Who Does the Gospel Offend? | Theocast

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Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we are going to consider who it is that the gospel offends.

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Paul, at multiple points in his letters, says that he is not ashamed of the gospel. Why did he need to say that?

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There clearly is something about the gospel that could bring shame upon a person who preaches it or even a person who believes in it in this world.

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And I think the answer to that question as to who does the gospel offend, it might surprise you.

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And not to give it all away, but to kind of prime the pump for you, the gospel certainly offends the self -righteous, those among us who think that we either are righteous before God or can attain righteousness.

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That's clear. But then the gospel also offends those among us who are licentious, where we are clinging to things that are desires of our flesh, and we don't really want to let those things go.

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And so the reality of our union with Christ and what that means for our freedom and our liberation and our transformation of life sometimes can be hard to hear also.

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John and I are going to consider all of this in today's episode. We hope that you're encouraged and helped by the content. Stay tuned.

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

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

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

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Conversations about the Christian life from a confessional, Reformed, and pastoral perspective. We are aiming here at Theocast to clarify the gospel and reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ.

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Your hosts today to that end are John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and I am

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Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina. John, it's good to see you today, my friend.

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I've enjoyed time with you this morning in a general way. I've been encouraged by you. We've talked about good things, talked about hard things, and we have fought a losing battle against technology yet again today.

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Justin Perdue The fall is real, brother. Justin Perdue The fall is real. We have seen the Lord's sanctifying grace in both of our lives, but maybe pointedly in mine because I was not even viscerally upset about technological failure.

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As many out there know, I'm kind of a Luddite. I'm just grossly utilitarian when it comes to technology.

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I'm not a techie. When technology fails, as it is prone to do, it can be a frustrating thing for me.

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We'll just chalk it up to the Lord's sanctifying grace that He has seen fit to unite me to His Son.

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I didn't get upset today, and I'm thankful for that. There we are. Anyway, it's good to be with you, dude.

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I'm excited for the conversation that we're going to have today, as is always the case. I'll turn it over to you for any of your handy -dandy, wonderful announcements that you like to make, and then let you tell the listener what we're going to talk about today.

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Justin Perdue I don't know. There's a lot going on with Theocast. There's a membership update coming where we're going to have

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TheocastU. That actually is out by now. It came out in May, early May. There'll be extra classes that Justin and I have taught through Theocast and through our churches.

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There's an entire Reform Theology Masterclass. I think there's 15 lessons in there that walk you through the basics of Reform Theology.

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It's stuff that Justin and I have taught. Anyway, it's good stuff there. We have a new shirt, Look to Christ, that was voted on by you.

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That's available at the store. Yeah, I know. I need to get you one of those. If you didn't know this in general, but we do have merch there.

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Justin's wearing a hat. If you're on YouTube, we have hats, shirts. Justin Perdue And it's a flat bill just to upset a certain segment.

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A certain subset of our listenership is offended by my flat bill hat. I'm not sure what's going on with that. Yeah, it's like wearing knee socks these days.

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I guess that's offensive too. Who knows? Anyways, that's it. That's all I got as far as announcements. I want to thank you guys.

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We put a survey out there. We're just doing some reconnaissance on a potential conference. We keep talking about it, so we figured let's start doing some research on it and see what we can come up with.

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One last thing, just keep praying for Justin and I as we try and barrel through starting the Grace Reform Network.

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It's making progress. I think we're up to 60 churches now on the Churchfinder. That's exciting.

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So anyways, apparently there are 60 churches who agree with us. That's something. It's not nothing.

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It's not nothing. All right, Justin. Yeah, that's it. That's all I got. So you're going to tell us what we're going to talk about?

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Oh, yeah. I know, but the listener doesn't. Oh, you want me to do that? Okay. They maybe have seen the title, but we haven't even come up with it yet.

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Can I just say this now? Today is such a lighter, fun, jovial conversation that you and I have compared to what we did the last time we recorded about the role of men and women.

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I'm so thankful that's over and we can move on to other things. Today is another thing that's offensive, but in a way in which it's been this way for a long time.

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We're going to talk about the offense of the gospel. Paul mentions three separate times. He says once to Timothy, let me actually just read it here because it'd be better if I just read his words.

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He says, Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. He says that to Timothy. Then the Romans, he says,

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For I am not ashamed of the gospel. And then in 1 Corinthians 1 .18,

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he says, For the word of the cross is folly or foolish to those who are perishing. So, if it's an offhanded comment that he makes...

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He also will say at points that Jesus, of course, is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense and all those things too.

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There's several that we could use, but there comes a time when you have to step back and say, why does he feel necessary to say this?

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Why is it important? We're going to make arguments on either side. I think there's some cultural arguments in his particular setting, but then we can look at the nature of the gospel and say that there are an offense to people in our day as well on either side.

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So, we're going to look at two offenses. I think there's people on either side of this that are going to be offended by the work and the nature of the good news of Christ.

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The one that's going to be offended is the self -righteous. Paul is dealing with people in that particular genre, for sure, that they think their righteousness is sufficient before the

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Lord. Then there's also going to be people who do not understand that their actions are an offense to God, and the gospel is what liberates them and cleanses them from the offense.

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They don't think they're offending anybody. That would be the licentious cry that's being offended by the good news of the gospel.

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It's like offering somebody medicine and they're like, I'm not sick. Why would

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I want to take medicine if I'm not sick? We're going to talk about both sides of those today, and I think it's important for us to do so.

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We may find ourselves dealing either with our own hearts in our own context or the people around us who might be understanding this.

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Justin, I'll just begin by a little bit of an anecdote, and then I'll turn it over to you.

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I am beginning to feel this more and more in my preaching. The stronger you and I have become,

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I am so thankful for you because you prop me up. You put gospel shots of espresso in my veins to remind me that even though we might get shot at,

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John, keep preaching. My elders have been the guys who have just really carried me through a lot of criticisms.

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When you and I make statements about Christ and gospel and sanctification, and we don't allow culture to manipulate us, are we being beaten and thrown out of the city like Paul?

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No, we're not. But I can still feel that people are not excited about what we're doing, and they make that known.

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I don't want to be invigorated by people's accusations against me, but when

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Paul says, count it a joy, or James says, count it a joy, the point of what they're driving you towards is that if they accused

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Christ because they hated him and they're accusing you, you can take comfort in that you're doing the right thing and you're not doing something wrong.

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That's where this podcast is coming from. As we who love the gospel and love

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Christ and hold a historic reformed understanding of it, I think as time goes on, we are going to feel more and more opposition to our position because Paul, Jesus, and James told us we would.

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That's the introduction to the topic. Inevitably, my head as a preacher, my heart as a preacher is going to be very much in whatever book of Scripture I'm preaching.

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It's difficult for me, and I don't mean this in a bad sense. It's difficult for me to approach this conversation divorced from the book of Romans because that's where I am presently.

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You already said this. Perhaps the most overt place where Paul says that he's not ashamed of the gospel is

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Romans 1 .16. It's a very well -known verse and the verse that follows it.

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I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it's the power of God for salvation for all who believe, to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek, to the Gentile. For in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed.

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By that, he doesn't mean God's attribute that he's righteous. He means that the righteousness that God gives to sinners is revealed in the gospel.

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It begins and ends in faith. As it's written, the righteous shall live by faith. He's saying that he's not ashamed of the gospel, like you already alluded to, for a reason.

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Evidently, there's something about the gospel that does bring upon someone who preaches it, that does bring upon someone who believes it, reproach and shame in this world.

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The question is, why? Where would we begin to contemplate these things and speak to the offense of the gospel or even the shame that might be put upon a person who is a preacher of the gospel or a believer in the gospel?

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Man, I'm going to start with the message of the gospel and also implied in this is the reality of the law and how this really does offend to the high heavens the self -righteous person.

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We all, whether we would admit it or not, are self -righteous. We all think in various ways that we're doing better than we are.

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We all tend to look down on other people as though they're not doing what they should be doing, and we're just blind to so many things.

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Paul begins his argumentation right after having said that he's not ashamed of the gospel, and in the gospel, the righteousness of God that he gives to sinners is revealed.

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He then goes on to say the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth.

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He goes on to indict everyone and make it very plain that the only way of salvation is that God would give you righteousness because everybody, whether you're a

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Jew or you're a Greek, whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, you're under sin. He starts by indicting all of the brilliant Gentiles out there and demonstrating how we've all been given over to various passions and cravings and things that are abominable and wicked, and how we're so bad that not only do we do this stuff, we condone it and we celebrate it.

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Then he turns the table on the Jews after that and says, look, you are without excuse too.

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If you pass judgment on people who do the things that I've just been talking about, you need to understand that effectively, by the same standard you use, you'll be judged by it.

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You have not kept the standard that you call others to. You have not met your own standard, let alone

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God's, and the reality is you're hard of heart and you're unrepentant because you think you're okay and that other people are going to face the wrath of God rightly for what they've done, but you don't think you will face the wrath of God because you're doing better than they are, and that's just not the case.

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Then he goes on to say that what's going to be required at God's bar and the only question that's going to be asked of you is whether or not you've kept the law.

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Then he makes it very plain that nobody's kept the law. God is just. He's good. He rewards those who obey and do good things with eternal life.

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The problem is nobody's good. He's a righteous judge. He'll condemn those who have done evil, and the reality is everybody's evil.

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Nobody's righteous. Nobody's done good, not even one. This right out of the gate to say that the only way that you could ever be reconciled to God who made you is by having righteousness given to you because you don't have any, that in and of itself flies in the face of every human instinct that we need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and make something of ourselves.

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It flies in the face of every human instinct that we are aiming to be good people and that there is some kind of reward that should be given to us for what we do, and there is some kind of punishment that we should face if, in fact, we are bad.

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From our perspective, we're kind of a mash -up of good and bad, and we're more good than bad, and so it's going to sort itself out in the end. To look at people and say, you have nothing, and you have not done what's required, you can never do what's required, actually, and you stand hopeless and bankrupt on your own steam is offensive to us all.

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We'll begin there. I'll start with the self -righteous side of it, and then I think we can go to the licentious side if you want to use those terms or the sinful side.

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I do find it helpful when Hebrews says it's impossible to please

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God without this particular thing. He doesn't say righteousness. He doesn't say obedience to the law.

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He doesn't say cleansing or whatever, keeping yourself clean. Those are all important, but that's not what he says that gives us the capacity to please him.

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He says without faith. Now, he doesn't mean faith in general because people say it's halfway through the game.

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We just need to have faith. You know, faith in what? Our ability to put faith in your ability?

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No. The whole book of Hebrews is about the sufficiency of Jesus. He's saying without faith in the sufficiency of Jesus, you will never please the

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Father. Now, that's a blow to the self -righteousness because you're coming before him.

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In contrast in Hebrews, he is contrasting people who want to find God's favor based on the law, the

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Mosaic law, the old law, the old covenant. He's saying the old covenant is not sufficient to please

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God. Not fully. It was a temporary external cleansing, and Christ made the final internal and external cleansing.

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This is why not only did he cleanse our flesh, he cleansed our conscience. He cleansed the inside of us.

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He's saying if you do not believe that and trust that, you'll never please God. That is really hard to hear because we're such black and white culture sometimes where we only can see it in one way.

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It's really hard for us to see it from God's perspective because he's like, listen, you're a sinner and I do not accept anything you have to offer me.

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Not even your faith I give to you. That's a gift from me to you. But while you do your good works, which are necessary to proclaim the good news of the kingdom, to love and care for your brothers, and to build them up, and to be growing in grace,

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I only am going to work through faith to do that. That's how that's going to work.

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Man, that's hard to hear. Justin Perdue It is. I'll go ahead and jump here, and I may say some other things pertaining to justification, but I think one of the most offensive things about the gospel to church -going folk is the fact that, like you just said, even when it pertains to our

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Christian living and our sanctification, it is all of grace. It is all a gift.

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It is all secured by Christ, and it is all realized through our union with Christ.

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In other words, do we participate in our sanctification? The answer to that is yes, in that we participate by virtue of the fact that we are alive now.

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We were dead. We're now alive. Jon Moffitt Do you participate in your birth? You breathe. Justin Perdue I participate in life in this world by virtue of the fact that I'm alive, and I participate in my sanctification by virtue of that same fact that I've been made alive together with Christ.

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Yet, at the same time, it is absolutely, unobjectionably obvious that I do not decisively change my own heart and I do not decisively sanctify myself.

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That is entirely the work of God, and it is entirely empowered by the Spirit of Christ at work within me.

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Jon Moffitt That's not outside of the gospel. That is the gospel. Justin Perdue That is the good news. If I were to be asked, what's the most neglected doctrine in the church today?

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It is union with Christ. It is union with Christ, not just for justification, but for sanctification and eternal life.

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This is very offensive to many serious -minded, churchgoing people who are very concerned about obedience and faithfulness.

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It is a human objection that has always existed. This objection is as old as the gospel.

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If you say these things, and you tell people that all of the work of redemption is over, and if you tell them that all that matters is that they would be found in Christ Jesus, by default, we're all in Adam.

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We're represented by Adam. His guilt is counted to us as our guilt. His sin is counted to us as our sin.

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That's our default position. We come into existence not in right relationship with God. All there is for us by way of salvation is to be found in Christ.

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If that's true of you, He is now your representative, and you gain more in Him than you lost in Adam.

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His righteousness is given to you, and all is well. If you say that, the concern is always for faithfulness, obedience, holy living, and how will we be motivated, and the like.

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When we come in and say that the answer to that objection has nothing to do with the law, and it has nothing to do with unsettling the saints, and causing them to question their standing, and holding something out in front of them that they must pursue.

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Do these things or else you will not be saved. Unless we do that, the argument is obedience, holiness, and faithfulness are going to fall by the wayside.

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We say no. In fact, union with Christ is the thing. We have died to sin's guilt in Christ, which has changed everything.

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As soon as we've been united to Jesus, we've died to sin's guilt, and the fountainhead of sanctification begins to flow.

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The streams begin to flow, and our lives begin to change. That is solely because we've been united to the

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Savior. That will mean some stuff for our living, which we'll get into in just a minute. It is incredible how offensive it is to people when you preach not just Jesus for justification on the front end, but you preach

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Christ for sanctification. You preach Christ for pardon and for power.

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That's very frightening to many people. Justin Perdue That's right. I think it's important to give you two illustrations.

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To the Galatians, he says, the way in which you have begun is the way that you will walk or continue. In 2

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Corinthians 5 .7, we walk by faith. Let's make this practical,

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Justin. When he says walk by faith, continue the way in which you've begun, it goes back to the concept of union in Christ.

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This is a shout out to our dear brother Jimmy Buehler, who was dealing with a church member back in the day. He said,

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I've just hitched my wagon to obedience. What he's saying is that driving factor of his Christian life is looking to his own performance.

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Justin Perdue You might want to hitch your wagon to Christ. It's just a thought. Jon Moffitt Right. What we're saying is that, according to the

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Apostle Paul, who wrote I'm Not Ashamed of the Gospel, who also said that the driving factor of the

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Christian life, what pushes us forward, what gets us out of bed every single day, is faith in the sufficiency of our connection to Christ through his cleansing, through his sanctifying process, and through the hope that we have of living with him in the new heavens, the new earth, and in a glorified body.

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We walk every day in that reality, knowing we have been cleansed. As you've said before in the past, we have been saved.

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We are being saved. We will be saved. That does not mean you then sit on the couch and watch

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TV. That's what people think we're hearing. Walking means there's motion, but you're walking being driven by and being pulled by faith, trusting in the sufficiency of Christ on our behalf.

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That's really hard to do when you're allowing your works to get in the way.

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You start offering up to God, saying, God, see how well I have done. You're using that as a means to say,

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God accepts me. Listen, Justin, I will tell you right now, you and I have both been thoroughly and significantly encouraged by the sanctifying process of God in our life.

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We can look back and say, I am not what I should be, but I am not what I was, and praise be to God for that.

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The Lenten Baptist and the Westminster Confession speaks to how the sanctifying process of God can be an encouragement to us.

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He doesn't say walk in the strength of the sanctifying process, knowing that as you become more and more sanctified, that's what gives you strength.

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No, you're not looking at results because results will vary, and they go up and down.

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At times, Justin, I've got new bad habits. I have new sins I didn't have before.

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If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith vs. 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. This is true in my own local church.

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This is true of Theocast. Do not ever think that all of our talk of the objective realities of Christ and the objective work of Christ and the things that we're looking outside of ourselves to and the confession we're holding to, don't ever let that language confuse you as to though we don't think that the transformation of life is real.

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The transformation of life is real. We have been changed. We know we've been changed.

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Somebody out there say amen. The only thing is we just don't trust the change.

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We trust Christ. That's the distinction. We look to our changed lives. We look to our sanctification, and we're encouraged.

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We should encourage one another in the church with those realities. Hey, bro. Hey, sis. I'm encouraged by you, and I'm encouraged to see the grace of God in your life.

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You're not how you used to be, and I've seen it. I don't know if you've seen it, but I've seen it, and you should be encouraged. Thank God. We should talk like this more often, but we're not putting our confidence in the change because, like you said, that tends to vacillate and ebb and flow.

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I think the last comment may be toward the self -righteous angle, and then we'll pivot. I think that what is a little bit frightening for folks is when it just flies in the face of human reason in such a way that people get a little bit unsettled by it.

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When you look at people and you say, if you want sanctified people, preach Christ.

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If you want to see sanctification happen, preach the objective realities of union with Christ and preach the objective realities of justification in Him and watch how people change.

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That breaks people's brains sometimes, and I'm going to appeal to the Scripture.

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In Romans 6 verses 1 to 11, there is not a word in those verses about change in us.

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It's all about the objective reality of what has happened to us by virtue of the fact that we've been united to Christ.

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The one exhortation in Romans 6, 1 to 11, is in verse 11, where Paul says, so you must also consider or reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ.

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When he says dead to sin, he means that we've been justified from sin. Verse 7, we've been set free from sin's guilt.

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What's the imperative there? Hold fast to the confession. Reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ via your union with Jesus.

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This is going to be the entire ground of Christian living. That's his argument, and that is very, very frightening for many because they think that we've got to turn this subjective somehow.

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We've got to put the onus on us somehow in being dead to sin's power immediately. That's what this means, and my life is different.

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Paul's going to get to that in the latter portion of Romans 6, which is where we're going to go here in just a minute. The idea is contained there about how we're not what we once were and how we've become obedient from the heart.

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There are a lot of things that we used to do that bore no fruit in our lives, so why would we want anything to do with them? It's all grounded in the objective work of Christ and our union with Him.

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That's where we have to start. We will continue to take the bullets that may be shot in our direction for saying these things.

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That's okay because it's in the text, and it's the only way that we can ever have hope and peace.

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The great project of the Christian life is holding fast to the confession of what Christ has accomplished.

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He starts with the hope of Christ. You're in union with Christ, therefore now put it to death.

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It's not a fear tactic. It's a declaration. You've been liberated. The door is open.

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Now you can walk out of the prison. He has set you free from that. That encourages my heart, and that is the offense of the gospel.

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Just like the last five seconds of my 30 seconds, that is the offense of the prodigal son.

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The father loving his son in a way in which brings shame upon himself.

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That's what's so offensive of the gospel. The father puts the shame on the son and then says, you are set free, child, and live now free.

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Speaking of making a transition, sometimes it's the opposite side of that. We don't think we need to be set free because we don't see that there's a problem.

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We don't see that there's a sin. This is the other side of the offensive side of the gospel where Christ is offered as the hope of the good news based on the law.

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Let's be very clear. The law brings the offense. The law is what comes in and should bring guilt and shame, and the gospel is that which should come in and liberate.

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When the law does not break the heart, the gospel is offensive as well because the gospel becomes a healing to people who do not think they need to be healed.

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I'll just give you some examples of a modern -day context where Christians are going to start feeling this.

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To say that homosexuality or gender transformation are not God's original design, they actually violate

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God's law, they don't represent the human nature and the beauty of God, and that the gospel is a wonderful cleansing and liberation from a vile prison.

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That can be offensive if they do not believe that what they have chosen is acceptable in the eyes of God.

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They don't need to be liberated from something that is acceptable. When it comes to the overtly self -righteous crowd that we were just referring to, those are individuals who have taken stock of their lives, even in light of God's law, and have determined they're doing pretty well.

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They're doing at least well enough. It's kind of another form of it, but it's slightly different.

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The way I might describe it is the way that you just illustrated it depicts this.

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What we're doing here in this second category of people are those who look at themselves and other human beings, and they conclude that if there are desires that are innate to us, then they must be okay.

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If there are things that I intuitively think that I innately feel, that I innately want and crave, even, then those things have to be okay, because I didn't really choose them.

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This is the rationale for when it comes to particularly issues of gender and sexuality.

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I want what I want. I've always wanted this. I've always felt this. I've always been burdened by this.

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It must be okay that I pursue it in a way that I feel good about. What we're not acknowledging is a very clear biblical truth that not only is there the law that stands outside of us and we can weigh people's actions.

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The law makes it very plain, and the Scriptures make it very plain, that there are a lot of desires that we have.

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There are a lot of cravings that we have. There are a lot of passions that we have. There are a lot of feelings that we have that are wrong.

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That sounds insane to the modern ear, that something that you want and desire with all of your heart, speaking at a human level, could very well be wicked.

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It's as natural as breathing for you to want something that God says is wrong.

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We all got to own this in the church. On so many levels, we have cravings, passions, and desires that are wicked and corrupt.

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That's a very offensive thing to say to the modern person. Then when we say not only that we stand condemned by the law in light of not only what we do, but what we think, feel, and want, but then when we pivot to union with Christ and sanctification and we begin to point out that there are these things that used to be true of us, that were detrimental and devastating to us, that are now being effectively changed and worked on by the power of God himself, that's also a startling message.

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It's very reasonable, though. Paul in Romans 6, again, I appeal to this. Toward the end of the chapter, he says, let's reason together.

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You know, when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness, meaning when you were serving sin, you didn't act like you had any obligation to righteousness, and you acted like you didn't have anything to do with righteousness.

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The flip is now true. Now that you've become a servant of righteousness and obedience by union with Christ, we ought not act like we're obligated towards sin, bound to it in any way, and we ought to act like we don't have anything to do with it.

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Then he goes on to say, let's just talk for a second. What fruit were you getting from sinning? What good was it doing for you?

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The answer to that is, well, nothing good. It wasn't doing anything good for me. Was that going to end well for you?

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No, not at all, actually. It wasn't. So that's obvious. Why would you continue to engage?

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Why would you continue to go there? Now, he says, you've been set free from sin and you've become slaves of God.

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You get fruit that's all kinds of good for you and all kinds of good for your neighbor. This ends in eternal life. It's so good.

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I think this is tough for people because we want to do what we want to do.

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The corruption of the flesh is real. We seek to justify ourselves in any way that we can, and we buck.

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Even as Christians, we can buck against what the law says and what the Scripture says. We want to make room for ourselves to indulge in a way that we don't feel condemned and we don't feel shame over.

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We react against it. For people to look at you and say that God is actually working to change you can be a difficult thing to hear.

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Though we would never talk this way in public, we hold it near and dear inside. Justin Perdue I think you and I would be offended if I came to you and I said,

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Justin, the way you are loving your wife, you need to be liberated from that.

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You need to be saved. You're like, dude, what are you talking about, man? That's how their mindset is.

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They change the gospel, and Paul warns against this. Jesus warns against this. Peter warns against this. They will come in and Paul says, if you hear another gospel than the gospel that I've proclaimed to you, then you're hearing a false gospel.

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My daughter is getting her undergraduate right now. She's at a secular school, and the professor proclaims to be a

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Christian. I think this is in her history class. Somehow they got up on religion and homosexuality and how he said he doesn't think it's a sin.

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It was interesting in that she witnessed a guy who was offended by the gospel and changed it.

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It was a great conversation the two of us could have on the way home where he was presenting his logic and how it works.

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Sometimes these people are violent and there's a lot of contention there, but sometimes these are people who are nice and logical.

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They're not trying to be evasive, but they flat out change the gospel because the gospel that's been handed to them is offensive.

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I think that as the media is growing and our culture is starting, the gospel is becoming more precise and more clear.

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There are more people who are proclaiming a clear, pure gospel. I'm seeing it.

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My kids have experienced this where they have kids that are now no longer the gender that they were born with, and they say that God's fine with it.

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I've never had so many parents come to me talking to me about the experience of their children, talking with other kids about homosexuality.

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There is a sense where the Christian community relates to premarital sex, things like this.

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I'm not a legalist, and I'm not saying that you have to perform in a certain way for God to accept you, but there is a difference between that's an offense before the

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Lord and you can have freedom from it and not believing in its offense. Justin Perdue Sure. A couple of final comments from me.

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First of all, we've said this many times. Sin is normal and it's not okay. We need to be clear on all that.

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Grace is not a means or a method by which we call something that's wrong right or by which we call something that's wrong okay.

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Grace is what God has given us to deal with real wrong, and that's important that we're clear on that piece.

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Even as you were talking, I want to be really clear. As a positive note, maybe to end the pod, at least for me,

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I don't want to be misunderstood. I do understand and I know you agree that because of our union with Christ and being made alive together with Him, we have been changed.

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Like Paul says in Romans 6 .17, thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart.

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God is doing this in you to the standard of teaching to which you were committed. Having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

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He's already told us before that sin will not have dominion. Sin will not win. We will be victorious in this project because of Christ.

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The inward corruption may remain. It's going to remain in us until the resurrection. The corrupt nature may prevail for a time, even in the life of a believer.

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But at the end of the day, the regenerate part will overcome because of the grace of God and the work of the Spirit of Christ in us.

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I want to be clear too. We are not immediately upon our justification in union with Christ. It's not as though we're a finished project.

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Our understanding is going to continue to change. Our minds are going to continue to be renewed so that increasingly we delight in God's law.

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We want to obey. We're grieved at the thought of offending the Lord, but we don't assume that this happens immediately.

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It's going to be a process over a lifetime where we're going to look different today and think differently today than we did five, ten, twenty years ago.

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We can be encouraged by that. We can see the promises of God in Scripture that we will be conformed under the image of Christ and that there is eternal security in Jesus as these kinds of things are taking place in us and as God is doing this work in and through us.

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We should take heart in this. Even if there are ways in which we cherish our sin and we have in our flesh a desire to sin, we ought not let that for one second convince us that we're not

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Christ's. Jon Moffitt That's right. Who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to Christ. Justin Perdue We should understand that this is the normal experience of the

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Christian and trust the Lord in it all. Jon Moffitt Amen. I would say hear, hear and amen to that.

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My encouragement to the person who might be struggling with some of the things that we have referenced, the fact that you're struggling and you know that it's wrong, cling tighter to Christ.

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Agree with God on your sin. Justin and I, before we record our pods, we always agree with God about our sin.

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This is why we ask Him for mercy and grace because we agree with God we're sinful beings. We're weak, we're frail, we fail you constantly.

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The moment you stop agreeing with God about your sin is a moment that you have maybe changed the gospel or forgotten.

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As it says in 2 Peter, you have forgotten you've been cleansed from your former sins. That's all

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I got, Justin. Jon Moffitt Well, we're going to go and record a second podcast that is referred to as our

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Semper Refemanda podcast. That's another related ministry of Theocast for our members, people who have partnered with Theocast to support us financially.

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That membership provides you access to some additional content, including this extra pod each week. It also gives you access to a community of people and even an app if you're into that kind of thing.

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I admit it, I wasn't a techie, but I do like the SR app. A lot of sweet saints in there and a lot of good dialogue and people helping one another and encouraging one another as we all grow in our understanding of the law and the gospel and confessionalism and the whole thing.

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I would commend all that to you. You can go over to our website Theocast .org and get all the information that you need about the

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SR membership and how you can sign up and all that good stuff. Jon and I are going to head over and have an extension of this conversation.

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I'm not 100 % sure what we're going to talk about, so I'm going to be surprised just like you. I trust it will be encouraging and we will talk with you should the