Thinking About God: Dread or Comfort? | Theocast

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It's been said that the most important thing we think about is what we think when we think about God, because this will shape every other area of our existence.

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So, listener out there, let me ask you, when I say God, what is it that you think?

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If I were to give you truth serum, and I say God, what do you feel? Do you feel comfort?

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Do you feel safe? Do you feel known, seen, loved? Adopted? Or is there a sense in which you feel afraid, and you're plagued with doubt, and maybe even thoughts of dread and judgment?

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John and I are gonna talk about all this today. We're gonna talk about God, and who he is, and what he's like, as he has revealed himself in the face of Jesus Christ.

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Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word. It's called pietism.

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Have you ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy, that you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna perform, instead of thinking about what

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Christ has done for you? It's dread versus joy, really. That's pietism. Pietism causes

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Christians to look in on themselves, and find their hope, not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing.

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And we have a little book for you. It's free. We want you to download it, and we're gonna explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism.

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Reform theology, really. How it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ, and when

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Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like? You can download it on our website.

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Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

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Conversations about the Christian life from a reformed perspective. Today, our main aim is to pull the clutter off the gospel, and help us to think about the kingdom rightly, where there's rest, joy, and work to be done.

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That's right. Your hosts are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, whatever's left of it, and John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

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I know. Dang, man. I know, that was dark. But dude, listen, let's be real.

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Sometimes we live in a broken world, and you guys got pummeled. Yeah, the creation's grown in, man.

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Wanna thank all the listeners who were able to reach out to Justin's church, and encourage them, and support them.

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Very encouraged. That's absolutely right. Speaking of Asheville, and that's why I mentioned it, is that we are still having our conference.

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In other words, there's enough left of Asheville for us to have a conference in the city. The parts that we were going to use is still accessible, and we're hoping,

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I mean, there's no way to know what will be restored by then, but it is in April, and time is running out, and seats are running out, so if you would like to join us, please come and register.

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You can go to theocast .org. It's right there on the homepage. We're gonna be doing a conference on law and gospel.

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It's our first official real full conference over the weekend. We've done some one -day conferences here and there, but this is our first time, and with us, we are so excited to have none other than Chad Bird, who will be coming and spending the weekend with us, and also

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Ken Jones. And if you don't know about either of those men, you go to our website, learn more about them.

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We recommend their ministries, their podcasts, and books. And Ken Jones just wrote the foreword to a book that's gonna be coming out from Justin soon, so stay tuned for that.

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We'll be announcing that soon. But it's gonna be a great time. You're gonna have time to fellowship.

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You're gonna have time to listen to podcasts, hear lectures, and sing. Oh, it's gonna be so good.

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People from around the world will be there. Already seen some of the registrations that are coming in. It's really, really exciting.

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So also, if you'd like to be a part of a community that is growing, and it's a great place to ask questions, be encouraged, have additional resources like sermons, conferences, and lectures, you can go be a part of the

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Theocast community. And if you so choose to support us, there's an opportunity to do that as well. Justin, we announced this last week.

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It's an important subject. It's one that you and I are excited about. Talk to us, my friend, about this title that we have.

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What do you mean, what do we think about God? So a quote that's attributed to A .W.

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Tozer, it's a good one, and we don't have to agree with everything Tozer ever wrote to think that this is an excellent, excellent, that's right, observation that he made.

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It's one of the more famous quotes from him, and he says, the most important thing that we think about is what we think when we think about God, for this will shape every other area of our existence.

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So I'll say that again. The most important thing we think about is what we think when we think about God, for this will shape every other area of our existence.

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And so that's in our minds. And the reason that it's in my mind, we acknowledge this all the time, whatever we're preaching is often in our hearts.

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We're meditating on it, we're rolling it over. We're meaning and seeking to preach and apply

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Jesus to our people, and I'm in John's gospel. And this past Sunday, I preached

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John 3, 16 through 36. And this coming Sunday, God willing,

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I'm gonna preach John chapter four. So John 3, 16 through 21 is the end of Jesus's, at least for my vantage point, the end of Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus.

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And then chapter four, of course, is the Samaritan woman at the well.

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And so these things are on my mind, and I'm not gonna say everything in this initial kind of monologue.

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We'll save some for the conversation, but I'll begin it with this. In John 3, 16, 17, we know the verses.

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For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

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And then it says, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but rather to save it, right?

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And so that paradigm, even, let's start out with this. I wonder, dear listener out there, when

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I say God, what pops into your mind? So this is a good exercise because I reflect on this for my own sake, because there's a lot of good that pops into my mind.

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I mean, good and accurate things about the Lord, and then there are some things that aren't good. Because I think if we were given truth serum, we'd say, yeah,

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I mean, I know God loves me, and he's for me, and he saved me. But then there's part of us that might say, man, he's probably angry with me or frustrated with me, or there's a sense in which

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I'm afraid of him. So there's a mixed bag. Or maybe for many out there, it's mostly dread and fear.

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When we say, God, what do you think about God? In your heart, what do you feel when you think about God?

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So that's the question underneath all this. And that paradigm of John 3, 17, not condemnation, but salvation, that's the heart and the posture of God.

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He did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but to save it. So he's a God of redemption, not condemnation in that regard, right?

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And I'm thinking of various passages in scripture, but God does not delight in the perishing of the wicked, yet he delights in the salvation of every sinner.

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Like that's Luke 15's emphasis, that there is celebration and rejoicing in heaven when one sinner is brought to salvation.

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But yet God does not find any joy or delight in the perishing of wicked people.

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He's about salvation, not condemnation. Now, yes, Justin, are you saying that he's not just? Of course not,

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God's just. Are you saying he's not holy? Of course not, God's holy. He will administer justice because he's good.

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And at the same time, what is it that brings God delight? What is it that's in God's heart, particularly toward you, dear listener, who have placed your trust in his son?

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It's salvation and restoration and redemption and love and comfort and sympathy.

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He sees you, he knows you. And we're gonna unpack some of that today and maybe we'll all be helped a little bit by this podcast when we're asked, when you think about God, what do you think?

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When you think about God, what do you feel? Maybe we'll be helped a little bit to think of him as our loving father and to think of Jesus as a compassionate and merciful, sympathetic high priest.

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And we'll be more comfortable and more bold in the ways that we approach him and run to him in every circumstance of life, right?

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That's the goal. I would encourage you, if you didn't listen to last week's episode, to go back and listen to it because really this one builds off of it.

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Kind of a part two. Agree. Yeah. Because what we're trying to do is to help you look at the

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Bible and look at your perspective of God a little bit differently. It's unfortunate the diet that's been given to us.

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A lot of people's perspective of God is skewed because that's the type of Christianity that was handed to them, either from the pulpit or their parents or from modern evangelicalism in that God is just a

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God to be appeased. I mean, it's totally paganism. It's what it is. I was gonna say, it sounds like the pagan gods.

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It's exactly right. It's like, what do the gods think of us? It sounds like the gods of the world, you know?

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Yeah. The gods of Hinduism and the gods of every other thing. This is why they were so upset in Rome. Peter was talking about this and even

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Paul talks about this. They get so upset in Rome because the Christians came in and said, there is no other God and we will only serve

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Jesus. Well, that's gonna make the other gods upset. And they were afraid of making the other gods angry because they wanted the benefits of the other gods, right?

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And so they were like, you need to stop this. You need to stop proclaiming this one and only true God thing because we don't believe that.

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And sure, this God might be beneficial and you can worship him, but you gotta stop talking. You just gotta worship the other ones too.

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Exactly right. And this is what it sounds like. And it gets carried over to where we just live in the constant fear of the gods changing their mind or of God changing his mind.

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And you know, it is. Yeah, that he's capricious. That's right. And there are times where we come to church feeling this way.

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We wake up in the morning feeling this way. I was telling Justin beforehand, you know,

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I grew up, I had a great relationship with my dad, love my dad. And when he would get home and I could hear his voice, his voice has brought me comfort.

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He was a six foot one, big guy, deep voice. And I just loved the sound of his voice.

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And when he got home and he would say, hey boys, I could hear him. I know what that meant. Grab the football, we're going out in the front yard, we're gonna be playing catch.

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And so that, like there was some comfort. When we hear the word of God or, you know, you could technically say the voice of God through his word, that is not the position that's been given to us.

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And what Justin and I wanna do is in this episode is help you see the tone and the voice of the king towards you.

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Your father is one that has nothing to do, and this is so hard, has nothing to do with your performance.

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I mean, just like my, thankfully my heavenly, my earthly father loved me because I was his own. This is true of you.

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Listen to this. This is, I mentioned this last week. Peter's about to die.

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And he sends this letter to these churches who are, they're suffering. And they're kind of wondering, where is

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God? Literally in chapter three, they're being made fun of because you say, well, you keep saying

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Jesus is gonna come back and he hasn't come back yet and nothing has changed. So this seems foolish that you keep believing in a king that's coming back.

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And they're feeling it. And Peter's like, listen, let me encourage you. So he starts with their comfort.

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He wants them to hear God's disposition towards them. This is so good. So Simon, first for us, 2

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Peter 1 .1. Simon, Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. Now at times that may not seem like anything, but those titles are important because basically

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Peter is one of the most famous apostles. And he's using this title of like, yeah,

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I'm one of the 12. I worked with Jesus. I saw him rise from the grave. He discipled me. Listen to what he writes next.

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To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours.

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What does God think about you? When we think about standings, Justin, you know, we got football season going on.

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You got baseball and basketball. When you look at the standings, what are you looking at? What team has the most wins? Who's performing the best?

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Who's at the top of the standings? And Peter goes, yeah, you might think I'm some kind of a super apostle, but if you have faith in Christ, you're standing before God is equal with me.

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Come on, man. It's equal with Paul. It's equal with whatever person you respect and you think is the greatest

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Christian of all time. No, God looks at us all equally.

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And I love this phrase from Jesus when he prays before he goes to the cross. And he says, father, please help them see.

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You're about to preach this in John later on. Father, help them see that you love me the same as you love them.

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That's what it means to have equal standing. So when you hear of God, the first thought you should have is that he considers and loves and cares for me the same as he does all of his children.

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It is an important way to think about your King because this goes back to last week. Well, why?

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Because it's his divine power that has granted us this access, not our performance. You can never say, well,

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God has put me at the standing because I've done well. It's like, no, God granted this to me by grace.

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And therefore all of his children equally stand before him and he loves them and cares for them all equally.

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So I think the most transformative thing that can ever happen for a human being is to be reconciled to God and to come to know that they are loved by him and to come to know him.

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And I'm using that word transformative on purpose, right? Because we alluded to this last week. How is it that people change?

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How is it that lives are transformed? Because we are pro -transformations.

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We like transformation. I pray that the Lord continues to transform me and you, and all the people in our churches.

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And so the most transforming thing, I think, for us in our

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Christian lives is to continue to come to know God and to think of him in the ways that we're gonna mean, we're trying to describe and starting to describe here today and to know him and be known by him, to love him and be loved by him, and to feel safe and comforted in his presence is a transformative thing for a human being.

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And I think a lot of times people feel like or think it's wrong to feel safe in the presence of a holy God. And it's like, well, yeah, on your own, that would be true, but not in Christ Jesus.

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That's right. In Christ Jesus, God is our refuge. I mean, think about how often that is the paradigm that's given to us.

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That's the metaphor used in the scriptures. It is shot through the Psalms, man, that God is our refuge, that he is our safe place.

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He's our hiding place. We go to him to take shelter under his wings like a little bird would take shelter underneath the wings of its parent.

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That's what we do. And so he is our protection. He is our rock. He's the rock that is higher than we are and all these things.

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But then deep down, I think this is because of our consciences. I think this is because of the work of the evil one.

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We doubt and we fear and we question. And like you said, John, we think that God is like, we think the

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Lord is like other gods or we think the Lord is like us. And we alluded to this last week, that the

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Lord rebukes his people in Psalm 50. You thought that I was altogether like you. He's not like us.

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And so he's not, like Hosea 11, for example. This just popped into my brain.

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That is a wonderful chapter of the sin and the rebellion of Israel and what they deserve.

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And then God basically saying, but I'm not gonna be angry with you. I'm gonna take back, the anger that you deserve,

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I'm taking it back. And I'm gonna actually come after you to save you and love you. And what he grounds that in, is he says, for I am

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God and not a man, the holy one in your midst. Now, if we were to think of God as the holy one, we tend to think, all right, well,

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God's holy and that's scary for me. But he's saying, no, I'm the holy one and I'm not a man.

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And so I'm not gonna treat you like you would think I'd treat you. Because you as a human being, using your logic and your frameworks, a rebellious, sinful person, you would probably treat poorly and then you would be angry and you would be wrathful.

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But I'm not that towards you because I'm the holy one. I'm God and not a man.

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That's gripping to me, that that's his posture toward us. I'll go ahead and go this direction and then

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I'll hand it back to you, John. I mentioned John three in the whole paradigm of salvation, not condemnation.

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And I would ask the listener out there, is that how you think about God? Do you think that, salvation, not condemnation?

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And then I'm thinking about John chapter four coming up this week. I haven't prepped the sermon, but I'm aware of what's in the text, and many of the listeners are too, where there's a woman who's a

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Samaritan. So there's a lot going on. I mean, she's - What have you been doing, Justin? It's Wednesday. I mean, what do you do for a living? You just get the sermon done, man.

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It's already Wednesday. We only work one day a week anyway. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, what else do we do, right?

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We just professional sermon preachers. That's right, we're professional preachers, that's right. We just preach and podcast all the time.

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Sorry, go ahead. But John four, the

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Samaritan woman, so she's a religious and ethnic half -breed, first of all, that's a thing. But then it's such a beautiful interchange.

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The way that Jesus engages her, and he asks her about her life effectively.

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And she says that, well, I don't have a husband. And he says, well, you're right in saying that because you've actually had five, and the man that you're with now is not your husband.

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And just really briefly on this, we're not told about the circumstances of her failed marriages. Only men could get certificates of divorce.

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I mean, so there's a lot, and we don't know, but what we can say with certainty about the failed marriages thing and the five divorces is that that would be a very shame producing thing for her.

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Lot of shame. And certainly would not be looked upon favorably in the society.

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And now she's also made maybe an understandable but poor choice to be with a man to whom she's not married.

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So there's more shame and guilt. And so you have this shame and guilt riddled woman talking with Jesus.

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And he effectively, he tells her, I mean, she's gonna say this, he told me everything I ever did, right?

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So he knows her. He knows everything about her. He knows her circumstance.

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He knows her story. And knowing everything about her, what does he do? He offers her himself.

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Right? Like this, I trust is gonna be the emphasis of what I will mean to preach on Sunday is that Jesus in knowing this woman better than she knows herself,

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Jesus in knowing everything that is in her and knowing everything about her offers her himself.

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And it's like, here is living water. Here, I am the Messiah, right?

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I am here for you to save you. It's gripping, man.

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Because I think that, all right, sincerely, I'm about to hand it back over to you. But let me just posit it this way right now.

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Like envision this. Listener out there, envision this. Envision Jesus walking in on you committing some heinous sin.

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And this is a question for all of us to wrestle with. If he did walk in on us committing some heinous sin, what do we think his response, his reaction, his posture toward us would be?

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You know, two or three things, right? I think he would say, with compassion,

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I think he would look at us and say, this is bad. This grieves me. This is vile.

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Because this is terrible for you. And it's terrible for everybody who is close to you.

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This is not good. This is bad. That's not what I called you to. He would say that.

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And he would say, and I love you. And I'm for you.

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I'm with you. I'm not going anywhere. Lean into me. Rest in me.

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And now live. I think there's another sense in which, so that's one way

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I think that would go down. But then I think another realistic, reasonable thing based upon the witness of the scriptures is

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Jesus walks, you know, like we commit a heinous sin and then we're gonna go to Jesus to confess it. And I think he could rightly and meaningfully look at us, again, with tenderness and sympathy and compassion in his eyes.

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And he could say, dear one, I don't even know what you're talking about. Because remember, he is the one who does not deal with us according to our sin.

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And he says, I blotted out your transgression for my own sake and I will remember your sins no more. So there's a sense in which

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Jesus is like, yeah, I'm not sure even what you're talking about because you're mine and I'm yours and I don't remember your sin and you're safe.

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So it's like these are meaningful things and it helps me, John, I think, because if you're like me at all, homie, like I tend to not, like when

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I'm sinning or when I'm really struggling, you know, like when I sin, sometimes my instinct is not to go to God because of shame and guilt and fear.

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It's like, I'll go to God once I feel a little better about it. I'll go to God once I feel like I've done a little something to clean it up or like I have felt badly enough.

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Like I have enough remorse over my sin or I feel the way that I should about it and now I can approach the

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Lord. Rather than going to, it's like, no, go to him when you sin, not once you're better.

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That's right. Hey guys, real quick, some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions.

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So where do you go? How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources? We have started something called the

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Theocast Community and we're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like -minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there and you can share it and ask questions.

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You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. Like I said in last week's episode, you have to have the power of the gospel confirming your faith because when you do sin, you have to have something that draws you back.

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So as you were talking, I couldn't help but think of Hebrews 4 when he says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness.

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This is exactly what you're talking about. When he catches you in your sin, which he always does, he is looking at you saying, this is bad, but I get it,

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I sympathize with your weakness, but this is bad, this is not good.

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But I love this, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin, as the sinless one,

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I understand, but let me be your, not only your sympathetic high priest, let me be your solution.

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Because he doesn't just say, that's bad. Now let's clean it up.

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No, no. Do better. That's right. Do better. That's not what he says. He says, let us with confidence.

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Now, why would we want to do confidence? Because our perspective is proper.

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And our perspective is we have a high priest who loves us, who's perfect and has the capacity to do what?

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Let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in what?

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In time of need, in the moment of being caught, in the moment of our weakness, in a moment where we're failed, the sympathetic high priest says, you know,

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I'm here for you. Come to me with confidence and I will provide for you the very thing that you need to sustain you.

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And we don't really believe that mercy and grace sustains, but it does. And this is why our, this is, it's just, and you're talking about what you think about God.

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Why would the writer of Hebrews tell you he's sympathetic? Why would he do that? It's because he wants you to think about him in a certain way.

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This isn't a God who's cold and distant. The gods in the old Testament, we knew very little about them.

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And what we do know of them is that they're angry and they're capricious and they are unpredictable.

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And we are told our God is predictable and does not change and is sympathetic.

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It's not that he's sympathetic one day and he's not sympathetic the next day. He is sympathetic. Exactly.

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Yeah, he's right. He's not, it's not like we have him today and we might not have him tomorrow because we will have not been faithful enough.

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That's what's so marvelous about the gospel and about the steadfast love of God. Something I was thinking too, when you were referencing

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Hebrews four. So like the Hebrews four, you know, 14 through like five, 10, you know, that whole section.

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And you're talking about Jesus who is like us in every respect yet without sin. And then later on in five, like eight, nine, the author is gonna talk about how he was perfected through suffering, you know, and like as a human.

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And I don't know if you think this, but I do. I'm kind of like, you know, this is one of the marvelous things about Jesus that he is perfect and he is without sin, yet he is sympathetic towards sinners.

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I don't think that we, now grant, in our fallenness, like let's just say that we could achieve some level of righteousness.

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Like we could achieve this standard of perfection. I cannot imagine how intolerable we would be.

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Like if I understood myself to be without sin and if I understood myself to be like perfect that I have done this,

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I fear that my posture would not be one of sympathy toward the weak.

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And one of sympathy towards sinners. Because think about how we operate, John. I mean, whenever we're convinced that we have the high ground, which we always try to,

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I mean, we're always convinced that we do. You know, fight with your wife and you know you're in the right. And we're merciless.

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We're merciless because, right, because we think we have the high ground or we think we have not sinned.

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And whenever we think we have not sinned or that we're right, we mow other people down.

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But Jesus is not like us. He is perfect and without sin and he is full of sympathy and compassion towards sinners.

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So, he's wonderful. You know, like that, and that's how we should think of him.

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You know, you think about the Lord's prayer and the apostle said, hey, teach us to pray. And he says, forgive us our debts so that what?

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We can forgive those who hurt us. Forgive us our debts so we forgive our debtors. And it's interesting that that's the position that we come to him.

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We come to him to receive forgiveness. Like we just forget that that's the posture. Jesus is like, hey, when you pray, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

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Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. And then go to him and get forgiveness. Yeah, and like, hey, give us, sustain us today.

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Give us what we need. And then like, please forgive us. That's the position. Yeah, and the awe and awesome

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God to whom we fear. And yet we receive forgiveness. Yeah. No, amen.

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And I don't know, I've been thinking about this some lately. Obviously, you know, there's beautiful words of repentance and remorse over sin contained in scripture.

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Like Psalm 51 immediately comes to mind. Yeah, I'm gonna read Psalm 103 in a minute. Yeah, but then there's also a sense in which because of where you and I both hail from, in terms of like our

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Christian background and stuff, you know how you get the impression that you've got to work yourself up into some kind of emotional frenzy over your sin.

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You know, and am I sorrowful enough? Am I really repentant enough? Do I feel badly enough to even really go to God and ask for forgiveness and think that he's gonna hear that at all?

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But I love the simplicity of the Lord's prayer, the model prayer. I've thought about this a lot lately.

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Because like you said, it begins with, like, this has impacted me. I'm gonna try to communicate it to the listener. Like even if I get up in the morning, you know, in the first few moments

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I'm awake and I think of God, and I wake up and it's like, on the one hand, Father, good morning.

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You know, my Father in heaven. Like you are my Abba Father. What a privilege it is to call you

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Father. And hallowed be your name. You are awesome. And yet may your name be regarded as holy.

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You know, amen, right? And then may your kingdom come and your will be done in my heart and mind today, in my family today, in my community today, in my local church today.

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God may that be. And Lord, you know everything that I need. Give me and my family, give us and our church, give us what we need today.

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And then it's like, just next, in the flow of the prayer, having done that, and Lord, please forgive me.

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You know, I'm a sinner. Forgive me as I forgive those who sinned against me. And protect me, please.

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You know, give me strength to battle the corruption of my flesh and protect me from the evil one. It's like, what a wonderful, simple set of petitions that is, and I try to convey it even in the tone in which

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I've been trying to think through this and pray it in my own heart. Rather than it being this, like immediately

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I wake up in the morning, particularly if I didn't have a good night the night before, and my sin is heavy on my mind.

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Or like the failures of yesterday are heavy on my mind. And immediately I wake up and I just, it's like, Lord, I need to spend the first five minutes of my day just confessing to you how miserable of a wretch

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I am, you know, in order for you to hear me. Now, the last comment, there are times,

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John, I'll be honest, like when I am just an absolute, like John Newton says, I'm a riddle to myself, you know, a heap of inconsistency.

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I just feel like it's an utter bag of cats in my heart. There are times when I'm like that, that I, that Jesus feels as near to me as he ever does.

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Because it's like, man, like, Lord, I am a mess right now, and I know that I am. And Lord, I need you, and I thank you that you're near and that you love me.

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And then anyway, I could, and then I think a lot of times the more pedestrian, mundane, just kind of grinds you down to powder kind of struggle against the flesh, that's where I can feel like an abject failure.

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And it's like, Jesus doesn't feel as close sometimes. And these are just good things to reflect on as a believer and as one who trusts in the

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Lord Jesus, right? Well, when you live in a world that is so evil, and it's so broken, and it's so under control of the evil one, you do feel out of place, and you want to feel like normal, but you can't.

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And that's why it's important that what you think about God matters, because that's where you find your sense of comfort, like, oh, okay, yeah,

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I'm definitely in a place that's out of control, and everything's off, but man, what, but the comfort

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I have of knowing who you are and your disposition towards me, and that this isn't the final state, and that I'm not in this position because I've done something wrong.

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Like, you know, sometimes, Justin, we feel horrible, not because we're in sin, it's just, we're in a broken body, man.

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It's like the world's just, it's broken. And I think it's healthy to remember that it's like. And we have a, yeah.

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Go ahead. No, and we have eternity written into our hearts. Yeah. Like, there's a reason why, and I was having a conversation with an unbelieving family member recently, and it just, it just came up.

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She said, you know, I just don't feel like I was made for this world. And I said, do you know,

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I feel the exact same way. That's right. Okay. Because of what we're talking about right now. There's a longing and an aching that we have.

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You know, it's like we watch a good movie or we read a good book and it comes to the happily ever after part, and there's a part of you that's filled with joy and there's a part of you that aches because you want to see it.

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I want to see and experience happily ever after. Yep. Right, and that's because eternity's been written in a man's heart.

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That's right. Well, and sometimes we've been told that if that's our experience or something, like God is withholding his joy and pleasure from us because we've done something.

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And the answer to that is, that's not true. Our body's grown. You're right, yeah. And it's important to know that God's not angry with you and you've done something wrong because your body's grown.

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Not everything's an issue of sin and morality. That's right. Why was this man born blind? Whose sin is his fault is this?

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And God's like, you're asking the wrong question. What about the Galileans that got slaughtered? What about the people on whom the

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Tower of Siloam fell? Do you think they were worse than you? You know? No. That's right, they weren't. That's right.

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Yeah, sometimes we suffer as a result of living in a fallen world. Yeah, amen. It's true. Well, I would say this is another form of us talking about resting in Christ.

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It is. If you haven't downloaded our book, it's free or you can buy it on Amazon. Buy multiple copies, give it away for Christmas.

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Yeah, honestly, we don't make any money off of that. That's just our way of, we're trying to keep it as cheap as possible. I mean, obviously you can get it for free.

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If you want the paperback, you can go to Amazon and get that. But this is why it's important that you're at a church that preaches

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Christ for you. That's true. Not you for Christ. And that you find your joy and rest and sufficiency of what

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Christ is doing for you. And in those positions of rest and experiencing his love, we love because he first loved us.

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And that's what we need to emphasize is God's love for us so that we can love others. Yeah, I mean, and even,

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I mean, I feel like I'm coming to all the time. I know you have experiences like this too, John. I mean, we're always learning.

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We're always growing. We're coming to fresh realizations of things. Things become clearer to us, right?

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And I've been thinking some lately about just living, you know, kind of that John 15 paradigm of abiding and just living in Christ, like living in the love of Christ for me.

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And it's like, instead of the focus always being, you've said this in the past, so often it seems that the focus amongst serious minded evangelicals in particular is the focus is actually on us and the focus is on our sin and not sinning.

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Like wake up and don't sin today, you know, is like the goal. Abstinence from sin is like the great aim of the

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Christian life apparently. And I don't think that's true at all. I know you agree, but to think more specifically about, yeah, let me live in the love of Jesus and think of Jesus the ways we've been describing

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Him in this podcast today. Merciful, compassionate, He knows us, yet He offered in knowing us fully,

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He offers us Himself repeatedly and we can run to Him, you know, like live that way and live in His love, live in His grace and His mercy and His compassion.

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And of course, be mindful, be thoughtful, be self -aware, be vigilant, seek to love neighbor.

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And it's good to flee from temptation and all those things, but don't make the temptation and the sin and all that stuff the focus of your life because I think,

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I actually think it's very counterproductive. It doesn't, it undermines. Rather than, man,

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I'm free and I have peace and comfort in the Lord Jesus Christ and like believe, like lean, lean wholesale into God has saved me and He loves me and He understands my struggle.

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Amen. He knows my frame. He remembers that I'm dust, right?

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And He doesn't treat me as my sins deserve. Amen. And I actually, because I'm born again and united to the

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Lord Jesus Christ, I don't wanna sin and when I do, I'm grieved by it and God knows that too.

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Amen. You know, and He's with me and He limps with me and He's gonna save me in the end, you know, and I'm, even for my own self,

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I'm just like, man, I just wanna, I just wanna live there. Amen. And I'm not gonna sin more, you know?

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Anyway. Well, I'll close with this encouraging Psalm and we'll be done with the podcast.

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Psalm 103, eight through 12. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to, so this is what you should think about God.

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When you hear God, this is what you should think. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

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He will not always accuse nor will He harbor His anger forever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

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For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him. And as far as the

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East is from the West, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

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This is your sympathetic God who knows you and loves you and considers you to be on equal standing with your brothers and sisters.

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In that, please rest. We'll see you next week. Hey everyone, before you go,

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Justin and I first wanted to say thank you. And if this has been encouraging to you in any way, please feel free to share it.

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But we also need your support. And it's when you give that it really helps us financially reach more people.

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So the next time you consider giving to a ministry, we hope that you would pray about Theocast and partner with us as we share the gospel around the world.