November 6, 2019 Show with Jonathan Landry Cruse on “The Christian’s True Identity: What it Means to be In Christ”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carwile, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions and now here's your host

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County Pennsylvania Lake City Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com

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this is Chris Arnzen your host of ironsharpensironradio wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this sixth day of November 2019 and I have just returned last night from my trip to Long Island New York it was such a blessed time

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I thank all of you who prayed for that time away from my new home in Pennsylvania and back to my old home on Long Island and it was just such a joy not only visiting and fellowshipping with dear old friends that I've known for many years like a friend of mine

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Petrina Giordianella Corsetto she was the host of a

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Bible study in her basement in Lindenhurst Long Island New York when I was a brand new

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Christian and my very first pastor Mike Gaydosh of Calvary Baptist Church in Amityville Long Island led that study and there are so many fond memories and so many so many good times that were had there and so many learning experiences as a new

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Christian and so I had the lunch with her and her beautiful daughter Michaela and I had a great time of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram Long Island New York and his co -pastor

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Christopher McDowell and many of the fine folks there in that congregation they had the

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Bible conference that was the primary reason I was there the Spurgeon Fellowship Conference and it was just magnificent it was one of those conferences that proved that you do not need celebrities celebrity preachers to pull off a conference that is magnificent and edifying and with with the messages that will have lasting impacts on the audience for many years to come

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God willing and that was a conference that fit that category because none of the speakers were outside of Long Island were known at all likely they were local pastors who are part of the

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Spurgeon Fellowship and Pastor Bruce Bennett was one

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Pastor Micah McCormick was one Pastor Jim Capo was one my former pastor

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Mark Romaldi was one and there there were many other folks involved in the conference who who created it and and oversaw everything that went on and I just want to just want to say that I thank

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God that I was present there because it really was an edifying experience I'm apologizing right now ahead of time for all of you who

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I did not mention but I I just want to thank everybody on Long Island that made my visit there such a wonderful experience and I look forward to my return there

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God willing in December when my when my friend

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Pastor Jim Capo who I just mentioned a moment ago when he is retiring from the pastorate and moving to Florida and I will be

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God willing at his retirement celebration and looking forward to it very much and he he is one of my closest friends on the planet

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Earth and now that he'll be farther away it will be it will be a sad time that I will not have as frequent opportunities to share fellowship with him but I know that we

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God willing will stay in touch nonetheless and I just I just really thank

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God for my friend Jim Capo and well

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I I just want to say that if anybody is looking for an excellent Bible believing church on Long Island go to Hope Performed Baptist Church if you especially if you are visiting or living near anywhere in the

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Suffolk County area and their website is Hope Performed li .net Hope Performed li .net

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no I named two names just popped into my mind of speakers that I failed to mention my friend

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Anthony Eugenio the founder of New York apologetics what a masterful message he presented on total depravity and in fact one of my former pastors on Long Island Doug Totter was sitting next to me during that presentation and he leaned over to me and he whispered in my ear why does why do they need a preacher to give a message on total depravity they could just put your photograph up on the big screen up there so what

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I have a thick skin and that was very typical of my my friend and former pastor

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Doug Totter his sense of humor but also a brother that I believe is going to be a household name in Reformed Christian circles over the next years to come

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Eli Ayala I have had Eli on this program and I plan to have him back on the program

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I had never until this past weekend heard him give a full -length presentation or or I have never heard him preach a full sermon even though I have known him for a number of years and I've interviewed him and I was utterly blown away by this man's skill and abilities mark my words

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Eli Ayala is going to be a household name amongst Reformed Christians I would say within at least the next decade he is on staff as an apologist for the

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Historical Bible Society which is a client of Iron Sharp and Zion Radio and you will hear their advertisement shortly but now it's time for me to introduce my guest who's a returning guest looking forward to interviewing him again his name is

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Jonathan Landry Cruz and he's the pastor of Community Presbyterian Church which is an

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Orthodox Presbyterian congregation in Kalamazoo Michigan and today we're going to be addressing his latest book published by Reformation Heritage books the

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Christians true identity what it means to be in Christ and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharp and Zion Radio Jonathan Landry Cruz hey

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Chris thanks so much for having me on pleasure to be here and let me give our listeners our email address if they have questions of their own right now it's

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Chris Arnzen at gmail .com CHRIS ARNZEN at gmail .com

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please as always give us your first name at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter before we go into the topic at hand

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Pastor Jonathan can you please remind our listeners something about Community Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo Michigan sure yeah we actually just this past August celebrated our 40th anniversary you know is perhaps not that impressive for some churches that have been around before the country was founded even but for us it was a great milestone the praise

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God for that so 40 years and I'm the fourth minister that churches had we were able actually to bring two of the former ministers back for that service to celebrate

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God's faithfulness to us so we've been ministering here and worshiping in Kalamazoo which is in southwest

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Michigan about 40 minutes south of Grand Rapids for the last four decades now and I've been

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I've been serving here now for just I'm in my third year of ministry so we moved from Pennsylvania where I grew up out your way and then studied in Westminster West California and then accepted the call back in 2017 to be the minister of Word and Sacrament here at community great then

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I'm assuming if it's your 40th anniversary the church was was founded in the late 1970s correct and I was wondering where was the church always in the

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church denomination yes this congregation was we are occupying we own a building that was not though the building was built beautiful stone structure and sanctuary built in the late 40s actually as a

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Protestant Reformed Church which then was sold some years later to a

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Christian Reformed Church at CRC Church but both those denominations are quite prevalent out here in southwest

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Michigan I'm sure that the Protestant Reformed Brothers had to swallow hard when they sold the building to a

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Christian yeah I don't know I don't know how that all worked out eventually end up in our hands is the way

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I think we've been there late 80s in that facility so third congregation in this in this building but we've always been part of the

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OPC and yeah we're hoping maybe third time's the charm now at the congregation in this facility well if anybody wants to visit the the church of which we are speaking the community

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Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo Michigan if you live near Kalamazoo Michigan if you are vacationing there or perhaps you even have family friends and loved ones who do not have a good solid biblical church home and they live near there

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I go to Kalamazoo CPC org that's

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Kalamazoo CPC for community Presbyterian Church org and that's k a l a m a z o o

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CPC org and I am looking right now at the beautiful building that you were just describing on your website and that is indeed a gorgeous structure in fact it looks

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I know that you said it is a much more recent structure but it looks like it could be centuries old yeah they did a good job giving it a nice kind of ancient feel to it which is cool people are always surprised to hear it was built this in the in the 40s and I'm gonna give a shout out since you are an

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OPC pastor I'm gonna give a shout out to my very dear longtime friend pastor Bill Shishko formerly pastor for decades at the

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square now pastoring the Haven who sponsors this program you hear their ads every day the

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Haven which is a church plant of Pastor Shishko under the oversight of the

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church and that is in Deer Park Long Island and of course you'll be hearing ads for them in the program today as well

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I had such a blessed time a fellowship with my dear friend Pastor Bill on my very last day on Long Island before catching the train to Penn Station and then getting on an

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Amtrak to Pennsylvania but just wanted to give my friend Bill a shout out and I know that my guest today is familiar with him even though they have not yet met well we are going to be today as I said earlier the

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Christians true identity what it means to be in Christ and I think that it is important to define terms that we who are born -again believers and disciples of Jesus Christ frequently use because the world surrounding us are typically or is

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I should say clueless about these phrases and we sometimes become so familiar with these phrases they have become

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Christian buzz phrases and we have buzzwords and slogans and so forth that sometimes we in our ignorance fail to actually explain to those who are outside of Christ and we throw these things at them as if they already know what they mean and you know in fact

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I think a primary one that that Christians will often you know say to the lost that they meet are you born again you know you need to get saved you know and we throw these things at them and they just are looking at their lives they may be having they may be enjoying lucrative careers and they may be in a very happy marriage and they're saying it as though what do

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I need to be saved from what are you kidding me yeah I don't need to be born again I like the way that this first birth turned out just fine so we have to be more careful and concerned about explaining some of these main themes in the

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Christian life but first of all before I even go through these main themes and hopefully we'll get to all ten of these themes today but if we don't we'll just have you back and continue where we left off but what was the primary a catalyst in you writing this book to begin with oh thanks for that question yes so well you know that the primary theme is union with Christ and we will certainly unpack that a little bit talk more about what exactly that means but it's you know in short here it is what it means to be a

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Christian to be a Christian is one who by the Holy Spirit is drawn up and into Jesus Christ and everything that is his becomes ours and so it's a fundamental doctrine it's it is the fundamental doctrine of salvation and so that the book came about through a desire to explore that and teach that to my congregation in a sermon series and one of the things

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I've always found fascinating about Paul's letters in the New Testament is his love for the language of being in Christ he loves these little two -word phrases in him or in Christ or maybe sometimes in the

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Lord or variants like that and they're just these two tiny words and yet they're packed with such meaning and depth and so I wanted to dive into that I thought well this could be a good way to do that we can just we can just pick you know two of these or I mean we could pick some of these verses that have two of these words and explore what exactly it means to be a

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Christian but then the other thing Chris that that that kind of prompted this series was the subject of identity because that is a kind of a buzzword today it's a hot -button issue how does one identify themselves you hear people talking about that kind of thing quite a lot perhaps through you know sexual identity gender identity ethnic identity and it just struck me that you know this is something that we're talking about a lot today in our culture and push against the

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Christian message yet the subject of identity is one that the scriptures take up to and it's taken up in this language of being in Christ that is our identity so seeing that this was such a prevalent issue how people identify themselves

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I thought I could join these themes the theme of union with Christ and theme of identity to both present a picture of salvation to to others but also present a picture of what it means to to to be a

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Christian and what kind of identity we can own when the world is so adamantly trying to press their various identities upon us and to find our satisfaction in those those those those identifiers and labels so that was that was kind of the impetus for this it was something

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I thought could benefit my congregation something certainly would benefit me is I can often try to find my identity and things that are not are not beneficial for me you know identify myself by my successes or by my failures or by my looks or whatever it might be this is something

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I want to bask in as well this is something my soul needed so I needed it

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I thought my congregation needed it and then that inspired me to put it in book form to hopefully give it a wider audience and benefit other other readers yes isn't it a tragedy when those many of those who profess to be

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Christians choose to have other things about them sometimes parallel their identity with Christ in at least in their profession but sometimes even eclipsed that identity with Christ they their race and of course we know there's only one race the human race but their color of their skin that may be just as important to them or more important to them than their

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Christian identity in fact there is a a racist movement a white supremacist movement that is actually called

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Christian unfortunately very anti -semitic and you know paralleling the neo -nazis and the

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Ku Klux Klan and so forth and of course there are black counterparts to that in fact many of the black counterparts would even be found within our own reform circles where the the color of one's skin is being declared as something that should be nearly as important sometimes equally as important as our

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Christian identity and and we could go on and on and with that but being identified with Christ is supposed to make everything else pale into insignificant into insignificance isn't it

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I mean we're never supposed to lose our love for the people of our national and ethnic heritage perhaps we perhaps should even have more of a burden to reach people from our own family tree and our ancestry those of that ethnic background with the gospel although that's not a command that we do that but that may be a very noble activity that we are involved in and we may carry customs from our our ethnic and national identity into our own family life as long as these customs and traditions and ceremonies and celebrations do not offend

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God in any way or contradict with biblical principles but even though we are free and we have the liberty to involve those things in our

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Christian life they are to be really as I said before they are to pale into insignificance when compared to our

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Christian identity are they not yeah I think there's there's a lot of validity to that and that's what

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I try to unpack in the in the book you know I wouldn't say that that these things are are insignificant they're very important you know you know one's race or one's gender one sexuality these are all very meaningful things and our identity in Christ doesn't erase that those aspects about ourselves but it says he said it's about this priority our identity in Christ is meant to be the fundamental identity that will and claim every other identity that we could possibly have but you know like put another way our identity in Christ is the lens through which every other identity becomes accountable so you know it's not necessarily an issue to have a gender identity the issue would be having a gender identity that the

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Lord does not recognize as virtuous which is the big problem with you today same thing with you know racial identity when those things become as you said parallel with Christ or even eclipsed

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Christ as opposed to being in submission to Christ or subordinate to Christ so it's it's not that they're unimportant they actually find their proper level of importance when we have a proper understanding of the primacy of union with Christ and so that way people aren't that define themselves we mentioned things like race or gender but even things like their career or being being a parent you know parenthood is a wonderful blessing and a calling but mom or dad was never meant to be you know who we are in an ultimate sense and with marital relationships you know husband or wife it's not who we are in a fundamental sense in which it's so easy to it's so easy to elevate those things make them idols as Christian you know certainly as non -christians we don't have really have anything else to claim as our identity except these temporal leading things but even for Christians how often we find our worth we find our value our meaning in what we do for our job from 95 and when that starts to kind of give way we think like who are who am

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I I've lost my job now you know what what is the point of existence or we find our identity in in our marital relationship and then that relationship if it you know

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God forbid starts to rupture and there's issues there we kind of we our heads start spinning and we feel the floor go up from underneath us and we wonder you know who am

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I what's life all about and this is what having a proper conception of who you are in Christ something that can never change never be taken away in making that the

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Christians identity Jesus who he is what he has done that will bring into conformity all of these other ways in which we can tend to to label ourselves or or identify them ourselves which are not necessarily bad in and of themselves but we can make them bad or we can we can remove the virtue from them when we elevate them to the place of Jesus right and of course in regard to our genders we we cannot even though we even though we can never physically change our genders even though there is a claim there's a claim by multitudes globally that we can and it is a lie it's a lie from the pit of hell but we should be seeking to honor

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God and glorify him in that gender that he created us and fulfill our roles according to those specific gender so I didn't mean to suggest that that area of life is we're to be ambivalent about it or something no absolutely not yeah and and you know when we when we find our identity going with this gender issue which is such a big one today sadly isn't it

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Chris but you know if we go with that if I recognize that that who

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I am something that's true of me no matter what circumstance I'm in or whatever is when

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I recognize that who I am is really who Christ is making me to me making me to be you know you think of Galatians 2 20 where Paul famously says that it's no longer

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I who lives but Christ who lives in me in the life I now live I I live for the

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Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me when we recognize that that's who we are that's our life that's what life is about we're going to say okay now let's take an issue like gender

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I'm going to do what Christ wants from me in terms of how

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I how I might identify myself and you know and so there are

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Christians who struggle with these kinds of things we want to be sensitive to that of course and we want to point them back to find your sufficiency find your all find your satisfaction

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Jesus Christ when you do that then those issues of gender identity or conformity to what our culture has to say about our about gender will really start to fade away as you've said they'll begin to pale in comparison well before we go to the break why don't we start off with union with him and of course for speaking of Christ yeah well that's that's the starting place in the book that's chapter one it serves as an introductory chapter and and what

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I seek to do here is it's really just lay the foundation for the issues a lot of what we're talking about already but why this is this is a book worth writing and reading so so you know

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I kind of surveyed the identity crisis in our culture how how the self has been elevated to kind of a sacred place it's all about the individual today we kind of live in this me centered movement and that's where these issues of identity come out of you know identity is very much kind of individual mystic language so I kind of explore a little bit of what's going on in the culture and how the answer to that is this doctrine union with Christ and which is what is unpacked in the subsequent chapters but just to give give an overview of it union with Christ is it is the central truth of salvation

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John Murray once said it's hard it's beautiful to look at these quotes from from these old professors and theologians they just could not speak highly enough about union with Christ Murray said the central doctrine of salvation and Calvin said it deserved that the highest degree of importance and John Owen 17th century theologian

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Puritan John Owen said union with Christ is the measure of all spiritual enjoyment and expectations one of my favorite quotes in the book and so you ask you what would make these pastors and theologians say such grand things about the doctrine of union with Christ and as you realize it that what they understood about union with Christ is that it's getting to the heart of what it means to be a

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Christian that's why it's so important being a Christian is nothing if it's not being united to Jesus and and receiving all of the benefits of his perfection of his merits so union with Christ is is kind of the foundation of everything else every other blessing that we receive in the

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Christian life without union with Christ there are no blessings there is no hope there's no salvation but what

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I'm what I'm seeking to set up there in this first chapter is that it is the answer for everything we need not only for for salvation for eternal life but it's everything that we need to have a satisfying life in the here and now to have a fulfilling identity and a secure and grounded identity not in anything that we could accomplish not anything we can do but in everything that Christ himself has done amen and don't you think that there are identifying marks that although we will never have infallible omniscience on this earth there are marks that we should look for when someone claims to have union with Christ and I know that one of them is grossly and sadly and tragically overlooked today and that's union

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Christ's people there are many mavericks and lone wolves out there who think that perhaps this is an overreaction to the heresies of the

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Roman Catholic Church that places far too much emphasis on the necessity and role of the church being the the vehicle that it ministers salvation and way oversteps the bounds that God gave mere humans but at the same time there are many

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Christians that have run so far away from that idea that they think that it's really inconsequential and material unimportant not necessary for a believer of professing believer in Christ to be attached to his body to be a part of his body and what

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I mean by that is his people to be a member of his church to be submissive to the elders of a of a congregation that has been founded on the

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Scriptures and on Jesus Christ himself and and I run into people like this all the time who think that they can be free to just follow

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Christ on their own in isolation apart from having any responsibility or submission to a local church and this is a fallacy isn't it there's nothing like this that's ever found in the

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Scriptures you're absolutely right Chris it's such a important point that needs founded in today's culture there is no such thing as union with Christ that does not also entail communion with his people you know the

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Apostles Creed is famously called this the communion of the Saints that is part of what it means to be a

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Christian so so union with Christ although you know we're talking about identity and as I've already said identity is kind of this it's it's the obsession with it is is an overflow and an outpouring of our obsession with ourselves in culture the fact that everybody loves to talk about identity just shows that there's such this turn inward in our society you know we live in the kind of like you do you world or or that the age of the selfies everything is just individualistic so we're talking about identity and and I wanted to be careful in this book that people didn't get the wrong impression that I'm saying you can take that same mentality and just kind of sanctify it with a few

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Bible verses about what it means for you to be in Christ and so I have a whole chapter there in the book on on being in him means you are one in him with with everybody else who has put their faith in Jesus so that that's that's kind of the doctrine that of communion with the

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Saints this idea of whoever is united to faith with by faith to Jesus Christ when I put my faith in Jesus Christ Holy Spirit unites me to him but the

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Holy Spirit also unites me to everybody else who is united to Christ there is there's one

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Christ for every believer and so if the the idea of Lone Ranger is it's oxymoronic it's it's it is not the way that Scripture sets forth certainly you know we look at the pattern of the early church and we can just see there's no descriptive argument for for Lone Ranger Christianity beyond beyond the the evidence of how the early church function just the doctrine of salvation makes no sense apart from a communion with other

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Christians so the community communion or community is where we came from you know the only malediction that God made during during the creation week it's not good that man is alone we were made for others we were made for community and when we look in places like Revelation we see that that's not just what we were made for it's what we're remade for it's where we will end up also such as where we came from it's where we're going in in the new heavens in the new earth where there is a multitude that cannot be numbered surrounding the heavenly throne singing praises singing the everlasting song if that's where we came from and if that's where we're going certainly that kind of community is something that we should be pursuing here and now and so union with Christ does not excuse one from from membership in a church from an active in a vibrant and a thriving relationship with other

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Christians it's the exact opposite and so you know one of the things I want to stress in this book is that what it means to be in Christ is it means that you are part of a body you're part of something that's bigger than you so the

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Christians true identity is is really a corporate yes and it's interesting that soul of Tarsus the

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Christian hating zealot Jewish zealot who was persecuting

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Christians and having both men and women executed for their faith in Christ Jesus Christ from heaven stops him in his tracks not with the rebuke soul soul why are you persecuting the church he actually says why are you persecuting me and that show that shows you the close identity that Christ has with his body namely the church absolutely yes perfect point well we have to go to our first break right now and as I said before if you have a question send it to Chris Arnzen at gmail .com

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CHR is a RNZ and a gmail .com and as always give us your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter don't go away we will be right back after these messages from our sponsors when iron sharpens iron radio first launched in 2005 the publishers of the

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or call 631 -696 -5711 that's 631 -696 -5711.

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Tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Quorum, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

42:40

Hope Reformed Baptist Church.

43:46

I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries and my friend Christopher McDowell. Chris Arnzen and I are excited to be attending another

43:51

G3 conference together in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th on a theme that is vitally important to all of us,

44:00

Worship Matters. I'll be on the speaking lineup with Eric Thomas, Joel Beeky, Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, Phil Johnson, Tom Askel, Votie Balcom and the world -renowned preacher, teacher and author,

44:11

John MacArthur. A fascinating new addition to the roster is Kosti Hinn, nephew of the notorious false teacher,

44:19

Benny Hinn. Kosti has repented of the word -faith heresies of his youth and is now a Reformed Baptist pastor and cessationist in California.

44:27

Come join me and Chris Arnzen at G3 2020, January 16th through the 18th in Atlanta by registering at g3conference .com.

44:36

That's g3conference .com. See you there. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen.

44:42

If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is Jonathan Landry -Cruz, pastor of Community Presbyterian Church, an

44:49

Orthodox Presbyterian congregation in Kalamazoo, Michigan. We are addressing the Christian's true identity, what it means to be in Christ, and if you want to join us, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

45:02

chrisarnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

45:07

Give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the U .S

45:12

.A. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Before we go to any listener questions,

45:20

Jonathan, do you have anything further to say about the union with Christ?

45:25

I know that we could spend several two -hour episodes just on that, but in consideration of the fact that we want to get to as many of these main themes as possible, we have to obviously summarize, but do you have anything pressing that you want to say about union with Him before we go on to chosen in Christ?

45:46

Yeah, I think you're right to be cautious there. If you give me the opportunity, I'll probably keep going on for this program.

45:54

We'll keep coming back. I mean, the whole book, as we look at these other themes, what it means to be a

46:00

Christian, what the Christian's identity is, being chosen, being pardoned, it all comes back to the doctrine of union with Christ.

46:06

So we'll keep on touching upon this important theological concept and life -giving doctrine more and more,

46:13

I'm sure. Yeah, well, this second theme is so precious because it basically guarantees the eternality of this union, that He chose us.

46:28

The majority of Christendom, sadly, at least in the 21st century, has definitely got the idea, the overly -emphasized aspect of we choosing

46:41

Christ, and that we are the ones that really, through the final switch, that determined our eternal destiny.

46:52

And while I believe that even compatibility with the doctrines of sovereign grace and Reformed theology, we do choose

47:06

Christ after He has given us new hearts, but before that ever happened, before we were even born or a thought in our parents' minds,

47:16

He chose us in Him. Yeah, absolutely, and that's where I wanted to start.

47:25

You can't get any sooner than, as you mentioned, eternality, so we start with this idea of our identity actually beginning before the foundations of the world, which is a staggering thought, a mind -blowing thought, but to be a

47:45

Christian means that we were in the mind of God, we were part of the eternal mysterious counsel or wisdom of the triune

47:57

Godhead before time even began. And that is to say that it was part of God's good pleasure, good plan and purpose, that He would set

48:08

His affection upon not just a people, not just a kind of anonymous, kind of faceless mass of humanity, but on each and every one of us specifically.

48:23

He knew our name and He loved us, the Scripture says, with an everlasting love, a love that can't be defined by the boundaries of time.

48:37

And so, who am I as a Christian? I'm a Christian who has been chosen from before the foundations of the world.

48:46

And that's meant to be a very reassuring concept. A lot of people argue about this and make it more perhaps academic, and it seems like what kind of practical relevance can this have, but I hope as people read the book they see that the whole point of this chapter in bringing out the idea that our identity is being chosen before the world began is meant to show us that we are loved even when we feel lonely, that we have a place and we have a purpose in life even when we feel aimless and like we're wandering.

49:26

The fact that we're chosen means that not only has

49:31

God loved us, but God has a plan for us and He desires us, which is a wonderful thought when you consider our sin and our shortcomings.

49:41

Yet, seeing us in the perfections of Christ, God has set His love upon us and He has brought us to Himself.

49:48

And that's meant to bring great comfort to the Christian. Yeah, you touched on something that has become, or when

49:59

I became a believer in the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, it has become something so revolutionary and so vital to my way of thinking as being a primary source of my peace of mind and my comfort.

50:14

It is that Jesus Christ specifically and purposefully chose me, not as you were saying, some kind of faceless nameless sea of humanity indiscriminately chosen, but individuals.

50:36

And one of the things that I have learned as a

50:41

Reformed Christian is that there are many Christians in the Reformed faith who do a lot of complaining about modern -day

50:51

Christendom being too self -focused, too individualized, not enough emphasis on the corporate body of Christ, and so on.

51:02

And I agree that that is true, that there is very dangerous concepts being promoted under that umbrella.

51:11

But, at the same time, when it comes to the Atonement, when it comes to the redemption that Christ provided on Calvary, even in His unconditional election of those who are

51:23

His children, the fact that when I really discovered and fell in love with the doctrines of grace, after militating against them initially, after coming to Christ, when

51:37

I began to view Christ on Calvary, not just trying to save everyone, this nameless, faceless sea of humanity on the globe, just hoping that these nameless, faceless people would come to Him and trust in Him and His death provided for them, that did not occur.

52:06

It was Jesus dying for specific individuals that He redeemed and completed that act.

52:16

He said it is finished. This was a finished and perfect work, and it will with certainty, at some point, be applied to the one of these people for whom

52:30

He died. That revolutionized my thinking and made my faith in Christ more precious, my view of what

52:39

He did for me something more cherished. And I could go on and on myself, but if you want to pick it up from there.

52:48

Well, you're absolutely right, and something that some people might struggle with as you kind of grapple with that doctrine, if somebody finds themselves in the position that you used to be in where you're kind of militating against it, it doesn't seem right.

53:04

One of the things that maybe we're not open to admitting, but one of the things that makes it a hard doctrine to accept is we think about ourselves honestly, and we think about the decisions we've made, things we've accomplished, and we know our sin.

53:19

You know, something we have to get over is the fact that, you know, why would God choose me? There's nothing about me that is desirable.

53:28

And this is where this idea of being chosen has to tie in with the doctrine of union with Christ, being in Jesus, because God does not choose us in and of ourselves.

53:40

He does not choose us in our sin. He chooses us in His Son.

53:47

And so that means that when Jesus came, you know, when the second person of the Trinity took on flesh and blood and came and walked on this earth,

53:56

He was representing us. Everything He was doing was for us.

54:01

And God looks on Him and He sees something that is desirable. He sees perfection. He says, this is my

54:08

Son with whom I am well pleased. And when we put our faith in Him, we become well -pleasing sons as well.

54:16

We are seen in Christ, and so when God chooses us, it's not an arbitrary decision. It's not a bad decision, because we're so sinful.

54:25

It's the best decision of all, because He's choosing His Son. And we are in His Son. He chooses that which is best, that which is perfect, that which is lovely, that which is pure and righteous, because He chooses

54:36

His perfect, His beautiful, His righteous Son. We do have a listener who is choosing to remain anonymous, who says,

54:48

I am grappling with this concept of unconditional election. On the one hand,

54:54

I routinely hear Arminians accuse Calvinists of believing in a

55:01

God who arbitrarily chooses those whom He desires to save, and at the same time,

55:08

I hear the Calvinists totally opposing that as a slander, saying that God does nothing arbitrarily.

55:17

But it seems to me that if there is nothing desirable in humans that would make

55:23

God choose us, how do we get around the arbitrary accusation? Right.

55:32

Yeah, well, it really is, you know, what I just said, the scientific argument and the idea of, it's not an arbitrary decision when

55:39

God is setting His affection on Jesus Christ and those whom are in Christ by faith.

55:45

Those people who say, I want Jesus, I want all that's in Him, I recognize there's nothing in me that is worthy or that is lovable from God, but I see that everything that I need is in Jesus, so I want

56:00

Him. That's faith, right? That's saying, I'm forsaking all that I have and I'm taking

56:06

Him. That's faith. In that moment, the Spirit produces that faith in us, we are united to Christ, and election is all about God choosing

56:14

Christ, about God choosing His Son, God saying, this is the perfect one, and we want to be in Him.

56:24

So it's not arbitrary, it's about His careful love and attention for those who are part of, mystically, who are united to Jesus, His Son.

56:35

We have to pick up right where you left off there when we come back from our midway break, which is a lot longer because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

56:42

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires a longer break in the middle of our show because they need to, according to FCC regulations, localize

56:51

Grace Life, I'm sorry, they have to localize Iron Trump and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida, and therefore they air their own public service announcements during this long break when we air our globally heard commercials.

57:05

So please be patient with us, we apologize that we always have to have this longer break than normal, but remember folks, without the advertisements that you hear on this show, this show would not survive, it would not exist.

57:17

So please use this time wisely, patronize our advertisers as frequently as you can, and one way that will further ensure that you can do that is if you write down the information provided by our advertisers, so that way you can remember to reach out to them and successfully reach out to them and patronize them, and patronize them as often and as generously as you can.

57:42

Also write down questions for our guest Jonathan Cruz and send them to Chris Arnzen at gmail .com.

57:47

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back with Jonathan Cruz after these messages from our sponsors.

57:55

Got to tell you, for my money, Chris Arnzen's radio program is just the best.

58:02

I think that's what it's called. This is

58:07

Todd Friel of Wretched Radio and TV with Phil Johnson of Graced U, inviting everybody to come to the

58:14

G3 conference, which has almost instantly become one of the best conferences in the country. And it is.

58:19

It's a great conference. I love it. And Chris Arnzen was there last year. He's been there, I think, every year.

58:25

It's great to see him there. You and I actually did some recordings in the lobby at that place, which is a highlight for me.

58:31

So tons of stuff going on. Tons of great speakers. And no matter where you are in the building, you will hear Chris Arnzen's laugh.

58:37

And that's worth the price of admission alone. If you would like to join Phil, me, Chris, and a cavalcade of great preachers, so it should be a cavalcade of great preachers, and me, g3conference .com,

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g3conference .com. And now there's even more exciting news. John MacArthur himself is now also on the lineup at the

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G3 conference, Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th, 2020.

59:05

Go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com. See you there. Hi, this is

59:11

John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the

59:18

Arn Sharpen's Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions, while always defending the key doctrines of the

59:30

Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast, knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.

59:39

I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise.

59:45

And yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time. And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

59:56

I'm pleased to do so, and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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Arn Sharpen's Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's

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Did you know that all believers are priests? In 1 Peter 2, verse 9, the Apostle Peter describes

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James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know

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That's P -T -L -B -I -B -L -E -R -E -B -I -N -D -I -N -G -D -O -T -C -O -M. I'm so grateful to our sovereign

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That's 904 -955 -9881. Tell Pastor Andrew that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew bibles tattered and falling apart?

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01:11:44

Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here. I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.

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Consider the Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword.

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Dan also has a master's degree in theology. Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states.

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He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

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He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more, and in approximately 10 different states.

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Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.

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Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:13:16

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Welcome back.

01:13:22

This is Chris Arnson. Before we return to our interview with Jonathan Cruz on The Christian's True Identity, we just have a couple of important announcements to make in regard to special events that I hope you join me in attending.

01:13:39

The first is coming up next month, December 19th and 20th, Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th, right in Manhattan, which in my opinion is the best place to be visiting during the

01:13:52

Christmas season. And that will be right in the heart of the Christmas season in New York City, December 19th and 20th.

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And the conference that I'm speaking of is the Foundations Conference, an extraordinary conference organized and hosted by sermonaudio .com.

01:14:09

And they are very particular, and rightfully so, about who they invite to speak at conferences, which ensures that these are excellent conferences and true to His Word, and that there are gifted men to exegete the scriptures to declare and defend these glorious truths.

01:14:28

I hope you join me. This is restricted actually to men in ministry leadership. They can only hold less than 200 people at this venue in Manhattan.

01:14:37

So if you are a man in ministry leadership, I hope you join me Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th for the

01:14:43

Foundations Conference. The speakers include Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, Paul Washer, Rev. Jeff Thomas, Rev.

01:14:49

Armin Tomasian, Richard Colwell Jr., and Andrew Quigley. If you want to join me Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th in Manhattan for the

01:14:57

Foundations Conference, go to thefoundationsconference .com, thefoundationsconference .com. Then in January, from Thursday, January 16th through the 18th, 2020,

01:15:08

I will be attending once again the G3 Conference, which stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory.

01:15:14

This is being held once again at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.

01:15:22

And it is always a phenomenal and extraordinary experience to be present at the G3 Conference.

01:15:28

And this will be my fourth time there, manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Trip and Zion Radio. The speakers include, once again,

01:15:35

Dr. Stephen J. Lawson. We have Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, a dear friend of mine since 1995.

01:15:42

Phil Johnson, the Executive Director of John MacArthur's Media Ministry. Grace to you.

01:15:48

Who also happens to be the most frequently interviewed guest on Iron Trip and Zion Radio in our history. My dear friend,

01:15:54

Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Radio. Another dear friend, Dr. Tom Askell, whom I have known for many years.

01:16:00

He is the Executive Director of Founders Ministries, the Calvinistic ministry in the

01:16:05

Southern Baptist Convention. Stephen J. Nichols, the President of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late

01:16:14

R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. And of course, not only are many others on the roster, but a man who has been the latest to be added to the roster is

01:16:25

John MacArthur himself. And I would go to the G3 Conference, even if he was on that roster all by himself.

01:16:32

I'm looking forward to that with bated breath. The theme is Worship Matters. If you want to join me there,

01:16:39

Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia for the

01:16:46

G3 Conference. Go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com. I strongly urge you to register for an exhibitor's booth as well if it indeed applies to you.

01:16:57

If you have a business, if you have a parachurch organization or anything else that you want to promote to the body of Christ in large numbers, why not register for an exhibitor's booth?

01:17:07

Just like I will be manning it for the fourth year in a row. And they always have over 5 ,000 people at the

01:17:14

G3 Conference. So it makes it well worth your investment to register for an exhibitor's booth. This year,

01:17:20

I am very confident, I can't guarantee this, but I'm very confident with John MacArthur added to the lineup, they're going to have over 6 ,000 people.

01:17:28

It's just a guess, but it's an educated guess. So if you want to join me Thursday through Saturday, January 16th through the 18th in the

01:17:37

Georgia International Convention Center, College Park, Georgia, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com

01:17:43

and register to attend. And also if it applies to you for an exhibitor's booth.

01:17:48

Last but not least, if you love Iron Trip and Siren Radio, you don't want us to disappear from the airwaves, which we are likely to do if we do not receive more financial assistance.

01:17:59

Please, I'm urging you, go to ironsharpensirenradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

01:18:07

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01:19:21

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01:19:54

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01:20:08

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01:20:24

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01:20:32

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01:20:48

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01:20:55

and put I need a church in the subject line. And that's also the email address. You can send in a question to our guest today,

01:21:01

Jonathan Cruz, and that email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:21:07

And as always, remember, please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

01:21:12

USA and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

01:21:17

And by the way, I just remembered that our anonymous questioner, you have won a free copy of the book that we are talking about,

01:21:26

The Christian's True Identity, What It Means to Be in Christ. So please send me an email with your full name.

01:21:34

Obviously, it won't be disclosed on the air because you remain anonymous. But send me an email with your full name and your mailing address so that's cvbbs .com,

01:21:43

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can ship that out to you. And we want to thank

01:21:48

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com for always shipping out the winning items, the

01:21:58

Bibles and the books and the CDs and the DVDs and everything else our listeners win when they submit questions.

01:22:04

We thank them for shipping those items out at no charge to us or to our listeners.

01:22:09

And we also want to thank Reformation Heritage Books, the publishers of The Christian's True Identity for providing these books for our listeners so that we can ship them out at no charge to you or to us.

01:22:23

And just to give a plug to our wonderful friends at Reformation Heritage Books, their website is heritagebooks .org,

01:22:30

heritagebooks .org. Going back to your statements before we went to the break,

01:22:37

Jonathan. Obviously, I know that there is great mystery involved in some of these monumental issues of faith, including unconditional election.

01:22:50

But although, obviously, God the Father is choosing and electing

01:22:57

Christ and those who are in Him, our being in union with Christ is also a miraculous and glorious free gift of God that we, in our deadness in sin, cannot voluntarily participate in until we have a new heart.

01:23:19

And the only people who get new hearts are the elect. So going back to the baffling question, how can we sustain a view of God electing people without considering a foreseen faith that we will introduce into the equation, which is basically something good that God would see in us?

01:23:44

We know that, as Bible -believing Reformed Christians, that God does not elect on the basis of seeing anything good or lovely or desirable in His elect.

01:23:54

So how does the arbitrary accusation against what we believe about His election be removed?

01:24:04

Yeah, it's a good question. We understand why it's something people grapple with.

01:24:12

I guess we have to come to it, first off, we have to come to it with humility. Who can know the mind of the

01:24:18

Lord, or who can be His counselor? Paul cautions us in Romans chapter 11.

01:24:27

But we don't want to make election a cold doctrine, a lifeless doctrine, or a doctrine that doesn't seem to make any sense.

01:24:38

And the only way we can do that is through the lens of election in Christ, in Jesus, in the perfect, pleasing

01:24:48

Son. And this is what makes it a beautiful doctrine, that God would be pleased to choose us, even though we're sinners, even though there's nothing desirable in us, even though we've done nothing to merit it.

01:25:02

It's beautiful that He would send His Son to represent us, to stand in our place, to do all that which is necessary, to be desirable of God.

01:25:11

And therefore, when He chooses us, He's not choosing us in and of ourselves,

01:25:17

He's choosing His Son, which is, we would never want to say that's an arbitrary decision. That's a blasphemous thought, to say that God choosing

01:25:26

His perfect, pleasing Son is arbitrary. It's not. And that's why

01:25:31

Calvin has said that we can't understand the doctrine of election, or find assurance of our election if we look for it in ourselves.

01:25:44

We won't understand it, we won't be able to conceive it. We have to look to His Son.

01:25:50

He says Christ is the mirror where we must, without any deception, contemplate our elections.

01:25:56

We have to look to Jesus to make sense of it. It's so mysterious, as we look to the Gospel, what work

01:26:02

Christ has accomplished for us. And then we see that in the Gospel, He's given us new hearts, He's made us new people, and He's conforming us more and more to the image of His Son, that we would be people who live up to, quite literally live up to what it means to be chosen in Christ.

01:26:20

Pete And in fact, most people would understand that when parents who adopt children, especially when you are considering parents that adopt seriously disabled children, they may have birth defects, they may have really horrific scars, and all kinds of things that your average couple would overlook those children, they would have no interest in adopting children like that.

01:26:58

And yet there are people, there are Christians and others who look upon these children in orphanages, and they say,

01:27:07

I am going to set my love upon that child, I'm going to raise that child in my home as my own child, and this child or these children will have the benefits of my parental love that no other children in the neighborhood, in the city, in the state, in the country, or in the world will have.

01:27:28

These children, even though there was nothing outwardly or even inwardly beautiful or alluring or something that would draw a parent to say,

01:27:41

I've got to have this child in my family, there might even be some really arduous trials and challenges and things that are going to be required to adopt this child or children.

01:28:00

They have set their love upon these children to the exclusion of all others.

01:28:07

Now, I'm not saying that these parents wouldn't have affection and a level of love for any child, but they do not share liberally their parental love, their unique love with anybody else but those children that they adopt.

01:28:25

And I think that even though that human allegory is always full of part analogies, there is still some remnant of connection there.

01:28:37

Yes, and it magnifies the love that they have for these helpless children, which is certainly in that sense a fitting analogy.

01:28:48

And this is why election is supposed to be a freeing doctrine, recognizing that God's chosen us and we don't need to do anything for it to be chosen by him.

01:28:58

It's of his own choice, nothing that we've done, because how often do people try to find their own worth in, or worth in their own accomplishments or the trophies they have on the shelf or the number of likes and shares they get on Facebook or how popular or attractive they are, and then they end up disappointed because those things can never satisfy or fulfill, because none of those things can give us a true or lasting sense of value or worth.

01:29:24

We can never accomplish enough. We can never do enough. But the gospel sweeps all of those poor attempts to find worth in ourselves, in our own works.

01:29:34

It sweeps all that stuff away when it announces the news that the God of the universe freely sought us out and set his heart on us in love and chose us.

01:29:44

And that's a Christian's identity, one who is chosen. Amen. We do have a listener in Greensboro, North Carolina.

01:29:53

I'm sorry, not in Greensboro. Let's see here. Where did that questioner go?

01:29:59

Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina. Grady says, Great show, brothers

01:30:05

Chris and Jonathan. The more I realize I was chosen before the foundation of the world, the more it grieves me when

01:30:11

I sin. It also makes me want to seek forgiveness quickly. Shouldn't this be our response being in Christ?

01:30:19

Absolutely, yeah. This actually moves on very nicely into the next chapter of the book.

01:30:25

Right after being chosen in Christ, I explore how our identity is those who are pardoned in Christ.

01:30:33

Our identity is of those who have forgiveness. And as this listener is getting at,

01:30:44

I think rightfully so, knowing that's who we are, knowing that we have been forgiven in Christ, not forgiven because, you know, we've done something to earn forgiveness, but forgiven and pardoned because Christ paid our penalty, and that's who we are.

01:30:59

When we recognize that, we're going to want to live out that identity and pursue forgiveness. And not just forgiveness, but then repentance and reconciliation, and to live in a manner as Paul says, worthy of the calling to which we've been called.

01:31:13

So these all go together. I mean, the book is loosely structured around, here's another phrase that we throw around sometimes, this is a real

01:31:22

Reformed phrase, the Ordo Salutis, which is a Latin phrase, a theological term, which means you can kind of hear it, the order of salvation.

01:31:32

And it's just talking about kind of the logical progression of the application of salvation to the life of the believer, and the way in which salvation kind of plays out in our lives.

01:31:44

And it begins with, well, as we experience in our lives, once we have faith, we're justified.

01:31:53

That's the first thing, we're pardoned. And so that's why, after talking about election, which is something that happens outside of time and outside of our personal experience, we talk about being pardoned, we talk about being righteous in the next chapter, and then adopted, sanctified, preservation, glorification.

01:32:10

These are the orders, the order in which the blessings of salvation come to us. And so they all flow from one from another.

01:32:18

And starting with election, we can then move, as Grady was mentioning, to pardon and to forgiveness, which are as in Christ.

01:32:28

Yes, the great controversy that divides brothers and sisters in Christ, the

01:32:36

Ordo Salutis, for our listeners who are unfamiliar with that. One side, those who would not share our theologically -reformed convictions, would say that a saving faith, a faith that pleases

01:32:53

God, can somehow be summoned up by a sinner from his dead and sinful heart in order to become born again.

01:33:08

And of course, there are different understandings amongst the non -reformed about how much God's grace is involved in that.

01:33:16

There are some Wesleyan Arminians who have an understanding of provenient grace.

01:33:23

And of course, you have Roman Catholics who we believe, if you adopt the official understanding of the gospel as laid out in the

01:33:35

Council of Trent, we as heirs of the Reformation believe you have a false gospel because it includes men, at least in part, earning and meriting their salvation.

01:33:49

But we who are Reformed, we believe that man is totally depraved, from conception, and that means every part of him is tainted with sin and enslaves him to sin.

01:34:04

And therefore, he cannot even offer to God a saving faith, a true faith, a trusting faith, unless he has a new heart given to him first.

01:34:14

Absolutely, regeneration. Right. And so the faith comes after the regeneration.

01:34:22

It comes after the new birth because in the old man, we would not want to choose

01:34:30

Christ. So that's just a little summary of what that controversy is about. And by the way,

01:34:36

Grady, thanks a lot for your excellent question and make sure we have your full mailing address in Asheboro, North Carolina.

01:34:42

So that's cbbbs .com and ship out that free copy of the book to you. And we want to thank you also,

01:34:49

Grady, for being such a faithful financial supporter of Iron Trutman's Iron Radio. Uh, going back to pardoned in him.

01:35:00

Uh, it, it, it also goes back to the certainty and the definite nature of what we who are reformed believe about salvation, about forgiveness, about redemption.

01:35:18

Uh, it is not that God offers us a possibility or a potential or a hypothetical salvation.

01:35:29

He has with certainty and with perfection accomplished our pardon and our redemption in our salvation on Calvary.

01:35:41

And, uh, therefore it is truly, uh, mystifying other than the fact that men are fallible and, uh, finite how they could view

01:35:53

Jesus as pardoning, uh, people with perfection on Calvary.

01:35:59

And yet in their minds, there will be still millions and billions and perhaps trillions or quadrillions of people in hell.

01:36:08

Nonetheless, those two things don't really make sense. Uh, I hate to say that those who are full -blown universalists have more truth or a logical understanding in their scenario.

01:36:20

We would believe that it is false and it is heretical, but it is more logically consistent to believe if you, if you have in your theology that Christ died for every single individual who ever lived, then that, then it makes sense that they would believe that every single individual who ever lived would be saved.

01:36:38

This, of course, is false. Uh, so therefore it has to be that that Christ only died for an elect people.

01:36:45

And I'd like you to pick up on that as far as the pardoning. Yeah, I mean, the pardon is, is

01:36:53

God's gracious gift to his children, not to, uh, the world indiscriminately.

01:37:01

He offers it to those who are in the world as we are before we are, are transferred from the domain of darkness as Colossians puts it, and brought into the kingdom of his beloved son.

01:37:16

But it is, it is something that does not belong to everybody. It's something that Christ accomplishes for those who are united to him.

01:37:24

So we come again, back to this doctrine of union with Christ. So what, what I can know as a

01:37:30

Christian, uh, one of the assurances I have as a Christian that non -Christians cannot share, um, until they put their faith in Jesus.

01:37:38

One of the things I know is that my sin cannot condemn me. This is what Romans 8, 1 says.

01:37:44

And this is here. We find one of those beautiful little places where Paul uses two words, right?

01:37:49

In him, uh, or in Christ Jesus, right? There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

01:37:57

And that's one of my favorite verses in all scripture, uh, one I need to tell myself over and over again.

01:38:03

Uh, but notice what it, what it doesn't say. It doesn't say there's therefore now no condemnation, period, full stop.

01:38:10

As though God wipes out any and all kind of conception of judgment or wrath against sin.

01:38:16

Which would be the universalist understanding of salvation. But it doesn't say there's therefore now no condemnation because Christ has come.

01:38:25

It says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ. And the reason there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ is because he took that condemnation for us on the cross.

01:38:35

He was punished for us so that we could be pardoned in him. So no, it is not something that is, um, that is given or received by the whole world, but only by those who by faith are, can be said, are in Christ.

01:38:49

Those are the, those are the ones who, who know this, this freedom of not being condemned and indeed knowing a full and free pardon.

01:38:59

The next, uh, theme, main theme in this discussion and in your book is righteous in him.

01:39:08

We are who, those of us who are the, of the elect, uh, and who become born again by his grace and mercy and power, we become righteous in him.

01:39:20

And this is where there is a huge divide, uh, between those who are heirs of the

01:39:27

Reformation and those who are in the Roman Catholic Church and also in world religions, uh, that would say that our understanding of imputed righteousness or forensic justification, they would say that this is all based on a lie, that, uh, that it is, it is wrong for anyone to believe that a human is righteous just because of the grace of Christ alone and his imputed righteousness.

01:39:59

They would say there must be righteousness innately, actively involved in a human in order for them to be worthy of heaven.

01:40:09

So this is like a big, this is a very serious issue that divides, uh, those that claim to be children of God.

01:40:17

If you could, uh, pick up where I left off. Yeah, well, uh, I hope that if, uh, people are able to, to get their hands on the book and, and open it up, that I'm able to, to deal with this.

01:40:29

Like you said, it's a big issue and it does cause great divide, but deal with it in a, in a manageable way, something that's, that's not overly heady and practical and understandable.

01:40:39

But, but really, we have to come to the recognition that, um, the recognition that none is righteous.

01:40:49

No, not one. As Paul writes, quoting, uh, the psalmist, and, and, um, that, that is the reality of all humanity when we are in Adam.

01:40:59

That's, that's the idea. We're talking about being in Christ as Christians, but if we're not in Christ, we're, we're in someone else. We're in Adam.

01:41:05

We're marked not by Christ's perfection, but by Christ, but by Adam's imperfection, by his failures.

01:41:10

So we don't have righteousness in, inherently in us. It's something that needs to be achieved, that needs to be earned, that needs to be, uh, merited.

01:41:19

And we can't do that because of sin. But Christ, the sinless one, has earned it for us, and he gives it freely to us in the gospel.

01:41:27

And so this is the message of Paul in 2 Corinthians 5, 21. Another beautiful verse with those two tiny but powerful words says, he made,

01:41:38

God made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

01:41:47

When we are in Christ, we are seen as perfectly righteous as he is. That's how, that's how intimately, how deeply united we are to him, that all of his perfections are seen as ours.

01:41:59

And as that verse also intimates, our sin, our failure is given to him.

01:42:06

It's this great exchange that happens, where he takes our filth, and he gives us his righteousness, his robes.

01:42:14

And, you know, Zechariah 3, I'll just direct your readers, or your listeners, to read that chapter.

01:42:21

It's a beautiful illustration of this idea of an exchange, where God in Jesus Christ dresses us and robes us in his perfection.

01:42:32

So that's part of the Christian's identity. Again, it's a freeing identity. We don't need to attain this righteousness on our own.

01:42:39

Unlike, as you mentioned, the Roman Catholic notion that this is something we can work up to, and something that we're striving after.

01:42:50

That's oppressive. We never can, and it's discouraging to say the least. But to know that all the righteousness

01:42:55

I ever need is already found in Jesus Christ, that gives me peace, that gives me freedom, and that's what gets me ultimately to heaven.

01:43:04

That's how I can enter into the new heavens and the new earth.

01:43:11

You know, my sin would bar me and keep me outside, but to know that I'll be righteous in Christ is what brings me access to the

01:43:20

Heavenly Father in the new world. Amen. And the reason why it's a great exchange, and I love that glorious, historic phrase, is because not only does

01:43:30

Christ cloak us with His righteousness, but He takes upon Himself, on the cross, our sin.

01:43:40

And He takes upon Himself the deserved punishment of that sin and His propitiatory sacrifice where He turns the wrath away from us and has it poured upon Himself from His own loving

01:43:55

Father. And therefore, there is a great exchange. And I thank God for that exchange because I know that I would never spend an eternity with Him without it.

01:44:07

And we have to go to our final break right now. And I know we have several of you still waiting to have your questions asked and answered, so please be patient.

01:44:17

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. If you intend to send in a question, do so now because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:44:25

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away.

01:44:31

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back and we have a question from Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania for our guest

01:53:03

Jonathan Cruz and he says, Pastor Jonathan, can you please help me better explain to my

01:53:10

Roman Catholic friends that they are incorrect when they make the claim that if we believe in salvation by grace alone through faith alone, we have no other alternative than to believe that unrepentant wicked people who never truly follow

01:53:30

Christ and obey him will still be in heaven nonetheless. I try my best to explain to them that those who are truly born again will bear good fruit, but my arguments never seem to be successful.

01:53:43

Can you give me some help? Yeah, that's a difficult question.

01:53:52

I suppose a common objection. I'm assuming, I think what I'm trying to understand from the question is that the

01:53:58

Roman Catholic objection that if salvation is by grace, people continue to live godless or unrepentant lives.

01:54:06

And they'll still go to heaven. And obviously it doesn't help matters when there are multitudes of professing evangelicals who do teach that.

01:54:16

They do teach. In fact, some of them would even say that we who are Reformed are heretical because we insist upon repentance as a vital element in salvation.

01:54:29

And they will say that we are adding works just as the Roman Catholics do. But that is a canard.

01:54:35

It's a straw man. And it's not a genuine element of our belief because we...

01:54:42

Go ahead. Yeah, I was going to say that where I would direct the listener is

01:54:47

Ephesians 2 seems to me to be the best place. And part of it, one of the errors in the question is they admit that we're saying by grace through faith.

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And so it's not just that it's by grace. The formula is by grace through faith in Christ.

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So those who have faith in Christ will produce Christ -likeness.

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The Spirit will produce Christ -likeness. They will live out and exhibit the good works that God has prepared for them beforehand, which is

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Ephesians 2, 7 through 10. And so it's not as though we're saved by grace, that God decides that He's not going to punish sinners or require anything from sinners.

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It's just grace in that sense. It's grace which is only apprehended and received when we have faith in the

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Son of God. And so that's the answer to this claim that we're saying that anybody, it doesn't matter their lifestyle, is going to heaven.

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We're not saying that. We're saying it requires faith. In real faith, true faith is going to be accompanied by repentance.

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We don't believe in an easy believism, you know, where, yeah, I believe in Jesus. I don't need to change my life.

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That is not the Christianity that Scripture holds out for us. And so you see this whole pattern in those verses in Ephesians 2 where it's

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God's grace to us through faith in Christ that then produces the work that He has prepared for us to do.

01:56:13

Harrison, please make sure you give us your full mailing address because you've also won a free copy of The Christian's True Identity.

01:56:19

And if you could, I want to give you three minutes, Jonathan, to summarize what you most want etched upon the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:56:27

Yeah, thanks a lot. My desire in this book, as I mentioned, was to address a lot of these identity questions that are becoming prevalent in our society.

01:56:40

It is a big issue. It's a hot button issue, but it's by no means a new issue or a new topic.

01:56:46

And I think people would be surprised to learn that a book, even as old as the

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Bible, the Holy Scriptures, address this topic of identity. And actually, it addresses the topic quite often.

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In fact, the very first thing that the Bible says about humanity is that we're made in the image of God.

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That is an identity statement. That means that's who we are. We are those who are made in God's image.

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And although sin comes into the picture and ruptures that and mars that image, and this is why we have the identity crisis that we see today, people trying to find meaning and value and worth in temporary things, in fleeting things, trying to find eternal satisfaction in things that are fading away.

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That's all because of the Fall. But God does not leave us to this identity crisis.

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There's a cure to this kind of restless wandering that we see in our society, and it's to find stability and satisfaction and security in Jesus Christ and who he is and what he has done for us.

01:57:54

So what I want people to see is Christianity is meant to give us freedom and peace that we can know who we are, and it's not based on our accomplishments.

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It's not based on our failures. It's not based on our jobs. It's not based on our race or on our gender.

01:58:13

It's not based on any of these things that the world loves to label us by. It's based on the person of Jesus Christ, and when we know that, we will be truly satisfied.

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We will be truly fulfilled, and we will be able to go out and to enter the world with a freeing sense that all we need for a fulfilling identity is found in Jesus Christ, and we have that, and that's going to be able to inspire us to go out in the world and to serve the

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Lord with invigorating passion and love, but we need to know that freedom that is ours in Christ, and know that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

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Know that we are new creations in Christ. Know that we're adopted in Him, that we will be glorified in Him. Let's know all that.

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We won't be bound up or tripped up by all these different categories and labels that the world tries to throw at us, and that's going to free us to be able to point people, point the world, to the goodness of Jesus Christ.

01:59:17

Amen. And folks, if you want to purchase The Christian's True Identity, which is published by Reformation Heritage Books, please go to cvbbs .com,

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our sponsor, because cvbbs .com carries all of Reformation Heritage Books' titles, and if they happen to run out, they will certainly order it for you.

01:59:37

And I want to thank you, Jonathan Cruz, for being our guest today. I want to thank everybody who listened, and we'll be inviting

01:59:44

Jonathan back to explore The Christian's True Identity in greater depth, since we didn't have time to cover all the aspects.

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But I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.