Since the new believer is no longer under the Law of the letter, but the Lordship of Jesus, he needs to know how to discern what is truly Jesus’ voice. Learning to discern what is truly Jesus’ voice is learning more fully what it means to walk in the Spirit and be Jesus-dependent. Therefore, third, discipleship is teaching the new Christian what it means to walk in the Spirit more fully and what it means to be Jesus-dependent which is the total discussion of Sections 4 and 5.

Once these first three areas of importance are established in the New Believer’s life as outlined above, discipleship then involves: first, finding out what the obstacles are that are keeping Jesus’ Lordship from being fulfilled in the new believer’s life; and then second, seeking Jesus’ Lordship over you as to what part He would have you to play in seeing these obstacles removed so that His Lordship in the new Christian’s life can be fulfilled. This is the topic of Section 7 titled, "Interrelatedness and Psychology of Body Ministry." This is in fact the purpose of corporate fellowship which is to find out what each other’s call and needs are and then find out what we as individuals can do to see this call fulfilled and needs meant.

"For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep." (1 Cor 11:29-30).

"Bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ." (Gal 6:2)

"But whoever has the biological-means-of-life³⁶, and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth." (1 John 3:17-18).

This is the roof over the believers walk with Jesus, the corporate support of the body of Christ. Without it the new, or old believer, is left open and exposed to outside forces which he cannot overcome in his own strength alone. Ezekiel wrote,

"And they were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered. My flock wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill, and My flock was scattered over all the surface of the earth; and there was no one to search or seek for them." (Ezekiel 34:5-6)

Just knowing Jesus’ Lordship over one’s life is not enough to see it fulfilled. It takes the corporate and material support of the body to be able to fulfill Jesus’ Lordship over one’s life. Knowing Jesus’ Lordship over one’s life without the corporate support of the body only leads to frustration, spiritual sickness, and possible eventual spiritual death. A graphic example of this is the following case example:

Outside of open rebellion, it has been my conviction for a long time that there is never a valid reason why any believer should fall back into the world, but many do. Why? Because they are not being rightly judged or discerned by the body of Christ. To illustrate what I mean, one night a brother called me up to express concern over another brother who was practicing the sin of homosexuality. The brother who called me loved this brother and was concerned that he was going to have to stop fellowshiping with him, not because he wanted to, but because this brother seemed to him to express an uncaring attitude about his homosexual sin. The Bible plainly tells us in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 18 that if a brother is in sin and he does not listen to your correction in private (private meaning between you and him and not spreading the issue to anyone else) that you are to go and get one or two other brothers so that through the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact can be confirmed. (Matt 18:15-16). Notice the passage says one or two other brothers, again emphasizing the point that it is at this level to be dealt with in private between the three or four of you and not to be made a public issue. Not only is it at this level not to be made public, but it is not to be made known to the elders and leaders of the Church either. Bringing something of this nature to the attention of the leadership of the Church is to be done only as a last resort so as to protect the reputation of that brother or sister in the eyes of the Church as a whole. Why does Jesus command us to deal with our brothers and sisters acts of sin in this way? Because this is the way of love.

The brother who called me and asked me to come along with him to talk to this brother about his homosexual sin was doing the right thing since he could not reach him by himself alone.

My concern in the matter at that point, though, was not so much whether or not we were going to have to reprove this brother as much as it was why he was choosing to go back to his former life-style of sin before he was saved. In other words, was he going back to a homosexual life-style because he was simply choosing this out of his own desire irrespective of the love of the body of Christ, or possibly because of the lack of it. If it was the former then reproof was in order. If it was the latter, reproof at that point would be a mistake.

When we walked into this brother’s apartment and sat down I explained to him that I was not there to judge him, but that if what my brother said was true about his present life-style that he was right in calling up a brother and asking him to come along to confront the supposed issue. I told him I assumed the best of him and then asked him if what this brother said was true. He said that it was true. At that point I still was not so much interested in what he was doing as much as I was in why he was doing it. As I began with great sensitivity to investigate the why of my brother’s practice of sin in this way, it eventually came to the surface that though before he had repented of his former life-style, the body of Christ was not accepting him and giving him the love and support he needed. In fact no one was calling or visiting him at all. Instead they were moralizing him to death and doing their best to avoid him without justification. Because of his loneliness and the continued rejection and isolation that he was receiving from the local body of believers, which to him was a reflection of God’s supposed attitude toward him, it seemed to him that since he could not meet the standards of the local body of believers in his repented state, what difference did it make to go back to his former life-style of sin? At least something then was filling the void.

I then told this brother that we loved him and were available to him and that if he ever needed someone to talk to, he could call us any time day or night. I also made a commitment to myself to call him at least once a week and get together with him as often as I could. When we gave him what he really needed, which was love and emotional support and not condemnation, he decided to repent of his homosexual sin. We prayed together with him and left.

For the two years I was living in that town until I moved I kept that commitment, and so had the other brother in calling him and seeing him whenever he could. The end result is this brother has not fallen back into his old life-style of homosexual sin since.

Had we come over and simply condemned him for his homosexual sin alone, this would not have brought him to repentance, but only driven him more deeply into it since it would have only more greatly confirmed the root sin: the Churches unjustified rejection of him while in a repented state. Jesus said, "But go and learn what this means, ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Matt 9:13). And in another passage, "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge the righteous judgment." (John 7:24). If we are to be successful in our Evangelism, discipleship, counseling, prayers for healing, or whatever our concerns may be, as Jesus desires, then it is of greatest importance that we learn what these passages mean in our lives personally and in practice practically. This is what this school of Evangelism is all about, learning compassion through right discernment.

This fourth element of discipleship is just as important as the first three if the new believer is to become a solid lasting Christian and if he is to be able to fulfill Jesus’ Lordship over his life once it is known.