The Sanctuary: Walking With God Episode 41 – The Problem With Discipleship Salvation

Welcome to Episode 41 of The Sanctuary: Walking With God! In this episode, theologian Dan Robb and scientist Mark Wadsworth explore our eternal life through Christ and the significance of discipleship. Many ponder: can you be saved if you don’t visibly show signs of life change? What insights does the Bible offer on this topic?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Welcome to the Sanctuary. It's a podcast about walking with God. I'm Dan Robb. I'm the theologian. This is Mark Wadsworth, a good scientist, and he knows it. Right? Don't you know it? You know it, right? Yeah. You like to mess around with all those beakers, you know. So I have an eye go. I don't know what you do with them, but the monocle is always a nice touch, right? And if you want to see Mark and his monocle, then please check out our Facebook page. No, it's not on there. That's not on there, but that would be awesome. You gotta buy a thing of planners' peanuts. You do have to do that. I might or might not have a top hat for you. Um let's just kind of keep that on DL. Uh so yes, folks, if you do have a question, a comment, a query, a conundrum, or a quag bar and you know what those are, please reach out to us at contact at sanctuarybb.org. Or you can check us out on the Facebook page, which I already mentioned. Or if you really just want to see what we look like and embrace not recommended for the week in part. Thank you for that public service announcement. Jesus. Um yeah. Rumble. Man Rumble. It's on Rumble.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

That made you a legendary train of thought.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yeah, well, I wanted to say Mr. Know It All, and then I like I'm saying that as I'm looking at the clocks again that you have stuck up there that that that picture's actually on the Facebook page. So confused. Yeah, there it is. Well, he is.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

So he's a moose that talks. That's right. I mean, he did graduate from What's About You, so Jeez Kelly. Uh well. You were just up in Frostbite Falls, Mr.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

I was up in frostbite, yes, I was. And I'll tell you what, I I have little left. Uh yeah, I learned what uh bitter cold is, and I I realized I do not want any part of that. Um all these years in the warm states of America, I have just uh I've just gotten weak, you know. Um go ahead and insert whatever, you know, in there. But some people really love the cold, you know. And it's well, some people are insane. Some people are. I'm not saying it's the same thing. It's not the same thing, but it might be. It might be correlated there. So yeah. Anywho, uh, on today's episode, what we're going to be discussing is essentially the salvation versus discipleship issue. And what I say it's I say it's an issue for mainstream Christianity, and possibly for a lot of you out there that are listening, uh, you may or may not have realized that if you listen to someone's gospel presentation, it can sound different. And almost to the point where you listen to one, you'll nod, and you'll go, okay, that was really clear. And you'll go to the next one and you'll listen to them, and you're like, I don't know what that is, you know. But I think it's in there, you know, somewhere. I mean, and how we frame it in our minds is we're thinking, you know, the pastor will say, Sunday's message is on the gospel, and every so he tells everybody, and then he gets up there and starts communicating, and that's when really everything goes downhill because it's like, where's the gospel and what I'm hearing? Yeah. And that that happens sometimes. Right. And we've talked on this podcast before, what is the gospel? And we've had our friend Jeremy Myers on here, and his uh he's what is he, Redeeming God podcast. I believe I wanted to call it the one verse podcast, but he probably punched me in the face for saying that. That's the old nomenclature there. Uh, but he's talked to us, told us, you know, in an interview, it was like, hey, it's um, you know, gospel's like a three-facet thing, you know, and it's it's sort of like a big arena that you're describing. It encompasses every aspect of the Christian's spiritual walk. It encompasses them when they first meet Jesus, justification. It encompasses them when they are walking with the Lord, sanctification, and it encompasses that person, that now believer who has passed away, encompasses them in their glorification when they go to meet the Lord. So it's not just a term to throw around to talk about one specific tiny, but tiny uh aspect of it, which is you meeting Jesus or putting your faith into him for the first time.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah, so I think what you're saying is that the gospel's not just that presentation that somebody gives you in order for you to be justified in God's sight by through belief in Jesus. The gospel is the thing that is basically there for you from the time you were born through the rest of eternity. Born again, yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah, exactly. So, and I think what tends to happen is there is so much bad theology out there, and by the way, I love my Baptist listeners and my Baptist friends. I was a former fundamental Baptist and I know she didn't say recovering. Yeah, no, I've recovered. And I'll just tell you that uh growing up it was great. Uh I got great doctrine and I understood, I'm glad I had that perspective. Um when I got to seminary and when I got to my first job, and they asked me what the gospel was, I had no idea. And I talked about meeting Jesus and this and that, and it was like it just was all over the place. And the reason why it wasn't that I didn't have enough education, I had plenty of education, I had more education than sadly most some pastors have, and it had nothing to do with that. I I had the Greek the Hebrew all of it, and it just it was never presented clearly salvation justification, what it is, and therefore when pastors get up and speak and they they're gonna talk about the gospel, they start sprinkling in other things into it because the gospel is such an over-encompassing term and that it's never really like defined what it really is what we're talking about. Why? Because I don't know if your pastor or any some pastors today even know what it really is. All they have is well, I read so-and-so's book, and uh they believe this, and I kind of agree with that. Okay, yeah, that'll work, I guess. Or perhaps they should read God's book. Right, exactly. So what I will do is I'm going to read uh John chapter 1, verse 12 first, and then we'll read John chapter 1, verse 29. And this is Jesus, and he makes it pretty simple, and then I'm gonna shift and I'm gonna take us through some other passages, and this is where people can start go, where people might go throwing terms and kind of grabbing some of this, grabbing some of that, and then now we're not very clear. Christianese. Christianese, yes, absolutely. So John chapter one in the New King James, verse 12, it says this But as many as received him to them he gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name. Now, Mark Correct me if I'm wrong. Is it prudent for a Christian to think that every verse in the Bible is gonna there's no verse in the Bible that's gonna contradict another verse?

SPEAKER_00 8:25

That's certainly what I believe. Right. I mean and that would be because the Bible is inspired by God. You know, the Holy Spirit gave it to the writers, and the writers did what they needed to do in order to make it their own, but the message that is put in there is basically God's message. So why would God contradict himself?

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Right. And so when you come to a place where you're like, hmm, that really contradicts this over here, then you really have to ask yourself, what context are these things talking about? And I'm not gonna read the passage for you, you can read it yourself because I'm gonna give you the uh the verse. It's John chapter 20, verse what, 29 and 30? Is that 30 and 31? John chapter 20, verse 30 and 31, because John spells out for you exactly uh why he wrote the Gospel of John. He he he actually says, I am writing you this. See, I'm actually doing the typing motion, and then John didn't type, but uh John's John's writing this going, I'm telling you the reason why I wrote this. So John's telling you that he wrote it so that we can believe. Alright? Is John worried about how are we following Jesus and our sanctification? Not as much, but he he is concerned about it, I'm sure, when he was writing, but he's concentrating more on the justification aspect of it, is what I'm getting at here.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

So hopefully I'm not jumping the gun on your train of thought here. Yep. But I know that one of the things that people get really hung up on, uh certain theologians get really hung up on, and therefore us poor schmucks who listen to them get really hung up on is what does the word believe mean? And you know, if you go and you look up what believe means, you look at the r the Greek word for believe, it means believe. Yeah. But if you go and you look at certain translations of the Bible, like the Amplified, um well, here, let's let me let me pull this up.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Absolutely. When you say the Amplified Bible, I always think of like the word Bible and then an exclamation mark after it.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Yeah. That's not what you're talking about. Well, I mean, but a lot of people read this because you know. Uh so John 3.16, you know, if we read John 3.16 in the New King James, it says, For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life, right? Right. But if you read it in the Amplified, it says, For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that he even gave his one and only begotten son, so that whoever believes and trusts in him as Savior shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Okay, so don't think the original Greek said anything about trusting in him as Savior, say who believes in him. Right? Right. So you get this kind of front-loaded, I guess it is. Nonsense. Backload, I don't know. Right. People put things in there because they think that it makes it sound better or is more attractive or a better explanation. That's not there. So you have to kind of watch that when you're when you're reading.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah, and I think, you know, now that you said that, I'm going to do the exact same thing you did, Mark, and read John 14, verse 15. This is one of my loves of scripture because what's not in it is exactly what John's trying to tell you. He says, If you do King James, if you love me, keep my commandments. It doesn't say, if you love me, believe in me. So you don't have to love Jesus in order to believe in him. It simply is an idea that you are convinced of the facts about who Jesus is. So this idea of in what Jesus is saying there is like, okay, you've been convinced that I am the Christ, now you have a relationship with me. If you love me, then keep my commandments. Basically, if you love me, follow me. That's that's really And and now you're talking about discipleship rather than justification. And you might and and this is why it's so critical because this message is can be very confusing to the person in the pew who has no idea about theological terms like Calvinism or who Augustine is, and they don't realize how these two individuals, John Calvin and Augustine, have basically swayed Christian doctrine in such a way that I mean it has tormented people throughout the ages because of that. And uh to me, if anybody wants to ask me what evangelism abuse is, I'll just tell you it's Calvinism and it's uh the Augustine doctrine there because all it is is a works that is basically placed on somebody, and you never really quite know if you're good enough in God's eyes. And that is such a 180 from who God is. And so I it's one of those things where you you you realize that Augustine has just basically taken a stoic concept and now transferred that stoic concept into Christianity and how he looks at the world and how he reads his Bible or reads the scriptures, and that has now become a theological doctrine that is a lens that everybody else is reading it through. But that doesn't mean that that's what the original intent was. Yeah, exactly. So you at least you look like you were onto something there, Mark.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

No, I just uh I had a wild hair and I look wanted to look up something and I misspelled it. Oh no. But that's okay because what happened was uh, you know, the AI is smarter than all of us, right? Oh, there you go. So it it corrected my misspelling of believe. I left a letter out of when I was typing it. I just want to read this because the Google AI overview says to believe means to accept something is true, genuine, or real, often based on faith or trust rather than absolute proof. It involves having confidence in a person, statement, or idea, and can also mean to suppose, assume, or have a firm conviction. It's the mental acceptance of a proposition. So, you know, when Jesus says, if you believe in me, you have everlasting life. Well, what are you believing in Jesus about? You're believing that Jesus is capable of giving you that. You know, and if you take that down the rabbit hole, it means that you're you believe in one form or the other that He is the Christ or the Messiah, you know, God's Son that is capable of providing that to you. And that's that's as far as it goes. It's not believe doesn't mean, oh, well, if you believe that you're gonna demonstrate that belief by something that you're doing. That's not the case. You know, you should be doing that. But if you don't, that doesn't negate what Jesus says is gonna happen if you believe it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

And I there's a multitude of people that you read about in the Bible in their lives. And I think this is the other kind of critique I have of I call it lordship salvation, but really it's sort of a I guess uh it's sort of a they it's an unclear, it's the unclear gospel is what it is, because no one really is very clear about what it is they're saying, and they could be talking about a multitude of different things in that moment, and you would have no idea, you know, just as I was just this little kid and the evangelism tent, you know, and hearing a message and kind of going, okay, I'm already saved, but I feel like I need to go forward for some and it's just kind of sort of a catch-all thing there. And yeah, it's just such a interesting, interesting thing there.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

I So you you called it lordship salvation, which I think is kind of the popular vernacular, but I prefer a term that G Gordon, I think it's yeah, came up with back in the nineties and he called it discipleship salvation. Yeah. And what that translates as is the folks, the theologians who believe that an unless you are demonstrating discipleship, in other words, you know, following Jesus, then you are not truly saved. And his uh biggest fight back on that is well, there were twelve disciples initially, right? Twelve apostles. One of them didn't believe in Jesus. No, there you go. So just because you're demonstrating something doesn't mean you believe, and just because you're not demonstrating it doesn't mean that you don't. Yeah. You know, that's a personal thing between you and our Lord. Yeah. Absolutely. It's cold in here. Yes, I I do that on purpose. I know you do. Yeah, that's uh see that way I make you put the cap on. Yeah. So the lens flare goes away on the camera. Good. I hope it does. I hope you have a hard time uh doing the video editing now, you know. You know what? No, my bad. I forgot to turn the heat on. That's okay, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Uh I'm just gonna go ahead and start slapping the uh the table here a bunch of times and getting excited. And uh, there it is, and then Mark's gotta clean it all up for our listeners because he is a tireless worker. Uh, that's me. That's it. But uh John chapter oh go ahead. No, okay. John chapter one, verse twenty-nine. I I it says, uh the next day John saw Jesus uh coming toward him and said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Uh pretty clear about what Jesus is going to do and for everybody, which is take away the sin of the world. What's world mean? Exactly. Well, world right there, it means it's cosmos. Yeah. And it's uh where we get our word for cosmos, and it means the world. And uh it's it's it would be funny if it really wasn't true, you know. Like sometimes I think about you know uh pastors and how they try to wiggle out of you know theological conversations by saying, Oh, I'm not a theologian, and it's like, well, no, but you're the pastor, so you should have an opinion about this.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

You would hope so.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

You would really give them up there moving your gums. Right. Why are you doing the job that you're doing? If you don't know what you're talking about, then go ahead and sit down, you know. Yeah. And look, it I'm not here to judge them, but I am here to say, hey, you need to be you someone needs to call you onto the mat for this BS that you're out there espousing, because and there's enough of it out there that it just tires me to the point. You know, it's like I get I get bored of it because I'm like, I get up there and someone says what whatever it is they're gonna say, the scripture passage, and I'm like, I know where you're gonna go. Please don't go there with this passage. And of course they do because this is their theological point of view, which is what they're telling you and how they view that. And so what they then do, and we talked about it last week on the podcast, is that you dial up a verse to prove whatever it is, your theological point. And this is why context isn't just king, context is everything.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Oh, but first, that's right. You know, the the folks who do that, the very first thing they're gonna tell you before they dial up the verse and pull it out of context is you know what the most important thing is context, context, context, and then they pull it out and ignore it. Exactly. And it never ceases to amaze you.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah, and I I think if there's anything I would encourage our audience here to do is when you hear a verse, look it up for yourself and read it.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

And read and read what's around it. What's around it? Read the chapter before it, read the chapter after it. Yes. And look at what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

If it's a letter in the New Testament, find out what it's written for, you know. I mean, it's like uh the kid, the guy that gets saved, you know, and he comes home and he's like, I'm gonna read the Bible, and he opens up Song of Solomon, you know, and he's like, What is this about? What is the Bible saying? And I yeah, so you you need to understand the context of all of it. And I think that's where when someone does get saved, that's a it's awesome. Uh in order for them to be able to understand God's word, if you continue to seek God and pray and ask. Ask him to reveal and help you understand God's word, that's a prayer that God will do for you in your life. He will grant you wisdom if you seek wisdom. He will. I don't know how many times I prayed in Bible college or even out on the summer break, you know, trying to understand, you know, being frustrated, almost angry, like I God, I can't understand your word. You know, I just want to understand your word. And, you know, those prayers, God ultimately, he's answered a lot of those by helping me, by leading me into finding different authors and learning this about the Bible, and it's just it's just been it's just made my reading experience enriched because I now know that I understand the context that it's written in. And so I say all that to tell you that was a lot of hard work. But I it was something that I love the Lord and I I I love His word. And the more that I learn about it, the more that I'm like, this is even I'm like, his word's even more amazing, you know, that he put all of this stuff in there. And it's all right there, but if you have that frame of reference. So I say that to encourage you to do the work. And it is hard work. Bible study is not easy work, it is hard work, and it is work that will it will take you.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

But it's fulfilling work.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

But it is fulfilling, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

If you put the effort in, God will reward you.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Yep. And honestly, you have the Holy Spirit, and He's gonna lead you and guide you into all truth. So uh listen to Him. So let's go here to a couple of passages because I was curious. Ah, gee, I wonder if the Bible ever really says or uses the words follow and believe in the same sentence. And so I did my little AI Google search there. Mark two, look at that. I get a gold star for AI from AI. There you go. All right. Mark of the Beast, right? Okay, just kidding. Just kidding. Uh I'll read verse 31 and 32. Uh not 30. Uh uh John chapter 8. John chapter 8. Thank you. I did forget that. Yes. Then Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, If you abide in in my word, you're my disciples. Okay. Any in you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Like I'm missing a verse here. Hold on a second here. Oh, okay. Now that was right. Um, I was just trying to show that I guess I was in the a different translation when I first looked at it, but uh, if you abide in me in my words, so he's talking of and the truth shall make you free. And he's right in talking about being free from sin in our sanctification, because we're being saved from the power of sin. Right. And that's what sanctification is. So in this case, you do have believe, and you do have, you know, yeah, that's that's what it was, abide in my word. I think I had continue in his word, and the idea was you're following his word, and then there's believe in there. And so sometimes, quite often, people will go, well, there's believe, and there's follow or do something, so that's gotta mean that they're both connected. Okay. Further my point here, uh, Mark chapter 10, verse 52. Jesus heals somebody and he says, Go your way, your faith has made you well. And immediately he received a sight and followed Jesus on the road. And that's where you know somebody will say, People get in again, they already have it in their head because of this theological bent of modern Christianity. That is, in all honesty, there are there are some variations, but some Christians that have gone full lordship in this, I really challenge them to ask to really what's your di what's the difference between you and a Catholic at this point? Because you both end up at the same point. You neither one of you really have any assurance of your salvation. There's there's no difference, you know.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

There really isn't, because it's in both cases, it's a works-based thing. You know, it's like I put something out on on social media yesterday that I grabbed from a fantastic guy that's on Facebook who posts a lot of things about grace. And uh, you know, he was basically put a little poster up there that said something like, you know, uh if you believe that Jesus gives you eternal life, but that he doesn't quite give you everything you need, you say, Okay, Jesus, thanks for the help. Now I've got it from here. And that's kind of the situation, right? I mean, uh and that's simply because I think, like you've pointed out, a lot of folks do not understand the distinction between the the legal justification that God provides us through Jesus, in other words, forgiving of our sins and the gift of eternal life, and sanctification, which is a big big part of that is us working with the Holy Spirit to make that happen. But you get those two things twisted around, you know, the pole at the same time, and it gets very, very confusing. It's like, oh, well then if I'm not doing all these things, then boy, I must be lost.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Yeah. It's um the thing about the thing that's confusing is people get caught up in this whole phrase, let go and let God. And I know I'm veering off a little bit on a rabbit trail here, so I'll keep it short. I've got my rabbit gun. Okay, good deal. Um however, though, there is a certain amount of truth in that. And it's one of those things where it doesn't mean that I don't do anything. It it simply means that I'm not chained to these outcomes here. And I bring that up because I posted a quote on my Facebook, personal Facebook page, about you have to participate in your own rescue. Um if you're not even trying, you're not even rooting for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

If you're not rooting for yourself, who is? Yeah, exactly. You know, so the the thing is is that yes, the Lord is going to save you, yes, the Lord is going to give you power over that sin, but you also do have to do something, you know. So, and that's the part that is for believers that there are some that are under the impression they don't have to do anything, not that they're saved, as far as sanctification goes. And then there's the other side of it that's like, if you're not doing this, if you're not doing anything, then maybe you're never really saved. How do I know I can't inspect your fruit? Like God gave them that uh you know stamp or diploma somewhere along the way. Oh now you're a certified prune inspector. There you go. Triple stamped, all right, good fruit. Inspection one old. Get in there. There's your white lab coat tube. All right, you got a stethoscope? All right, perfect. Go out there.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Reminds me of the old fruit of the loom uh inspector 12 commercials from a thousand years ago.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

I was thinking that actually. I was channeling my no, just kidding. Just kidding. We don't do that here. All right, so let's see. There's Mark uh John chapter 10, verse 26 through 27. Uh Jesus says, But uh, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. So there was another verse where it says it has believe and the word follow in there, so that must we're gonna put two things together. And that's the part where, like I said before, for a pastor who's gonna give the gospel, there's almost like a sense of like, ah, I know that, I don't need, you know, to you know, let's just kind of do this thing here. It's not one of the technical things, and quite often that can be a thing a pastor might think, you know, if they have to present the gospel, because I know that, but they don't really know it. Yeah, they know it because they they know it in this whole s stew of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Because they read it in this theology book. Exactly. So, you know, grumpy old man time here, you know, you you like to yell at clouds, I like to yell at people. Because there's so few people in the world today that understand the concept of logic. And by logic I don't mean the ability to think clearly. I mean that you know traditional logic says if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. And there's all kinds of inverses, converses, and counterpositives that you can put together on those things. You know, you negate the terms and weird things happen. Okay, so you look at these verses, you know, John uh 10, 26, and 27, says, but you Jesus says, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. Yeah. So if you read that in the A equals B equals C, what Jesus is saying is, you are not my disciples because you don't believe me. You don't believe in me. That is not the same thing as saying, you know, if you were my disciples, you would believe in me. Okay. And it's not anywhere near saying that, you know, if you believe in me, you will follow me. Yeah. Because believing and disciple, believing and sheep are two completely different things, even though one leads to the other, yeah, they're not the same term. And so you can't sit there and conflate this verse and say, oh, well, obviously, you know, you're not following me, so you're not my sheep. And if you're not my sheep, that means you don't believe in me. And if you don't believe in me, then you're lost. It doesn't go that way.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Yeah, and I think quite often it it's there's not there is such a the the church, and this is my this is my old man yelling at clouds the moment here, but it's you know, it's it's like there is such a people in the church are starved for God's word that they'll take it however they can get it. And but then there are those people that are so starved that they don't even realize what they're eating, you know. Right. It's uh soil and green, it's really no. Um they they have no idea they're going to this church service, they're gonna hear something from God. It's only after years of hearing the same message that doesn't really again and again and again and again, that's very shallow, that people get frustrated and then leave church. Why? Because, well, that I don't like the pastor. He's just no, it's because he's really not telling you anything that you can't read for yourself that's right there in the text. He hasn't told you anything, he hasn't educated you on the context of it, and quite frankly, i they're a bad teacher, they're a bad pastor for for basically not doing that, not doing their job. And for a lot of accounts and purposes, you know, uh preaching a message should be like it's it takes about thirty-five hours a week for the if you're doing it right for a pastor to do the Sunday morning message. These guys just don't have the time. That is an excuse. But it's not an excuse in a lot of ways, because it's their job, but they're being pulled on these other areas in their life so that they really don't have the time to do that, which is the one thing that they should be doing, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

There's another issue too in the modern church. You know, we talked, I think it was last week or week before, about how you know there are these different things that God has given, different talents that God has given individuals, and three of those are you know, pastor, evangelist, and teacher. There were others too. But those three things, right? So in the modern church today, depending on where you're going, the person up in the front may feel like he is either an evangelist or a teacher or a pastor. They're all different things, but if you try to mix them all together, what you wind up with is this conglomeration of stuff that's useless to everybody. Yeah. So if you take if you're going to a service and the whole point of that church service is evangelism, you are not going to grow from that service. You have an opportunity to worship God because you'll see amazing things when people come to the Lord and and belief. And you know, you you come away from there and you you're spiritually encouraged by what you're seeing, but in terms of your growth, you know, you're not you're not getting any food. Right? Yeah. Um if that person is up there teaching and that's all they're doing, unless they're very, very good at it, like we have a mutual friend who is, you know, he will get up and teach and provide a glimpse into what it means or how you go about obtaining salvation, you know. But again, that kind of a service is not one of these where you know, 50 people have have a personal encounter with Jesus and and you know, get through eternal salvation. But you've got 50 people in that audience of 200 or something that come out of there feeling like, wow, I understand more about God coming out of here than I did when I went in. Yeah. And that encourages me to go and do this or to, you know, whatever. Yeah. And the third problem, the third one you've got is the guy who's just the pastor. And he gets up there and he just kind of wimps the whole time. He doesn't talk about evangelism, he doesn't really teach you anything, but he's got lots of homilies about you should be nice to your wife. You know, because if you're not nice to your wife, your home life's gonna be terrible. And if your home life's terrible, then your church life's terrible, and you know, that kind of thing. So you gotta look at what uh what's the point of these services, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Yeah, yeah, as you were saying that, you know, love your wife, you know, I just I can totally hear, you know, somebody that, you know, behind the pastor doing the you know, and he's like, take my wife, please. Many young men here, right? Yeah, well, and I'm making light of that, but I'm like, that's kind of what the modern sometimes sermon is.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

It it seems like a lot of the churches, especially the mega churches, yeah. You know, you listen to these broadcasts from specific megachurches that are just all that, and yeah, as our friend says, all that in a bag of chips. And well, hey, if you're really lucky, you will hear Jesus' name once in a 30-minute, you know, presentation.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Or you'll get a moralism, yeah, which not necessarily a bad thing, um, but it's it's one of those things where we're like, okay, great, but you still didn't teach anybody anything. Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

You know, and it's like God expects you to be good. Right. Well, thank you. No, I had already knew that. How?

SPEAKER_01 37:53

How do I do that? Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, I'll I'll throw it out there. You know, I know some people, you know, it's like, hey, I'm gonna say no to people who are gay or this or that, I'm gonna preach on that. You know, it's like okay, but you really didn't change anybody's life.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

No, all you did is make yourself look like you're you hate people. Right, yeah. Exactly. I mean you basically whether you do or not, that's the way it looks.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Right. That then that's I mean, and I I say that I use the word moral in there because quite often I'll see these clips on social media, you know, and it's just the guy, I'm gonna stand up for this, and this is how marriage should be, and this and that, and I'm like, that's great that you're standing up for marriage, you know, okay. But are you teaching your cop your your flock, you know? Are you teaching your flock to know? And are they and and are they leaving your service now better for it? You know, and I can't answer that question because I didn't hear the rest of the sermon. I just got the sound bite. Yeah. But and that's that's what bothers me is it's I don't want to be a a a Christian country club, you know. That's just we're just there to do our time because to belong, and the Lord wants us to be there. I felt good because the pastor told a funny joke today. Yep. And again, nothing, I'm not here. I feel like people are getting the wrong idea of me. Like I'm up there like one of the old uh Muppets, you know, yelling at everything they're doing. You're saddler. Yeah, exactly. I'm Waldorf. And it no, it's just I just want somebody to take me through his word, you know, and it really comes back to what I was told, and I I shared this in a in a podcast I don't know how many while ago, but it was essentially um this look, just give them the word. Yeah. And how you do that, that can be a very difficult thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

So if you give them the word and you're teaching them, there's a good chance that they that they will progress on their discipleship. Yeah. Which is how we started on this. Exactly. Exactly. Uh there's belief that that gets you eternal life, and then there's discipleship that gets you the abundant life that Jesus talked about.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

Amen to that. Hopefully we've answered some questions. Maybe we've uh I guess helped you ask some more. Think of some more other questions that you know, but if you do think of those, uh please drop us a line at contact at sanctuarybb.org. Uh folks, thanks for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe and smash that like button. And next week we will talk about God's call in your life and what that means. And remember, we're not saved because we're eternally faithful to the Savior, we're saved because He is eternally faithful to us.