Do You Obey Out of Fear or Grace? | Kingsmen

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Welcome to the

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Kingsman Podcast, where we are reclaiming biblical manhood by training and equipping men for the work of the kingdom.

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I'm John Moffitt, I'm your host, and I'm a pastor of Grace Reformed Church and host, one of the hosts of Theocast, and we're going to go ahead and jump right into it this morning.

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I'm going to give a little bit of an introduction to a lecture I did recently. If you want to hear the whole thing, you can go to TheocastU, it'll be available there for those of you that are

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Semper Ephraim Monte members. But I thought I'd just talk about it here. This has been so powerful in my own life and helpful as I'm trying to love my wife and love my children and thinking about their frailties and my frailty.

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One of the areas I grew up in, if you grew up in conservative like fundamentalism or conservative

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Christianity, we were rightly taught to stay away from the world and the ways of the world and the thinking of the world.

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And I agree with the warning because most of what the world has to offer when it comes to things like relationships or pleasure, they distort it.

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They either take that which is pure and they turn it into that which is evil, and then we try and call it good.

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And I understand that, I can look at that, you know, murder, lying, cheating, homosexuality, all of that is not a reflection of the nature of God.

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But what I felt like, and maybe you have this feeling, I just felt like all of my life was what about I shouldn't do.

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It was just one huge constant list of don'ts. And it felt suffocating, you know, if you've ever had a coach and your coach always tells you all the things that you can't do while playing the game, you finally get to the point you're like, well, what can

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I do? You know, what is a good way of doing this? I remember the first time I had a really good basketball coach and the methods that they would use is they would get you focused in on something that was really good.

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And the result of like, this is what it should look like. And as you're pursuing it, they would say, now, listen, if you can refrain from this and this, it would accelerate you getting to this moment faster because these will become bad habits and they will hinder you.

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So like how you tuck your elbow and how you flick your wrist and how you get your stance, what you want to do is make sure you're not shooting off your back foot.

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And so instead of starting with the negatives, they started with the positive. It was really helpful for me because I knew where I wanted to be and I knew how profitable it would be for me as a player.

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And so I thought, yeah, anything that would get in the way of me being a successful player, let me know now because I want to stay away from those roadblocks.

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And that really resonated with me. When I finally discovered this for Christianity, man,

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I just felt like a weight fell off my shoulders because I was so afraid of messing up, of doing something wrong.

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Right. And it's like, I still have this problem in my own conscience. I'll see a police officer and I'll go like my heart starts racing.

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I'll look at my, you know, immediately you feel guilty. And that's mostly because I'm a bad driver and I need to be better at driving.

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And now that I have teenagers, I work on it. Definitely not perfect. My kids remind me that I don't turn on my blinker when

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I change lanes. So forgive me if you've been in front of me or behind me. But I have something that makes sense.

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Like this is the goal and the aim, which this is what this podcast has been around, why we named it Kingsman. Right. We are people of the king.

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We are his children. We've been adopted. And it's not that he looks at us and says, now don't mess up.

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You know, don't ruin what I have created. It's like we actually live by faith in God's grace and mercy.

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So you are going to just live entire life of a mess up. That's all it is. God expects you to mess up.

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That's why 1 John says, if you don't admit that you mess up, then you're done. You're a liar and the truth's not in you.

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So there's a change. And that change is you have something to live for. But in order to live for that, there are areas of your life you're going to have to watch out for because they'll either slow you down, they'll trap you, or they'll take you out of the game altogether.

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And you won't even be able to be effective at all. You're not going to be able to be a part of the advancement of the kingdom because, well, you're trapped.

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You're a slave. Or not only are you a slave, you might be counteracting the work of the kingdom, pulling people away from it.

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We don't want that either. I believe, I'm confident, Scripture is actually designed this way.

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Many of you have probably heard these two words. They were used a while ago, like 10 years ago, in what's called the sanctification debate back on the

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Gospel Coalition. It's called imperatives and indicatives. They're really helpful just when you're thinking about reading your Bible.

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An indicative is a statement of truth, right? It's telling you something that is a fact.

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And when we're thinking about particularly the Bible, an indicative is telling you the truth about your relationship to God, right?

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And so it's, they're wonderful. Paul often uses them to begin his letters. He starts with the truths of these believers in the relationship to God.

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An imperative is that of a command, imploring you to do something. So you would see these things like set aside your sin, or love your brother, or love

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God and your neighbor. Those are all imperatives. And they're good. They're great. But they're used together.

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They're used in tandem. And it works, I think, in very much, there's one that sets forth the hope and the goal.

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And then it gives you the imperatives of what to look for while going after this goal.

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So obviously the goal is not salvation. That's already been handed to us. And that's the part of it that the indicatives often establish.

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I'm going to give you an example of this, okay? Let's just go to 1 Peter 1, and I just want to read you a few verses so you can understand what an indicative is, right?

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It's the statement of hope and truth that is to be believed. There's no action to be taken other than faith, okay?

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This is 1 Peter 1, verse 3. It says this, Blessed be the God and Father of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. Exclamation point. Amen. That's a great way to start. According to His great mercy,

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He caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last times.

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Have you read anything that you're supposed to do yet? There are no commands. This is all statement of fact, and it's really important information.

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I want to pull it apart just a little bit, because when we get to the parts that He's imploring us to do, it will make a whole lot more sense.

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He begins by saying, first of all, it's God's, not just mercy, His great mercy.

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A lot of it. Abundant mercy. It's His mercy that caused us to be a part of this new life that we have, to be born again into a living hope.

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And how did that come to us? It came to us through the death, and then He just summarizes it, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

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Now, that's the first part. This is so important. He's going to give you a focus of your attention.

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It's not saving yourself. Let's take that off the table right away. That's secure. You are, you know, it's like,

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I can remember once you make it to the team, you're no longer fighting for that place. That's what

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He's saying. Not only did you not earn yourself a place in the family and in the kingdom, it was granted to you, and it was granted to you by mercy.

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Mercy is to not receive what you don't deserve. You deserved to be damned and destroyed.

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And instead of receiving that, you received grace, which is the next section here.

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I think this is important because as we are pursuing these commands in the New Testament, we have to first understand it is not to gain or maintain salvation.

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Those have been granted to you, and you cannot lose them because they are wrapped up in God's sovereign will and His plan, not your own.

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Point two, this is the one where things get a little interesting, and we will focus our attention on our inheritance.

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Some, we've talked about this on Theocastle, put in the notes below. There's a new theology that's continuing to grow called

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Final Justification. So, justified means to be declared in right relationship with God.

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And final, the word, the reason they use final is that they are using the concept of obedience.

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Your obedience is the final justification. So, what that means is, yes,

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God declares you righteous, but then your obedience is what is evaluated at the end, and God would look at your good deeds to determine whether or not you deserve to be finally welcomed into the new heavens and the new earth.

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That's a simple summary. I would also say federal vision has language like this. I've done several episodes on this, and so have

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Justin and I. So, I'll leave that there. That's not what the point of it is. But this next verse is vitally important in response to this.

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This is the second part of your salvation. Verse four, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you.

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Okay, first of all, let's deal with the first word where he says an inheritance that is imperishable.

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So, that's in contrast to this world, right? Matthew 6. Seek first the kingdom of God.

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Don't do what the Gentiles are doing. They're seeking for that which perishes. You're going to be pursuing that which is imperishable.

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So, we're pursuing the kingdom because we already have an inheritance, and it won't perish. Secondly, it cannot be defiled.

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This is huge, guys. Listen to this. You cannot do a work or a bad work that would then remove or damage your inheritance.

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Let me state that again. Your performance does not increase or decrease that which is waiting for you, granted to you by God.

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You are not obeying or not trying to sin because you're lessening what's coming your way.

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You cannot, it cannot happen. And then lastly, it says unfading. And this world is the example of unfading.

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You know, I have purchased newer cars, and I purchased, the only thing new in my life I ever purchased was a motorcycle.

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And I can remember it was like, I was even afraid to drive it. And by the time I sold it, it had dicks and dings and had been laid over, the kids had scratched it, you know, it had faded.

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And the idea of it is that where we are placing our hope, our future, is in something that does not fade.

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Now, he says, kept in heaven for you. And this next verse, guys, wraps it up for us. Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation to be ready to be revealed to the last days.

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Do you think these, he's setting up a glorious picture? There's nothing for you to save yourself. There's nothing for you to do to earn reward or to keep your reward.

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So then what are we doing? Right? And that becomes the question, then what are we doing? Well, I want you to jump down to verse 13, and I want you to see how he changes from the indicative to the imperative.

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Now, if I mix that up, I apologize. But in verse 13, he says this, therefore, some more of the

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Bible instructions for you. If you ever read the word, therefore, you got to ask this word, what's the therefore, therefore, right? It's in reflection to what he's just said.

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I'm going to summarize this for you. Paul, Peter, James, and John, they all do this in their epistles.

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They encourage you with the gospel, and they then call you to obey because of who you are.

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Obedience flows from your identity. Who you are in Christ is where you find your motivation.

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It's not to gain your position in Christ. We don't date God, right? We're not interviewing with him.

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You were dead, guilty, enemy, and sinner. And God says, in my love, in my mercy, in my grace,

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I pulled you out of that, and I made you who you are. There's no interview process. There's no dating with God, right?

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So he's saying, therefore, since this is true about you, the one way Satan can take us out is to change those truths, to get a different theology, or to cloud our mind.

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Listen to what he says. Therefore, preparing your minds for action. Well, that sounds very different than just sitting around, hoping and waiting not to sin and hoping and waiting for God to come back.

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No, we are actively using our minds for a war, for a mission. Something to do.

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We're not just being lazy or sitting around trying not to be shot at. So he keeps going.

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And being sober -minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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It's a battle to remember the indicative. It's a battle to remember the joy of what's been given to you.

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And when you do, there's something that ends up happening, which is the next verse. We'll talk about it in a moment. The King James Bible translated this a little bit more literal, like word for word.

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In this particular section, I'm reading the ESV. In the King James, it literally says to gird up the loins of your mind.

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It's a beautiful picture. During this time in history, they would wear long flowing garments and robes.

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And if they had to move quickly, or if they were going into battle, they would pull the garments from underneath their legs, and they would pull it up to their stomach, and then they would tie it with a belt.

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And it would look like big baggy shorts is what it would look like. But it would allow them, if you're watching the video, I guess that would make sense.

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But if you're on audio, it wouldn't. But it would allow them to be mobile. They could move quickly. Have you ever seen a woman who's in a wedding dress and try to run?

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She trips all over. Why? Because it's typically down to her feet, and it's not very good for mobility, right?

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This is what he's using as an illustration. He's like, you can't just keep yourself in a position where you aren't ready to take action.

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You live in a position of action constantly. You cannot let your guard down.

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This is why he gives a second illustration. The Bible is full of word pictures. So the first one is, hey, gather together your thoughts.

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We're going to talk about what that is here in a minute. And then the second thing he says is being sober -minded.

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What's the opposite of sober -minded? Intoxication, right? Intoxicated. And typically, intoxication is being controlled, right?

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You're having some kind of a substance that's controlling your body, or you're not in control of your body. And the contrary to this, so you have to take action and be sober -minded to do what?

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Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, which means it's work, guys.

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It's work to remember the gospel. It's work to not allow your brain to be distracted and pulled over to believe in something that's contrary to the gospel.

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I was having lunch with somebody recently, and we were discussing these things. This is even happening in the

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Christian world. Even conservative Christians are finding their minds pulled away from the hope that's fully in Christ and the gospel, and they're putting it in government.

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They're putting in transformation. They're putting it in law. It is so opposite of what we're being called to here in Christ, or by Peter.

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I'm going to talk a little bit more about this next week. I'm going to give you one thought before I turn it in the podcast.

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The next verse, he says, as bidiant children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. That's where the negative is.

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You see how he did it all first? He went negative last. He first set you up with hope, then gave you some warning, gave you some direction, where your attention should be, and then he says, here's what you stay away from.

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And we'll talk about that next week. So that's the introduction. Again, you want to get a full lecture and notes on that.

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Listen to TheocastU on our website, and I'll see you guys next week, and we'll pick up where we left off.