Pastor Brandon Mills Interview

Grace, Law, and the Countenance of the Preacher

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and you can email me mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Don't forget, by the time you hear this, probably the new little compact version of the Cancer book will be out, Jesus and Cancer, I've entitled it, and also probably in two weeks or so, the new Law Gospel book, Law Gospel a Primer, not a Primer, this has nothing to do with paint, has nothing to do with water wells, and nothing to do with ammo and guns, but it has to do with an introductory guide to law and gospel.

So, hopefully that'll all be out soon. You can always check the website for those things. Today I have a special guest on. Wednesdays I usually like to air a show with a pastor, theologian, friend, author, all around good guy, and Brandon Mills.

I don't know if you fit any of those, but I think you do. Welcome to the show. By the grace of God, I am what I am. Thanks for having me. Good to have you on the show. Tell our listeners a little bit,.

Brandon, about how we met. Yeah, so we met in person for the first time at the Pactum Conference this year in Omaha, Nebraska, at Omaha Bible Church. It was a really, really sweet time. I'm a nerdy theology dork, love to talk all things theology, but the best part of the entire conference, as I told you before, was your session.

You did a little preaching clinic before the conference began. It was maybe attended by 30 or 40 guys there, and it was the sweetest part of the whole thing because it was insanely practical. You gave me many things that I could just immediately apply in our local congregation behind the pulpit.

One thing that stood out so much to me is you mentioned when you're working your notes, your manuscript, put in the margin a smiley face to remind yourself that your congregation, in many ways, the face of God is reflected through your face to them.

And when you're talking about things like the law and the gospel, and you're reminding them of God's love, to smile at them. And so I immediately implemented that. I don't know how far, how well it's going, but I'm immediately able to implement that.

It was just very helpful.

Brandon, I have been known by some of my buddies to say in my preaching classes, just if you get these two things, you'll have taken Mike's classes. Number one, talk about Jesus. Number two, smile.

Amen.

Well, it's interesting. I want to hear more about you and your ministry in a second, but it's interesting, the countenance of the preacher while the congregation shouldn't do this necessarily, but it happens.

They think the countenance of the preacher toward them is the countenance of God toward them. And sometimes that doesn't match. That is to say, the countenance of God to the believer is always in Christ, and it's always not, how could you disappoint me today and how dare you do that?

But it's one of acceptance and a face smiling, as the scripture says. But sometimes I think we're so, I don't know, Brandon, so serious about God's Word, which is good. It just doesn't translate into being kind and merciful in our, even the way we look from the pulpit.

Does that make sense?

It makes perfect sense, brother. Experientially, I know being on the receiving end of God's Word, sitting in the pews, I've sat under both of the types that you're describing, the scolding types, and also those who it's just, they're dripping with God's grace to the congregation.

And maybe there's a place for polemics in preaching. I think there is, but if that becomes the main thing in preaching, I think that's quite problematic. I just kind of assume the default position that the saints that are coming in week after week are already weary with the trials that they're facing in the world, and they're beat up, and their faith may already be feeble or faltering.

And it's my job there to point them back into the sufficiency of their Savior, to tell them about the law, to tell them about the gospel, and to let them see God's love for them in Christ and what's been done for them.

And it's kind of hard to do if you're not smiling.

Or scolding all the time. Well, we all can smile when it's, I don't know, our favorite football team wins, or we're having a nice meal with our spouse or something like that. We're all smiles, but then we get up behind the pulpit, and somehow we think we have to just be, I don't know, Moses or something.

Anyway, I was reading your website, and I did not know this about you, so if you'd let our listeners know, that would be great. It says on your website about you and the leadership page, God saved Brandon as he was reading Ephesians 1 and 2 alongside a systematic theology textbook.

What in the world is that all about?

Salvation by Grace through a Systematic Theology Textbook

Oh, goodness. Yeah, to be as concise as possible, I grew up unchurched, I would say. Kind of meandered, finding my way through high school and college. I worked in the oil and gas industry in various engineering capacities for some time.

And a faithful friend of mine, who actually met at the conference with me, Scott Willingham, he came to faith earlier in life, but he would always reach out to me and ask me, hey, are you in a church?

Are you reading your basic things like that? And this was right around the time podcasts came out, early 2000s. He pointed me to a podcast I would listen to, and it was a pastor, and he mentioned something about everybody needs to know some theology.

I didn't even know what theology was. I'd never heard that word in my life. I was intrigued, though, and he said, just go out and buy Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology. Now, in full disclosure, I would disagree with Mr. Grudem on a few items.

I'm more in the 1689 confessional school of thought. But nonetheless, I got to his chapter on essentially the doctrines of grace and election, and I'm probably going to butcher it, but there is a quote there, and I was reading along.

I had my Bible open, and he would make a proposition, and I would confirm it with the scriptures, and I was going back and forth, kind of doing comparative work, and he made a statement there, and he said that God loved you for no other reason than he decided to set his love on you, and it humbles us when we think about God in this way, and brother, it was right then.

I'd heard the gospel many times in my life. I had no category for grace. I'd never heard grace, and the reason why Paul calls it in Acts the gospel of grace, and so in many ways, grace was the key that unlocked the gospel for me, and on the one hand, it just melted me, like I was, you know, repenting, trusting in Christ.

All those things are happening in a flood. I'm calling my wife. I'm sending her pictures. You know, it's this comical scene, and it's so sweet, but then on the other hand, there was a part of me that was, why had no one ever told me about grace?

I'd lived 25 years of my life, and no one told me about grace in the gospel and how they go hand in hand, and so from that day, it was kind of my mission to tell everyone about the gospel of grace, and I've just kind of been on that trajectory, and you know, it's obviously all glory and credit to God, the journey that I've been on, but yeah, man, so it was through a systematic theology textbook that I came to faith.

Amen. Well, as you were saying that, Brandon,.

It reminded me of Deuteronomy chapter 7, which states, it was not because you were more in number Israel than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you are the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

Why does God love us? Because God loves us, and so that is so wonderful. Brandon, tell our listeners a little bit how even that experience has helped you focus on preaching grace when you're preaching through the Bible verse by verse.

It is, yeah, grace is central. It's central to, I would say, my emphasis in preaching, because it is transformative. I mean, really, when you consider that preaching itself is a means of grace, that it is, you know, these ordinary ways that God has appointed by which he's pleased to.

Both save and sanctify his people. Yay, I'm rooting along with you. I'm there clapping.

Yeah, yeah, so I lost my whole train of thought on that, but I love it. No, it has to be central because God has said that it's central, and he's promised to work through his word, and so grace is going to be at the heart.

It's at the heart of the gospel, and the gospel is the heart of ministry, and that's how God keeps calling sinners to himself. And last time I checked, that's the Great Commission. That's our whole job is to make.

Disciples, so we're just going to stay on point with that. Why do you think so many evangelical teachers, preachers, authors are resistant to the fact—maybe not theoretically, but at least practically—they're resistant to the fact that grace motivates obedience?

In other words, it seems like they're afraid that if they talk about grace too much, that the listeners, readers might run wild licentiously. What's the rub there? I know they know Romans 6, 1 and following, but is there a psychological, sociological, evangelical reason why so many people are afraid to talk about grace.

Because they think it will lead to.

Lawlessness? Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure I have the perfect answer on that. I can take a stab at it. If we describe it as pietism, it's probably—I don't know if it's always been going on, but it's at least a side effect of Phineism and revivalism in the past 200 years of American Christianity.

We've kind of seen the fruits of that, but it's very much—you even think back to Phineon, these anxious benches that he introduced, and kind of use emotionalism to get people to make a decision for Christ.

When your whole faith is centered around something that you do around the law and not what's been done for you by Christ, it makes actually perfect sense that you would always be looking inward to yourself.

That can then, in the preaching, come across as trying to motivate someone, and the motive is a self-driven kind of motivation, but it actually ought to be the opposite. It's like when you receive and you rest in Jesus Christ and His finished work for you, that actually produces joy in you, and it enables you.

It drives you to want to go and do God's law. Oh, how I love your law, the psalmist says. It's my delight, day and night, to meditate on it day and night. So that's the right relationship, but you know what?

It's a baseless fear, really, that people are going to become licentious because you don't slam them with the law over and over again in the first few years, and I think that's just antithetical to Christianity.

If I'm not mistaken, it was John Calvin that said, all whom God justifies, He sanctifies. So creatures act in accordance with their nature. So if you are a new creation in Christ, you will go for and bear fruit, and it's not really my job to—that is God's normal operation in us by the Spirit.

It's not my job to try to produce that with law. My job is to hold forth Jesus Christ, and the more they see Jesus Christ for them, the more they want to love and obey God. The opposite is just going to either lead to, you know, despair.

We have family members who were just having a conversation the other day with someone who came out of Roman Catholicism, and they were saying, you know, in that works-based kind of righteousness, you kind of have two types.

You will have the realists, like my wife formerly was and her mother-in-law. They knew this is just a sham. Like, I could never keep any of these laws. Like, they intuitively just knew that. But on the other hand, you will get some who actually think they are keeping the righteous standard of God's law, and they just turn into Pharisees.

So they're really just lowering the standard of the law to prop themselves up, or you start the whole comparative analysis, well, I'm not as bad as that guy, you know, that kind of thing. So no, I think absolutely the motivation ought to be Jesus Christ in love for Him that drives us, and I think just an unbounded, you know, or a baseless fear that people are going to become antinomian, that's not even consistent with the nature of a Christian in the first place.

Assurance, Obedience, and the Third Use of the Law

I love the answer. You can be the successor to no-compromise radio ministry with an answer like that. Talking to Pastor Brandon Mills today, providencereformedchurch .org, all the words put together, providencereformedchurch .org.

I believe you're in Texas, is that right?

That's correct, brother. We are about an hour and a half southwest of Fort Worth.

All right. So as Brandon was talking, I just kept thinking to myself, as I was looking at his picture online, it says you have five children, but there's only a picture.

Of four. That's correct. We had a new baby back in February, Abigail. She is growing and crawling all over the place and getting ready to start walking, so we've got our hands full with her.

So at what age would you let her know that she's actually your daughter? What kind of performance level would she have to maintain so that she could earn such a spot to be called a Mills?

What's the age for that, Brandon? Oh, brother, it is at the moment that we were...

How is it true that we would never do something like that to our children, and we are sinful dads and moms? That's how we portray God. You've got to do X amount of work or stop doing sins to a certain degree, and then you can know for sure that you can be saved.

Yeah, that's not a proper posture.

That's correct. How did you get an MDiv from Southwestern and then become confessional, or did you learn about the confessions at Southwestern?

Yeah, in God's Kindness, the systematic book that I was reading when I came to Fayette, it wasn't too long after that we got plugged into Grace Bible Church. A master's seminary was there. I studied under him.

I even did some early Greek studies with him, and so I'd already been just kind of headed down that route of at least soteriologically reformed, but there were some gaps in that theology. I love my brothers at Master's.

Many I'm still very close with, but there began to be some gaps when I started venturing into biblical theology, understanding the pactum salutis, redemptive history, and just really studying the creeds and confessions, realizing that I'm in a context where we are not the first Christians to ever walk the face of the earth, and there's 2 ,000 years of New Testament church history behind us of faithful brothers and sisters in Christ who have hammered out, given us a vocabulary by which we can safely navigate these great heads of doctrine and theology.

And so, yeah, that really kind of led me into 1689 confessionalism. I was pretty well settled on it before I entered into seminary. I mean, there's always maybe a few categories that are kind of like wet cement.

There's always a few of those things, but the core things were definitely settled out, and the confession's going to bring a few Cs with it, right? Like if you're Reformed Baptist, at least in the 1689 school, you're going to be covenantal.

You're going to be, obviously, well, you'd be creedal, but you'll be Calvinistic. And then because you're Baptist, you're going to be congregational. So those kinds of things were in my mind. One of my main objectives going to seminary was I wanted to be formally trained in the languages.

I'd done a little bit of study. I just want to get better at Greek so I can know my Bible better, wanted to learn some Hebrew so I could know my Bible better. And so, yeah, I embarked on that journey.

It was a lovely time. There were some challenging things. I didn't see eye to eye with all of my professors because many of them are not of a confessionally Reformed bent. There are a few Calvinists here and there and there.

You get a few Armenians on the other side, love these brothers too. But yeah, it was a challenge, but it was good. I made it through Southwestern. It was great. I mean, as you know, seminary just gives you a lot of exposure to what you don't know, and it helps you kind of point you in the direction to go and start learning and studying and doing deeper dives and research and, you know, forces you to defend uncomfortable things and think through uncomfortable things.

And it's a sanctifying exercise. It's a good.

And helpful exercise. So. Well, speaking about confessions, Brandon, I noticed on the website, you've got Apostles Creed, Athanasius Creed, Nicene Creed, Chalcedon, Octor Arter, etc. Why do you put that on the website and does that help people?

Does it hurt? Does truth divide? What's your strategy on putting those creeds there?

Yeah, I would say in general, by expressing our adherence to those creeds, we're identifying ourselves with the long lineage of Orthodox Christians that have come before us. And so we're not out here trying to invent our own theology, come up with our own doctrine of God or our own doctrine of Christ.

But we're leaning on these giants that came before us, Athanasius and so forth. So, yeah, it's in many ways, I know when I see that personally on another church's website, it in many ways is a badge of authenticity.

I can safely go here and I can safely recommend my friends to go to that church because I know they're not going to get some, you know, heresies concerning the doctrine of God or the doctrine of Christ.

So, yeah, it's just kind of like a kind of like a marker there. It's a sign on the ground that says, hey, you're on safe ground here.

I love that. I was looking at the Octor Arter Creed there. And so I'd like to know, Brandon, if it is sound and Orthodox to teach that we must forsake sin in order to come into Christ.

It is not. My goodness, if we just memorized, what is that like? It's like 20 words or 22 words or something. If we just memorize those 22 words or whatever it is, it would prevent us from so many errors, like the Lordship controversy, you know, getting our marrow doctrine right, and these sorts of things.

It's such a simple little thing that guides from so many harmful.

Errors. When I was growing up in evangelicalism, that is to say I was converted, I was in my early 30s, and just learning and growing, if I would have heard another person say, dear unbeliever, Jesus demands that you believe on Him now and trust in Him for your sin-bearing salvation, and you don't have to stop sinning in order to come to Christ.

You don't have to forsake your sin in order to come to Christ. You come to Christ right now, sins and all, come believing, come trusting. If I would have heard that, I would have freaked out. What do you mean you don't have to forsake sin?

What do you mean you don't have to stop sinning? And then all of a sudden you read Romans chapter 4 and you realize God justifies the ungodly. Yeah. Yeah, brother, that's it.

There's a reason why Paul tells them in Corinthians, I mean, just you saying those words brings me to tears, because that is God's grace for ungodly sinners.

Amen. It is Isaiah 55, and you know what? If you're thirsty, here's water. How does God give water? It's free. It's gracious. Drink as much as you want. It's right here. It's all provided for you. And then to think about that from the spiritual aspect, you need spiritual water.

The Lord Jesus has done it all, and just believe Him. And that leads me to the next question that I have for you, Pastor, and that is, tell our listeners a little bit about the difference between faith in faith and faith in Jesus.

That is to say, what I'm looking for is people that struggle with assurance, and they think, I wonder if my faith is strong enough. Do I have faith in my own faith? That's essentially what they're saying.

Or what about a weaker faith in the.

Lord Jesus? Work through that for us, please. Yeah. If I understand the question, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is faith is an instrument. It's a conduit. It's the pipe that the water moves through.

I think the confessional language is faith is the alone instrument of justification. So faith is merely, in the most simple sense that I preach it week after week, it's just receiving and resting in the gospel promises of the Savior Jesus Christ, that you are trusting in Him alone to be forgiven of your sins.

You're trusting in Him to be declared righteous based solely on His righteousness in God's sight, and that you are an adopted child of God. You are an heir, and you have all the rights and privileges of sons and daughters of God, and you inherit eternal life with God.

So that is the essence of faith. It is not faith itself that justifies. It is the object of faith that justifies you. So when you trust in Jesus Christ, it means you're looking for this alien righteousness, this righteousness extra nos, outside of yourself, Paul says in Philippians, and you're looking for the righteousness of another.

And you can't do that until you realize you have no righteousness of your own. When you realize you don't have any righteousness of your own by God's grace, oh, you can run to the one who is righteous, the Holy One of God, Jesus Christ, and you can find sufficient Savior in Him.

Paul Eddington. Amen. Talking to Brandon Mills, Brandon, it seems like we have more in common than we don't.

Brandon Mills. There's a shocker.

Paul Eddington. And by the way, that was nice of you as you answered the last question. If I understand your rambling convoluted question well enough, I think this is what you were asking. Good job. You should be on radio.

Brandon Mills Yeah. You said earlier, you can't come to Christ without, you know, you can't forsake your sins. Well, because we're all sinners, and so I know I'm a single being, I might not have heard your question.

Paul Eddington. That's true. That's true. In front of me, I have this verse, John 14, 15, the Lord Jesus declaring, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Since we're talking about marrow, assurance, gospel, means of grace, those kind of things.

Jesus said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. How many of the commandments do you have to keep in order to keep God's love for you? How would you answer that if somebody says, I don't think I'm obeying enough, dear pastor, so I'm not sure if I really love Jesus enough?

How do you respond?

Brandon Mills. Yeah. I mean, the question, that verse is true. You know, back to Calvin earlier, those that God sanctifies, he justifies, and that means if you've been regenerated, if you've trusted in Christ, you truly possess saving faith in him, then you will actually bear fruit in different degrees and measures, as we're all in different parts of our walk in sanctification.

But for this person, I mean, I would just really try to direct their gaze from this kind of self-doubt and harsh introspective, and I would just point their eyes over on Jesus. And I would say, I really want to get at the motive of why we obey God, which this is just the third use of the law.

It's that God's commands for us under the new covenant become a guide for us, and we obey those things out of delight. Number one, they're good for us. Number two, they honor God. Number three, they're good for our neighbor.

So that's really our motivation, and our motivation as Christians is not like there's some goalpost. I mean, the standard of the law is perfection. Like, Jesus is quite clear in Matthew 5 .48, you must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

So that is the standard, but then you have Paul in Romans 7, like, who will rescue me from this body of death, O simple man that I am? So we're absolutely still saint and sinner in this life. So I would just really try to get their eyes over on Jesus and see that, look, you're not obeying the law to earn anything from God.

Jesus already earned everything that there is to earn, and all things are yours in Christ by virtue of your union with him. So look at Jesus Christ and look at who Jesus Christ says you are. And then from that position of this great love of God, his tender mercy for you, how can that not put a smile on your face and you freely and willingly go and love God and love your neighbor?

It's like Psalm 110 says, his people will freely volunteer for him. That's the whole posture of a Christian. So it really kind of sounds like a scenario where someone's really very much overly introspective, and they need to be looking more outside of themselves to Christ.

Petey. Great answer, Pastor Mills. I was thinking about people that have asked me that question before, and I give the answer that you give in my own words, and then you probably do this, and I try to do this as well.

Dear struggling Christian, why do you think you even asked that question, right? What's in your heart that's prompting you to think, I wish I could love Jesus more. I wish I could keep his commandments more.

Who's put that into your mind? And then I usually say, does Satan do that? Does Satan? And then I say, how about CNN? Is CNN doing that? Then if I'm in New England, I have to say, does Fox News say that?

Because see here, everybody in New England, even Republicans are Democrats here, so I have to be careful. Pete. Today, I've had the privilege of having Pastor Brandon Mills on the show, No Compromise Radio.

He's the pastor of Providence Reformed Church, and you can go to providencereformedchurch .org if you want to hear some of his sermons, or take a look at those things. Brandon, I really am thankful that you're on the show.

We are knit together, and I'm sure in the future we're going to be able to do things together and hang out together, and next time when we see each other in Omaha at the Pactam Conference, if you pay a little bit extra, you get the VIP room, and then we can sit down and have a coffee in private.

Great, brother. Sounds good. Thanks for listening. Mike Abendroth with Brandon Mills. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry.