The Vitals of a Disciple - The Fundamentals of Faith

I would be lying to you if I told you I jump out of bed with joy every morning. Man, I watch Pastor Dan Mohler speak and sometimes I do get a little envious of how well he has mastered the true Christian life. If you’ve never heard of Dan Mohler, I encourage you to look him up—he’s all over YouTube. In fact, he’s so good at what he does that you could shut this off and go watch him. I’m serious—it’s like watching Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, or Tiger Woods on a championship Sunday.

Listening to Pastor Dan preach makes me think of John Wooden and Nick Saban. You know what makes Bama so good year in, year out? You know how John Wooden won 10 NCAA Division I men’s basketball championships in 12 years? Hyperfocus on the vital details—an obsession with the fundamentals.

Did you know Coach Wooden did the same thing at the first practice every year? Do you know what they did in that first practice? They learned—really, re-learned—how to put on their socks and shoes. That’s it. He insisted they do it perfectly, a specific way, to guard against blisters. Because those small details—those little blisters—are the difference between winning and losing.

It makes you think, doesn’t it? Just as our physical bodies can become ill, our spiritual lives can experience seasons of sickness, too. Do I have any spiritual blisters in my life? Any spiritual sickness I’m letting in?

In Psalm 32:3–4, David describes what spiritual sickness felt like in his own life: “When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was turned into the drought of summer.”

This deeply resonates with me because I went through a long period where I felt cursed and had no energy. I could barely get out of bed; it was a chore to shower, brush my teeth, and get dressed. You can ask my wife—really. I say it smiling, but it’s a little embarrassing—she would beg me to take showers. What happened to me? There was nothing physically wrong with me, but I was depressed—mentally and spiritually sick. At that time, I explained and reasoned the way the world conditions us to.

I was facing excruciating circumstances from almost every facet of life. I was being sued by my own family—which alone was enough to hurt my reputation—but they were also actively sabotaging my business, messaging friends and clients—anyone who still seemed to like me—on social media and spreading terrible rumors. As my business began failing, we were ruined financially, which led to major stress in my marriage. When I was merely hanging on by a thread, I held out hope in what I was doing in a local church.

Now, I know many of you are here because you’ve experienced this new American phenomenon called “church hurt.” So have I. I remember doing all the things the church buildings tell us to do: giving money (though I barely had any), volunteering once or twice a week (even though I really should have been working on keeping my marriage afloat), and going through their membership classes. Long story short, it was a big church and the head pastor was like a CEO. I knew that. When I approached him, I could tell he didn’t remember me—that was okay. I reintroduced myself, and with my wife standing beside me, I asked how I could meet with someone on the pastoral team because I was going through a very heavy season of life.

He asked if I was a member. I said yes, and that I had been serving weekly for nearly five months. He asked if I had completed a life group, and I explained no—not because I didn’t want to, but because I had started attending in the middle of the last session, and the next one started in a month (I had already signed up). He said the pastoral team didn’t meet with people until all the classes had been completed, including the three-and-a-half-month-long life group class. I was devastated; this conversation was at the end of July, and the life group didn’t start until September. It finished in mid-December before the holidays. He was essentially telling me no one could meet with me until next year—nearly six months later. We barely had money left for two months at that point, and my business had stalled; I hadn’t earned money in almost two months.

He motioned me aside as tears welled in my eyes. I grabbed my wife’s hand and walked out as quickly as I could, muttering under my breath that I was never coming back. And I never did. I broke down in the car and cried like a little kid—tears of despair, rejection, abandonment, and embarrassment—right in front of my wife.

I don’t remember much after that; I spiraled so badly into the darkness of depression.

Keep in mind, that’s the CliffsNotes version, and I only share it as part of my testimony because I know what some of you may be thinking: “Wow, poor Sean.” That’s what I thought for about two years myself. Poor me. But I was wrong. As I look around the church, listen to others’ testimonies, and pray with people going through similar trials, I’ve realized it’s not that many of us refuse to practice the vital fundamentals of the faith—it’s that many of us weren’t taught them, or we were handed a false set of fundamentals.

Day in and day out, I hear it all…

·       “Brother, I’m just so discouraged.”

·       “Brother, I missed church and I feel so awful about it; I just hope God isn’t mad.”

·       “Brother, the enemy just keeps attacking—you have no idea what I’m going through.”

·       “Brother, I’m trying to forgive them, and I do, but I just can’t forget what they did.”

Any of this sound familiar?

And why wouldn’t it, when what we’re often taught as the “fundamentals” of faith are really a church marketing playbook? I was a business major, so I guess it’s no wonder I saw it. In college I was church-hopping to find a home, and you know what I observed? Most churches were essentially the same. They all preached the “four pillars”—the vitals of being a disciple, in their language—Worship, Give, Serve, and Fellowship (in a life group). Nothing bad in and of itself. But when trials come, people quickly discover the enemy doesn’t care about your church attendance, your tithing, or how often you volunteer. And life groups—if we’re honest—too often devolve into high school cliques and gossip. A far cry from Christian brother- and sisterhood and “doing life together.”

What’s worse is these are NOT the fundamentals of the faith. They are not the vitals of a disciple. In fact, we should ask: what makes a disciple? I’d argue a disciple and a champion share some unique similarities. I think that’s why Paul uses imagery of athletes and soldiers (we’re playing for an eternal crown, right?!). When we read Paul’s words and look at the life of Jesus, we see that true spiritual disciplines comprise a disciple and produce the fruit of the Spirit:

1.     a life of fervent prayer,

2.     a commitment to time spent alone with God in quiet solitude (bonus if it’s in nature),

3.     fasting, and

4.     a quality tribe of Christian brothers and sisters that has nothing to do with quantity, socioeconomic status, or privilege.

In other words, when Paul says to obey, we can take our understanding to the next level: “partake in the fundamentals of the faith” and “abide in the Secret Place of the Most High.”

When we aren’t taught the actual components of abiding—let alone encouraged and stirred up into greater personal experience with Jesus (which is the point of church, by the way)—it’s easy to fall into unbelief, unforgiveness, blame, and all the other things Paul warns against and actually calls sin in Philippians and his other epistles.

Paul talks about putting on the new self, which only comes through obedience, abiding, and direct personal communion with God. That’s transformation. That is the only thing the enemy is truly scared of.

Now here’s the really cool part. The Psalm I quoted earlier, Psalm 32:3–4—“When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was turned into the drought of summer”—directly connects to what Paul says in Philippians 2:12–13 and explains what God is doing and why:

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

First, when David says he “kept silent,” he’s essentially saying he wasn’t abiding. He wasn’t active in the fundamentals of the faith, and he lost his energy. Why? Paul tells us why: for it is God who works in you. Obedience here isn’t the robotic, slave-like obedience we sometimes imagine; it’s relational obedience—seeking and doing God’s will. When you’re obedient to God’s will for your life, God Himself is the source, and He supplies the energy and vitality.

In other words, the reason I went through that season of depression and no energy had NOTHING to do with my circumstances. Seriously. I know it’s a hard lesson and it should be convicting, but the real reason I had no energy was because I allowed the circumstances to impress lies on me that I believed in place of God’s truth about my worth and value, and I fell out of relational abiding with God.

Now stay with me, because this is important. The patterns of this world—including many in the church—will make you believe that the condition of our hearts, our energy, and our vitality is based on circumstances. When circumstances are good, we’re good! But God’s ways are much different—and much more beautiful and powerful. God says the opposite: the condition of the heart is what changes the circumstances.

And deep down we all know that’s true. It’s how God does His best work. Think of any time you’ve changed for the better—lost weight, overcame a significant challenge—your circumstances didn’t change until you took on a new identity. Until you allowed God to change your heart, nothing else really changed. Anything else is a lie. More money won’t make you happy or change your heart; a new job, a big promotion, finding a spouse—none of that will change you for the better. But if you surrender your heart for God to transform it, all of those things will be added to you. Seek first the Kingdom, remember? Ah—it takes on some new meaning now, doesn’t it? Context helps, right?

Next, the text says, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” What does that really mean? For years I misheard it as “work on your own,” but that’s not what Paul says. Work out—as in a process.

I recently started going to the gym. Believe it or not, I didn’t see any results after my first workout—or my second, or even my third. Around week three, small changes started to show. My job was simply to show up. As I stayed in the gym and did gym things, my muscles responded; my body composition began to change. I wasn’t consciously micromanaging every fiber. In the same way, we work out what God is working in. He supplies the desire and the power.

“Your own” means it’s personal—your relationship with God, not a copy of someone else’s routine. And “with fear and trembling” isn’t terror; it’s reverence and priority—the number one priority—lived without comparison. Just like at the gym, I’m in awe of how God designed the body to grow. I don’t condemn others for different priorities, and I don’t look at the bodybuilder and say, “I’ll never be like him, so I’m going home to eat ice cream.” No. I keep showing up. I work out—no comparison, no striving—just trust and communion with God.

But we haven’t even gotten to the best part yet. No matter what, nothing has been wasted. God uses it all for our good. Why? Paul tells us: this isn’t for us—God does all of this FOR HIS GOOD PLEASURE. WOW.

If that doesn’t give you goosebumps, go pray for revelation. I see it now, in hindsight: through all my pain and church hurt—look what God did with it. He told me when I was seven that I’d be a preacher—and now I am preaching—with power and authority, I might add. If it wasn’t for the pain and the process, there’s no way I’d be standing here today.

So what does this mean for you?

What have you been taught and believed are the fundamentals of the faith?

Where have the fundamentals you’ve been practicing led you?

Have you been practicing the fundamentals at all? Are you regularly abiding? Do you have some spiritual blisters or sickness? How does it manifest? Is it unforgiveness? Gossip? Unbelief? Scarcity mindset? Worry? Anxiety? Depression—like me?

How can you apply this deeper understanding—the real vitals of a disciple—to begin again without guilt and with a clear conscience?

These are important questions to ask and reflect on because I want you to think for a moment: what if we all walked this out together? If we all put on the new self—if we completely forgave everyone and stood blameless and forgiven before God with a clear conscience; if we abided every day; if we took back the church and exercised our full power and authority as believers walking in the new self, in direct communion with God—what would the world look like?

I have a feeling it would look a lot like a dynasty. The best part is the Kingdom of Heaven is infinite and eternal—there is no zero-sum game—and everyone can become a Hall of Fame champion of the faith. So today, let’s forget what lies behind and press on toward the prize, our high calling in Christ Jesus.