Gospel Power for the Weary | Theocast

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Hi, this is John. Today on Theocast, Justin and I want to talk to two groups of people this week.

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First of all, we want to talk to those who are weary and kind of beat down and are struggling to find the assurance that is in Christ, to find rest, to know that they are safe and secure in their union with Christ.

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And how do we move from that moment? And then there's a second group of people who have found that rest or intrigued by it, but yet they still struggle.

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Wait a minute, if I'm resting in Christ, why am I not pursuing holiness? And what about sanctification? And it seems like resting in Christ may be off as if, well,

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I think there's more to it than just that. So this podcast today is going to be talking about the power of the gospel, not only to save us, but to also motivate us that we might love one another rightly and how the gospel is sufficient and we don't need anything else but Christ and crucified to be our ultimate and final motivation for rest and obedience.

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We hope you enjoy. If you'd like to help support Theocast, you can do that by leaving us a review on iTunes and subscribing on your favorite podcast app.

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You can also follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Plus, we have a Facebook group if you'd like to join the conversation there.

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Thanks for listening. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

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Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed pastoral and confessional perspective. We're just going to keep adding things in there as we think about it.

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We've only added one. I know. Your host today, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, Justin Perdue, and I am

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Jon Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Justin, it's a special week for us.

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We're doing two episodes in one week. That's right. We're trying to get caught up, get ready for the summer, for the break that we might take.

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For that time of year, Justin, when we get weary and worn out and we need to be refreshed and restored.

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Nice segway. Did you like that segway? That was just for you. I appreciate it. Hopefully the listener did too.

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The conversation that we're going to have today is a pastoral one. Jon and I got on this morning. As is often the case, we start to talk about things that are going on in our lives and in our churches.

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Even the correspondence we get from a number of you who listen to the show. More times than you might surmise, those things affect what we record on any given day.

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We're human beings and we're pastors. We're podcasters, I guess we can say, but we interact with the brothers and sisters in our lives.

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As a preacher, you want to communicate and reflect on God's Word in light of the people that you're preaching to.

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We want to be able to podcast in a similar way. It's a pastoral conversation today.

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The title of the episode is Gospel Power for the Weary. I want to try to set this conversation up because there are going to be several prongs to this.

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We hope that the end result of all of it is comfort for you. In good ways, we don't mean to sound punchy or snarky in this at all, but in good ways for all of us, we hope this conversation helps us to calm down in several significant ways.

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For many of you, we have little reminders you can put throughout your house.

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We've got a cup that says rest. Then we have things like a t -shirt that are going to be coming.

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We also have this coaster that says trust Christ and calm down. Then we have a magnet and stickers.

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Go to our website if you want to support Theocast and be reminded to trust Christ and calm down.

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That was it. That was the most important contribution I had. Justin Perdue Thank you for that,

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John. The listeners appreciate it. We're going to talk about a number of things today.

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These are the things that are in my mind. I'm just going to be very thought -down for a moment here as a pastor and as a host of this show.

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A lot of us over the last maybe years, maybe months, maybe weeks for some of you have come to grow in our understanding of the sufficiency of Christ and the nature of the gospel.

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We have become aware of historical theological categories. We've become aware of doctrinal categories that maybe we weren't familiar with a period of time ago.

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That's been really good for us because we have come to see that Christ is enough to save even sinners like us and that we really can rest in him.

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We really have peace in him. Perhaps we knew that before, but we have come to a fresh understanding and a fresh appreciation of the work of Christ in our place and how the ministry of the local church is about the forgiveness of sins.

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It's about the imputation of the righteousness of Christ and how really Christ is all and the gospel drives everything.

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This means a ton for us in terms of how we live our lives. We've come to see these things and we're grateful. At the same time, we all have a legalistic framework in our minds.

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We have a legal spirit. We think in terms of merit and escape of punishment and those kinds of things. We also have a pietistic wiring where we are introspective.

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We are very concerned about our transformation of life. We are constantly assessing ourselves as to how we're doing.

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How's my obedience? How are my affections? How am I performing? How are my disciplines? We tend to measure progress in the

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Christian life in those terms. Given that we've got all this equipment hardwired into us, we struggle at times to really rest and we struggle at times to think well about the

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Christian life and to think well about sanctification. We get concerned. We have these freak -out moments like, oh gosh,

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I feel disoriented. I feel weightless. The question, what do I do now that I don't need to do anything because Christ has done that?

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What do I do now? These are things that plague some people. They may be plaguing you as you listen to the show today.

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What we want to talk about in various streams here on this show, we want to talk about the gospel being the power of God for weary saints unto various things.

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Not only peace with God, but also the gospel is the power of God unto sanctification, unto transformation of life.

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We're going to talk about the law. We're going to talk about the gospel. We're going to talk about things. Hopefully, for all of us, we're going to put down some of the unhelpful things.

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We're going to put some of these legal categories and pietistic categories down. We're going to take a step back.

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We're going to take a breath. We're going to trust Christ, and we're going to calm down. We're going to keep showing up to church.

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We're going to keep having conversations, and we're going to pursue righteousness and flee from sin. We're going to do the things that God says in His Word are good, and the things that God says in His Word are bad.

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We're going to try to avoid that, and we're going to help each other in that. That's what we're going to do. This is how we should talk.

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Let's go, John. In my counseling, I'm probably going to put this in my sermon this week too.

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There is what's called an if -then in our attitude when we approach our Christian life.

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If I do these things, then I'll get these results, or if I do these things or if these things happen in my life, then

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I'll be satisfied. The danger in that is that it's not biblical. The only thing that can satisfy us is

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Christ, and the means by which we find satisfaction is in the gospel. We all love that phrase, and we all say hoorah to that, but the problem is that it's hard to actually do that every minute of every day.

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We think to ourselves, if I can stop doing this sin, or if I can stop doing this habit, or if this person is no longer in my life, or if I was in a better church, if I study my

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Bible more, or if I improve in this way, or if I grow in this area. What's sad about the ifs is that they're all me -centered.

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They're focused on my capacities or circumstances. Most Christians' lives are circumstantial.

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Our circumstances drive our joy. They drive our assurance. I got a message today from someone on Instagram who says,

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I really appreciate your podcast. I struggle deeply with assurance. Just to reiterate what you're saying,

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Justin, we get this a lot. When your assurance is based upon experience or circumstances,

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I have a lot of reasons to question whether I am truly the child of God. If it's based upon my performance, it's based upon how

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I feel at the moment, then I should have questions, but our salvation is never based upon our capacity.

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That's pietism. The moment you think God is looking towards your capacity or your abilities to save you, or to prove that you are saved, you will be disappointed.

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The power of the gospel becomes not only what saves us, it becomes what sanctifies us, and ultimately it becomes what glorifies us.

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What's hard, Justin, is that what we hear is, the power of the gospel saves us, and then sanctification is handed to us.

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Then all of a sudden at the end of it, wherever we lacked in our sanctification, God will make up in our glorification.

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Justin Perdue That's a very good description of how many of us have thought and still struggle with thinking.

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You know, it's very Mormon because the way that the Mormon religion works is that you do all that you can do, and whatever you're lacking, grace makes up the rest.

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It's just horrible theology because he who began a good work on you will complete it. God isn't waiting to see how well you do, and then he'll give you some rewards for that and then finish it up at the end.

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It's a really dangerous way of thinking about it. What Justin and I are going to do, we have a list of passages that we want to walk through to show you that we are to find hope and rest for the weary soul who finds themselves struggling.

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As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, that these tents, the tent that we have now, which is our body, and we're waiting to be clothed fully with the righteousness of Christ in glory, we moan and groan in these tents that we carry around.

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How do we go each day in that and yet still do the requirements that we have upon us as far as loving

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God and loving neighbor? Justin Perdue 1 Corinthians 1 .30. This is not a passage that we're going to unpack right now, but just a verse that I have found that I come back to again and again.

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It's a very straightforward statement from the Apostle Paul that because of God, we are now in Christ.

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There's a lot there. Because of God, we're united to Christ who has become for us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

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That's a lot. Christ in our union with him, everything that's his is ours.

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He has become for us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

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The fact that Christ has become sanctification for us is really difficult for us to wrap our minds around because we struggle as human beings wired the way that we are to be able to receive that and process that and then think well about what that means for me and what

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I go about doing. Jon Moffitt When we say wisdom, Justin, sometimes we think smarts.

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James says this, literally quoting James 3 .17, Wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, good fruits, impartial, and sincere.

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When he says he gives to us wisdom from above, James goes, by the way, in case you don't know what that means, if you are showing purity of heart and you're showing gentleness and meekness and kindness and open to reason, it's because it was gifted to you by means of the gospel, by means of Christ for you.

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I just wanted to project that in there. Justin Perdue Yeah. Let's look at some passages, Jon, and survey maybe even do some flyovers of entire books of the

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New Testament. Maybe what we end up doing in points. We'll do this. We'll start with some scripture. We'll unpack these things.

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Inevitably stuff's going to come up as we do that. Then maybe afterward, if there's still time, we can just reflect together as pastors, as Christians, and talk to the saints out there about things that they may be wrestling with in their hearts and minds.

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I'm going to start. I'm going to go 2 Peter 1. You're going to go

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James because you're in James. I figured that works well. In 2 Peter 1, beginning in verse 3, we have talked about this passage before, but I don't care that we have.

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In God's providence, last night in our elders' meeting, we opened up to this passage as we were having a conversation about our church and our people and our care for them and our teaching ministry and what we want people to better understand.

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I'm going to read some things and just comment, and then Jon, I'm going to let you comment, and then we'll just roll. In 2 Peter 1, beginning in verse 3, his being

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God's divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

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He's granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, and by all, I trust the apostle means all.

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God has not withheld things from us. He's not stingy. In Christ Jesus, he's given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

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I'm sorry, I just got to add life in, which means in Christ, like eternal life.

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Jon Moffitt Eternal life and godliness now. Justin Perdue Right, and so when you stop and think about that for a moment, you're like, okay, then you're going to have to describe,

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Peter, what you mean by that. What do you mean by life and godliness? Jon Moffitt Right, but yeah, it's obvious when he says he's given us everything that pertains to life.

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He's not meaning physical life. He's meaning eternal life, spiritual life, and he's given us everything that pertains to godliness.

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Well, that does have something to do with how you conduct yourself now. Justin Perdue That's right. Jon Moffitt Because godliness is not something that we're going to be concerned with in the new heavens and new earth, because we will be righteous.

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Justin Perdue We will be righteous. Jon Moffitt Right, so godliness is something that we pursue now. God has given us everything that we need for these things now, and he's granted to us his precious and very great promises, and his promises are irrevocable.

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This is rock -solid stuff, so that's how the apostle starts. Then he goes on to say these things. This is so good,

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I'm excited. Verse five, for this reason, so because of that, because of what God's done, and because of the unshakable nature, the irrevocable nature of his promises, for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self -control, and self -control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love, to which we say amen.

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Justin Perdue Can I just say real quick, that doesn't sound like a trip to the dentist or the DMV. Jon Moffitt It doesn't.

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Justin Perdue That sounds like a wonderful life. Jon Moffitt It doesn't sound angry.

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It doesn't sound edgy. It makes entire sense. This is one of those times where, as a preacher, you read those verses aloud and you're kind of like, amen, somebody, and all

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God's people said amen. What else would we do, Jon? Given that God has done this for us, what else would we do other than pursue these good things?

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Guess what? Because I'm a new creation, because I've been given a new heart, I actually want to.

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Now, I battle the corruption of my flesh, that's true. We're going to speak to this later, but what we want to do in part in the local church and even as preachers is, yes, we want to speak to the corruption of the flesh, and we want to do that well with the law and expose the corruption of the flesh, but we want to preach to the hearts of people.

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You want to preach to the heart of the person that wants to obey God, and now we're going to give you encouragement, exhortation, and power that is

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Christ for you, so that you might go about pursuing these things. Jon Moffitt So, Jon, I want to point out real quick...

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Jon Moffitt And then I'm going to get into verses eight and nine, but go. Jon Moffitt Yeah, I'm setting you up for that. Jon Moffitt Thank you. Kind as you.

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Jon Moffitt You know, we're hemming and hawing this thing. Jon Moffitt Amen. Jon Moffitt One of the things that we try to do in all of our podcasts is point out law gospel for you.

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The gospel, what's great about the gospel, is that it's done. It's past tense. It cannot be altered, and it's perfect.

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When Jesus Christ says it is finished, it means what was required was accomplished in the past, and there's nothing to add or take away from it.

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It's done. So, when He says He has granted to you all things, which means He means the gospel, then

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He turns and says, okay, now that... Jon Moffitt And union with Christ, which is the good news. Jon Moffitt So, now that it is complete, and it's finished, and you are secured in this relationship with the

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Father, there's nothing you can add or take away from it. It is a done deal. He predetermined that before the world began.

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He says, now to that truth, we're going to add these actions. So, you need to understand it's not that these actions now add something to the relationship.

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They are the result of the relationship. Jon Moffitt They are the outflow. Jon Moffitt Fruit of it. Not only that,

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Justin, if you look at every single one of those things, they are horizontal. They're for the benefit of the one standing in front of you, not vertical.

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They're not to add to the relationship with God. They are to take from God the hope that we have and give it to others, which leads us to 8 and 9.

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Jon Moffitt Amen. All right, verse 8. So, all those things that we just talked about, the virtue, the knowledge, self -control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, love, all that.

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Verse 8, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. That's a straightforward good statement. I don't think that's hard to understand.

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If these things are yours and they're increasing, you're going to be fruitful and you're going to be effective for the cause of Christ.

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You're going to be effective in your relationships with your neighbor. Justin Perdue Not securing assurance. Jon Moffitt No, but you're going to bear fruit.

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Justin Perdue That's right. Jon Moffitt You're going to be effective. If these qualities are yours and they're increasing, you will bear fruit, to which we say, yes, of course you would.

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Justin Perdue Varying. Jon Moffitt Now, here's the kicker. Verse 9. This is the mic drop piece for our purposes today.

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For whoever lacks these qualities, tell us, Peter, please, tell us, what's the issue?

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What's underneath it? If I lack these qualities, what's the cause of that? He says, for whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

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What's the problem? It's that you don't understand the gospel. It's that you have forgotten the gospel.

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You have not understood, you have not received all that Christ is for you.

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You're not looking to him in these ways, and you're looking to other stuff. You're nearsighted. You're blind, he says, and you're looking at all this other stuff, which would absolutely be you and your efforts and all these things and temporal things and all these concerns that we just get mired in.

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You're looking at all this, and you have forgotten that you've been cleansed from your former sins. You have not understood the gospel and Christ for you.

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That's the issue. The takeaway there is, let's hammer the gospel. Let's preach Christ so that we might actually have the ability and the power and the motivation to pursue these good things.

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I'm going to let you hammer that in a second, John. I just want to finish with these last couple of verses. Verse 10. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.

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Again, that's his conclusion. Because of the gospel, because of what God has done, be diligent, to which we say again, amen.

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If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called

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Faith vs. Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. If you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a

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Reformed confessional perspective. You can get your free copy at theocast .org

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slash primer. So, a book in the

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Bible that one may not believe when I say this, that is what I call a gospel motivated gospel power for the weary, is

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James. It's so good. We use James to beat people over the head to obey, but we miss the heart of James.

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James was such a great pastor, a wise pastor who helped with the council in Jerusalem.

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James begins his letter, and we learn that James is writing to Christians who have scattered because of religious and physical persecution.

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They've left Jerusalem, and he opens his letter with encouragement. He says, look, if you're suffering trial, the kind that kind of sucks the life out of you, find hope because God will create steadfastness in you by His power, no matter what it is that you experience.

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So, James goes through these reciprocal natures, and he's doing the same thing

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Peter does. He starts with reminding them of the sovereignty of God in their life, then reminding them how the fruit of their life should reflect that, and then calling them back to the gospel when they forget it.

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He just does this in every chapter. I'll give an example of this. This is in chapter one.

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He's dealing with the issue of them giving into their own temptation in the midst of these trials.

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Right after that, he says this, James 1 .17, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the

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Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. The point of it is, the gifts that we receive from the

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Father are not based upon our circumstances, whether we are doing good or bad. How do we know this?

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Because in verse 18, it says, of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

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So, James is already doing exactly what Peter just did. This is by God's design.

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It does bind power. We all know about chapter two, faith without works, this whole issue. He's trying to explain to them that if they're not willing to show grace, he says, do not hold to the faith and partiality at the same time.

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So, he's rebuking them for how they're treating one another. But then I love this when he's talking to them about the nature of their obedience and what motivates them in their obedience.

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He says this, so speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.

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What does he mean by that? It's those who have been liberated by the law. Those who are no longer going to be condemned for the disobedience to the law.

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They've been liberated from the law by Christ. That's right. So, he's saying you're going to speak and act as a person who lives under the realities of the gospel.

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Because we are now under grace, not law, to use the language of Paul in Romans 6. You're now going to live a certain way.

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That's right. One other section that James deals with later on in chapter four, he's dealing with how their passions are at war with one another.

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They're quarreling with one another. Then he yells at them with an exalbation point. He says, you adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

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He's dealing with people, a group of churches that are being ineffective and unfruitful, as Peter says.

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Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes an enemy with God. This is so important because James is using very strong language to show that your life is not in tune with what's going on.

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Then he says this in verse he has made to dwell within you, but he gives more grace.

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What is he going to use? He's going to use the gospel to bring them back in. Therefore, it says,

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God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble meaning those who come before God and say, I have no righteousness.

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I have nothing. Verse eight, draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

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The in disobedience, God has His arms crossed saying, well, you better figure this out and clean up.

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You can't read that without thinking Hebrews four. In the time of need, we draw near to Him, and He draws near to us.

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The prodigal son is coming home, understanding I have nothing, and the father comes out and closes them. Justin Perdue Brief interjection in my own heart as a man and in conversations

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I've had with some friends here. We've been talking about these things. The guilt, the shame, the fear that we carry.

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Deep down, we know that we're not doing as well as we should. There's this apprehension and this sense of unworthiness in approaching our

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Father that can haunt us all. I've been trying to think in my own life and pray in these ways and talk with brothers and sisters in Christ about these things.

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We really can approach the throne of God in boldness, with confidence, not being afraid because of Christ.

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Our Father delights in the fact that we would do that. I know I've been praying a lot personally.

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It's like, Father, as I come to you, just remind me of your love for me and all these things and of what

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Christ accomplished. Draw near to me today. It's a thing that I've been trying to think through because I know that for I often feel unworthy to enter his presence when my mind is mired in me and how

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I'm doing in ways I've failed. I think these are things to constantly remind ourselves of.

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Justin Perdue So just to capstone this, James clearly wants the believer to obey, but he wants them to do it out of motivation for what they have received.

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It's always like what he says in James 2 .14 or James 2 .1. You can't hold a faith and partiality at the same time, meaning the faith of the hope of the

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Christ that you have received by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. But the obedience you'll notice that he's talking about, this is going back to my last comment

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I'll make. He says in James 1, if you lack wisdom, let him ask God who will give it to you without reproach, generously without reproach, which

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I already read in James 3 .17 that says, Wisdom from above is purity, meekness, gentleness, patience, open to reason.

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The point of it is that our obedience is not an affirmation of our faith.

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It's not to gain assurance. It's not to do something, in other words, to add to the relationship that we have with the

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Father, but it is a reflection of the relationship that we have with the Father. First John, we love because he first loved us.

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Justin Perdue I know that time is quickly escaping us. I'm happy to refer in a general sense to another letter in the

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New Testament, this time from the Apostle Paul. I'm going to go to Colossians, John, and just think about this for a moment. Admittedly, we've been preaching a brief series of sermons through Colossians 1.

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One of our other pastors named Mackenzie has preached the majority of those, but that means it's on my mind.

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In studying Colossians and reading the entire letter to try to preach the first sermon from Colossians 1 .1

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-14 a few weeks ago, I was I studied myself and then as I started to read other people's takes on Colossians, I found comfort in the fact that Calvin was seeing things that I was struck by.

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I'm just going to articulate it this way. What is it that the Apostle Paul sets out to do in the letter to the

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Colossians? There's some stuff going on in the church. There's some weird teaching going on.

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There's some aberrant practice going on. You've got a number of different things being taught.

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You've got asceticism, this lifestyle of radical deprivation as a way of godliness. You've got people advocating the observance of the

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Old Testament law as a way of godliness and a way of entering into this higher spiritual plane.

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You've got a number of different things going on. Obviously, there's concerns about the person of Jesus Christ, his humanity, his deity in particular, and what it is that he accomplished.

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All these things are going on. The Apostle is going to give these saints the one thing that he knows will protect them from false teaching and aberrant practice.

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What is that? It's a clear vision of the person and work of Christ. That's very clear.

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The portion there in Colossians 1 that's so beautiful that we all remember that's about Christ and his work going into Colossians 2.

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It's about Christ and his work. Why does Paul hammer that? Because he knows that's what these people need in order to protect them, drive them, sustain them, and nourish them.

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He gives them Christ. He uses a lot of beautiful language, not only about Christ and his power and what he did, but even makes it very clear.

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It's like verse 28 of chapter 1, him we proclaim. Then we exhort and we admonish.

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In that context, he's warning and he's exhorting and he's admonishing. Don't look to these other things, look to Christ.

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Then he does pivot to how the saints are to live in the last couple of chapters.

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It's clearly driven by an appropriate understanding of Christ, who he is, and what he did.

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In other words, it's driven by the gospel. The Christian life is driven by the gospel.

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When you hear what we're talking about, this is what you should think. The gospel drives my

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Christian life. Union with Christ is the Christian life. Christ, for us, is the source of the power that would actually transform and change our lives.

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I'll just briefly say this, John, I'll turn it back over to you. When we talk about the law and we talk about the gospel, when it comes to sanctification, it's important that we understand the following.

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The law, just like it can't give life, it can only kill. The law cannot change us. It can only guide us in our sanctification.

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Where does the power come from? The power comes from Christ in union with him, but in particular, in our daily ongoing experience, weekly ongoing experience, the power for sanctification comes through the preaching of Christ, the administration of the sacraments, the ordinary means of grace in the context of the gathered church, and life in the fellowship of the saints.

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That's where the power comes from. It's from Christ by his Spirit working in us, and he uses these means that he's given us to continue to give us what we need.

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It's so liberating and so helpful to think in these terms that God is going to provide the power, and now what

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I'm going to do is live life in a local church where these things are being practiced, where these ordinary means are being administered.

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We're going to keep trusting Christ. We're going to look to his word. His law is going to guide us, but he is going to change us.

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We can take heart knowing that God has said he's going to do it. He's going to do it. Now I can just live today in freedom, not to be lazy, not to be licentious, but I can live in freedom today to do good things that God has told me in his word to do.

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I can trust the Lord that I am not ultimately at the wheel making certain that my sanctification becomes a reality, but he's going to do this in me as I live in freedom under righteousness.

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That's so good. It's a total different if then. If Christ came, if Christ lived, if Christ died, and Christ rose again, and if Christ sits at the right hand of the

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Father, then I am safe, and then I have every reason to love my neighbor as Christ has loved me.

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I can do this in freedom and confidence. That's right. So Paul says it another way.

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I'll just read this quickly. This is in Philippians chapter two, and then Justin will look at Ephesians four on a high level, and then we'll probably have to transition over.

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But he says this, so if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the

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Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

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Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Justin, that is one powerful gospel motivation.

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So the thing is, if you're lacking this desire to love one another, or you're struggling against the flesh, like,

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I just don't have the energy to love other people, the response is not to try harder.

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If it is to go back and say, I think my heart has a different if, it has a different if then.

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The response is not to try harder. The response is also not to feel worse. Seriously, should we lament our sin?

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Yes, but what's the response? What do I need to do? I need to look unto Christ that I might then go love. Even Hebrews says, consider how to build one another up daily.

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I don't think build up with law, I think he means build up with Christ. Consider how to build one another up daily that you aren't hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

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This is going to Rome Hebrews 12, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. I think that's what we're doing.

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We're pointing each other to Christ. Let's do a quick flyover. I think Ephesians might be the capstone of 2

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Peter 1 and Ephesians 4. What do you have in the first three chapters of Ephesians? It's a huge gospel.

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It's grace, it's gospel, it's union with Christ. You were alienated, you were dead, but now God has done this.

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He's made you alive in Christ. First three, chapter four, verse two, he says, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

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We have been called by grace. We've been called through God's sovereign choice. He did not look at us and say, you've performed well.

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Now here is your gift. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. This is chapter two. He made you alive.

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He put his spirit in you. He predestined before the world began that he would cause you to walk in these good works.

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And then what does Paul say? Hey, look, I'm a slave of Christ. I have to write these things because they are true. Walk in a manner that is worthy of this amazing gospel that you have received.

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He says, be gentle, be kind, and seek unity. What's interesting is that when

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Jesus says, my yoke is easy, my burden is light, it's easy to believe that because your eternity doesn't weigh in the balance.

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What he's saying is, imperfectly and struggling, resting on the sufficiency of the gospel for you, love one another.

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That's the burden you now carry. Amen. Along these lines, I want to make a pastoral comment or two.

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We've outlined some things just in reading passages from the New Testament about love and humility and considering others as more significant than yourself and how you're to live with other people.

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In particular, how you're to live with your brothers and sisters. So much of the exhortations, the imperatives in the

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New Testament are of that nature. Here's how you're to live together now as the redeemed people of God.

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My encouragement to all of us as we encounter these new theological categories and as we are learning what it is to rest.

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We have these moments of weightlessness and disorientation. It's like free falling.

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You jump out of the airplane. I've never done it, but I'm told that you have this feeling of weightlessness and disorientation.

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It's like, okay, what do I do now? What do I do now that I don't have to do anything for righteousness? Consider some of the things that we've just outlined.

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Love, humility, patience, bear with one another, weep with those who weep, rejoice with those who rejoice.

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Do these things for the brothers and sisters around you. Again, like I said, there are very simple things in the

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Scripture. God says these things are good. God says these things are bad. If God says it's good, pursue it. If he says it's bad, flee from it.

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Do all of that and realize that we're going to do this together. We're going to do this in the power of Christ because of the fact that we've been united to Christ and his

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Spirit is now at work in us. We can take great comfort and find hope in the fact that the one who calls us is faithful.

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He'll sanctify us. He'll surely do it. We can calm down about sanctification and we can calm down about our

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Christian lives. When we have those weightless moments, when we have these moments where the concerns pop up and it's like, oh my gosh, what about holiness?

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Oh my gosh, what about righteousness and obedience? It's like, no, we should pursue those things according to the

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Scriptures, but we're pursuing them in freedom and we're pursuing them in the power of Christ and the gospel.

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What we need to be given is guidance from the Scriptures, guidance from the law as to what good works even really are, and then we need to be given power so that we might go about doing them.

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That power comes from the gospel. That power comes from Christ, which is why we come to church on Sundays to receive

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Jesus in the Word and in the table. We come to sing of him. We come to pray in his name.

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We come to fellowship with each other. Then even as we live our lives, we're doing that in the fellowship of the saints.

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This is what we do, and we do this for the rest of our days until we die or Christ returns and all is well. Justin Perdue Yeah, just to add to that, and as we go into the next podcast, to point back to James when he says, speak and so act as those who live under the law of liberty, as those who are free, or as Paul said in Philippians 2, if you've been comforted and you've been strengthened by the gospel, love one another.

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The motivation for our obedience is always love, joy, and freedom in Christ.

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It's always. If you don't know that or if you haven't understood that, then keep up with us.

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We'll show you from all of Scripture that Christ is sufficient and your good works are for his glory and not for your salvation.

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That being said, we have much more to say. We didn't really get to some of the things that we wanted to say as far as some of the confusion that happens in preaching and how the law and pietism, if you don't know what that word is, then you can join us for the next conversation.

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You can also download our free ebook where we talk about that as well. Justin and I do another podcast every week. We really enjoy it.

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It's kind of like our family time for those who have partnered with our ministry to support us. We have an app that we all hop on.

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There's all kinds of fun conversations happening over there. We have a private podcast feed that you can join. There's just a fun community that's happening over there.

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It's called Semper Reformanda. It's always reforming. You can go to our website to learn more about that. We're going to continue our conversation over there.

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We often continue the conversation. We also answer questions that come up. It's a lot of good, fun conversations.