Self-Examination? | Theocast

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Hi, this is John, and we have a question for you. Should you be examining yourself? Should you be self -examining every day?

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Should you even be listening to this podcast? That's a great question. In today's podcast, we're going to talk about self -examination, and we're going to look at several passages in the

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Bible that tell us that we should examine ourselves. Does it really? We're going to look at them in context, and then in the members podcast, we are going to review an article that came out by a prominent evangelical that asks the question, how often should we be examining ourselves as Christians?

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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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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 perspective. Your hosts today are Jimmy Buehler, pastor of Christ Community Church in Willmar, Minnesota, Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, and I am

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John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Gentlemen, it's good to do this with you this morning, even though this is our second run.

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Thanks to technology. That's right. Round two. I've been doing this. This is my sixth year, believe it or not, doing a podcast.

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Why record once when you can record twice? Yes. That's what I always say. We would have this happen probably a couple of times a year for a number.

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One time we were recording and the long guy came on the wrong day, and all you hear is the blower outside the window.

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We were about to finish up a podcast and he was like, are you kidding me? To people out there in listener land, it's not as easy as just pressing record and having a good day.

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Not only that, if you want it to sound good and you want it to get delivered everywhere it needs to get delivered, there's a lot that goes on.

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It's a good reminder to us that we just need to examine our equipment before we work.

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Jimmy. Man, that was a good one. I like that one. That was a good transition. This is a record too.

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Sub two minutes, we're already transitioning to topics. I know. You're welcome. Everybody out there, you're welcome.

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You don't have to listen to anything. The last episode, we talked about me hunting and making bows out of PVC pipes and all kinds of stuff.

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John is straight hillbilly. If you follow John on Instagram, you're going to see that John is straight hillbilly.

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All that to say. I'd rather be hillbilly than a prepper. Yeah. Spittoon can

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John is what we call him in the straights. Guys, today, if you have been listening to Theo Kass for a long time, you're going to know that one of the things that we often reference is this idea of self -examination or turning the believer inward.

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Whenever we talk about that, we talk about that in a negative way. One of the things of the evangelical church is to constantly point the believer inward to examine themselves to see whether or not they are in the faith.

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This doesn't come from nowhere. There are some scriptures that we will reference later in this podcast that do talk about examining yourself, and we hope to frame those in context.

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The reason why we began talking about this, and when I say we, I mean John and Justin and myself, is that recently there was an interview posted of a prominent evangelical leader that, in essence, is trying to answer the question, how often should

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I question my salvation? How often should I examine myself? We thought it would be helpful to add our own thoughts into this conversation of how do we answer that?

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How often should we question our salvation and how often should we examine ourselves?

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That's where we are going today. I want to throw it to the guys here and see how they would answer that or why it is that we want to answer that question.

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What would you guys say? Justin Perdue This is such an important conversation because so many people are crippled by this.

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I would say all three of us as pastors have had to deal with this, and then even with listeners who write in, people really do struggle with the constant examination.

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I will say the one word that comes to all three of our minds is, it's exhausting.

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This is an exhausting conversation because there is no end to the conversation.

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There's no end to the examination. Can you just imagine living in a glass house where you're constantly at the threat of being thrown out because of a mishap, and that's what it feels like.

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This comes from pietism. We did a podcast on this a couple of weeks ago, and I encourage you to go listen to it.

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At its core, this is pietism. It's the constant self -examination. This is why

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I take the biggest issue with this type of self -examination. Some people will do it to say,

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I don't know if I truly am a believer, so I need to confirm to myself that I'm a believer.

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You have to ask yourself, what saves you? Is it your good works or the good works of Jesus? You are saved by works.

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The question is, is it your good works? If you're looking to your good works as the confirmation of your faith, you now have reasons to boast.

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That's Ephesians 2 .8 and 9. But if you are saved by the works of Christ, Paul says you don't have reasons to be boasting, so we're going to boast all the more in Christ.

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This constant introspective self -examination, the way it's worded is you're trying to prove to you, everybody around you, and to God that you're legitimate.

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Let me just encourage you, God never worries or wonders who are His children. If you know that God is sovereign,

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God does not need you to prove to Him anything. You need to look to God to confirm that God will do what

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He said He's going to do. My biggest and overarching first examination of this, which we are going to look at probably the two biggest passages, 2

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Corinthians and 2 Peter, that mention these. Just from the beginning, theologically speaking, you have to understand that a sovereign

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God never wonders who belongs to Him. At the risk of sounding like a smart aleck,

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I might answer the question, how often should we question our salvation or how often should we examine ourselves by saying, you should pursue good works and flee from sin as you trust

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Christ as the ground of your peace before God always. That's probably how I would respond. Then begin to unpack that statement for people, that your status in Christ Jesus by faith is one of justified, and your identity is that you are now in Christ.

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You've been united to Him, and everything that is His is yours, including His righteousness and His holiness and the satisfaction that He has made for sins.

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I think in speaking that way, we are speaking like the apostles write. When they write to their audiences, they always begin with Christ and His finished work.

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They always begin with the identity question, who are we now? They begin with the question of status and justification and the rest, and then they encourage their readers to live accordingly.

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We see this pattern maybe most clearly demonstrated in Ephesians. I know we reference that book all the time, but we see things like this elsewhere from other apostles.

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We're going to talk about 2 Peter 1 here in just a minute, but you see this in John's first letter.

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1 John is oftentimes abused and would be understood by many to be this letter that's essentially a litmus test of salvation.

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I don't think that's what the apostle is doing at all. He's encouraging saints who have been abandoned and who have been bombarded by false teaching.

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He is encouraging them that they are legit, that they're in Christ, and that is evidenced by how they're living.

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He is not telling them to pursue righteousness and to love one another in order that they would prove that they're legit.

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He's saying, no, you are legit, and it's evidenced by what you're doing and how you're living together. It's just a very different posture that the apostles seem to take.

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I think this hyper introspective, turning people back in on themselves, this prove that you're legit kind of theology, it is pietistic,

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John. All it serves to do is kind of feed this monster of us always questioning how

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God feels about us because we do that naturally. We always assume that God is happier with us when we're doing well from our perspective and that he is not as happy with us, and somehow we can't be as bold or as assured before him if we're struggling.

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That's not what the apostles say. Thinking about Ephesians chapter three, Paul says that we have boldness and access with confidence before God through our faith in Jesus Christ.

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That's Ephesians 3, 11, and 12. Not through how we're performing. We've got to begin this conversation by saying those things, or people are going to be led into despair and despondency.

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Just a little bit of history as to where this kind of approach to the Christian life came from.

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Give it to them, Jimmy. Around the

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Protestant Reformation, 16th century, moving into the 17th century, as Protestant teaching moved across Europe, you had

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Scottish Presbyterianism, you had the Church of England, you had German Lutheranism. Often, one of the downfalls that you see as different strains of Protestantism began to differentiate themselves from other strains of Protestantism is you would have these long diatribes, these long conversations about theological matters that would often happen in the ivory towers of universities and writings and so on and so forth.

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That's good and that's fun. It's good to read and deep dive into stuff like that. But almost this reaction to that, this swing the pendulum the other way, is you had other movements that began to rise, particularly

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Lutheran Pietism within the German Lutheranism strain, but also

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Methodism within more of the English -speaking world of Protestantism. The question began to change.

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What I mean by that is the question of what it meant to be a Christian changed from, are you sound theologically?

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Do you believe in the right things? Do you believe in the right things about the nature and character of God and the gospel and Jesus and so on and so forth?

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It changed from, are you sound, to, are you even saved? That's where Pietism began to be born and birthed and grow.

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As Christianity moved to the United States, this is the version of Christianity that actually moved to the

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United States. We've said this before, that evangelical Christianity in the

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United States is a Pietistic movement. You mix that version of Christianity, this hyper -individualized, hyper -focused, inward version of Christianity with the rugged individualism of the

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American spirit, and this is what you get. You get a Christianity that is focused on, am

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I even saved? I think a lot of people enjoy this kind of Christianity because what it does is it helps create categories, not of theology, but it creates categories of people.

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On this side over here, we have the true Christians. They not only go to church, but they take church seriously.

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They take obedience seriously, and they take the Christian life seriously. Then you have Christians over here who say, yeah, these people go to church, but they're nominal.

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They're carnal. They don't take the faith seriously. For whatever reason, we love to do this.

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One, I think it's comparative righteousness. We like to compare. I want to compare my rags to your rags, and it doesn't matter because they're all rags anyway.

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That's just a little history of what we are talking about here. Whenever we read passages like 2

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Corinthians 13 .5, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. We have to understand that we have a whole below -the -surface -of -the -water iceberg of preconceived notions of what that means because of how we've been raised to think about Christianity.

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Justin Perdue At the heart of every holiness movement throughout the history of the church is a suspicion that if you emphasize and tell people that Jesus has done everything, that Christ is sufficient, and that there's nothing left to do in order to be reconciled to God, then you're going to produce apathetic and lawless people.

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As we've said so many times, that would be true if salvation was a natural process that man achieved, but it isn't.

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It's a supernatural work of God from beginning to end, and the Holy Spirit taking up residence within us and doing the sanctifying work that he does makes it certain that those who have trusted

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Christ will be conformed into his image. If union with Christ weren't a thing, then maybe if you were just to emphasize what

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Jesus has done, you might produce lawlessness and apathy. But as it stands, that just doesn't hold.

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That's an age -old objection that falls flat on its face, I think empirically so. A thought here to pick up on something that you were saying about how the question at some point in history changed from, are you theologically sound to, are you even saved?

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I think it's interesting that when you listen to most people talk about self -examination in the church today, the question that they always are asking is something like, how am

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I doing? They are never asking the question, who am

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I trusting? That I think is indicative of what's going on.

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One of those two questions is of first importance, who am I trusting and how am I doing? It's not the one about your behavior.

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The primary question is, what do you believe? Even referencing 1 John again, notice how he makes a massive deal about their confession about whether they believe that Christ came in the flesh and about whether they believe that Christ had accomplished specific things for them and whether or not they believe that they are actually sinners.

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He begins with that stuff and then, alongside that, encourages them that they are living legitimate lives.

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It's very interesting that we, in our modern context, will just kind of poo -poo the confession piece.

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It's like, oh, well, you can say you believe anything, whatever, but you've got to really prove your mettle by how you're living and prove that you're legit.

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What you believe is almost kind of over here. The real rubber meets the road of the

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Christian life is, how are you doing? Justin Perdue That's at the core of the matter, what the examination process is.

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The list that's often given to people that they need to be examining, I look at that and go, that is so far from biblical, it's not even funny.

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The Bible doesn't tell me to examine myself against that watermark. You set that watermark up.

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We did a whole podcast on this, so I'm going to say it, and I know it sounds punchy, but I need you to hear this.

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Your political voting and your Bible reading are not the watermark of examination of whether you're in the faith.

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You cannot point to Scripture and say, yeah, I've heard people basically say, are you reading your

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Bible? Well, how can you not read your Bible at all and consider yourself to be a Christian? And I look at that and I go—

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Justin Perdue It's the wrong question. It's the wrong question. Tim Cynova So when I moved to Tennessee, the first winter we had,

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I was looking for a beanie. I wanted to cover my ears, and I asked somebody about it—

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Justin Perdue Winter in Tennessee, I'm laughing. Tim Cynova Yeah, they're like, hey, well, it can't get down below zero. Not all the time.

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Wow, man, these people—cold is cold. I don't care how cold it is, right? It's like hot is hot.

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Who cares how hot it is? It's still hot. Anyways, I asked for a—

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Justin Perdue That's how you compare to righteousness. Tim Cynova People in Wisconsin and Minnesota are the worst.

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Y 'all don't know how cold it is. I was like, whatever. When your toes are frozen, it doesn't matter how cold it is.

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When I asked for a beanie, they looked at me and they said, a toboggan?

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And I was like, a toboggan? No, you slide in that. That's an Olympic sport.

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It's a beanie. And they're like, no, it's a toboggan. And what's interesting to me is that I had a context to a word that if someone were to walk up to me and say, do you want a toboggan?

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I was like, I don't have a truck. No, I don't want a toboggan. And in their mind, they're thinking beanie.

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This is what's going on when we read, Examine Yourself, when Paul says in 2 Corinthians or in 2

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Peter, we put a context on it because we have been so programmed in pietism and we immediately assume examination is prayer,

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Bible reading, am I cussing, am I a good co -worker? We immediately put a context on it where Paul has a context to what he means, which

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I'm going to let Justin take us there in a second, and in 2 Peter, we'll talk about that. There's a context and a purpose of what's being said there.

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And so I think we need to clarify this article that we referenced. He mentions both of them. And I think what's frustrating for me is that his context, toboggan versus beanie,

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I think he's missing it. He has an understanding of the passage that is not appropriate because he's placing the history of pietism on the text and missing what

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Paul is trying to call the Corinthian church to, which is not examination of performance of things that the

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Bible says we need to never perform. So, J .P., I'll let you jump in real quick.

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Justin Perdue Well, first of all, you're saying in Tennessee they call beanies toboggans? Is that what you're saying?

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Justin Perdue Not everybody, but when I first got here, most of them, yeah, toboggans and buggies.

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That's a shopping cart's a buggy. Justin Perdue Maranatha. Lord, please return. Fix this. So anyway, moving on.

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So here's the thing. I want to play devil's advocate a little bit because one of the accusations that I think we've received is, you guys are taking passages that have been understood like this, and you're just saying it doesn't say that, and you're not doing a plain reading of the text, and so on and so forth.

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So guys, I'm reading it right now. Second Corinthians 13 .5, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.

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It seems pretty clear, guys. If you just want to approach the Bible as is,

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Paul is saying it right there. Not only there, but you have,

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I believe it's second Peter, make your calling in your election sure. You have first Corinthians 10 .11,

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where Paul is saying before they go to the Lord's table to examine themselves.

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Come on, guys. If we're doing a plain reading of the text, and if we are going to take the

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Bible as is, somebody's off here, right? So help me understand.

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I'll take the Corinthians pieces really quickly, and you guys jump in. This is

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Bible exegesis, like hermeneutics 101, and I'm not trying to sound snarky in saying that, but for example, if I wrote you a letter, and let's say it's ten pages long, and you jumped onto page nine and landed in one particular paragraph and one particular sentence and read it, you could make any number of things out of that sentence.

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You could conclude any number of things from that one sentence that may or may not fit well in the context of that entire letter that I've written to you.

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I would contend in both of these instances, the first Corinthians 11 piece about the

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Lord's Supper and the second Corinthians 13 piece about self -examination, the context of the entire letters are critical for our understanding, and I'll do this quickly.

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First Corinthians 11, we're talking about the Lord's Supper there, Paul is, and he is making it quite plain that there is division.

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The division in the church at Corinth is an issue that shows up early in the letter, and he comes back to it again in chapter 11 about how there is division amongst them.

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In particular, there is division that is manifesting itself at the time when the church ought to be most unified, that is, communion around the

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Lord's table. It is that division within the body that Paul is addressing when he's talking about examining themselves in the plural to come to the table.

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Then in the second Corinthians 13 piece, a major issue in that entire letter is the legitimacy of Paul's apostolic ministry, whether or not

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Paul is legit in comparison to these so -called super apostles that it seems that many in Corinth are chasing after.

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Paul, in saying what he does about self -examination, examine yourselves to see whether or not you are in the faith, and then he goes on to talk about himself and whether or not he's met the test and his legitimacy and everything else.

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He is essentially saying to them, guys, you have believed the message that I've preached.

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People are saved through believing the message that we preach, and so if you think that my ministry is entirely illegitimate, then you need to question a number of things, including whether or not you are legitimately in Christ.

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Again, I think context is critical, and people say this, that the three keys to biblical interpretation are context, context, and context, and it's like, well, just put those into practice, please, when we begin to interpret letters.

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If you're new to Theocast, we have a free e -book available for you called Faith Versus Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest.

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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. Yeah, so it's as if Paul is saying, look, if you want to examine me, you need to examine yourselves, right?

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That's right, yeah. If you want to bring me on trial, you need to put yourself on trial, right? He's not talking about moral behavior.

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He's going back to actually what Jimmy was talking about, is Paul was questioning their theological stance.

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If you're going to change, you should examine yourself. Exactly, and he's getting at the issue of weakness and power, a la the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, right?

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That kind of weakness and power paradigm is what he's dealing with clearly, even in chapter 13 of 2

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Corinthians. I mean, if you do a deep dive into 1 and 2

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Corinthians, you will realize that Paul dearly loves this church, but it's also deeply frustrating for them, right?

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Sure. They're screwy, and they have all sorts of nonsense happening in their church.

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When you read, particularly the end of 2 Corinthians 13 .1,

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this is the third time I'm coming to you, right? It's like Paul is saying, look, have we not been over this?

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I guess I'm coming back, and we're going to have Christianity 101 all over again. It's not this,

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I'm coming to you because of your morality, blah, blah, blah. He's coming to you saying, no, guys,

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I have preached the true gospel to you. This is the examination. So, John, take us to Peter.

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One could argue that Peter is talking about morality because he makes this long mention of things that we should be adding to our faith, so let's look at this again in context instead of just looking at the section that says examine yourself, so look at verse 3.

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It says, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his 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 simple desires.

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So, what's Peter made in the first three verses very plain? God's power and divine has saved you.

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How do you know that? His promises. That's how you know it's true, right? So, God's given you everything that you need to live this life, and how do you know that to be true?

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Look at his promises. He's been faithful to fulfill them. That's how you confirm it. So, then he keeps going. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge.

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There's a long list here, self -control, brotherly affection, for the sake of time, we're not going to read the whole list, and then he says in verse 8, for if these qualities are yours and increasing, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to which we say amen. If you're not showing brotherly affection and kindness and mercy, you are going to be hurting the mission of the church.

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And you're going to be ineffective. That's right. And then 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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Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you are practicing these qualities, you will never fall.

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Here's the question, what qualities is he talking about in the context? Well, if he is talking about your salvation, falling away from your salvation, and he points to these actions, then what you're arguing is that Peter says you maintain and keep your salvation by actions.

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But how can you say that if he says in the first three verses that everything we need is by his divine power, not only for life, but for godliness?

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I think the qualities he's talking about are the qualities of the faith by which the first three verses set us up with.

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Because he says add to this. He doesn't say base it upon. Your foundation is the gospel, always the gospel.

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And then the outflow of the gospel are these good works. If these good works aren't happening, he's saying you forgot the foundation.

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The examination goes back to Christ. Here's what I think is so frustrating to me. If someone is struggling in sin,

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Galatians 6 .1, if someone is caught in sin, those who are spiritual go to such a one and restore them in a spirit of meekness, how are you going to restore them?

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According to Peter, you're going to restore them, reminding them they've been cleansed and they're not walking in a manner that is in reflection to how they have been cleansed.

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You don't call them to question their salvation, you call them back to their salvation. You're pointing back to their baptism in Christ, saying you need to act like what you are, not call it into question, unless they're denying the faith.

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That's different. Someone's like, I don't believe in the gospel. Well, that's a whole nother conversation. So 2

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Peter 1, especially 2 Peter 1 .9, sounds almost identical to the argument of Paul in Romans 6 .1

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and following. Peter is effectively saying in 2 Peter 1 that whoever lacks these qualities, and he is there,

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I think, talking about some of those virtues that he's listed. Whoever lacks these things has forgotten the work of Christ on his behalf.

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Whoever lacks these things has forgotten who he is. Like you said, John, the foundation, the primary consideration is what has

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Jesus done for you and who are you in him? Recall these things, believe these things, and then flowing out of that will be these other things that Peter is speaking to.

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So Paul in Romans 6, many will be familiar with the end of Romans 5, how Paul makes the argument so that as sin reigned in death, grace would also reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Christ Jesus and our

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Lord, and how that as sin increases, grace abounds all the more, right?

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And so then the question is, are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? And Paul says, by no means, and then he effectively says, remember who you are.

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He responds with identity in Jesus and union with Christ. You've been baptized into the Lord Jesus and raised to walk in newness of life in him.

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You've been delivered from the dominion of sin, and you now are obedient from the heart. Remember your identity.

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This is how the apostles always talk. They don't say, oh, well, you've asked that question.

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Are you even a Christian? No, it's like, no, you've asked this question and let me answer you with your identity, your status, and your union with Christ.

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Yeah, I mean, guys, even Disney gets this, right? This is in The Lion King, right?

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Remember when Prodigal Simba, he's like, you know, going back and forth, and it's like Mufasa comes out of the clouds. What does he say?

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Remember who you are, right? Yes. And then he's like, yeah, that's right. You know, I'm the son of the king.

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I mean, it's like Disney gets this better than most evangelicals. Better than evangelicalism.

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That's right. And JP, to reiterate what you said earlier, right?

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Where this approach, the approach that we're kind of attacking here, this approach wants to wake up in the morning or go to bed at night and kind of ask the question of like, did

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I do enough things today to make my election sure?

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Because how much is enough? That's the biggest question. Well, that is the question. The question needs to be, did

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I trust Christ today, right? That's right. Did I trust Christ today? And honestly, can

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I just be real here and just say, where we want to spiritualize so many things, I think the apostles would say, guys, just use common sense, just a heavy dose of common sense, like when you participate within the life of the church, like don't be a jerk, right?

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That's right. Don't be mean. Don't be cutting. Don't be judging people, right?

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Be patient, bearing with one another in love as you wait for the return of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. Guys, common sense, right? This is how I discipline my own children.

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Guys, common sense. It is common sense, and I think the apostles too. I mean, Peter even goes on to use this language that part of what he intends to do is to stir up his readers by way of reminder.

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He's not yelling at them. Reminding them, no, not at all. He's like, I'm just trying to stir you up and remind you of these things that you might live a life that is fruitful and that you might be of good in the church for the sake of your brothers and sisters and all the rest.

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That's, I think, how we ought to approach this as pastors as well. We say this all the time, right?

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One of the things that makes pietism what it is, is that it has this edginess to it all the time, this exacting and this threatening tone.

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There's always this kind of, like John, you use the language of prove yourself all the time. I think that's right. We've already alluded to that today.

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But there's always this, like you may, through your negligence and irresponsibility and your apathy or whatever, you may end up proving yourself to be a non -believer.

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There's always that kind of edge to this thing. It's always this sort of suspicion that everybody's nominal and we need to smoke out the fakers.

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It affects how we communicate in the church. Even this question of self -examination, it becomes a frightening prospect when in reality,

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I think the New Testament tone and tenor is one of, no, I want to remind you of these things.

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I want to encourage you. I want to stir you up. Here is who you are, and let me be used of God to help you in this

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Christian life that you might be fruitful and that you might be good for your neighbor, you know? That's right. Jon Moffitt Have you guys ever been in a group of people where you kind of like whatever it is they're talking about?

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Maybe it's college football. For me, the other day it was college football. These guys were going on and on. I don't know.

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I don't really watch. I mean, I know football and I love football, but these guys are naming quarterback names and running back names and Heisman people.

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I don't even know who these people are, but if these guys could say, Jon, you're a faker. You don't like football. If you really like football, you would know this stuff.

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They would call me a faker, right? Yeah. You are a faker. Right. And so what do you want me to do? You basically say, you want me to not offend you by saying,

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I like football because if I really liked football, then I would know this stuff. And this is what

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Christianity does. We get offended because how dare you call yourself a Christian and you don't live to the level that I live.

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That is ridiculous. How dare you take this name on? So here's what's so funny to me.

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Christians are called to really be on a rescue mission. Our job is to take the light of Christ into a dark world so that those who are lost may find

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Christ. If I'm sitting next to a brother who is a, okay, let's just say not a brother. If I'm sitting next to a guy who's a poser, like, nope, he's not really a believer.

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He says he is, but he's not. So let me ask you a question. That means he's an unbeliever.

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That means he's most likely confused. Has been led astray. I'm probably sure he's not a wolf in sheep's clothing.

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So I had two options. I can beat him over the head and call him an idiot, or I can give him the thing that will save him, which is the gospel and clarify the gospel.

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Because if he's not a believer, which means he doesn't understand the gospel nor believe it. So what we hear in things like examine yourself, they're beating people.

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It's like you're giving them a litmus test instead of the thing that can actually transform someone's life to want to love, to want to obey, to want to pursue

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Christ. The only thing that transforms people is the gospel. It's not fear.

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It's not self -examination. Oh, let me go back. So look at verse 11.

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Well, let me go back in verse 10, 2 Peter 1, 10. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you are practicing these qualities, you will never fail.

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For in this way, there will be a richly provided for you an entrance into the kingdom of our

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If you think your obedience is your entrance into the kingdom, that's the problem.

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Back up to verse 3, he's saying it's God's divine power through his promises that give you the rich entrance.

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What our dear friends who obviously are not acting as if they should, if they're saying,

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I'm a Christian and then they're denying truth, what they need is Christ in the gospel.

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They need a gentle hand to love them. As Galatians 6, 1 says, go to such a one with meekness and restore them.

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What I'm hearing is, well, y 'all better get your act together or you may not be saved, and that's a bad thing.

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I just don't see that tone coming from Scripture to the broader evangelical world.

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I couldn't agree more strongly, John, with your take. We've said this before, that if you really think there are nominal people sitting in your church, if there are people that are

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Christian in name only and they're not really Christians, then why in the world are we not heralding the gospel to these people?

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Why is it that we're only just bombarding them and beating them over the head with law as though that's going to save them? It's very contradictory and inconsistent if that's really what we think is going on.

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We ought to exhort them to trust Christ because that is the foundation of what it is to be a

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Christian. But then I want to pivot slightly to pick up on some stuff that you both have said over the course of the podcast and that we've been considering.

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I think that one of the things in the article that we are referencing that is good is the acknowledgement that we need community, that we need the church, and that we need to live in the context of other brothers and sisters who can help us live the

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Christian life and exhort us and everything else. I think that what we need to acknowledge is that in a church where the gospel is preached and Christ is heralded and people are living life together in an intentional way, there will be all kinds of watching over each other going on where people are going to be admonishing each other.

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They're going to be encouraging each other. They're going to be exhorting each other. They're going to be correcting each other at points, looking at each other, saying, hey, brother, you realize that's a bad idea for you to do that.

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That's just going to be going on in terms of just the resting heart rate of the church. It's there. It's just part of the culture.

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But then the scripture gives us a mechanism to deal with people that are absolutely not living their life in alignment with their profession.

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It's called church discipline, and it's going to be very clear. It's going to be clear, demonstrable.

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It's going to take place over a season of time. It's going to be hard -hearted, high -handed, unrepentant sin, and it's going to become very clear.

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And then we remove those people from the church. We keep them from the table that they might be restored. But I feel like what people think we need to be doing is going about all the time with this posture of doubting and being suspicious of everybody's profession, like waiting to drop the hammer.

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That is so far from what the New Testament exhorts us to. This is what happened with Kanye West.

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Everybody was like, well, we'll see. I was like, man, I'm so glad that Jesus didn't say that to me.

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We'll see, John. We'll see. I do think in every good way that it can be meant.

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Sure, time will tell, but what we want to do in the church is invite people in.

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You've professed faith in Christ. Let's baptize you. Let's bring you into the fellowship of the saints. Let's admit you to the table.

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Let's preach Christ. Let's love each other. We trust God will keep his promises and is utterly faithful to us and is going to preserve us to the end.

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But it's not this suspicious posture all the time. Like I said earlier, if it becomes very clear over a season of time that you are just hard -hearted and unrepentant, we have a mechanism for that, and we will do that, and we will wield that instrument carefully.

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Most Christians are exhausted because they just tread theological water all the time instead of resting in Christ. No wonder why people have constant doubt because they're like,

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I don't know if I believe enough. It doesn't matter how much you believe. Can Jesus save you?

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That's the point. It has nothing to do with your quality of faith. It's object of faith. Just to go with what you said, and this is the last thing

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I'll say before I drop a bomb on you guys, we often want to treat

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Jesus like he's the varsity football coach on day one of tryouts. He's standing before everybody like, yeah, we'll see who lasts by the end of the week.

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In particular, the first day of full contact, we'll see who's got what it takes. Yeah, exactly.

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That's just not where Jesus says in Matthew 11, I'm gentle and lowly in heart.

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Actually, after the day of full contact, I'm exactly the guy you want to talk to. The title of the article,

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How Often Should I Question My Salvation?, I do think we should answer that pointedly in the members' podcast.

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Not that we've skirted around it, but let's give a clear answer. But let's do it for the members.

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In that article, we'll put it in the notes if you want to read it and join us on the members' podcast. Speaking of, we are going to move over to our members' podcast.

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This is what I would call an intimate conversation with those who join in and really want to help herald this message across the world.

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We have a little bit more pointed conversations with those who are our partners.

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If you want to learn more about that and how to help Theocast and encourage and get more from us, we have so much on our website.

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You can go to theocast .org and look at our membership there, the way of partnering with us. Just so you know, that's kind of how we keep producing all that we're doing.

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Thank you guys for listening. We pray this was encouraging to you. As our main goal, our main desire at Theocast, all three of us, is that we may remove the clutter that's put on the gospel and help you find rest in Christ.

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We pray that you've already started that journey and that you trust that Jesus is sufficient to save you, sanctify you, and glorify you.