
couldn't you have preached that like a
week before? I could have taken the
ish, and ish just made, like so
much sense. But it's. It's just really
cool to me when. When God's doing
something in different places, but in the
same way, like doing the same thing
but in other places. So that was
just really cool. But yeah, the cafeteria
thing, that was just. It was a

(07:36):
random, Like, I don't even remember what.
Yeah, I think I was just looking
for a listing because I. I had
like, nominal Christian and cultural Christian. We've
talked about, like, superficial Christian. Then there
was. There was one. Oh, yeah, the
lukewarm Christian out of Revelation. And so
it was like, you know, what other
terms are there? And it popped up.

(07:56):
Cafeteria Christian. I was like, that is
awesome.

And even when you, when you think
of it, I like lukewarm because it
does give you that idea of you
need to commit, you ain't really on
fire. But cafeteria gives a different idea
of you just picking and choosing which
at the end of the day, it's
all, do you want all of what
Jesus got to offer? Do you want
to fully obey? Do you want to
fully follow what the Bible tells us

(08:19):
to follow, whether good or bad? It's
kind of like the conversation we had
in staff meeting about love today. Some
of that stuff, a lot of that
stuff is really hard. And which parts
of it don't you want to do?
But we can't pick and choose. We
have to strive to actually do all
of the parts that the Bible gives
us. So that's. That's what I like
about the cafeteria. It really shows. Yeah,

(08:39):
I can go in here and just.
I'm going to get this Gatorade and
I'm going to get the fried chicken.
I don't want the grilled chicken. I'm
going to get the fried chicken. You
know what I mean? But if the
Lord is offering it all, all, you
might want to take it all. Or
if he's commanding all you might want.

Right. I'm like, offering. Right. Seems more
like you need to do this to
be one.

Yeah.

What. What does that term be one
really mean. Because I was thinking about
this today when I was just thinking
about the podcast and we were discussing
what B1 is. And so you hear
a lot of people when you think
about discipleship who says, oh, I can't
wait to disciple. Does B1 mean just
be discipled by Jesus Christ, or are
you encouraging people to be discipled by

(09:19):
others as well?

Yeah, so essentially. So where the BE
one comes from, that's our tagline for
the new ministry, Disciples Church. Be one,
make one. Right. And so it's this
idea that before you make one, you
need to be one. There's a famous
quote that says only disciples can make
disciples. But really, this idea of BE
one, honestly, it's not even so much

(09:43):
my concern of, you know, are you
being discipled by somebody? Are you being
discipled by Jesus? You know which one
is? No, it's. Are you actually following
out the commands of Jesus now? Part
of that means you have community, you
have people in your life. So I.
I don't think you really are a
very good disciple if you don't have
someone that's discipling you. And the fun
thing about that process is that never

(10:04):
ends. So, like, I'm 40. I've been
a pastor for 22 years. Like, I'm.
Or I haven't been a pastor for
22 years. Sorry. I've been in ministry
for 22 years. I think I've been
a pastor for 19, 18, something like
that. Like, I still need somebody discipling
me. Like, there's. There's all. Everybody needs
somebody that's pouring into them, that's encouraging
them, that's challenging them, that's correcting them,

(10:26):
that's teaching them, it's modeling for them
what to do. Like, all of that.
So, like, that's just that ongoing process,
but really, everything. Everything begins with me
personally. Like, where am I with Jesus?
Am I one of his disciples? And
if I'm not living as one of
his disciples, that's what needs to be
addressed first. So, yeah, that's where the
B1 comes from.

It's so interesting because as you saying
that, I'm sitting here thinking about the
fact that it's almost harder for me
to wrap my head around having someone
discipling me than being a disciple, than
me discipling somebody else. As you were
saying that, I was thinking, have I
ever really had someone discipling me? And

(11:10):
I kind of think, no, actually.

Are you gonna admit this lie? I'm
not just waiting.

I'm just thinking about It. I'm thinking
about, oh, yeah, I guess I could
drag a few people along with me
with, you know, I'm at least a
week older than somebody around here in
the Lord. If you didn't watch last
week, you'll figure out the week thing.
Go back, watch the podcast.

Gotta be at least a week ahead,
right?

You gotta be at least a week
ahead of the person you're discipling. So
I know I'm a week ahead of
some people, but am I humble.

Enough to say somebody's a week ahead.

I'm a week behind you at least.
So can you. Can you lead me
along the way? So that's. That's the
interesting, interesting thing.

That's where my thought came from. Because
sometimes we can take pride in like,
oh, I'm discipling all of these people.
But it's like, how are you being
poured into who's discipling you? And so
people can always say, well, Jesus is
discipling me. And so, I mean, where
does that line.

Yeah, it's funny because I've even had
a conversation with somebody where they're like,
oh, no, I'm being discipled. And they'd
like, they said who was discipling them.
And it was an Internet pastor that,
like, they don't even know. How can
you be discipled by somebody that doesn't
know your name? Like, you're not being
discipled by that person.

I mean, there's a lot of people.

You'Re just listening to their teachings, which
is great. Like, don't get me wrong.
But, yeah, there's no accountability there. They're
not actually correcting anything in your life.
They're just. They're putting out some teaching
and you're taking it like, cool, that's
great.

Yeah.

That doesn't make them the person discipling
you.

That's almost like, you just. I can
put together this toy for my whoever,
for my son, and I'm following those
instructions, but those. I'm not being discipled
by the instructions or the person that
wrote the instructions. So.

No, that's exactly. Yeah. That's why, you
know, we talk about discipleship doesn't happen
outside of relationship. Like, you have to
be in relationship. Now, I will say
there's a lot of people that are
being discipled, and they don't necessarily label
it that way or even recognize it
that way. Because I think sometimes when
we get into this discipleship conversation, the
impression or the idea for people is

(13:09):
like, it has to be very formal,
where it's like, well, I'M not being
discipled because I'm not meeting for coffee
Every Tuesday at 8am with this specific
person. But there's been aspects of discipleship
that has been happening for people when
there's somebody that's in your life that's
checking in on you, that's praying for
you, been asking you questions about your

(13:30):
faith. And so it's like, you know,
sometimes we'll label that as a mentor,
sometimes we'll label that as like a.
I was just talking to somebody yesterday
that was like, you know, my spiritual
mother. Right. Like that's. Yeah, you're being
discipled by that person. And so I
think that the discipleship relationship, like, it
changes. I think that when you are
very young in the faith and when

(13:50):
you are struggling with something, very obviously
struggling with something, the proximity between you
and the person that's discipling you needs
to be really, really close. Like, you
need to be spending a lot of
time together now as you get more
and more mature, I think that that
distance can stretch where now all of
a sudden. So like the person that
I would say is discipling me right

(14:13):
now, I meet with him once a
month. And actually I've got like two
or three different people that are discipling
me in some way, but none of
them are on a weekly basis. None
of them are on a, like a.
We've got this set time at this
set place every time. But there are
people in my life that I look
to that when stuff's going on in
my life. They're the ones I'm messaging,

(14:35):
they're the ones that are correcting me
when I do something foolish. And so
like, there's that discipleship relationship happening, but
it isn't as formal as some probably
have in their head.

Yeah, I've definitely had those natural instances
just being, I guess even before I
was a pastor here, just being in
different roles because I actually had to
tell somebody I'm not a pastor. But
once I got in a role as
the next steps director and I started
baptizing people or at least coordinating the

(15:10):
baptisms, it was some natural relationships that
came up that way. And just through
connecting and them reaching out, asking questions,
wanting to know more about their faith,
now they kind of going further and
really telling me the things they struggling
with. And I'm sending them scripture. And
I wasn't. That wasn't even intentional on
my part, but that one just came

(15:30):
naturally. And to this day, even if
I'm not as if it's not as
I don't see them as much now
when they see me, they still kind
of respect me in that way, too.
Come up and start telling me things
that I don't know, that I necessarily
want to know. But I'm in that
position, and they feel like I got

(15:52):
some advice that could help them through
that, and they trust me enough to
be able to bring it to me.
And that wasn't even really intentional. So
I definitely see that.

Yeah, I teach people there's, like, two
methods. There's the organic and there's the
intentional. So, like, the organic is like,
you're just doing life, and you just
have these opportunities, these moments. And the
cool thing is we see Jesus do
that. Like, we see Jesus just, you
know, going about his day, you know,
walking through the field, and his disciples
are eating the grains that they're not
supposed to be eating on the Sabbath.

(16:19):
And they get called out, and he's
like, whoa, hey, let's talk about this.
Or, you know, how many times was
Jesus just taking a nap in a
boat and it's like, chaos is happening.
He's just doing life. He didn't, like,
plan out. Okay, now this is where
I'm going to pretend to sleep, and
I'm going to. No, no, it wasn't
an intentional process, but he used the
organic moment to become intentional. And so

(16:42):
I think that there's room for both
in our lives where we have these
organic moments, but then we also have
a structured moment. And I think part
of just kind of probably jumping the
gun in the conversation, but, like, part
of discipline in the life of a
disciple is creating those moments where it's
like, hey, I'm not just gonna hope
that I get discipled. I'm not just

(17:02):
gonna allow discipleship to happen sometimes. Like,
no, I'm gonna be disciplined in this,
and I'm gonna set aside a specific
time where this is going to take
place. And I think that, yeah, there's.
There's an importance in. In both aspects.

Yeah, no, that was good. It's kind
of like I want to go two
ways right now. I want to talk
about the Chosen, and then I want
to talk about.

I haven't watched the Chosen, okay? I
haven't seen a single episode. Everybody gets
mad at me, okay? There's two things
that I know. I know, I know.
I have to watch them, okay? I
have to watch the Chosen, and I
have to watch the Forge. Or Forge.
What is it? The Forge. The Forge,
Yeah.

I finally watched it because I keep.

Everybody so mad at me.

Because every Sunday, like, have you watched
the Fort. Have you watched Forge and
now you.

Guys have not watched the four?

I watched it, like, three, four weeks
ago.

I have not.

And it was. It was really, really
good. I still have lines up with
it.

It's not that I don't want to.
And. And, yes, that's what everybody's like,
you've got to be watch. No, no,
you don't want to watch.

It, because if you want to watch
it, you would have watched it.

I know.

I.

Because I've promised several people that I
will watch it. I just haven't had
the time.

Well, we need to have staff meetings.

Make me go to the show to
watch it. I'm like, when it comes
to Netflix or one of those, I
watch it. And that's what I did.

We need to make this.

That's what they told. They're like, it's
on Netflix. I'm like, all right.

Yeah, it is on Netflix. Okay, so
we need to watch. So it could
be one of the guy at the
movie.

I think my problem. And this is
way too much information, my problem is
I don't think I've ever watched a
Christian movie and been entertained.

He's a film boy, and when I.

Watch movies, I want to be entertained.
Like, I want it to be like
a good movie.

Oh, you're not entertained? Where is that
from? Okay, anyway, we're going too far.

It's from Gladiator. No, I am a.
A movie guy. But, yeah, no, I
think that's always. My problem, is that
Christian movies are always. It's bad acting,
bad writing, bad cinematography. It's just.

It was a good message.

But, no, I. I promise I will
watch the Forge.

Let me know when you watch it
so we can have a whole conversation
about it and I can get your
true reaction to it, because I'm just
curious now, but we won't even go
into the Chosen because you haven't seen
it.

My son has a soccer practice on
Friday night, and I usually just sit
there twiddling with my thumbs or working
on sermon notes. I'll watch the Forge
during his soccer.

Practice this week, so it's a possibility
we can get some feedback on the
next podcast. All right, so. So we
won't talk about the Chosen, but I
do want to talk about some of
your points in the sermon yesterday. So
when we talk about being one, how
can we effectively do that in our
lives? Like, what does that really look
like? How can we take ownership of

(19:37):
being one, being a disciple? Like, what
does that look like?

Yeah, that's a great question. Because I
mean that, that basically was the, the
layout of the, the message. And so
follow the blueprint. Like, it's, this is
what I love about the Bible. Like,
people are like, I just don't know
what to do. And it's like, have
you read your Bible? It's like, yeah,
kind of.

Right.

Well, it actually tells you what to
do, like if you just read it.
So Acts 2:42, we call it the
blueprint. And it's basically this is the,
the beginning of the church. Like the,
the first sermon has been preached. You
know, you're all sinners repent. You crucified
the Messiah and they repent. And a
whole church gets started. And like the
very next verses it says. And so

(20:19):
they being those that just converted and
the disciples, they devoted themselves to the
apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and to the prayers.
Just four things, which is sometimes like
people like, there's so much this and
there is, but it really just starts
with those four things, like if you'll
be devoted to the apostles teaching.

(20:39):
And that's where it does get more
bigger, I guess, because there's a lot
of teachings. There's 66 books. And so
the apostles teachings, that's what we have
recorded for us specifically in the New
Testament. We still read the Old Testament
because it points us to Christ. And
there's a lot of things that you
won't really fully understand or be able

(21:01):
to apply without an understanding of the
Old Testament. It's like trying to read
the book of Hebrews with no Old
Testament understanding. You're very confused by everything
that he's talking about in Hebrews.
And so we, we follow the apostles
teachings. That means that we actually study
God's word. That's not. I read my
verse of the day. I can check

(21:22):
the box. I'm a good Christian. I've
had moments as a pastor where like
I read my Bible for the day
and at the end of the day,
if you asked me what I read,
I would have said I have no
idea because I just read it to
read it.
Yeah, it was just, it was just
reading. It wasn't study. And so study
takes a lot more time. I think

(21:43):
that it's a great goal for people
to read through the Bible in a
year. I'm currently reading through the Bible
in a year. But I'm separating my
reading time from my study time because
if you're actually going to study the
Bible, you are not going unless you
like. There's a couple guys in our
church that know their Bible Way better
than I do. Probably more than a
couple, but there's a couple on my
mind, and it's like they'll spend three

(22:04):
hours studying God's Word with the meetings
that I have to do.
Like, the schedule that I keep, like,
it's just not possible for me to
do that every single day. But I.
Unless you're that guy, I don't think
it's even possible for you to study
the entire Bible in a year. Right.
Like, because when you study, you're actually,
like, sitting down with a small portion.
You're trying to analyze it. You're trying

(22:25):
to get into, okay, why did it
say this? What is the language pointing
to here? What's.
What's the Greek or the Hebrew of
this actually mean? And what other words
could this. I'm going to compare this
to another translation to see, you know,
if there's a difference there. I'm going
to. I'm going to look at Commentary
for this. I'm going to. I'm going
to go to gotquestions.org and see what
they say about this. I'm going to,
you know, I'm going to. I'm going
to take this and I'm going to

(22:46):
sit on it and I'm going to
meditate on it. I'm going to memorize
it. I'm going to, like, that study
process. That's devotion to the Word of
God. And that takes a lot of
time and energy and resources. And that's
where somebody listening to this right now
is like, I don't even know where
to begin with that.
Well, that's where you need to have
somebody that's discipling you, somebody that can

(23:07):
actually walk you through that process, that
can actually say, hey, here's how we
study and here's what you can get
out of this. And so I think
that it starts with that devotion to
God's Word. You want to stop there
and interject.

Or should we go.

Let me jump in because I got
a lot of things.

Or else I can just preach the
sermon.

I know a couple things.

Ain't nobody here for that.

So when I. When I got here
in 2018, and you hear. You used
to. With Pastor Jerry, hear a lot
about reading the Bible in a year.
And I did that in 2022. And
yes, it was the worst thing ever
for me because I was just checking
off the checklist and I hated that.
But for some reason, I had to
keep going because I started it and

(23:48):
I'm like, I gotta do this. But
I did not like it. I like
the way you're doing it, though. You
gotta be two separate things. It gotta
be, okay, I'm reading it. I'm reading
through the Bible in a year. But
I have study time still. That makes
more sense because it's. Yeah, you surely
can't study it all in a year.
I. Go ahead.

I was just gonna say the funny
thing to me is, like, where I
got that from, because I grew up
with my dad. My dad's like, read
the Bible in a year. And I'm
like, all right, let's do it. And
I highly encourage. If you're. If you're
watching this, like, I highly encourage you
read through the whole Bible in a
year at least once. Like, I think
everybody needs to do that, that kind
of, that discipline, that dedication. And also,
if you're not doing that, I know
a lot of people that. I won't

(24:28):
name any names, but I know a
lot of people that. No talking about
my sister. I love you. But, like,
if you were to ask her to
just read, like, just study and read,
she's never going to open up the
Old Testament. Like, she. She loves the
New Testament. She's great Christian. She's a
great disciple. She's awesome.

You called her a Christian. I was
just playing.

We can get into that too. Because
that's not a dirty word, people. I
know that I kind of made it
seem like maybe it was, but anyways,
it's not. But so. So where I
got the freedom to be like, okay,
I don't have to do it that
way. Only was two things. One, I
got in my head I was going
to read through the entire Bible in.

(25:08):
I forget if it was three months.
I think it was a three month
thing. And it was one of those
where I was like. I just, like,
it was one of those where I
was like, my dad's too far ahead
of me because he's been reading the
Bible every year. Seriously. No, seriously. This
is my thought process.

I'm catching him.

Have we not realized by now I
am an idiot without the Holy Spirit?
I am stupid. So I. But literally
I was like, my dad's too far
ahead. He's been reading through the Bible
every year since he was 16. I
need to catch up. But if I
can read the Bible in three months,
I could do that four times a

(25:46):
year and I could start like, closing
the gap.

Four times your age? No, not four
times your age, but.

Anyway, old enough that even that wasn't
going to help much. And so I
got it. I was like, this is
the dedication I was going to have.
And I got, like, a week into
it, and I was like, this is
the dumbest thing ever.

Yeah.

Like, I'm retaining nothing.

Yeah.

Like, I'm getting through the reading for
the day. And I mean, it would.
It would take an hour or more,
and I would get through all of
it, but it was like, if you
asked me, like, the nuances of anything
that read, I had nothing.

And it was not that I didn't
retain anything, but it was too many
instances where I didn't retain anything. So
it was just like, was that.

Time even worth it? But where the
freedom really came, it was John Bevere.
So John Bevere used to be at
the same church that I interned at.
He wasn't on staff, but it was
like, his base of operations. And so
I'd hear him all the time. And
one of his videos a couple years
ago popped up on my YouTube feed,
and he was talking about his process

(26:45):
for reading through the Bible. And he
was like, yeah, my process for reading
through the Bible. It may take me
several years to get through the Bible
each time. And when I finally finish,
I just start over again. He's like,
but what I do is I just.
I take a. I open up Matthew,
and I start reading through Matthew, and
I'll stop and I'll study things, and
I'll highlight things, and I'll write things
down, and I'll journal and I'll note,
and I just read until I'm out

(27:06):
of time, and then I close it,
and I come up the next day
and I open up wherever I was.
He's like, and that process, it might
take me three years to get through
it.

Yeah.

He's like, but I've actually studied. And
so, like, I went out and I
bought, like, this. This bundle where it's.
It's actually. Each book of the Bible
of the New Testament is an individual
book, but it's got the Bible on
one side and it's got blank note
paper on the other side. And so
I just started just reading through Matthew,
just writing notes and kind of taking
my time.

Yeah.

Thank you, John Bevere.

Yes. You guys are kind of giving
us the tea. To how you can
get the preaching superpower.

That'S called Holy Spirit.

But the preaching superpower, that's definitely Holy
spirit. I'm still 100% not get up
and just totally dehydrate and freak out
when.

I get on stage.

So, I mean.

Yeah, you do. You do.

Well, still trying not to malfunction in.

The middle of delivering. No, I Just
feel like some people have that gifting
where it's like, man, the way you
can explain the word of God, like
that comes through that personal time being
devoted. You can tell the devotion is
there.

But I mean, that's true with everything
in life. You can. You. We said
it earlier, like, you can't give what
you don't have.

Yeah, right.

That's good.

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. And speaking of
the gift, I think your husband does
a really, really good job.

I don't know how much.

No, I don't know how much experience
he got, but I watched him in
prayer last week. Not to derail the
conversation, but I was like, David is
really good at this.

No, he is.

Yeah, he's. I thought he was.

Way to go, David.

Good job.

I thought he was really good, but
that's not where I was going. But
he's closer to the superpower, not to
the Holy Spirit, to the preaching gift,
I think, than I am. I think
he did really, really well.

But anyway, as a side point today
in prayer, I was like, I'm going
to ask my husband to disciple me
in, like, how to teach the word
of God. I think I'm good, but
I think he's good. Like, really good.

Is that where you were?

So he doesn't know this. When we
get home, I'm going to ask him,
like, how do you do this? This?
But anyway, that.

So that opens up another conversation. Like
discipleships that start at home. Like, discipleship
should be happening. Husband, wife, parents, kids.
Like discipleship. There should be an element
of that in the. But, yeah, so
we're. We're studying the Bible, not just
reading, because it's not about information. It's
about transformation through application is what we
said yesterday. And it's. So it's not

(29:30):
about information. It's about transformation through application.
The transformation. Transformation just doesn't come just
because you have the information.

Right.

It only comes when you actually apply
that information in your life and through
the application now you're being transformed. So
that's where study comes.

Yeah. And that reminds me of where
I was going before we went back
and forth. You have to kind of
realize you can't feel the pressure of
this big old Bible. You have to
be okay and understand that this is
such a process. So if you're committed,
you're committed for life. You have time,
relax and just slowly go through the

(30:07):
Bible and learn what you can learn
and apply it as you learn it
and keep going through it and learn
what you can learn and apply what
you learn, and you will be forever
learning. Even Pastor Jerry, that got, like,
he got four. He got 30, 30
years on you. So I don't know
if you're gonna catch up.

I'm sorry, you ain't catching up.

But he's still learning where he is.
You're learning where you are. I'm learning
where I am. The guy that's a
week behind me. We can all be
continuing to learn at whatever pace. Obviously,
there's a level of commitment. We need
to have some discipline and be dedicated
to it. But the pace that you
go at, you'll continue to learn and
grow. And just think, God will continue

(30:45):
to reveal his words. So sometimes you
can feel the pressure of, I gotta
catch up or do too much. Just
learn where you are. It's okay. I
was just going through that with a
friend. I guess I'm discipling him at
this point. After the staff chapel last
week, you told us you gave the
staff an assignment to write down three

(31:07):
people that you're going to be that
you want to disciple. And I wrote
one. I knew one that I had
in mind.

I wrote two.

Okay, okay. And David, that's the natural
one. I want to. Okay, yes, I
wrote down one. And you know, some
people, oh, this had to be God.
Well, I wrote down one, and then
that one texted me, we should go
to lunch on Thursday. Right. Right after
I wrote it down. So we went
to lunch and I did some intentional
relational discipleship where, you know, I brought

(31:34):
to the faith back in the summer.
He got baptized back in the summer.
We had time for a while where
he was. He was on fire. He's
calling me, like, daily, like, I don't
want to bug you. I know you're
busy, but I read this in the
Bible. What does this mean? And I'm
going through with him, and I'm trying
to let him know. I. I actually
had to say. I said, I'm a
pastor, and this is kind of what
my job is. Just because you don't
go to the church don't mean that

(31:55):
you can't be a part of this
job. I'm like, you can come to
the church and I can talk through
this stuff with you. It's okay. So
anyway, so it kind of slowed down.
Well, when we went to breakfast the
other day, I'm like, check it out.
This is what we going to do.
We're going to read together. Because I
had never done that on the Bible
app where I read together with somebody.
But we did it recently. So now
we're reading, and I'm starting him at

(32:16):
Matthew, and we're going to read Matthew
for 28 days together and we're commenting
and going back and forth. So it's
really good. I don't know where I
was going with that, but the bottom
line is it's good to be intentional
about it. And as the teacher, I
read through the gospels in chronological order
last year.

That's a fun one.

Yeah, yeah. So now I got my
notes back open from that, and I'm
going through Matthew with him, but we
only at four, and I'm getting so
much that I didn't even get last
time. So it's like, amazing that I
just went through that really slow and
like with the other ones. And it
took me a while. Like, I just
went through those for a long time.
And now just that fast, I'm back
around going through Matthew and. And what

(32:59):
I've gotten through four chapters of Matthew
after I just studied it last year
is pretty amazing to me as I'm
reading it again. So I guess the
moral to the story is just take
it slow. Wherever you are. You got
time, and God can show you a
whole lot with a little scripture.

Yeah.

Yeah. Next month, our whole church, we're
just walking through Ephesians.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

It's gonna take us six weeks to
get there, and even then, that's probably
gonna be a fast pace. One week
on a chapter of Ephesians, there's like
a lifetime worth of stuff in some
of those chapters.

It's almost. And you said to everybody
yesterday, whatever group it is, after we
read Ephesians, just do whatever you want
to do. It almost wouldn't be a
bad idea to say, let's start back
at chapter, chapter one, and let's go
through Ephesians again. Yeah, that's a good
idea. You know what I mean? Let's
do it again. Because literally you're. Everybody's
gonna grow even further by doing it

(33:51):
again.

Yeah.

You know.

So is that the discipline part or
is that the devoted part?

Yes.

Yes to which one?

Say both. And he said yes.

Yeah, it's both.

I don't like when you guys.

So we haven't even gotten to this.
I guess we should start there. Okay,
so B1. Here's our three words for
B1. And this is. This is foundational
because there's so much more to it.
We're going to spend. I think I
said outside. We're going to spend the
rest of our lives figuring out how
to be a disciple. Yeah. But the
Three foundational things is that you're devoted,
disciplined, and duplicated. So devoted is all

(34:26):
of me. Like all of me for
all of him. I'm just 100%. I'm
locked in my mind, my heart, my
actions. All of it is just God.
I just love God. So we're devoted
to him. That devotion plays out through
devoted to the apostles, teaching to the
fellowship, breaking of bread, and the prayers,

(34:48):
which we only got through one of
those four things. That's the application of
devotion. It's like, how does the devotion
live out now? You can go beyond
that because the greatest command is to
love the Lord, your God with all
your heart. Okay, so how are you
loving God in that devotion? The second
commandment is just like the first gonna
love. And we didn't talk about that
at all on Sunday, because I'm saving

(35:09):
that for first love. Because first love.
So we're gonna talk about love. Yeah.
Guess what we're gonna talk about later.
So, like, there's a lot to devotion,
but I think that that's a great
foundational piece. So is this Bible study
a part of devotion? Absolutely. But it's
also sustained by our discipline. Because I

(35:30):
think I said yesterday. What did I
say? Your passion will always wear out
or passion will always fade. It was
a much cooler way of saying it,
but I can't remember it now.

Yeah, you said your passion will fade,
but your discipline won't in some order,
or it'll fade before your discipline will.
Yeah, something like that. It was good.

Do you remember? Pretty.

Look at that. Four people in the
room. That was in church.

Discipline always lasts longer than passion.

Yes, that's what it was.

Discipline always lasts longer than passion. And
that's the idea. Like, you can be
devoted on fire for God, but five
years, is that fire still the same?
And when a tragedy happens, is that
passion still the same? When life gets
busy and complicated and it's like, you

(36:19):
could be super passionate when you're single,
and then you find a girl, and
then you start dating, and then you
get engaged, and then you get married,
and then you start having kids, and
now you're soccer dad, and you got
three things you got to do. Now
your passion's worn out. So does that
mean at that point you get to
stop being devoted to the Word and

(36:40):
the fellowship and. No, you don't get
to stop being devoted to those things.
But that's where discipline kicks in. And
now I've got to be have discipline
in my life to actually do those
things. So Bible reading is part of
your Devotion to God, but it's sustained
by your discipline.

Okay, that's good. So during your message
yesterday, I know you stopped at devoted
because we're going to cover that next
week, right?

No, not devoted.

Duplicated. Duplicated. So what. What about your
message? When you prepare a message, are
there things you have to take out,
leave out? Is it anything like that?
So, yeah, yeah, there's something you left
out from us yesterday.

How could you possibly know Taisha? So
literally on. On Saturday night, I sent
an email to Taisha and Brett, who
manage a lot of our notes for
the screens and for the app and
for online and all that. I was
like, hey, guys, here's a whole, like,
paragraph of like, three points. A Bible
verse, a scripture, another Bible verse. Just

(37:48):
delete all that. We don't have time.

So you missed three things.

Yeah, so. Because basically, like, I throw
the kitchen sink into stuff and I
trim a lot even before I present
it to staff to our pastors. But
then usually for me, my process is
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I refine the message.
So that's where I rehearse. If you've
ever taken one of my public speaking

(38:12):
classes or my preaching class, I always
tell you, never preach a sermon for
the first time with an audience. Like,
you should be always preaching that thing
with nobody in the room. And so,
like, my process is these days, we've
been super busy. So it's like, I'll
preach it four to eight times in
my office, just me, nobody around. And

(38:35):
so that. That allows me to know
the flow and the cadence and things
work and things fit and things don't.
And so I was doing that on
Friday and it was going pretty well,
but it was getting a little long.
And then I did it on Saturday
and there was a couple like, let
me add that here. Let me. I
need to spend a little bit more
time on that. And by the last
time I went through it on Saturday,

(38:56):
it was like a hour and five
minute sermon. I was like, well, we
got to cut some stuff.

Not this church.

Yeah, that's hard.

How do you cut?

Well, that's. That's. I went to my
wife and I was like, hey, I
gotta cut something. And I was like,
I think this is what I'm gonna
cut. And she looked at me, she's
like, really? I don't want you to
cut that. What if you cut something
else? And I was like, I got
nothing else that I can cut. Like,
so I cut something I didn't want
to cut. And so I emailed you,
and I'm like, hey, maybe we can
talk about this on the podcast, because
I gotta cut it out.

You're not supposed to give people the
tea.

We totally get the background. Totally. We're
100% transparent.

This is how we got here. So
give us what you cut out.

So what I cut out was motivation.
I. I felt like it was. It
was funny because, like, on the Sunday
that we made the announcement that we're
changing to disciples, I went in on
the fact that discipleship is hard. Like,
being a Christian is easy. Being a
disciple is hard. Like, he says, take
up your cross and follow me. He
says, deny yourself. Like, we didn't even

(39:51):
get into some of the passages where
he talks about, you got to hate
your brother and sister and your mother
and father and your kids. And, like,
if you're gonna follow me, you gotta
forsake the world. And, like, it's like,
being a disciple, it's not easy. And
there's, like, there's a lot of reasons
why you're not gonna want to do
it. And so I was like, I
didn't give anybody the reasons to do
it. And yet everybody seemed to be
on board. So, like, maybe it's okay.

(40:14):
And then again on Sunday, like, I
was like, okay, when I do the
B1, I should tell people, you know,
this is hard, but here's why it's
worth it. And then we ended up
cutting that out. So I don't know.
I got a lot of people that
are ready to be disciples, even though
it's gonna suck.

Well, you haven't told them how it's
gonna be hard. So are you gonna
tell us here how it's gonna be
hard?

No. I've been telling everybody how it's
gonna be hard all. All throughout.

Yeah.

Okay. Taish. Is it easy to deny
yourself?

It is not easy.

Is it easy to take up your
cross?

Nope.

Do you know what it means to
take up your cross?

Yeah, absolutely.

It means to die.

Yes.

Is that something you want to do?

No.

So why are you doing it?

Because I love Jesus.

And maybe that's the only answer that
people need, because I love that. But.
Yeah. So the motivation that I was
gonna teach on Sunday was that we
do the hard thing for three reasons.
One, it's because being a disciple is
the invitation. So, like, the Bible doesn't
actually invite you to be a Christian.
It doesn't actually even invite you to

(41:15):
go to church. It invites you to
follow Jesus as his disciple. Right. And
so his passage is, if anyone is
going to come after me, this is
what they have to do, right? So
the invitation to follow Jesus is an
invitation to be a disciple, right? And
so if we're going to actually take
him up on his invitation, then we
have to be disciples. So and so,

(41:37):
like, for me personally, and this is
just a, this is a, maybe just
a Brent thing, but when it comes
to God, because I said so, is
a sufficient answer.

Absolutely.

Like, when it, when it's God speaking,
hey, do this because I said so.
Like, okay, I'm in.

Done. Right?

Right. Like, what's it gonna cost me?

Right?

Don't even think about it. Just, just
do it. But at the same time,
I love how God just constantly goes
above and beyond. Like, he doesn't just
leave you with, well, I told you
to so do it. Like, he actually
goes the next step. And I think
the next step is that being a
disciple is actually for my benefit. Like,
I'm better, I'm a better Brent as

(42:19):
a disciple than I am as just
a Christian. And in a moment, we
need to talk about the whole. My
comments about Christianity. Like, I am better
as a disciple.
You are better as a disciple. Because
being a disciple means you're actually doing
the things that Jesus taught. And the
things Jesus taught make you a better

(42:40):
person. Like, first of all, he says,
right after he says, deny yourself, take
up your cross, follow me. The next
thing he says is, for whoever would
try and save their life is going
to lose it. Whoever would lose their
life for my sake will save it.
What does it benefit a person to
gain the whole world and forfeit their
soul? Right? So this whole idea, this
whole passage is telling us that being

(43:01):
a disciple is salvation. Like, I'm saved
as, as this process of actually following
Jesus. And so first of all, if
you want to live, you should probably
become a disciple, right? So, like, it's,
it's. I mean, yeah, but die. Yeah,
because that's what he's saying. And so,
like, that's part of the motivation.
But it even goes beyond that for

(43:23):
my benefit. Because Jesus didn't just say,
you know, deny yourself, take the cross.
He also said, I came that they
might have life and have it to
the abundant, right? Like the life that,
that Christ is promising us is this
abundant life. But I don't think that
abundant life fits for somebody that's a
cafeteria Christian. Like, the abundant life that

(43:43):
he's promising is not that you're never
going to be sick.
It's not that you're always going to
get a promotion. It's not that your
bank account is always going to be
Fat. Like his promise to you, this
abundant life is that when you're walking
with him as a disciple, you have
peace in every. Like, it doesn't matter
what's happening. There's peace that's available to

(44:04):
you because you know that you're walking
with him. Like, the number one fear
that people have is death. It's what
happens after we die. Even my daughter
yesterday came to me like terrified about
death.
And we had to like, I guess
in kids life, they talked about heaven
and like, it just spooked her. It's
like we. I had to walk through
her as her dad and be like,
hey, babe, that's. That is not what

(44:25):
we're afraid of. Like, think of it
from, from our perspective. Death is a
doorway. You're opening that door, you're walking
into heaven and who's waiting for you.
And she's like, Jesus. I'm like, exactly.
How awesome is that? Like, we don't
fear death because what's waiting for us
is better than life, right? And so
like, that's for my benefit. Not only

(44:46):
that, but like, everybody's looking for meaning
and purpose. And like, what's the. Why
am I here? Well, as a disciple
you are given all of that. Like
you have when you are a disciple
who's really following Jesus, you have abundant
peace, you've got abundant joy, you've got
abundant purpose.
Like the abundant life that he's promising

(45:07):
you is awesome, right? So like selfishly
be a disciple because it's good for
you, right? Like it's life and it
makes you a better you than you
would have been without it. But ultimately,
the final reason is I really strongly
believe that discipleship is the hope of
the world.
That of all the mess, of all
the problems of everything that's going on,

(45:27):
if there would just be more people
actually following Jesus, the world would be
a better place. And so being a
disciple is for the benefit of the
world. And so what we understand is
the world is a mess, the world
is broken, sin is destructive. But for
those that are following Jesus, that should
mean that we're sinning less. Not that
we're sinless, but that we sin less.

(45:49):
And if there's less sin happening, there's
less destruction, there's less damage, there's a
lot of hurting and broken people. Well,
when there's more disciples, that means there's
more people finding, healing from their brokenness.
Not only that, it also means that
there's more people, or less people, I
should say, going around hurting and breaking
people, and there's more People going around

(46:10):
healing and helping those people that have
been broken. So, like, the world actually
becomes a better place to live when
there's more disciples in it.

And it's like we carry those things.
So, for instance, Jesus brings hope. Well,
the more disciples you have, the more
disciples you have in California right now,
the more hope is in that place,
the fewer disciples. Where else is somebody
getting hope in those situations? You know
what I mean? So we carry all
of that. The more we. The more

(46:39):
disciples that there are, the more opportunity
that it's going to be for somebody
to pray for somebody and they actually
get healed. But if you don't even
know about it, or nobody in that
area even believes it or knows about
those things, the chances of it happening
is less. That don't mean God can't
just come in and do it, because
he could do what he want to
do. But he. He put us in
position to play a role and to

(47:00):
be a part of what he's doing
on purpose. And I don't think that
that's. I think we take it too
lightly. I think the importance of it.
I think sometimes we don't get. It's
like, yeah, God could do what he
want to do, but he told us
to go do some things. And if
we do those things, I feel like,
because the world is a better place
because there's more disciples, it's almost less

(47:20):
of him having to do on his
own, I guess, is what I'm trying
to say. But. But back to earlier,
as you was. As you was in
the middle of talking about that you
want to be where God wants you
to be.

Yeah.

That's kind of the moral to the
story. Where does God want you? And
you get there by obedience. You get
there by being devoted to His Word
because you're going to learn what to
do and how to do it in
His Word.

That's it.

You get there by being led of
the Holy Spirit. When you feel like
you're being, you know, prompted to do
something, you can seek counsel to help
you. You can seek the Word to
help you, to make sure you're on
the right track. And then go where
you feel God wants you to go.
And if your heart is toward going
where you feel God wants you to
go, if you about to screw it
up, he'll try to get through to.

You before you screw it up and
redirect your part.

What'd you say? Yeah, yeah. Or when
you screw it up, because you're gonna
screw it up sometimes, but for the
most part, it's man, my heart is,
I want to do what God want
me to do. So let me see
how I can obey his word, obey
the things that I know. This is
what I know. So let's try to
do those things. And I'm probably gonna
find myself closer to God's will for

(48:26):
my life than if I just ignore
the things that I already know to
do. So I think it just comes
down to that. But it's not a
thankless job to me because it's a
real thing to be in the presence
of God, to know that he loves
you, to actually experience his goodness, his
grace, to experience him fixing a situation

(48:47):
that may be bad, or even you
going through a bad situation, but you
just don't see it like everybody else
see it, because you have hope in
Christ. Like, that's a real thing. And
those are real experiences. To be in
the midst of a storm and everybody
freaking out and you're like, well, I
got peace in the middle of this.
This is going to work out okay.
And you're encouraging others. You're bringing hope
to those circumstances. Like, that's the benefit.

(49:09):
And if it's five of y'all there
instead of one, not only is it
going to help you as a disciple,
together, five disciples in a place of
bad, they're going to be able to
make a bigger impact. They're going to
be able to encourage each other. They're
going to be able to do the
thing better when it's a group of
disciples versus one. So that's why we
need to go make more, so that
in every space on Earth, there's more

(49:30):
disciples of Christ. Because the end goal
is God wants as many of us
with him as possible. Now, can we
help him do that? I mean, that's
kind of how I see it.

So what? That's good. What kept coming
to my mind is like, is it
when we have Christians in place or
disciples in place? Because people could say,
there's a lot of Christians here. So
does it have to be specifically Christians
or disciples?

It needs to be Christians. That's obeying
and doing what you do.

That's a great segue to, like, that
whole. Because I've had a lot of
people comment to me, like, I'm never
gonna call myself a Christian again. I'm
like, that wasn't really the heart behind
it. I think that, like, on government
forums, I'm not checking the other box.
Like, I'm checking Christian. Like, if somebody
stops me on the street and says,
hey, you know, what religion do you
follow? Say, well, I'm a Christian because

(50:20):
I think that there is like, Christian
is still. It's the category of who
we are disciple though, is it's what
a Christian should be. Right. And so
I think that there's some great churches
out there that call themselves Christians. They
are Christians. There's probably a bunch of
Christian life centers out there that are
staying Christian life center. And I'm not

(50:40):
trying to say they're less than or
they're not good enough or whatever, but
I think that there is a real
distinction between Christian and cafeteria Christian or
Christian and cultural Christian or Christian and
lukewarm Christian. And so, like, if you're
a Christian who is following the teachings
of Jesus, you're dedicating your life, you're

(51:02):
saying, I'm devoted to following him. Awesome.
That's. You're a disciple, right? Like, keep
calling yourself a Christian. That's fine. That's
great. That's no problem. Right. And so
we just got to be careful with
like trying to look down on other
churches.

For sure.

Like, if you drive by a church
and it has Christian in the title,
don't be like, if they only knew
what's in the Bible.

And, and if you read in the
Bible, you know that God is not
expecting this per. This perfect walk, this
perfection. Like, he used so many people
that surely didn't walk this thing out
the way that he would have had
it. I mean, so right now I'm
studying David and I'm looking at Saul
and David and I. And when you
kind of look at the differences in

(51:43):
those two kings, God called David the
man after God's own heart. And I
think the separator there is Saul made.
He always was pointing the finger somewhere
else for his issues. David would screw
up, but he found himself repentant in
the midst of the screw up. And
I think that that's the man after
God's own heart part. It ain't the

(52:04):
he was perfect. It was that he
realized I'm a screw up. Lord, let
me run back to you. Versus deflecting
and doing some of the things you
talked about, you know, deflecting, like, it
was never you. I mean, you gotta
be repentant when you screw up.

Yes.

Literally one of my favorite stories in
the Bible, when Saul, or yeah, King
Saul is supposed to wipe out. I'm
blanking on which group of people. The
Amalekite, the Malachites. He's supposed to wipe
them out and he doesn't.

And they're animals.

And the prophet comes in and says,
why did you Disobey the Lord. And
Saul says, I didn't disobey the Lord.
And the prophet's like, then what is
this bleating of sheep that I'm hearing?
It is like the greatest call out
ever. He's like, sheep, why am I
hearing man while we're talking, if you
actually did what you were supposed to
do.

And then he blamed it on his
lieutenant. He's the king. The people that
I got in charge, they didn't kill
the animals. Well, it's like, you're the
king.

Yeah, it's the funniest passage in the
Bible.

It's wild. It's wild. But man after
God's own heart, be repentant. You're not
gonna be perfect. Try. Try to do.
Try to do it right. Don't just
sin for the sake of sin, and
don't disobey for the sake of disobeying.
But when you screw up, be quick
to repent. Be quick to. To evaluate
yourself, because God is nudging you toward

(53:28):
evaluation anyway. So it's like, don't ignore
the Holy Spirit's chastening the discipline that
he's trying to give you in those
moments. Don't ignore it.

I know Tyisha wants to jump in.
Before we get into that discipline thing.
Can we just wrap up the devoted
like the blueprint? Because we just. We
sped through fellowship breaking your bread and
prayers. Yes, but just, just real quickly,
fellowship means you're not supposed to be
doing this alone. Fellowship means that when.
When I'm following Jesus, I'm with people

(54:00):
who are following Jesus. Right? And so
remember, the phrasing of Acts 2, 42
says that they were devoted to. And
then it lists these things, which means
we actually need to be devoted to
fellowship, which means we're not canceling, we're
not dipping out. Right. Like, there's a.
There's a tendency to. To sign up
for a life group, but never actually

(54:21):
go to the group or go one.
Oh, I got busy. And you know,
I think a lot of times we've
got this tendency to pull out of
relationship too early. Right? And so if
we're going to be disciples, we need
to be devoted to fellowship, which means
actually making it a priority in our
lives. And then real quickly, breaking of
bread. That's the act of communion. This

(54:42):
is the one that's probably the most
complex for people. They're like, well, what
is. How are you devoted to that?
Well, communion was a reminder. He says,
do this in remembrance of me. Right?
So it's a constant reminder of Jesus,
death on the cross. And so for
me, the way I interpret that our
devotion then becomes to the gospel, to
the message of the cross. In fact,

(55:03):
Jesus says, lay down your life for
my sake and for the sake of
the gospel, right? And so being devoted
to that message of Jesus died on
the cross for my sins, he was
raised on the third day to new
life. That promises that I'm going to
be raised as well, right? And so
we become devoted to that message. And
then finally, probably the one that we
don't even need to talk about is

(55:23):
prayer. Like, if you're not devoted to
prayer, what kind of Christian are you?

Yeah, come on now, come on, you.

Gotta pray, you gotta pray.

And go back to the devoted to
fellowship real quick.

He's like, come on, let's wrap this
up. It's 349.

It's like, what do you value the
word tells you to do it. I
get it, we all got busy schedules.
But you actually have to on purpose
say, okay, this is what the Bible
is telling us to do, to be
devoted to fellowship with other believers. I
know I got all of this wonderful
stuff going on. My kids in this,
my kids in that. But at the
end of the day, is the value

(56:01):
of what the Bible tell tell you
to do higher than the value of
all of the rest of the stuff?

Right?

That's what it come down to. We
all have time to do this. It's
just, do you value it over some
of the other stuff that you're doing
that you don't technically have to do?
So that's kind of what it comes
down to. And that's a hard one
for me. That's a hard one for
all of us.

That's not easy. Let's get personal here.

Well, no, it's not easy, but it's
not.

Tell us how to.

No, but I have to commit to
a group. I don't want to. I'm
accepting.

Are you committed to a group?

I would love not to see some
of you CL series.

So for me like that, that usually
becomes the easiest thing to push on
people. Like when they start saying, well,
I just don't have time. I ask
them three questions. What's, what's your favorite
TV show?

Right.

What's your favorite podcast? Who's your favorite
YouTuber? And then I ask them the
follow up question. Are you caught up?

Yeah.

Because if you are all caught up
in your favorite TV show, if you're
all caught up in your favorite podcast,
if you're all caught up in your
favorite YouTuber, you got plenty of time.

And you value that more than God's
word or obeying it. That's just true.
It's for all of us or even
for me. Did you watch nine hours
of football yesterday? Well, you got time.

You did.

I mean, it was nine hours. It
was three games on.

It was Sunday.

I wasn't even home to the middle.

Of the day telling us to ask
the question.

I don't think I was quite nine
hours, but.

Yeah, but that's the question. I was
at church all day, so I just
go home football, turn on the tv,
have sleep to it. But I got
time.

I mean, where was the time with
your family?

Look, if you're all caught up on
between sermons, but you haven't opened your
Bible yet this week, open your Bible
first.

That's true. Okay, well, I don't. I
don't even think we need takeaways.

I think you guys, you don't want
to talk about. You're really trying to
wrap this thing up. No, no, you
know what?

I am devoted to this.

I am done. She's like, I'm out
of here. You want to talk about
discipline? Is it because it's too sensitive
of a subject?

She's not disciplined enough to be.

I am very disciplined. I need to
grow and discipline. No, let's talk about
discipline.

Which one? Which discipline do you like
the most? When you discipline yourself or
when you're being disciplined?

I like when I discipline. I like
when God disciplines me and he does
do it. I'm not taking the easy
way out. He does. He just disciplined
me and told me to take captive
my thoughts and my words.

Just now, while we were talking.

No, not just now, but like, no,
in this. In this.

He just hit me with a chancla.

What's the word?

He just Chancla right now.

La chancla.

Chancla.

Or in Pastor Ace's context, la croc.

You know what?

It was at the top of the
year. I was literally. Literally, I was
at the top of the year. I
was being negative about something and I
end up projecting on David. And then
he was all excited about it and
he walked away all sad and like,
did you see how you just tore
down your husband with your negative? And
I was like, oh, my gosh. And
I had to like, go, repent to
God, repent to David. And I just

(59:05):
realized, like, I need to be careful
with my words because you can bleed
on people and you can project on
people. So, yes, God, absolutely.

Yeah, that's a good thing.

How did that correction Come. Holy Spirit,
Bible person.

It was. It was through. Actually, I
was flipping through Instagram, and a girl
was talking about how to be a
godly woman. And the first thing she
said was, tame your tongue and your
thoughts. And I was like. And then
I just sat with God, like, is
this what I've been doing?

So, yeah, yeah, we. I don't know
if we really phrase it that way
yesterday, but that's. God's correction is three
ways. It's. It's spiritual Bible people. So
yours was people.

Yep.

That's good. That's good. That's a good
thing. And it's best when you have
two people in the home that will
allow God to correct them. That's the
best marriage. You need two people that's
willing to be corrected by God, and
then you should be able to flow.

Yeah. So if you're listening to this
podcast before you listen to the sermon,
the idea is that to be a
disciple, you need to be disciplined. And
that is kind of a play on
words, in a sense, because it's both
forms of discipline. Right? Discipline is. It's
both the idea of, I set aside
time. I restrict things in my life.

(01:00:20):
I discipline myself to read and study,
to work out, to eat healthy. Like,
I discipline myself in those ways. But
the other form of discipline is the
idea of, like, when a parent disciplines
a child. Right. And so you can
either discipline yourself or you can be
disciplined by God. And so that's where,

(01:00:41):
as disciples, though, we need. We need
discipline in our lives.

Ti’heasha Beasley (01:00:45):
How does that look in your lives?

Asa Slaughter (01:00:47):
Discipline?

Yeah.

What was the last time you were
disciplined from God?

Brent McQuay (01:00:51):
I want to go.

I want to hear both of you.

No, I'm not going back to that.
I told you in staff meeting, I
just.

Oh, yeah, you had a moment.

Discipline. That takes too long. We can't
go back to that.

Right. You should keep that way.

I'm still healing.

I just. Man, I got so many
things in my head that I want
to do to you now because of
that conversation. Like, I want to.

It's a lot.

Like, if you ever invite me over
to dinner at your house, I'm coming
with a container. Like, I'm just. I'm
coming with it.

He's not getting an invite.

I kind of. I kind of want
to just leave, like, random, like, to
go containers, like, on your desk, like,
in the office. Just see how well,
the whole experience. If you can come
in and laugh at it, then it's
like, Asa's been healed. If he comes
in and throws it across the room.

Y'all are getting no context to this
story. Don't worry about it.

Staff chapel.

We all take coke containers before Asa
gets a bite. I'm sorry. We are
having a wonderful time right now. The
audience has no idea what we're talking
about. I apologize. I'm so sorry.

Inside joke.

So discipline for me is dirty word
right now in the sense of I
know that I need to do much,
much better in that area of my
life. It's the area of my life
that I've felt for a long time
now that, like, I've let go, like,

(01:02:11):
physically, like, my weight has gotten out
of control, and I'm like, I need
better discipline and eating.

And I'm not gonna agree with you.

Now you're supposed to be talking about,
how do I. I mean, I wasn't
gonna say nothing, but you're kind of
fat over there.

I feel horrible.

Some of us working on the same
struggles. That's why I'm over here. Like,
yeah, come on.

Thank you. I totally took you out
that ball.

Not a judgmental head knock.

I was like, conviction, holy spirit. Right?

No judgment in that.

And part of it for me is
like, the program that I grew up
in, the. I think we talked about
was it last week, like, that program,
we were very, very disciplined physically. And
so we used to say that we
would do those hard things, physical discipline,
because it led to spiritual discipline. And
so, like, I watch myself physically get

(01:03:08):
less and less discipline, and I'm like,
how much is this affecting my spiritual
discipline? And honestly, for me, like, I'm
not vain. I'm not. Like, I don't.
I don't care. But what I do
care about is the spiritual things. Like,
if I'm letting this area get weak,
am I weakening in other areas? And
I want to make sure that I
stay strong in those areas. So for

(01:03:30):
me, I want to be better disciplined
on the non spiritual side of things
as a testament to the spiritual side
of things. So disciplining myself is where,
like, I'm. I'm struggling a little bit
now on. On the. The win side
of that. Like, hey, I worked out
this morning.

Yeah, that was a win.

I'm eating better, but that's because we're
fasting. I don't know. I don't know
if I can count that one yet.

I don't know if I like fasting,
Brett, because in the morning, you're like,
we're like, good job on your message.

I didn't notice it, but she's saying
growlty growled, look at that.

If there Was any growling today? It
was my stomach that was growling. Anyways.
Yeah. So. And then I. I get
disciplined by God all the time. It's
like, all day, every day. A lot
of times it's Holy Spirit. A lot
of times it's Bible. Sometimes people, I
think, because of the position that I'm

(01:04:33):
in, it's harder for people to discipline
me. Mm. And I think. And not
because I wouldn't accept it or receive
it, but they just feel uncomfortable doing.

Definitely scared.

Right. Like, it's just. It's like, how
do you discipline your boss? Like, an
awkward place. But yeah. And. And so
that's why it's important for me to
have people in my life that will.
That will correct me on things, which
I do. I've got people that are
doing that. But a lot of times,
for me, it's just. I'll say something
to my kids, and then I'll read
my Bible and be like, oh, oops.

(01:05:05):
Or, you know, I'll do something similar
to what you did. Like, my wife
will have, like, this great idea, and
I'm immediately like, no, you can't do
it, because this, this, this, and this.
And she's just like, fine. Like, I.
I'm not trying to kill your puppy.
Like, that's. That's usually what. What I
say. But at the end of the
day, it's like, no, Brian, you need
to be better with your words and
choice. So, like, I'm. I'm being disciplined

(01:05:26):
all day, every day.

It is such a. It's just an
ongoing thing, especially if you welcome God's
discipline and if you. If you walk
in a way that. I mean, we've
been. I kind of gave the staff
an assignment about walking in love. Hence
the God is love last month. And
literally for a month, I'm like, lord,
that was for them. Why have you

(01:05:48):
turned up the discipline around here? Like,
everything I do, I feel like I'm
like, oh, that wasn't love. You know
what I mean? Oh, that thought wasn't
love. I didn't even do nothing. I
don't even know where that thought came
from, Lord. You know what I mean?
So I think if you're willing to
allow God in, he's always like, course
correcting with little stuff. And a lot
of times, it's just to kind of

(01:06:08):
show you how you can be better.
Yeah, it's not really even. It don't
even feel like a la chunkla, a
la Crocla.

Now you kicking up your Crocs.

We need the editor to do something
blur Them things out. I don't know.

You know what I mean? But it's
just the gentle. It's gentle to me.
I like the gentle ones because it's
like, oh, yeah, I could probably do
that better or say that a little
better. And I think that. Or.

Yeah.

So it's an ongoing thing, and I
think we never arrive at the place
where we don't need God to continue
to just tweak us to be more
like Jesus. It's a constant tweaking.

So I got two questions, if you'll
permit me.

No, go ahead. It's not me, it's
them.

Two questions. The first question, I am
really curious. What. What was discipline in
your household like as a. As a
child?

Switch.

The switch.

Belt, shoe, everything. Double smack. I don't
even know what that is. What is
that?

Oh, my God.

How you do that?

I never got that. I mean, I
got like, handbrakings.

I was like, oh, God, what is
happening right now? Love it.

It's like a ringing.

I want to try it on Neo
now so bad, but I can't because
I'm sure that's not permissible.

Every one of them.

Yeah. So. So mine, I said on
Sunday, like, the. My parents tool of
discipline was the leather belt. And like,
they would do that whole, like, you
know how you fold it? You crack
it.

Yes.

That sounds like. Even today, like, I
hear that sound, I'm like, like grabbing
my butt. Like, why does that still
hurt?

Oh, my goodness. Trauma.

But. But. And then it was, you
know, that was. That was like the
we have time for discipline kind of
thing. The we don't have time for
discipline, which is a quick slap on
the butt. Spanking. Old school spanking.

Mine was. Mine was the belt.

Okay.

But I never. I was too smart.
So I would just get out of
it.

Smart. I got the belt way less
than my brother and sister because I'm
the youngest. I'm the baby in the
family. But it wasn't a, oh, the
baby. We gotta care for him. No,
it was. I watched.

You learned, huh?

I learned. Cause my brother and sister
are like eight, nine years older than
me. And so, like, I watched them
and I was like, oh, so don't
say that.

So I was the baby.

Keep that to yourself.

I'm the baby. And I got the
most whoopings.

You didn't pay attention.

I was bad. And then my brothers
were liars. They would blame a lot
of things on me. They let her
know now. Yeah, that whooping. That really
didn't. That one didn't go to Ace.
So we just team up and blame
it on him. So I was bad.
I ain't gonna make excuses like Saul.
I deserved most of them. But it
was somebody.

There was a couple. That wasn't yours.
All right, so that was my first
question. My second question is, when God
sends a person to bring correction, how
do you determine whether it was God
sending that person? And it's just somebody
that's just. Just got a attitude or
a beef or like it. Because not
every time somebody comes to you and

(01:09:05):
says, hey, you need to work on
this, is that actually from God? How
do you distinguish between.

I mean, to go.

Yeah.

I almost feel like usually I already
know God is already working on me
before you have to send somebody. So
it's usually not a new thing. It's
usually a I'm being disobedient thing. You
know what I mean? But I also.
When it's not that, when I don't
recognize right away that this is God,
I'll sit with it, talk to God

(01:09:33):
about it, and kind of go with
it like that. And if I. Usually
it's easy. Not easy, but usually you'll
find it in a word, at some
point, whether it's close to that moment
or later. And then the Holy Spirit
is like, yeah, Remember that person told
you that? So both and. But I
usually already know.

Yeah.

In some type of way.

That's good.

I already know.

That's good. I would say. I agree
with that. Both. Like, I already kind
of know. But in this most recent
season, I think it's the heart, like.
Like I was. I think someone's heart.
You feel it. I don't know. Maybe
that doesn't make sense because you do
already know. God's already speaking to you.
Or if you sit with it, you're
like, oh, yeah. But, like, if someone

(01:10:15):
corrects me and we have that relationship
and I know that they want to
see me win and they want to
see me better, it's easier to receive.
And I kind of know, like, God
may be using this person to help
me grow in an area that was
a blind spot for me.

Right.

So maybe relationship and, like, the heart,
like, behind it. So, like, if you
tell me or if you tell me,
like, girl, get it together. But if
a girl who don't like me tell
me, girl, get it together, I'm like,
you get it together. You know, so
now we're gonna fight. Right? So. Yeah.

So. So my question back to you.
What if you already know, but you
really don't think you. You kind of
know that God didn't send that person
to say nothing to you. They just
being rude. But you already know. How
do you deal with that?

Say thank you and move on. I
don't think, I don't think it's worth.
I think a lot of the fights
that people are in are not worth
it.

Right.

It's just, it's not worth it.

Yeah.

Right. So, like, somebody could bring correction
to me and they could be the
wrong person to do it. They could
do it in the wrong way. But
I can still look at it and
go, okay, is there some truth to
this? And if there's some truth, then
I need to do something about it.
There's no truth in it. I can
say, hey, thank you so much, or
hey, you know, it's interesting. Let me
pray about that. Like, I've had people
come to me and say stuff, and

(01:11:35):
I'm like, let me pray on that
one. And that was actually just code
for me saying, yeah, I don't, I
don't think so. I don't think that
that's the right thing.

If people really watch between service, they.

Would know everything, you know, all this
stuff.

All this stuff. So that's good.

But, yeah, no, I, I think that
there's, there's. I don't think that there's
a wrong person to bring correction in
my life if, if the correction is
valid.

Yeah.

And so the, the validity of it
is what you have to kind of
weigh. And if there's, man, if they
come at you hot, like, man, you
always do this thing wrong and you
get defensive and you're like, that's not
even true. I don't always do that.
But you can think of the one
time last week when you did it
say, you know what, let me work
on that.

And it's so easy to. Even if
you always do it to get defensive,
if it's somebody you don't like or
don't even know, I mean, it can
be random and somebody points something out.
There's an issue for you.

I don't say there's four responses. That's
why I said on Sunday there's four
responses to Correction. You can cry about
it, get emotional, you can get angry,
you can fight over it, you can
get defensive and make excuses for it,
or you can receive it. And so
I just, I recommend receiving it. What
do they say? You know, chew the
meat, spit out the bones.

Right.

Like, not everybody's correction is going to
be done. Right. I've had people that,
like, this is totally not even about
Correction. But I've had somebody give me
a prophetic word before that was like
spot on. But then they tried to
explain their word and they were way
off.

Oh God.

And it was like, man, you should
just stop while you're ahead.

Like, like it's like say what you
know. You heard God, right?

But when it comes to that correction.
What I'm getting out there, like the
tie in is like somebody could say
something right in the wrong way, but
I can still say, okay, okay. That
hurt. Like, maybe if I have a
relationship with them, let me coach them
on how to do that in the
future. Better. But even if there's just
that nugget of truth, I want to
grab on of the nugget of truth.
Because at the end of the day,

(01:13:32):
I want to be better.

Yeah.

And I don't get better without Correction.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah.

And we can end on this note.
I don't think we need takeaways. Seriously.
Unless you guys want to do a
takeaway. You guys been doing really good
with your take. Like it was a
good.

The whole thing.

The whole thing was. It was a
good takeaway. One thing that right? B1.
So you know, I'm not even gonna
say my part.

Let's discipled or disciplined. I don't even
know my three things. I can't even
say them right. That's. I'm tired. That's.

Yep. We've been here for a long
time. So devoted, disciplined and duplicated. Go
be one. We love you here on
between sermons. We hope you check out
that sermon from Sunday. It was an
amazing sermon. It's up now on our
YouTube page. Make sure to share this
video but also if you are watching
between sermons, let us know. Put I

(01:14:20):
am watching in the comments. We just
want to know who you are, connect
with you and start building our community
community online. So we hope you can
tune in next week and until then,
see you later.

I guess that's.

You like threw your phone back there,
kept buzzing. But it was good cuz
I started using it as a clock
because people kept calling you so.

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