What Does America Need? | Theocast

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People often criticize us here at Theocast saying that we are not concerned at all about society or about the culture in which we live or even about the country in which we're citizens.

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So today, John and I are gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about what the Lord is up to in building his church, and we're gonna talk about the gospel, which we tend to do, and we're gonna talk about how all of these things affect our perspective on society and culture and the countries in which we live.

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We hope that this is encouraging and clarifying for you. Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word.

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

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

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

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

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Reformed theology, really, how it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ, and when

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

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

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Christian life from a confessional, Reformed, and pastoral perspective. Here at Theocast, our aim is to clarify the gospel.

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In other words, to take the clutter off of it that is often put there, and to reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ.

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So we hope to do that today. And my friend and conversation partner, your hosts today are

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John Moffitt, who is pastor of Theocast, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Springfield, Tennessee, and I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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One announcement, and then we're gonna be off and running, because we value your time. Hey, just real quick,

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Justin. The Grace Reformed Network has our first, yes. You paused for a second, and so I made a very strange face, so if you're watching this on YouTube, I was not at whatever he said, because I didn't hear what he said.

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And you paused as well. I just kept rolling. There we go.

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I kept rolling because we're professionals here at Theocast. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Back to your announcement. A little bit behind the curtain.

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Yeah, so the Grace Reformed Network, of which John and I are a part, and our churches are a part of it, we have our first General Assembly this year, and it's coming up very soon.

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You're gonna be listening to this in the early part of July. At the end of the month, July 30th through August the 1st in Nashville, Tennessee, the

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GRN General Assembly will occur. So that's a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The first two days of that event are open to anybody.

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And so if you would like to come and hear messages on the ordinary means of grace, if you would like to come and hear sermons from me and from John, and you would love to sing with like -minded believers and be really encouraged by conversations and fellowship you get to have, we would love to see you there.

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And so if you go over to theocast .org, there will be links to register and do all the things that you would need to do to come and be a part of that event.

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So we leave that to you. We would love to see a lot of you in Nashville in like three weeks. And so with all of that, by way of introduction and announcement,

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John, let's give the people what they came here for. And you're gonna tee up today's topic, man. The title has the word

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America in it. And that's not normal for us. America, hashtag America. The people are probably like, man, what are these guys gonna say?

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This is a little bit outside the normal stream as far as what the

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Theocast guys tackle. So tell people what in the world's on our brains, man. Well, for all of our worldwide listeners, which we know you're out there, this would apply to your country as well.

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It just, this is the country that we live in and it is election season. So everybody has opinions on what

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America needs. So we thought we'd throw ours in there. So this is gonna be the first political pundit.

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No, I'm kidding. Justin and I are very passionate about two things, the clarity and the precision of the gospel.

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And then how it plays out in the life of the church. That's what we're really, I mean, if you were to talk about what

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Theocast really, we're always talking about rest in the church and rest in the gospel and how those two are to be used.

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One of the things that's interesting as you begin to read and you look at history of Christianity, something that you can observe is that when there's a very powerful dominant force of gospel advancement within a particular area of the world, that you begin to see that those who are under that preaching and teaching of the word, their lives are affected.

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And then you begin to see that the lives around them begin to be effective. I mean, you can see this in the book of Acts when

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Paul comes into town and he starts preaching and they're going into their homes and they're pulling out all of these sorcery books and these magic books and they're burning them.

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And there's just kind of like a, you could call it one of the early revivalisms, but you're starting to see changes where -

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Revivals, yeah. Yeah. Give me one second. All right, so fighting some.

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But you start to see the effects of the Holy Spirit, not only in the life of the church, but how it becomes a light and it becomes a soul and an influence in the culture.

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And what's interesting is that that is the outflow and result of what a church is doing appropriately, but it's not necessarily the goal.

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We always pray for, and we ask that the Lord would be merciful and kind to all cultures, that the law and the law keepers would come and help suppress evil.

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You know, second use of the law, which we'll get into that here in a minute. But what's interesting, and I'll make this observation now,

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Justin, sometimes people think that you and I just kind of put our head in the sand, you know, they call it a radical

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R2K, radical two kingdom theology, that we just, we really don't care about the culture. We don't care about our brothers.

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We don't want to see evil suppressed, you know, all of this stuff that's going on with trans and all of the letters that, you know,

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I'm not going to get into, that we kind of just ignore that. And we don't, those are, those people are the very reason we are still breathing.

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This is why Paul says, look, you're not wrestling against flesh and blood. You're wrestling against the power that's far greater.

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So to win those people who, I love how Paul says this, such were some of you, right?

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You were those people, but now you've been set free. So Justin and I would agree that the

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United States is probably from an outward perspective of openly defying and doing things that are horrendously evil.

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It's the worst that we publicly have ever seen it. In my lifetime, and I think in the history of the world, and I'm not going to name,

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I have to be careful. I know there are children or young people who listen to this, so I'm not going to get into it, but I think anyone that's lived in the

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United States and has had their eyes open, what's going on right now is pretty bad. Yeah, no argument for me either, man.

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I mean, in terms of just the open condoning and practicing of debauchery,

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I don't think that's really debatable. In and out of the church. Correct.

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I mean, now we agree that humankind hasn't changed, that the flesh has not changed, and that oftentimes in eras gone by, things were done not in the light, not in public view.

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That's all true. That's all fine. But in terms of the public open in front of everyone celebration and practicing of debaucherous things, yeah, our culture's in a place where it's not been.

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That's certainly true. One of the reasons why Theocast exists is that we're, you know,

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Justin said it in his introduction, we're pulling the clutter off the gospel. That's because that's what's happened.

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You follow the advancement, like you could go to Europe and look at where the Reformation was just a powerhouse and the gospel was just exploding.

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And now it's a barren wasteland because we removed the preaching of the gospel and replaced it with something else.

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And I think that's what we're gonna get here to today, which this is exactly what Justin and I are gonna be arguing for, is that the

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American history did have within the 300 plus years that we've been around, there has been good preaching, good revival, not revival, good

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Reformation to where you see solid churches and solid men and denominations who are preaching the gospel and the outflows of that within our culture, for sure.

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But what has ended up happening, and I think it's a tactic of the evil one, to come in and not necessarily get us to immediately just, you know, preach

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Satanism and everybody just go sleep whoever, wherever you want, do drugs. Instead, he used a tactic that seemed very effective.

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And that is to, instead of emphasizing the power of the gospel and preaching Christ and Him crucified, a law gospel message, he convinced the church to start preaching moralism, moral transformation, and it really came on the heels of revivalism.

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If you read anything about the revivalistic movements, it was preaching of self -transformation and moral living, and it was really absent of the gospel.

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So that's the introduction for today, Justin. I don't want this to be just a monologue with me, but this is the conversation that we want to have is that we keep saying things, and I wanted to make it a little bit more practical, being that we are in this season politically, and I feel like there's just a lot of evil that's happening in a public forum.

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And as a believer, Justin, I will admit, there are times I verbally in my truck,

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I'm like, Lord, I am definitely ready for you to come back, but I know I'm still here, so I got a lot of work to do.

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But it's exhausting as a Christian to be around so much evil at times and just wonder like, man, are we really making an impact?

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And this is where we have to rely on scripture and not fall prey to think a president or more moral preaching or us really scrutinizing sinners for being a sinner is somehow gonna morally change their desires, because it won't.

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The law cannot change their desire. So that's kind of where we're at today. Then what is our solution then,

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Justin? If it's not what we've seen in the past, which is revivalism, which is really just moralistic preaching, and I'm sure you've got some comments.

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I'll let you hop in there and talk about them. Yeah, I mean, I have a number of thoughts, right? I mean, I always like to be really clear.

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So we've stated many, many times, and this is one of the reasons we get shot at, that it's really important that we keep the mission of the church pure.

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And the mission of the church is the right preaching of the word of God, which we would understand to be the right division of law and gospel.

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So the right preaching of the law and the gospel, the right administration of the sacraments, the right practice of discipline for the salvation of God's people.

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That's the mission of the church. And our thinking on that has changed not at all. But one of the criticisms we get sometimes, when we say things like that, or when we say that there are two kingdoms, clearly, that exist simultaneously, there is the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the world, and God reigns over both, but he reigns over them differently, a lot of times the criticism is, well, you guys just don't care at all about the culture.

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You don't care at all about the world. This is just, all you care about's the church, and the world's going to hell in a handbasket, so just batten down the hatches until Jesus comes back.

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And don't worry about loving and serving neighbor, or don't worry about the trajectory of the culture, et cetera, et cetera.

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Don't seek the welfare of the city or something, which is not at all what we think. And I want to piggyback a little bit on something else you said, because this is,

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I think, historically not debatable. Couple of things, where the

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Reformation has taken hold through history. And when I say the Reformation has taken hold, I mean Reformation preaching.

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So whether that's, that's broadly. So I'm talking about like Lutheran friends, I'm talking about Reformed church, you know, all that kind of stuff.

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Wherever Reformation preaching, like salvation by faith alone, right, in Christ alone, by the grace of God alone, right, where the scripture alone is our ultimate and final authority, that kind of stuff, where that takes root and takes hold, without doubt, people are benefited by that.

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Cultures are benefited by that. The countries, the cities in which the

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Reformation has taken hold, people profit, right? Human rights are actually valued.

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I mean, we could go on and on and on and on. I mean, if you survey the world landscape, I don't think you can argue that. So that's one observation.

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Second observation, you said it already. I just want to double down and put it in my own terms. Let's take

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America, but again, it applies more broadly than America. So the preaching of the gospel, the right preaching of the law and the gospel is what the

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Lord uses to bring people to faith. It's what the Lord uses to build his church. And when the law and the gospel are rightly preached and the supernatural work of God is occurring through the preaching of that message, people are changed.

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People's hearts are changed. People's lives are changed. And that will inevitably make an impact on their neighbors.

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It has to. So the church is rightly to be a city on a hill, but it's not the way that we often think about it in America.

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In America, we think, well, the church needs to be a city on a hill is like this beacon of morality. In reality, no, the church is a city on a hill in that Jesus Christ is the light of men, right?

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He is the light that has come down from heaven to save fallen mankind.

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And the church has been entrusted with that message in a world that is ruled by darkness and is ruled over by the evil one.

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And so in that regard, we are a city on a hill. So what gives the church its light is the gospel and the right preaching of the law and the gospel, not the church's morality.

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And I think that's where things have been confused and categories have been collapsed. And it's very clear throughout the history of our nation that people with the best of intentions, please don't hear us impugning motivations.

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We trust the motivations and the intentions are nothing but good. There's this instinct that exists where we need to see people have a very personal experience of the divine.

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They have this conversion moment, and that's where things really get started. And then thereafter, we are very much concerned with the transformation of their lives that typically tends to be defined in moral terms.

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You used to do these things, you don't do these things anymore, right? That kind of thing. And that emphasis then becomes projected broadly on society.

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And so what the church becomes about is not purely the preaching of the gospel for the salvation of God's people and then loving and serving neighbor.

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The church becomes about a message and a method and a mission of seeing the society broadly become more moral.

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The church in America has clearly, at various points, whether we wanna talk about various political movements, the moral majority or whatever, or if you wanna talk about just societal emphases, the temperance movement, for example, the church has hitched its wagon to various social and political concerns in the history of our country, and that has never been a good thing for the church's witness.

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So the title of our podcast, and I'm almost done too, John, you monologue, now I'm monologuing. The title of the podcast,

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What Does America Need? Yeah, we put that there to draw some attention, of course.

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In one sense, where I'm coming from with some of this is moral preaching ruins the church's witness.

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And moral preaching guts the church of its power. And there's so many ways in which that's true, and I'm sure we'll get to some more of that.

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Yeah, and to be clear, you and I preach morality. We preach the law.

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We preach the third use of the law. It's, to Justin's point though, is if there is, excuse me, if there is no gospel that backs it and that really fuels it, then moral preaching is of no value, because you are now, and we're gonna do this, we're gonna do a whole nother podcast on this, how there's no, there is no power in the law.

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Justin, I wanna read, I just wanna read this section, because Paul is writing to the church of Ephesus, and he makes a very powerful statement in here.

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And the whole letter to the Ephesians is one that just kind of continues. You think you know everything about a book, and then you just realize that, oh, the depths of the riches of the knowledge of Christ.

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Amen. Ephesians 4 .3 says this. Of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me by the working of his power.

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To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the

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Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Now, just for context, the

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Gentiles, Justin, it's fair to say he means the unbeliever, right? The pagan. Right. Is that fair?

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Yeah, I mean, when you hear Gentile in that context here. That's right. Yeah. So he's going, hey, this is what

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I've been commissioned to do, to preach the what? The riches of Christ. Now, that's important.

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It's important. He doesn't mean in the absence of the law, but if you don't give them the riches of Christ, they have no hope.

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And then he says this, verse nine. And to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church.

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Oh, Justin, this is so good. So that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities, not in the earth, listen to this, in the heavenly places.

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Whoa, keep reading. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus, our

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Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with the confidence through our faith in him. So you have to understand,

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Paul's saying he's going to preach the gospel, not only to the

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Gentile, the pagan nations, but as he does this through the ministry of the church, the spiritual realms around him are also gleaning or learning of what's going on.

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And I think when he uses rulers, anytime, I'm pretty sure when he says rulers and authorities, he's not talking about those who are in allegiance to the king.

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He's talking about those who are rebellion. There is a suppression. There is a power far beyond,

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Justin, I think that even I could ever comprehend of what the gospel, the words of Christ mean, not only to the believer, but the unbeliever and the spiritual realm that's around us.

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And now, when I talk like this, people get nervous. They're like, oh, are you charismatic now? Love my charismatic brother. So everyone who's listening, you're my brother and my sister,

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I love you. I'm not at all digging on you at all. But no, I'm not moving towards, we need to start speaking in tongues or there are these words, spiritual ley lines or anything like that at all.

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I'm just taking Paul's words at face value. He says there's an actual, the church, when it preaches the gospel, has an actual impact in the spiritual realm around the church.

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I mean, is that a fair interpretation, Justin? Right, well, I mean, in the Lord in particular,

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Yahweh of hosts is glorifying himself amongst the heavenly hosts and amongst the principalities and the powers, which

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I agree with you, when it's communicated that way. I mean, I think we should think Ephesians 6. You know, it's the powers over this present darkness, et cetera,

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Satan is the god of this world, et cetera, right? So the Lord has determined that it is through the church that is built upon the preaching of Christ, that is built upon the mystery of Christ, which is

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God's eternal plan to save a people, Jew and Gentile, through Jesus Christ. That is how the

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Lord has chosen to glorify his magnificent name, in the cosmos, right?

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I mean, so beyond just glory on earth. I mean, amen, may the knowledge of the glory of the Lord cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

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But like his glory is beyond just the earth. I mean, it is the entire universe and the cosmos that he's made.

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And he has determined to do that through the church. And he does that through the church, not when the church is concerned with morality.

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He does that through the church when the church preaches Christ and sinners are brought from death to life and sinners are united to Jesus and are then eternally secured to be with the

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Lord forever because he's merciful and gracious and always faithful. Hey guys, real quick, some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions.

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

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

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You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. Yeah, I just thought that was one of the most clear verses in scripture where Paul is not only talking about the preaching of the gospel, but the preaching of the gospel in the effectiveness of the church.

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I mean, it's safe to say, Justin, that Ephesians probably is one of the most dominating passages in the Bible when it comes to the effective and the effects of the church and the unity of the church.

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Because chapters four and five, I don't want to even say it's four, five and six, are really, how do we now, like we have this powerful gospel in us through the means of the spirit.

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He lives, like just when he says, "'Grieve not the spirit that is among you.'" He's not talking about your personal sins at home.

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He's saying your sin within the church. Yeah, corporate. Yeah, exactly. So when,

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I love this. It says, you know, Ephesians four, when the body functions properly, it builds itself up in love. And what does

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Jesus say? It says, how will the world know that you're my disciples? By the love that you have for one another. What does first Peter say?

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First Peter three, he says, be ready, or first Peter two, be ready to give an answer of the hope that lies within you. Why? Because they're looking and seeing you when you're reviled, when you're persecuted, when you are treated inappropriately, you're responding with grace and mercy and kindness.

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So the church, not only in its message, but in its method, we're just dripping constantly with grace and gospel so that those around us are influenced and affected by it.

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So this whole idea that we're just hunkering down in our churches and we're not thinking about the culture around us, it's just flat against the idea of what the

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Bible gives us. Agree, and I think what a lot of people mean, and I'm not trying to be unfair in putting it this way, when people say that we or people like us don't care about the culture or don't care about the country or whatever, it's almost like they think that the only way to demonstrate concern for the culture or concern for the country is to be morality warriors, to be, like you said, holding the picket signs, to be activistic in one sense, pertaining to moral issues in society or politically or what have you, and I just disagree with that instinct.

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A couple of thoughts here. Can I just interject there, Justin? I think, yeah. You don't ever see that in scripture, by the way.

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No. I mean, in all the different cultures that Paul writes to and the New Testament writers, you just don't ever see that, the concept of like.

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No, social or political activism, you don't. In terms of what the church as an institution is called to do or really even that individual believers,

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I mean, to even take it to that level, Paul's not exhorting individual believers to be cultural and political and societal activists.

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He is always driving people, I mean, in the other apostles too, it's all about life together in the church and what that looks like and then, of course, what that's gonna mean for their witness to the world.

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So while we're on that. Yeah, I mean, just real quick, First Peter is the exact what you're talking about.

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He's like, listen, now that you have allegiance to the king, you're gonna learn how to use your suffering as a means of drawing people to Christ.

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So if you wanna talk about activism, it's like showing mercy and kindness, not yelling anyways, keep going.

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Exactly, yeah, like you said, mercy, kindness, patience, gentleness, speaking the truth in love, giving a reason, living a life that is clearly hopeful in a world that is so often hopeless and then being prepared not to give a perfect answer, but to give a reason for the hope.

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And I will agree. I mean, that's interaction with neighbor. The third use of the law, Peter straight out says, they should be, they're gonna get upset at you because you won't indulge in their sexual sins.

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Of course. So I agree with this. Like we're going to, by not engaging, that's a statement, period.

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Right, of course it is, of course it is. So two thoughts here related to our topics today, like in terms of how, and when

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I say moral preaching, I am not meaning, and John, I know you're same with me. When we say moral preaching, we're not referring to the right preaching of the law, which we're gonna get to that even more in our next episode, because John and I, again, for maybe the third time in this episode, we preach the law in its various uses, including the third use, which is to guide our living in Christ.

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That's a good thing to do. When moral preaching is where we conflate and confuse people as to what

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Christianity is about, and we confuse the message, it's obvious that this has happened in America, because if you were to ask the average person in the country, if you just poll people, what is

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Christianity about? At its most basic, like at the heart of it, what is the thrust of the

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Christian faith? I think the vast majority of people, and sadly, many people that go to church are gonna answer in moral terms.

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They're gonna talk to you about, well, here's what a morally upright person looks like. Here's how you should live.

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Here are the things you should do. Here are the things you should abstain from doing. Christianity has been confused to be a religion of what we do or don't do, just like every other religion in the world.

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So let me just be super clear here. The law of God applied rightly to the human heart, think

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Jesus in Matthew five, is the greatest standard of righteousness that the world has ever seen. Amen to that?

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Absolutely. And at the same time, Christianity is not a religion that is unique on the basis of its morality.

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Christianity is a religion that is unique because it is at the most fundamental level, a message.

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And it is a message about Jesus Christ, who he is and what he has accomplished and how he has rescued sinners and he's done it all.

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Like that is the Christian faith in a nutshell. It is the message of Jesus Christ, the word of Christ.

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Ramitas to Christian, right? In Romans chapter 10, verse 17. And so that's important.

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Let's not moral preaching, where it's all about what you do and don't do. And that's the thrust of the sermons week over week over week, confuses the world and confuses your people as to what

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Christianity even is. Secondarily, that kind of moral preaching guts the church and robs the church of its power.

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Because there's no power in morality. It just isn't. I mean, in terms of what

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I mean, I don't just mean example and inspiration. I mean, real supernatural power.

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There's not power in moral messaging. Because we don't have, as Christians, we don't have the corner on the market on morality.

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There are Muslims and Mormons across this planet that would shame us all in terms of how morally upright they are, in terms of their conduct in life.

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Now, what makes us different, again, is the fact that we are trusting a savior who has fulfilled all righteousness and who has atoned for our sins and made satisfaction for our sins.

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And it's through the preaching of him that the church has power for people's lives to really be changed and transformed.

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And I would argue, for the church to have a meaningful and compelling witness, there has to be the preaching of the gospel that gives the church this power, that then enables

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Christians, by the Spirit, through the preaching of Christ, to love one another in a way that's compelling to a watching eye.

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Amen. I'd love to jump on this whole concept of power. So, Justin, there are times when, unfortunately right now, we're recording this, it's coming out in July, but this is

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June. And if you live in the United States, there's something about June that is, it's really, it's heartbreaking, to be honest, to see what the image bearers of God will do to each other and how they speak to each other and then how they actually act.

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It's not honoring to the Lord. It's not beautiful. It's not glorious. It's heartbreaking. And it reminds me of what

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Paul says, and it's really helpful. I don't have this one written down here, but I'll just quote it.

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Ephesians 2, where it just talks about that the principality of the air is the one that's influencing and manipulating them.

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I mean, to indulge in their desires in such a way that is. The one who is at work in the sons of Jezebel.

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To indulge in things that aren't beneficial to anyone, not to them or anyone else around them, right? So Paul says in 2

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Corinthians 4, 4, in their case, this is the ones who aren't believing the gospel, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbeliever to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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So what's Paul's solution, though? This is what's so important. He's saying, listen, yeah, if you guys are preaching or not hearing, you need to understand what you're fighting.

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And this, Justin, this helps me because when I see someone who is so adverse to the gospel and they're just, they're really, they're a slave to sin, it reminds me the solution doesn't change.

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Listen to what he says. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake, right?

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And then he says, for God who said, let your light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts the light of the knowledge of Christ.

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So we keep preaching Christ, even though they're blind, even though they may not believe at this moment, the solution does not change at all.

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I think this is so powerful and important. This is later on in chapter 10. He says in verse four, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but of divine power to destroy strongholds.

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So we often try to use fleshly means to tell people they need to change their ways.

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And he's like, look, they're under a stronghold and what you want to use can't be used. What does he say?

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We destroy arguments in every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey

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Christ. By what? The whole section is about preaching Christ in the gospel. So these strongholds are tore down by heralding the truth of what liberates them.

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So if I were to say, what does America need? America needs people who believe in the actual power of the gospel and who is willing to preach it even in the face of debauchery.

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No, amen. I mean, I'm gonna go back to Ephesians two for my final comments here. And then you can make anything you want and I'll close it down.

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Those early verses of Ephesians two are gripping in light of the rest of the chapter. We were dead in trespasses and sins in which we once walked following the course of the world.

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I mean, that's exactly what everybody, that was true 2000 years ago. It's true in 21st century America. It's true in 21st century

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Europe or Sub -Saharan Africa, wherever you're listening to this. Also, he says, we are following the prince of the power of the air, that's

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Satan. Then the one who is at work in the sons of disobedience carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.

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And that the emphasis there is that people are enslaved to their passions and our cravings.

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This is our condition. In Adam, this is true of every human and we see it all around us.

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So what's the antidote? He then, famously, right? I mean, Martyn Lloyd -Jones is, for no one else, made

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Ephesians two, four very famous, but God. I mean, this is that supernatural power of God peace.

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God has made us alive together with Christ. That's the only solution. That's the only deliverance that could ever happen is the

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Lord shows up and does a thing through the preaching of Christ. By grace, you've been saved. It is not of works that no man may boast, right?

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And then having been united to Christ, we will then walk in the good works that the

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Lord has prepared beforehand for us to walk in. But then he goes on in the rest of chapter two to talk about how

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Gentiles, pagans, who were once far off, who were alienated from God, had been brought near through the blood of Christ.

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And now God is reconciling Jew and Gentile in the church and that Jesus Christ himself is our peace.

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And how we all are being built up into the temple, the dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

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All right, this is exactly what we're talking about. It is all through the power and the supernatural work of God.

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And it is accomplished through the preaching of Jesus Christ and the building up of the body of Christ that is the church.

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And so that's what we need to give our lives to. That's what we need to give our energy to and our effort to if we want to be of help to our fellow man.

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And I just don't see any other way forward. And then seek the welfare of the city, exercise your civic duty, serve your neighbor through your vocation, but do it all through the lens of what the

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Lord is doing in building his church through the preaching of Jesus Christ. My goodness. Yeah, what profits a man if he lives a moral life and loses his soul?

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It's a little change on the verse, but that's basically what we're trying to do. We need to continue to preach the gospel, which is, we'll close with this.

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Three things you need to know about this hope, this power we're talking about. Jesus sufficiently paid for all of your crimes against.

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If you believe in him, if you believe the gospel, this is what it means. Jesus sufficiently paid for all past, present and future.

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There's no crime that you have or will commit that God cannot cover with Christ's blood. Secondly, in order for you to be in the presence of God, it requires glory.

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That means perfect obedience. And Jesus not only covers you with his blood, but then he covers you with his righteous robe.

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He covers you with his sonship. You become a child of God because of what he's done. And thirdly, it says he delivered us out of the domain of darkness under the power of Satan.

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And he put us into the beloved kingdom of his son. That's the good news of the gospel. We want preached in the

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United States and around the world. And that is what brings people to life. And hopefully this was encouraging for you.

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And we're gonna continue on next week. I'll let Justin tell us what that is. Lord willing, if this airs next week.

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And that message that you just talked about, John, is what makes the church a city on a hill. And it's what makes

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Christian salt and light. And may we never forget it. Yeah, God willing, I mean, if we're still around,

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I mean, it'd be wonderful if Jesus returns, Maranatha, right, may he come. But if we're still here and the

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Lord sees fit to give us life and sustain us all, we'll be coming back to you on these airwaves talking a little bit more about the law and how this sounds terrible to say, but how the law actually doesn't have power and how it must be accompanied by the

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Holy Spirit, of course, even the preaching of the law is gonna be of use to us, but we're gonna think about how to use the law lawfully.

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And yeah, if the statement, the law does not have power to save or to sanctify sounds troubling to you, then tune in next week and we'll explain ourselves a little bit.

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It's been good to be with you today. We do, we hope this has encouraged you. And even as you think about being a citizen of whatever country that you live in, we pray that you're encouraged in the

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Lord Jesus Christ and are hopeful for what he's doing in building his church. He's faithful. Keep holding to the light and keep being the light.

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Amen, until next time, grace and peace to all of you. Hey, everyone, before you go, Justin and I first wanted to say thank you.

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And if this has been encouraging to you in any way, please feel free to share it. But we also need your support.

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And it's when you give that it really helps us financially reach more people. So the next time you consider giving to a ministry, we hope that you would pray about Theocast and partner with us as we share the gospel around the world.