Is My Faith Legit? | Theocast

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Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we are talking about legitimate faith. We know a lot of you out there struggle.

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We know that because you share some of those struggles with us and you're wrestling deep down. Like, is my faith legit?

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Is my faith genuine? We're going to have that conversation today about what authentic, about genuine, about sincere, pick your descriptor, that kind of faith.

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What does that look like according to the scriptures and the confessions? We hope that the conversation encourages you in Christ.

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And over in Semper Reformanda, we're going to talk about our need for the church amongst a whole host of other things.

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Stay tuned. A simple and easy way for you to help support Theocast each month is by shopping at Amazon through the

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Amazon Smile program. When you make a purchase through Amazon Smile, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to our ministry.

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To learn how to sign up, just go to theocast .org slash give. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

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Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed and a pastoral perspective. Your hosts today are

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Jon Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, just south of Nashville.

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And I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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We are meeting on an unusual day of the week, Jon. Jon Moffitt That's right. Justin Perdue It's a podcast today. It is a Tuesday. It's a

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Monday in our world. And it's raining where I am. Jon Moffitt A lot. Justin Perdue Because that's just what it does these days.

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May the Lord's mercy be upon those in Louisiana who have been hit by the hurricane. Jon Moffitt Absolutely.

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Justin Perdue And yeah, I assume that we're experiencing some after effects of that. But anyway, man, we are doing something a little different today in terms of this intro segment.

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We're going to keep it brief because we do hear your feedback. Dear listener, we hear your feedback.

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And so we want to get right to the conversation, but we're quickly going to just give you a little glimpse into what's going on in our lives in particular, maybe what's going on in our pulpits and our respective churches.

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Jon Moffitt That's right. So we thought we'd start telling you guys what we're preaching about, things that we work on all week and we're excited for.

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So I've been just finished 97 sermons, and Jon, believe that or not, 97 sermons, so over three years.

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And just every summer we take a break and I do a series on the purpose of the church. So last week

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I did Shattered by the Church, those who have experienced kind of the downfall of what happens in a church that's not biblical and it abuses and hurts people.

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So we talked about that last week. And then this week we talked about Scattered Church where your evangelism and how we often are very confused on what is the mission, the purpose of the church and what we do and how we have even skewed what evangelism is.

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So we're going to continue that into next week and we're going to do a podcast on it soon too. So stay tuned for that. JP, what's been in your pulpit, man?

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JP Yeah, so I'm in an ongoing series through the book of Genesis. I'm doing it in 22 messages.

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That's what I've got it planned for. And I am a little over halfway through that series. The whole series has been great, just seeing

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Christ from Genesis and considering Genesis as a Christian, amen, and it's about redemption and all that good stuff.

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Last Sunday I preached the latter portion of chapter 25 to the end of chapter 27. So that's the whole scenario with Jacob and Rebecca and Isaac and Esau and deceit and trickery and all these kinds of things.

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And we see Jacob as kind of a punk. He's this deceitful, manipulative guy and everybody's sinful.

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Nobody is upright. Nobody wins. And yet the promises of God remain and the purposes of God advance.

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And it's very clear that he uses broken vessels and doesn't redeem us apart from our sin, but even through our sin and wickedness, he saves us.

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Just continuing to think too, man, about how much of a treasure the Old Testament is and how it's a wonderful gift from God, right?

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Like to help us as we try to struggle honestly against the flesh and live life in the church. Like even with Jacob, here's this guy who's a liar and a cheater and a deceiver.

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And God so loves liars and cheaters that he took on flesh and lived and suffered and bled and died to save us.

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And so… Tanner Iskra I'm so glad he did. Been really good, man. So, yeah, continuing on in Genesis this coming

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Sunday. Well, if you'd like to hear that, we'll put the links to either of our sermons down in the notes, the show notes, if you want to go and listen to those.

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They're also available on iTunes or any of your favorite podcasts. Tanner Iskra Our websites, whatever. Jon Moffitt Or YouTube. I know both of us are on YouTube.

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All that good stuff. So we just thought we'd share that with you because we're excited about what we're giving our congregation.

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But today is definitely an episode that I am excited for because I know that Justin has personal experience here, not only in his own spiritual walk, but also in counseling.

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And then the years that we have been doing Theocast, really, I saw a comment today on YouTube that made me think about this would be a great subject to have.

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Just someone who says that almost every hour of every day, they just cannot find that sense of assurance.

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Like, how do I know that my faith is genuine? I know I have faith and I know

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I believe in God, but how do I know that this is saving faith, that this I've not tricked myself that like we're going to look at,

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Justin, how do I know that I'm not like James, where the demons believe and tremble, but yet they're not truly believers or the person that Jesus says, depart from me,

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I never knew you. So we're going to have a conversation, first of all, talking about why

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I think this exists in the modern world, especially with the invention of YouTube.

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I think YouTube has caused a lot of problems with this concept or modern and podcasting.

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It's not that there's something wrong with YouTube in general, but just how popular this teaching has become. And then we're going to talk about it from a biblical and reform perspective of how one should find rest in Christ as it relates to their saving faith.

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But Justin, let's begin with kind of the problem that we're finding as the source behind those who struggle with their faith.

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Where is this stuff coming from? Justin Perdue Yeah. So we're going to do a little bit of identification and a little bit of deconstruction before we hope to pull people onto the solid rock who is

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Christ. So yeah, nothing happens in a vacuum, right, John? I mean, that's important to say. Whenever we're assessing the church, we have to assess the church inside the ebbs and flows and the movements of history.

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And some of that in the church is obviously theological and philosophical and methodological and all those kinds of big words.

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So the church in the last, what, 100, 200 years in America, because that's really what we're talking about here. We have people listening internationally, absolutely, and we praise

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God for that. We find ourselves in the situation in the context of the Western church, and so that's what we're really talking about.

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And we find ourselves particularly situated in the States and within the context of the evangelical church.

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And so that church, that movement has been characterized by a number of things over the centuries, and we outline those semi -regularly.

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But a couple of things that pop into my mind immediately, John, are revivalism, right, where we put this huge emphasis on the conversion moment.

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People need to make a decision for Christ. That's really what we're after. It's what we're trying to do and accomplish in the church is get these decisions, see people make these choices for Jesus.

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And then along with that revivalistic emphasis on conversion, there's an emphasis on the moral transformation of life as well.

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And so the American church has been characterized by this stuff for a long time, and you dovetail that with some of the things that were preached and taught in the latter part of the 20th century.

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We've talked about some of this stuff lately as we've critiqued Lordship Salvation. We've mentioned Zayn Hodges and some of these other people, some associated with Dallas Theological Seminary, others not, who in the 80s and 90s are at least recognizable figures in what we might call an easy -believism kind of movement, as it's called by opponents anyway, where the emphasis then, yeah, we need conversion.

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But what that looks like is praying a prayer and doing this one thing, making this one choice, this one time, and then based upon that one act of faith, a person is right with God forever.

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It's this mechanical transaction. Once saved, always saved, and you're good. Doesn't really matter what happens after that.

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Doesn't matter even so much if you keep believing either. That's another conversation for another time.

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So you put all this together, and there's been a lot that's happened in the American church over the last 100 years even, last 50 years, more pointedly, where the

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Sunday service has been aimed at the non -Christian. That's a big deal. The Sunday service is almost seen like a stationary

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Billy Graham crusade rally, where we're going to try to win the lost and see people walk the aisle and make decisions.

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And if we had a lot of decisions, that was a good service today. If we didn't have a lot of decisions, it wasn't as good.

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And so you see a lot of people making decisions in these services that are aimed at that outcome.

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And then a lot of times these people aren't baptized into the church. They're not discipled. They're not invested in.

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They're not watched over by pastors, and that's a problem. And so I say all that I've said up to now, as there have been many people, often of a

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Calvinistic ilk, who survey the church landscape, and they see all of that happening, and they say, man, there's a lot of bad stuff here.

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There's so many people who have been deceived, and they've been told that because they've asked

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Jesus into their heart that one time, or they walked the aisle, or they prayed the prayer, they've been told that they're good with God, but they're probably not good with God because what's going on is illegitimate, and they're not really

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Christians. That's what's perceived, right? They're nominal. They're Christian in name only.

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They're fakers. They're not the real thing. And so now, in order to love those people, we need to help them understand that they're fakers, and the church is full of them, and so we're going to smoke those people out.

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And yeah, you get a lot of preachers preaching that way, and you do, to your point, YouTube and podcasts.

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These are not bad things, but oftentimes what happens is videos go viral, and people are platformed, and they're saying stuff that's provocative and shocking and edgy, and it's like, oh, people are just attracted to that kind of spectacle, right?

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But then what that's done for so many people with a tender conscience in particular is you're already introspective, and now you start assessing yourself even more, and you're already questioning your legitimacy, and then you get an internet preacher, a famous celebrity pastor or something, telling you that you're probably not legit, and you're like, yeah,

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I always questioned that I was, and now I know I'm not. Well, they see themselves as the ghostbusters of the church, but they're here to bust the fakers.

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And I don't want to malign the intentions of people who preach this way.

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I think their intention is to… No, I assume the motivations are good. Right, they want to repent, but they have picked up on revivalism, and I would say pietism, something that the

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Reformers rejected. This is from our own book, Faith versus Faithfulness. This is Justin's section, but I think it's helpful.

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I just think I want to read it. It says, pietism could be defined as hyper -piety. Piety is good.

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This is what we want to do, but pietism, there is an overemphasis on the life of the

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Christian and what the Christian should be doing. So pietism begins with the question, what must we do?

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So when you read the New Testament, which we'll get into this in a little bit, when in the finished work of Christ, almost look at every single one of his epistles, the first section is always on the sufficiency and the work of Christ.

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Then he talks about in relation to that, once you are firm in your faith, he's always encouraging them in their faith, then he talks about what they should do.

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And those who struggle with their faith, it's reversed. They're always talking about what they need to do, and it seems like there's not enough time or there's no emphasis on the finished work of Christ.

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And so we are always pointing to the legitimacy of your emotions, of your affections.

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I mean, affections are a big thing. I mean, I've heard people say, if you don't desire to read your Bible, you should question your salvation.

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If you don't desire to pray, or if you don't hate your sin more today than you did yesterday, you should question your salvation because your faith is not genuine.

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True, genuine faith produces X, Y, and Z, whatever it is that they want to give you.

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And this can be seen in almost every brand of denomination that is out there, and it's really sad.

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I am guilty of preaching this way. When I first came out of seminary, when

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I was very young in ministry, I thought it was my responsibility to kind of set a fire underneath the youth of America and get them back on track of like, hey, listen, genuine faith means you're going to act like it.

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And then I had the list that I think was genuine and accurate of what everybody should be producing, and there weren't bad things.

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But the problem, Justin, always comes back to is, are we actually introducing people to what

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I would say soft Roman Catholicism? I mean, really, this is the doorway into works -based assurance slash salvation.

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Or some kind of easy listening legalism. Like you said, in bringing up Roman Catholic theology, it's important that people understand that Rome was never opposed to the talk of faith, ever.

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The issue in Rome has always been that it's always faith plus stuff.

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It's not that God saves you, it's that you and God together do this thing.

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That's the teaching of Rome. And Protestantism historically has said, no,

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God saves sinners. Like he does it. You don't cooperate with him to do it because if that's required of us, that's actually not good news at all.

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Yeah. I don't want to go off on that rabbit trail. You were going to say something, and then I wanted to follow up on something you said too.

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I think you have to be able to identify when a pastor is confused in two ways, which we'll get to, but they get confused on the law and the gospel, which we've done a podcast on this.

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Listen to the Law Gospel and Lordship series. The other thing that can happen is when there is only one level of Christianity, and that is whatever brand they're going to present to you, or there's only strong Christianity.

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And the more and more I engage in God's word, I am greatly encouraged to be reminded that God has people at different areas of their life and different journeys.

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Paul literally says he identifies strong and weak Christians. Galatians, you know, Romans 15, he says, those of you who are strong have an obligation to deal with the weak.

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So he has just identified there are those who are strong in their faith. He spent 14 chapters explaining what a strong Christian is, by the way.

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So we're not left dangling, not knowing what he means. And then when you even look at, a good example is even looking at Corinthians, when he's dealing with the

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Corinthian church, in the very first introduction to the passage where he's about to deal with some horrific sins, he identifies them as believers, but definitely confused.

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And then Ephesians 4, Paul says that the elders are to appropriately teach the congregation so they aren't tossed about by every wind of dockering or by human cunningness.

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Justin, what does that mean? That means we could be. It's very possible to be led astray.

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And so when you go and exegete a passage, right, when you look at a particular verse in the

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Bible and you're pulling it apart, I think it's also important that you exegete your people. And you look at people and say, are the people sitting in front of me rejecting the faith?

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Are they saying there's other ways to be saved outside of Jesus? Or have they been tossed about?

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Have they been led down a road with human cunningness? So do I need to snuff out the faker?

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But in either case, it doesn't make sense for me to trust anything else other than the gospel.

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Or, I mean, I might even frame it this way too, if you're talking about exegeting your people. Do you understand that you're pastoring a church?

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I mean, obviously I'm speaking as a preacher here, but like, and we're talking about preachers right now in one sense, right?

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And people listening to this podcast listen to preachers. So I trust this applies to everyone. But do you as a preacher understand that you are preaching to a congregation of people who have no interest in the things of God?

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Do you understand that you're preaching to people who have no desire to obey God's Word? Do you, or are you preaching to people who want to obey

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God's Word, want to be godly, want to love God more, want to love each other more, yet struggle to do so?

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And if it's the latter, which is what, it's what my church is, John. It's what your church is.

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That's right. If it's the latter, then we should preach accordingly, right? If you think it's the former, that you're preaching to people who are just flat out disinterested, then your message needs to be one, as we've said a million times, of law and gospel, not just of bludgeoning people and trying to unsettle only.

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But you need to preach law and gospel. But one way to highlight this, I think, the issue that we're trying to put our finger on today,

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I think it's indicative of a problem. It's illustrative of the issue when usually the question that's asked in the church context of people is always, what are you doing?

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Right? If you're going to talk about legitimacy in Christ, the question is always, what are you doing, not who are you trusting?

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That's right. And I might even say, who are you trusting and what are you trusting Him for?

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That's right. Like those are the questions we should ask people. Like if you're saying, is a person legitimate in the faith?

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Am I legitimately a Christian? Rather than asking them first off, well, tell me what you're doing and I'll tell you whether you're legit.

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I would rather say, well, no. Okay, well, who do you trust? What do you trust? In terms of you're a sinner, yeah?

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Okay, yeah. God's holy, yes. And He's righteous and just, yes. Okay. Well, who are you trusting and what are you trusting in and why are you trusting

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Him, you know, as it pertains to your standing before the Lord? Let's start there. You know, if we're going to assess the legitimacy of someone's faith.

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Because I think the interesting thing, John, is the answers that you get to some of those questions. Oh, yeah.

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Like who are you trusting? What are you trusting? And some people even in the church look at you kind of like, are you digging for a particular answer?

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Like they don't even quite know how to answer it because so much of what they've been taught their whole Christian lives is about them and about what they need to do.

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Yeah. Well, even saying to them, well, tell me the good news. Like what's the good news? Or you could say the gospel, but say, hey, tell me the good news.

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And they get done telling you the good news and you're like, that's not good news. That's bad news. Like if that's what you think is saving you, you're in trouble.

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And this is probably another podcast for another day is, you know, you ask people what the gospel is and they really talk, if they were to talk to you for five minutes about the good news, in reality, they talk to you for the majority of that time about the law.

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That's right. They talk about God creating everything, which is appropriate. They talk about, you know, everything being good and all that.

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And then the sin of man ruining it and the righteousness of God and God's requirements and all of that.

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But that is all law. And it's only in talking about the person and work of Christ, like who he is and what he came to do for us in our place, what he did that we could never do for ourselves.

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That alone is the gospel. And so sure, we need to talk about the law so we understand why the gospel is necessary.

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I agree with that. But the gospel is about Christ exclusively, you know, and it's very interesting how people have not been taught that and no, and it's confused to say that.

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That's right. I mean, you have second Timothy. I mentioned this in my sermon, but you know, second Timothy, where he

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Paul Warren saying you're going to have people who have itchy ears. And the problem is that the problem is not that people have itchy ears.

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The problem is that the pastors gave into it. That's the problem. And so you have people who don't know the gospel because instead of preaching

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Christ and him crucified and really bringing forth and bearing down on the law so that we might rest upon Christ, we teach them little laws and we teach them moral

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Christ, little laws, meaning you can obey them. And here's how Jesus did. Here's the thing about what here's what's great.

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This is what will lead us into what saving faith is. Here's what's great about the gospel, the good news.

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When you hear someone describe a miracle, you don't hear them describe it in such a way that there is something to be done.

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It's a miracle because they're like, it couldn't be. There's no way this was going to happen. There's no way it was good.

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You hear the impossibility, right? And then what's the good news about the miracle? It's like, and then this happened, right?

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So that's what the good news of the gospel is. It's like, there's no way you can save yourself. There's no way

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God would ever redeem you. And then guess what? Miracle. It's called Jesus transforms you by the power of the spirit.

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The gospel should always be good news. And really it's the good news of the miracle of regeneration.

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I mean, this is, I love how Jesus describes it to Nicodemus. He says, you must be born again.

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And that's a miraculous thing. And Nicodemus goes, I can't be done. He is, I love it.

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Jesus describes it as a miracle. And then Nicodemus goes, I can't perform that miracle. And he goes, now you're getting it.

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Now you see it. All right.

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So we're going to pivot. I think we've done a decent amount of deconstructing and identifying. Here's the situation.

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Like many people are being unsettled on the regular by either YouTube, podcast speakers, or maybe even their own pastors, who knows.

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Or just their own conscience. And that's always a thing. And Satan also is the great accuser of the brethren.

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So we've got a lot going on here. Our own consciences accuse us. The devil accuses us. And then oftentimes we have that piled on too by preachers that we listen to.

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Maybe even pastors that we sit under. And so we wrestle a lot with whether or not we're legitimate.

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And I think any of us, if we're honest, brother, ask this question at least from time to time.

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Is my faith legit? Is my faith genuine? I think that that kind of struggle and doubt is part and parcel of what it is to be fallen.

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And so in seeking to answer that question, there is a better way to go about answering it than by assessing what you're doing all the time or how you're feeling all the time.

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Not that we shouldn't think about those things. And there's a better way to go about this in the church than by just frightening people, frankly, on the regular.

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So we want to pivot now and talk some about what is faith and what is saving faith?

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What's genuine faith? I mean, fill in your descriptor there. What does that look like? How would we define that biblically?

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And is this whole understanding of like we're saved by faith, is that legit?

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What do the confessions say? And so that's where we're going to turn now. And then we definitely, I know I am excited to answer the objection from James chapter two in verse 19 in particular, that if you believe you do well, but hey, the demons believe.

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And so how many times has that been thrown at us, at people proverbially, right?

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That, oh, well, if you just believe, I mean, even the demons do that. And I'm like, well, if you understand faith the way that we're going to talk about it biblically and confessionally, the demons actually don't do that.

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So we're going to get to that. But so, John, let's start with the Bible and the confessions and just kind of popcorn some of these off.

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There's too many references to name, but we're just going to kind of speak some of these that come to mind. I'll start us off in John three really quick, and then you can pile on here.

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So you mentioned Nicodemus, right? And Jesus's conversation with him. It's a good place to start just thinking about faith and what does it mean to have faith?

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So Jesus is talking to Nicodemus and references Numbers chapter 21, you know, and the serpent, the bronze serpent that's lifted up on a pole.

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And the Israelites, when they look at that, if they look to it, they're healed from the snake bites they've received and stuff.

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So he says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.

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And he's talking about himself on the cross, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

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So whoever believes in the son of man who is going to be lifted up for the sake of humanity, whoever is believing in him will have eternal life.

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And then, of course, the very next verse is one of the most famous in all the scriptures. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

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And so we're believing in particular in a person. We're believing more pointedly in this son of man whom

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God has sent into the world. And our belief in him has quite a bit to do with the fact that he's going to be lifted up on a cross for our sakes.

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So we'll start the ball rolling with that, John, and give us the next one. Jon Moffitt Yeah, absolutely.

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So we have to boil this down to when Jesus says this, it's not in the sense where he is ignoring who he is, right, in the context.

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So when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, Nicodemus is not an ignorant Jew who has no concept of Jesus Messiah.

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And he even rebukes him and says, why are you asking me about this? You should know this. Why are you so surprised by my answers?

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Jesus is trying to help him understand, I am the fulfillment of the promises of God, right?

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There has been a promise to restore humans back to God.

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The first promise came to Eve and further explained to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and David, and the prophets all the way to today.

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And he literally, Jesus says, the law and the prophets are about me. I am the fulfillment of that.

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So when you ask yourself, do I have genuine faith? Can you look at Jesus and say, he's genuinely real.

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He genuinely came and was born of Mary. Mike Long Yeah, do you believe that Jesus is the plan of God to save sinners?

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Jon Moffitt That's right. Mike Long Like that he is the yes and amen to all of God's promises and that he, you know, Jesus understood himself to be that.

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And do you understand that this has always been God's plan to save his people through what this man, this

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God man named Jesus of Nazareth would accomplish? Jon Moffitt That's right. Mike Long That is the million dollar question, right?

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I mean, staying in John's gospel in chapter five, I mean, super brief flyover. You've got all kinds of epic stuff in that chapter, you know, where Jesus has said earlier in John five that whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.

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He says that and then he's going to go on and tell this Jewish audience that they search the scriptures thinking that in them they find eternal life.

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To your point, and it is they, the scriptures that bear witness about me. Jon Moffitt That's right.

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Mike Long Right. So again, it's about Christ. It's about the fact that everything that God's been revealing before he came was about him and that salvation was going to be accomplished by him when he showed up.

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And now he's calling people to believe in the testimony of God. But in particular, it's the testimony of God about him.

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And so he's saying, believe in me and what I've come to do. And then he even goes on to say that if you believe

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Moses, you know, who wrote the law, the Torah, if you believe Moses, you would believe what

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I'm saying because he wrote of me. So Romans 10, this is helpful.

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We're going to combine Romans 10 and John six together. Mike Long Why not? What wonderful passages of the Bible. Jon Moffitt Right. So Paul says

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Romans 10, nine, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

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For with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one's confessed and is saved.

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For the scripture says everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. Shame meaning you will not carry the guilt of your sin.

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And you need to understand he's using words like heart and he's using words like mouth. And the point of it is, is if you're willing to say,

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I will not identify with anyone else but Jesus Christ. I believe that his death and his resurrection are sufficient to receive forgiveness and righteousness from Jesus.

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That's what he's saying. If you're willing to confess that, you can know you're saved. Mike Long Romans 10, verse four, just a few verses earlier what you read, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

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So that goes with this, like he trusting him is our righteousness, right?

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Like, do you believe that? Or do you think that you need to keep the law? You need to keep the law to earn merit and righteousness in the sight of God.

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Or are you trusting Christ for that? Justin Perdue That's right. So then the question, Justin, is, okay, I hear what you're saying.

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And I know I believe that. Mike Long You teased John six out. Justin Perdue Oh, I'm going there right now. Mike Long Okay, bro. Setting it up, bro.

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I'm putting the ball on the team. We're pulling out the driver. We're about to put this thing in the fairway, man. Come on. Justin Perdue Put a peg in the ground.

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Keep it in the short grass. All right, here we go. Mike Long Yeah, we need some good golf course recommendations in Knoxville.

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Anybody can recommend one for us. Justin Perdue Hit us up. Mike Long But come on now. All right, so you hear, okay, guys,

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I hear you, John. I hear you, Justin. But I know there's people who say they believe in the resurrection of Jesus and they believe in all of this stuff, but they're not genuine

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Christians. They're going to get to heaven and God's going to say to them, depart from me. I never knew you. How do I know that my faith that I have in all of this data is not just in my brain, but as Roman says, it's in my heart.

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Like, how do I know that it's genuine faith? It's not just produced by head knowledge. And this is where John six comes in.

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You see, these people standing before Jesus, literally from John five, which you just read, they just saw

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Jesus feed 5 ,000 people, 5 ,000 from a loaf of bread. That, you have to understand the witness level of that.

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It wasn't as if there was a market nearby and they could have somehow shuffled that in there and it would have worked. You had them sit out in the middle of a field and all of a sudden, these disciples are walking out with baskets and they're all watching

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Jesus divide it. So, then they walk up to him and they're, go ahead. Justin Perdue And I just want to geek out for a second.

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Jesus has just miraculously walked on water. He's crossed a body of water. People are in a wilderness and he feeds them with bread from heaven.

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Jon Moffitt That's right. Justin Perdue It's like, screams, Exodus. But anyway. Jon Moffitt Exactly. And these people should see this.

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Justin Perdue Yeah. Jon Moffitt So, they go, they start, Jesus starts teaching and they kind of abruptly say, yeah, okay, so he's claiming to be the

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Messiah, but we know his dad. His dad's Joseph. Who does he think he is?

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And so, they walk up to him and they're like, all right, look, speak plainly. Tell us, are you the Messiah? And I just, there are scenes that I wish somehow we could, like,

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I'm sure we'll be able to talk with Jesus, obviously, personally, and say, hey, tell us about John 6, because that's like this epic part of the whole story of our salvation.

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And I'm just wondering if Jesus raised an eyebrow out of like, are you kidding me? Like, did you not just see what

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I did? Did you, have you ever seen anybody do that before? And there's a whole purpose for why

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John records this, because of verse 44. He says, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

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And what he's telling him is that you guys can see me produce power, not, you can't even explain, and you won't believe, because believing in me requires an act of the

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Spirit. This is John 3. The Spirit moves wherever he wishes. He's telling Nicodemus this. So, the reason

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I tell you this entire story is that if you can look at Jesus and say, without him,

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I have no hope, and I trust in him alone to save me, that, according to Jesus, is an act of the

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Spirit that has come upon you and opened your eyes and opened your ears and brought your stony heart to life.

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And you cannot believe on Jesus with faith unless it has been given to you.

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And you need to trust the Word of God when it tells you that. And this whole foolishness of, yeah, but how do

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I know if it's genuine? Jesus just told you it is genuine. And we talk about this a decent amount, like, how much faith is required?

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Any. PASTOR MIKE Can I read the confession here now? JARED Can I, I'm just, I'm going to cite

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John 640 real quick, and then you look up the confession. So, I mean, in light of all of this, I mean, just keep in mind everything that we're talking about right now.

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If you believe in Jesus, that did not come from you. If you're looking to him and saying, yeah,

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I need you. I need what you've done. I can't do it. You did it for me. And I'm trusting you and your righteousness for me and your death for me that you fulfilled the penalty of the law and that you've conquered death and hell.

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I mean, you are believing in Christ for the reason that he came and that didn't originate with you.

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And take comfort in this word from John 640. Jesus says, for this is the will of my

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Father. So, whenever God the Son steps up and says, hey, here's what the

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Father wills, we should listen because he knows what he's talking about. This is the will of my

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Father that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

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Like, God is not confused about this, and the Father is in this with the

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Son as is the Spirit, right? And faith is a gift of God. And if anyone is looking away from him or herself, away from his or her unrighteousness and works and all that, and looking to Christ for righteousness and forgiveness and eternal life, then it is the will of the

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Father that you be saved, and Jesus will see to it that you will be saved. Man, it's good.

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It's a good word, dude. PAUL That's right. So, for those that are new to confessions, these are documents that are extremely important to the history of the church.

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We have creeds and confessions, and these are always birthed out of controversy and confusion and heresy, and they are designed to help explain the

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Bible to the Christian and how they should interact with God and his word. And in the confession, these men who wrote this down wisely concluded from Scripture, this is chapter 14 .3,

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underneath saving faith, this faith may exist in varying degrees so that it may be either weak or strong.

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Amen. You know, we already gave examples of this where Paul says in Romans 15, right, strong faith versus weak.

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And I think anytime Paul is describing or the New Testament is describing a strong Christian, I think it's describing the person who is fully with deep conviction, trusting in the sufficiency of Christ.

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I don't believe Paul is talking about someone who is in performance well. Moral performance doesn't mean you have strong faith.

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That's not a one -to -one correlation. MIKE Yeah, I mean, if anything, I think to consider a strong Christian, I mean, in thinking of the language of Paul, right, and he'll use that strong and weak stuff a lot when he's talking about issues of conscience and Christian freedom and things like that.

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And the one that he calls strong is the one who understands that what

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I do when it comes to eating or drinking or those kinds of things actually has no bearing on my righteousness.

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PAUL That's right. MIKE Right? That's what strength means. It's that that person understands where his or her righteousness comes from, and that is from no other place than from Christ, you know.

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And so then the strong Christian, this is the irony, right, John? The strong Christian, if we're going to use that language, is certain that his or her righteousness and standing before the

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Lord comes completely from Christ, and then that same strong Christian who understands that reality is propelled by that knowledge of Christ to then go and love neighbor and pursue good works.

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PAUL That's right. Well, they see the joy of it. They see that to love God and neighbor brings forth joy.

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MIKE But they're not doing it out of slavery. You know, it's not bondage. It's freedom. PAUL That's right.

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So those who are strong in faith are not being deceived by the world. In other words, they're not being tempted to trust in their own wealth, their own health, their own actions.

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They are set free. The ultimate joy of Christianity is to be set free from the fear of performance and set our firm foundation on Christ.

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This is why we do this podcast. If someone's resting on Christ, I say this to my congregants, if someone is resting on Christ, they now have the energy to reach out and help others do the same.

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MIKE Yeah, the strong Christian is not only not being deceived by the world, they're not being deceived by,

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I'll say it, they're not being deceived by legalism and moralism. PAUL That's Colossians, right?

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MIKE Right, they're not being deceived by this stuff. They know from where their righteousness comes.

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They know where their security lies. They know who their surety is, to use the language of the old hymns, and his name is

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Jesus. And yeah, I mean, it's huge.

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So I just want to read very briefly again from chapter 14, just one sentence, and might unpack it for a second, and then

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I'll kick it back over to you. So this is also in the 1689 London Baptist Confession, chapter 14 on saving faith, paragraph two at the end.

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So this is right before what John just read. The principal acts of saving faith focus directly on Christ, accepting, receiving, and resting upon Him alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace.

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So just real quick, saving faith, it focuses directly on Christ. So it's about Jesus.

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You're looking to Jesus, if that's not already abundantly clear in what we've been saying. And then these words, accepting, receiving, and resting.

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So we are obviously believing things about Christ and what He came to do, but we are accepting what

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He has done. We're receiving what He has done in our place.

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And that means His righteous life, that means His atoning death and making satisfaction for our sins, et cetera.

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And then we are resting upon Him alone, so not upon Him and some other stuff.

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It's not upon Him and our affections. It's not Him and our obedience. It's not Him and our good works or Him and our desire to obey.

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We're resting upon Him alone for justification, so that's being declared just in God's sight, for sanctification.

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Holy smokes, you want to talk about something controversial? We're trusting Christ for our ongoing transformation.

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That's right, for He who works in you. Yes, and then we're trusting Christ for eternal life, which means glorification.

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We're going to be resurrected from the grave and conformed ultimately into Christ's image to live with Him forever in a new heavens and a new earth.

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And all of this by virtue of the covenant of grace, meaning it's not based on the covenant of works, the law, you keeping the law, you doing stuff.

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It's grace. It's unmerited favor, and it's mercy. You don't get what you deserve. You get better.

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That's faith. That's saving faith. I think a lot of this is birthed out of your perspective of the

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Bible. So Justin and I both espouse a covenantal perspective of God's word, and just if that's new to you, in the links, we have a whole entire free introductory class, five episodes on covenant theology.

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But the reason I mention this is this. Part of covenant theology is to look at the

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Bible from a redemptive historic understanding of Scripture, meaning the entire Bible is designed to bring about strong faith to the sinner who's trusting in God's plan to save them.

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Strong faith in the Savior. That's right. So from the moment that – I love

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Genesis 3 – from the moment that Adam and Eve fall, God approaches them. What's the first thing he does?

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He gives them mercy, right? Covers their shame. Well, he promises a Redeemer, and then covers their shame. Right.

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Well, he clothes them, right, and covers their shame, and then promises them a

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Redeemer. And what's interesting, Justin, is that we don't pay attention to this stuff, but he puts no requirement on them.

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No. None. The requirement was in the garden. They failed. They should have died. They should have been underneath God's wrath and forever abolished out of His presence.

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But he doesn't. He gives them mercy, and then he gives them grace. And from that point forward, they will never work their way back to eternal life.

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No. Jesus does it for them. He has to. That's the promise of grace.

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So the whole Bible is designed, as you read it, to say, I can trust God more.

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I can trust Him. I can trust Him. I can trust Him. I should never trust myself. I should never trust my good works.

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The law is designed to just scream at me, don't trust yourself. You are not holy.

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You are a wretch. And unfortunately, that's not how the Word of God is presented. It's presented of be like, look how you can be more like this.

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And you end up creating a place where it's just moral failure after moral failure, because you're trying to be like somebody that the

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Bible never told you to be like. So do we want to respond to the objection really quickly of James 2?

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Yes, I think we're going to do that real quick. We need to at least touch on it briefly. We will. And then in the

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Simple Referendum podcast, which we'll explain what that is in a minute, I've got some stuff we'll talk about as well. So let's get into James.

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Let's not waste any time. All right. I'm going right at it. James 2 .19. James says, you believe that God is one, you do well.

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Even the demons believe in shudder. And so what this is often used to do is to tell people that say, well,

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I believe in Jesus. It's like, well, even the demons do that. You better have more than belief.

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You know, if you're going to really stand before the Lord. And I mean, we could parse out some of the particulars here.

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And this is not the point. But you believe that God is one. OK, so like you understand somewhat

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Trinitarian theology, whatever, and you do well. The demons understand that. But let's just even say that in the mind of James as he writes this, it's like, well, the gospel, like you believe the gospel, even the demons believe in shudder.

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It's like, well, here's the thing. The demons understand facts. I don't think that demons and Satan fully understand the redemptive plan of God through history before it unfolded because they're not omniscient.

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Right. I mean, Satan didn't understand exactly what Jesus came to do. It's clear. He knew a lot, but he didn't know everything.

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All this to say, here's my here's my pointed answer. Even the demons believe it's like, all right, pump the brakes for a second.

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We just define what faith is. It is. It is believing in Jesus, but it is accepting and receiving and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification and eternal life on the basis of grace and not merit.

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All right. The demons do not have not will never do that full stop like end of conversation like no demon is trusting

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Christ is resting in Christ is casting himself upon Christ. That's what faith is.

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It's not cognitive assent to a fact that obviously that's included, but it's the issue again,

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John, of who are you trusting? No demon has ever trusted Christ. That's right. He hates him. I mean, so what in the world are we talking about when we bring this text up?

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It's like, well, you believe, but even the demons do that. The demons have never trusted Jesus for one second. And it's like if the saint sits there and trusts

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Christ for salvation, for goodness sakes, we're having, we're not talking about what the demons do.

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So like, stop anyway. Well, in a few weeks, I'm starting, I'm going to preach to the book of James.

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So those of you want to further explanation of that, we will provide that. And in that context, if you back all the way up to the beginning of chapter two,

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James is dealing with an issue where they are treating each other worse than the world treats each other.

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They are treating each other terribly. And he's saying, you cannot claim to know

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Christ and think this is normal or think this is how it's supposed to be.

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And we'll get it. I mean, John does the same thing. It was an issue of. But to use that verse to undermine the faith of a person who's sincerely meaning to trust

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Christ is absurd. It's just absurd. I think there are times when someone's faith should be put on the chopping block when they say, no,

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I can believe in Jesus and then completely go against scripture and I'm OK with it. And they're not ignorant.

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It's different to be ignorant. And then you confront them and like, oh, I didn't know that was wrong. I will repent now.

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It's a whole nother thing to say, I don't need to love my neighbor and I can still be a Christian. And James is saying, no.

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Or God says this is sin, but I don't think it's sin. But this is getting into that realm of like we've talked about before.

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Why does church discipline exist? It exists for cases of hard -hearted, unrepentant, stubborn sin.

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And so that's not what we're talking about at all. But for the average person sitting in the pew who's struggling against the flesh and is believing in the

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Lord Jesus Christ and doesn't feel all the time the way he wants to, doesn't do all the time the things she wants to.

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We ought not pummel them with, well, the demons. That's right. That's right. Well, we have more to say, Justin.

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Here's what I want to talk about, and then I'll let you tell us about Semper Firmanda since you are the host of the day.

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And you'll probably correct me. It's my job. I think we should talk about the way in which

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God has designed those of us with weak faith to find strength for our faith. I don't believe it's the intentions of God in his word to leave people in the weakness of their faith or doubting.

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So there are means by which God has given us, and we're going to talk about that from the Bible and from the confession.

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And Justin, where and why are we going to talk about this? We're going to talk about this in the

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Semper Reformanda podcast. So Semper Reformanda, Always Reforming, is another kind of joint ministry of Theocast.

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It's another podcast we do each week. There's an app for the Semper Reformanda members. There's all kinds of good stuff that goes on with Semper Reformanda.

49:34

Right, even as it's affectionately known as SR. And so if you're wondering, if you're new to Theocast and you're wondering what

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Semper Reformanda is, what membership looks like with respect to that, and how you might partner with Theocast to see this message of Christ spread as far and wide as possible, you can go to our website, theocast .org.

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There's all kinds of information over there. There's content over there. But some of the content over there is about Semper Reformanda, and you can figure out what that looks like, how to partner with us, and all the good things that SR, being an

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SR member, would bring you. And one of those things that you would get access to is this podcast that we are about to record. And we're going to continue this conversation over there.

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So for many of you, we'll chat with you again in just a moment, we trust, as you flip over to that private feed.

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And for those of you who may not be joining us on the SR podcast this week, we will talk with you again in this format next week, we trust.