Ask Pastor Mike Live

Pastor Mike: Joe, you're on the air with Pastor Mike. How can I help?

Joe: Yes, sir. It's been a while since I spoke with you. I've called in the past, but I've had surgery, so I've been out for a few months. My question is discipleship. Discipleship is—the word is student, right?

Pastor Mike: Mathetes is the word, but go ahead. Yeah.

Joe: So you go and make students out of people.

Pastor Mike: Right, students. We're making students. Mathetes comes from it—we get the word mathematics from it. Certainly, you've got to be a student to learn math and a lot of memorization.

But yeah, we're making students. That's true. Followers, teachers. You need a student. As Jesus put it, everyone, when they're fully trained, will be just like their teacher. That's what discipleship's like. We're trying to reproduce what the teacher has taught us. So go ahead, Joe. What about discipleship?

Joe: I've never been discipled before in my whole life. I've been trying to be discipled. I'm a member of a church. Actually, the other month I was driving and I had you on the radio and you were promoting Southern Baptist. I'm currently a member of a Southern Baptist church, and as of this point, I do not recommend it to nobody. I believe that so far what I'm inquiring and have encountered is they're in it for the money.

They're in it for the five-week vacation pay and holidays off. I mean, they've got so many financial benefits being a pastor of a Southern Baptist church, it's just ridiculous. When you ask them for time, they've got no time to give you. They're in this 40-hour type structure. If you ask anything outside of their 40-hour structure, they've got no time. They've got no time for this.

And then I'm entangled in a sin. It's been about four and a half years ago where I approached my pastor and an associate pastor and I told them, "Look, I've got this problem with pornography. I want help." To this day, four and a half years later, not one of them has brought it up to me. Not one. It's just so disgusting. I'm just disgusted with them.

I've been pushing it lately about being discipled, and I'm getting, "We don't have time. Go to our Sunday school class. You need to go to Sunday school." I go to their Sunday school class and it's just ridiculous. They're going off a magazine. One of the things I brought up in the last Sunday school—I've attended several of them—when I talked about confessing your sins to one another, giving an account to one another, not giving the appearance of evil, the teacher said, "Yeah, the Bible does teach that, and we used to do that, but we don't do that anymore."

What's the purpose? Here you're declaring that this is what the Bible teaches but we're not going to do it. I'm just so disgusted. My last conversation with my pastor a couple weeks ago didn't go too well. He told me one of the things that he told me was I'm the only person that he knows that uses scripture to beat himself up. He also said that I, at this time, know enough that I should be discipling people. How can I be discipling people when I myself need to be discipled? I just don't know.

Pastor Mike: Well, I would tell you this, Joe, I would agree with you. You probably shouldn't be discipling anybody in your current state. Your heart's filled with bitterness and disgust. You've got a problem with pornography. I would agree with you in this regard. You probably shouldn't be discipling anyone. You need to be discipled.

I would go back to what you said I said, and I would tell you this: one reason you shouldn't be discipling anyone is you don't recall with any accuracy what I said because I certainly did not give any wholesale approval of any denomination. I don't go around doing that. I would know if I did that. I'm not promoting any denomination.

I did not promote Southern Baptists as something that everyone should go to. I don't promote denominations as some blanket statement. I may have said something about speaking in a Southern Baptist church, but I cannot give any wholesale endorsement of any set of churches because every church has got to stand or fall based on how they're functioning.

It sounds like you ran into a church that's not doing a great job, and it's made you bitter. It's made you angry. It's made you a man who's carrying around a lot of disgust in your heart, as you've put it. You need to repent of that. You need to go and say before God, "I've got a heart that's filled with some really bad things," and you need to pour that out before the Lord.

Try and start over. Hit the reset button and start over if you can. If you can't because they're all tremendously terrible people as it seems like you're saying, then you need to go to a different church and just start over. But start over with a good attitude.

Start over with the kind of heart that says, "I'm ready to expect that there's going to be some brothers and sisters in Christ here that I can have a harmonious relationship with." Maybe I can not only get help from them, but I can be of help to them, maybe not as some mentor or discipler, but just as a friend and someone who's ready not to be angry or filled with wrath or malice or slander or any of the kinds of things that seem to be built up in my bitter heart.

Let's flush out the bitterness and let's start over. I guarantee you this: there's so many Southern Baptist churches. To say and try to flush them all down the toilet and say they're only concerned about time off and pensions and money, that's just a ridiculous statement, Joe. I guarantee you not every Southern Baptist minister out there is concerned about their pensions or their money.

I know many of them are working 60 or 70 hours a week and they're spending and being expended for the souls of people. Now, there may be some that all they care about is their pension or their retirement or their benefits or their time off or whatever, but I know many of them are not. We can't cast aspersions and paint with a broad brush here and say that's the way they are.

No more than I can say that all people that go to church are people that are filled with bitterness or everyone's embroiled in pornography. Not all of them are. I can't paint with a broad brush with my view of congregants either. Let's be fair and let's be honest. Let's send you back to church. If you're going to write them all off at your church because they're all money-grubbing ministers, then start over and go to a different church.

Go to a church that is within reasonable driving distance of your house. You've had surgery, and hopefully now you're mobile again and you can get back to church. Let's start over with an open heart to people that you think are all about at least believing that the Bible is God's Word. Let's walk in there and be ready to minister to them as they minister to you, and we can get a fresh start. But let's not paint with such a broad brush. Are we ready to start over, Joe? Can we do that?

Joe: I've been ready and I do plead this and I do tell God. I currently decided to embark on Romans chapter seven again. Years ago, I was stuck on that chapter and I finally got out of there. I don't know how I got out of there, but I just got out of there.

I find myself back in Romans chapter seven and I'm listening to your teaching on that, on Paul not doing the things he wants to do and doing the things he doesn't want to do. I want to be so sanctified. I want to be so in love with God. I used to plead with God to let me love him with everything that I am.

Let me love you, God, as you command me to love you. I want to be the sheep. I want to be full. I don't want to be one of the goats in Matthew chapter seven. Depart from me. I don't want to be that person.

Pastor Mike: Well, I love hearing that from you, and that's a great place to be. Get yourself through my study of Romans seven and get quickly into Romans chapter eight. As you're doing that, I would commit to memory Colossians chapter three, starting in verse 12. Put these on your memory list and start putting these words to memory.

Ready? Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. Above all, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. And let the word of Christ richly dwell in you. That, I think, you need to commit to memory as you study the end of Romans seven and then move quickly on to Romans eight.

I think if you do that, getting back to your church with Colossians chapter three, verses 12 through 15 committed to memory, I think you're going to be just fine. Your desire to be the person that loves God deeply is going to drive you in the right direction. Let's just let all of that frustration go.

Let's have compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and bear with one another. I think there's going to be good days ahead for you, Joe. Just hang in there, okay? Don't give up. Don't be frustrated. Let's forget what lies behind, let's press on to what lies ahead, and let's just flush the bitterness and get on with kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. We can do that. Call me back tomorrow and let's see how you're feeling then. All right, Joe? No frustration. You got this.