NOT Sinning Is NOT the Purpose of Your Life | Theocast

Theocast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:04

Hi, this is John. We need you to stop sinning, but for a reason, well, we're going to give that to you.

00:10

And that's the whole point of the podcast today. There's more to life than just not sinning. And it is a great conversation because to be frank, it's hard.

00:18

This war against the flesh and not sinning. If it's just to, because that's a hard battle to win.

00:24

But if you have something that is far more beautiful and significant and you have a reason to fight and wake up every day to do that, and that's what this podcast is about.

00:32

And in SR, which we don't mention always, but I will this time, it gets fun and lively. And we even talk about an old hymn called stand up for Jesus.

00:40

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

00:49

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

00:56

Thanks for listening. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to find their rest in the sufficiency of Christ.

01:16

Amen. Today, if you want to know what we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about, we're going to clarify the gospel and reclaim the purpose of the kingdom from a pastoral and confessional and reform perspective.

01:27

And your host, if this is your first time tuning in is Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church. If this is your first time, welcome.

01:33

Yeah. Welcome. In Asheville, North Carolina. So if you may not know, if you live in Asheville, you may looking for a church, go visit them.

01:39

I'm John Moffitt. I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Yeah, you are John. And it's good to have you here.

01:46

A couple of things about Theocast. If you're new, you may not know. We do have some merch, which is pretty cool.

01:54

You can go check that out, stickers and hats and shirts and books. We got books over there.

02:00

Things like that. Before we recorded, I had something I wanted to mention about Theocast, and I can't remember what it is now.

02:07

So we have a church finder. If you haven't added your church, there's almost 65 churches in there now that are like -minded with Theocast.

02:14

If you're looking for a good church around the United States, there's one outside the United States so far. And then

02:20

TheocastU is new. You can check that out. And I can't remember what I was going to mention, so we're just going to keep going.

02:26

I'm sure it'll come to you, John, and you could always just throw it in at the end. I mean, we could just do a little announcement sandwich, man.

02:32

Yeah, probably. What else do the people want? You know? Sounds good. A couple weeks, Justin and I are going to be together. I'm going to come visit him in Asheville.

02:38

So I'm looking forward to that. By the time this releases, who knows? Yeah. By that time, yeah. Be right on us. All right. Well, that's it. That's all the announcements

02:43

I got, JP. I can't - I don't know if the 828 can handle it, John. You rolling in?

02:49

Anyway. It's been a minute. It'll be fun. Yeah. Good times. All right. We are going to record a podcast today. And this is our second recording today.

02:56

Maybe we're feeling a little punchy or a little slap happy or something. I don't know. Oh, I remember what it is.

03:01

Can I say it now? Go. Yeah, please. Hey, so one of the things we're going to start doing, we have a weekly email. It comes out every Wednesday. Same day the website comes out.

03:08

And in that - John's talking at 1 .5 speed right now. And in that email, we're going to be talking with you and we have a project for you. We are going to be providing a weekly recommended reading list.

03:17

So we're going to add a new book or article that we would say, this would be helpful for you to read. How about that?

03:23

How about that? And so if you haven't already, again, if you're not on our email list and you want to be, just go to our website, go to the bottom of the website and you'll see, join the recommended reading list and you'll get that weekly email.

03:36

All right. I tell people in my church all the time, there is no reason for you to ever read a bad book. Like you should just come to your elders.

03:41

Like we stock our bookshelf. We use church funds and stock our bookshelf in our church offices to be able to give books away. And it's like, just come to us and we'll have to give you books.

03:49

I need to do that. Anyway. Can you just send those books to my church so I can do that too? Maybe. All right.

03:54

So we did. Like I said a minute ago, we're here to record a podcast. That's what the people are tuned in for. That's right. We've actually been pretty efficient.

04:00

We've bantered a lot. You've gotten all your announcements done and we're just barely over three minutes in. Three minutes. There you go. So anyway, the title of today's episode is

04:08

Provocative. So not sinning is not the purpose of your life.

04:16

Number one, we're not shock jocks. That's not what we're trying to do. Number two, we're not antinomian. We actually love the

04:24

Lord's law and we, by God's grace, through the ministry of Christ's Spirit in us, we seek to live in accord with it.

04:31

That's right. Amen. We uphold the third use of the law. We think it's great. Having said all that, there's an observation that John and I have made, not unique to us, but this is the podcast that he and I host together.

04:42

We have made this observation that oftentimes in the church, broadly speaking, the

04:49

Christian life and the purpose of the Christian life, either stated this way explicitly or it's implied through the teaching and the posture and the tone, it's as though the purpose of the

04:59

Christian life and the great end and aim of the Christian life is not sinning. In other words, abstinence from sin is the pursuit, the purpose, the goal.

05:12

It's the high watermark of the Christian life in sanctification, abstaining from sin.

05:21

The pod today, we want to highlight this, but then we really want to move on and have a conversation about, well, what in the world is the purpose of the

05:29

Christian life, biblically speaking? What are the things that we should be focused on? What are the things we should be pursuing?

05:35

I think this needs to be stated, John. Abstinence from sin or pursuing a moral life are not distinctly

05:44

Christian things. I understand that God's law and how we might define it, there are some differences here, but just humor me for a minute.

05:53

To say that abstaining from this act, this act, this act, this act, do not do the following.

05:59

To say that that is the purpose and the high watermark of your religious life, man, there are

06:07

Muslims all over the planet that would agree with that. There are Mormons all over the planet who would come in and shame us all because not only do they not drink alcohol, they don't drink coffee either because caffeine's a problem.

06:21

I was having a conversation recently. It's interesting that Mormons and Seventh -day Adventists and others,

06:27

I'm not lumping the two together, but I'm just saying, Mormons and Seventh -day Adventists and people who advocate for kinds of works, righteousness, and are very law -centric, a lot of these people are highly successful in life.

06:39

They crush it in terms of life on earth. Even life expectancy in the

06:45

Seventh -day Adventist world is longer than the average American. It's all kinds of things that we can point to and say, look, if what we're talking about is abstinence from sin and moral lives, at least on the exterior, and things that are kind of good for you in the here and now, maybe they're on to something.

07:02

But when it comes to what we are called to, this life is fleeting, John. This life is passing away.

07:09

We need to be redeemed. The creation needs to be redeemed. The Lord Jesus needs to return. The heavenly

07:14

Jerusalem needs to come down. We are living right now in light of the world to come. Given that that's the case, surely there is more to our

07:23

Christian living than just abstaining from sin. Our answer to that question is, you better believe there is. There's a lot of stuff that we need to concern ourselves with and should, and it doesn't have so much to do with us.

07:36

That's a thing that we've got to own because we all tend to be very myopic. We all tend to navel -gaze a lot.

07:42

We all tend to be very self -absorbed, and we focus a lot on ourselves, how we're doing, what's going well, what's not going well, all that.

07:49

Some of that's okay, but we're called by the Lord Jesus Christ to other pursuits.

07:56

We're called to love and serve and minister, and there's a purpose to it. We're going to channel our inner

08:02

Rick Warren today and talk about the purpose of the

08:08

Christian life is more than absence from sin. Having done that,

08:14

John, let's go back to the original creation,

08:19

Adam and Eve pre -fall. The purpose of their life was just to not eat of the tree. That's not what

08:25

God said. It was a part of it, but they were to govern creation.

08:32

They were to care for creation. They were to garden. Adam had a priestly role in the garden, where he was to work and keep it, and enjoy

08:41

God and glorify Him. There was a proactive nature to the life, and part of that was not to eat of the tree.

08:54

I was just going to jump in and say that the prohibition to not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has to be understood within the context of the covenant of works that God made with Adam.

09:04

That's the real issue. That test is the test of Adam's obedience as it pertains to that covenant.

09:11

But in terms of the purpose of Adam's existence, what you're describing is entirely right.

09:17

When you go into the Old Testament and New Testament, once Christ comes and fulfills the covenant of works on our behalf, we don't have to do that work anymore.

09:28

We want to stay away from sin because sin is evil. It's contrary to all that is good.

09:35

But what's amazing is that God says what He has given to us originally has changed in that we are now part of the redemptive work.

09:46

We don't redeem people, but in God's means, He calls us ambassadors. He calls us ones who carry the light, the proclaimers.

09:55

We are now the preachers of the gospel. We now proclaim it throughout the world. The church has become a city set on a hill.

10:02

That's right. We're salt and light. I want you to hear. I'm going to walk through 1 Peter real quick.

10:08

I just want to read some things to you. I think it's important and it's valuable because you have a system that's being set up.

10:18

I think you could pick any epistle you want. I'm just picking this one because it's one I recently had preached through.

10:25

1 Peter 1, verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy,

10:30

He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last times.

10:50

That means your sin that you'll be wrestling with will not increase or decrease all that you have already received, your salvation and your inheritance.

10:59

It's being kept by God, which means it's not like, oh, there's a couple of sins, got to take it out.

11:08

It doesn't fade, which means you only have a certain amount of time to get your good works in or a certain amount of time not to sin and then you'll make it.

11:15

That's not how it's being worded at all. Then you keep reading and what you learn is, if you jump down to verse 13,

11:25

Justin, this is true, when you have a therefore, you always have to ask what's the therefore, therefore, because it's pointing back to something.

11:33

Peter creates a foundation. He creates a mindset, is what I would say. He creates a way in which we are to live.

11:40

Here's your identity. I love this phrase. Here's the status between me and you.

11:46

Here's your status between God and yourself. Because of that status, therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober -minded, so there is something we're supposed to be doing, right?

12:00

He's saying, here's your status. Now, here's what you do with it. You got to protect your mind because your mind is going to be tempted to alter to something else, to think a different way.

12:13

Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober -minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

12:25

The way in which we live is our mind and our hearts are focused in on the end.

12:33

Justin, what is the major battle we face every day? We fall in love with the world and the ways of the world and the here and now, right?

12:43

He even goes on to say, blessed are you who don't see Jesus, but you believe in Him.

12:48

I was going to point back to that in a minute. The reasons we fall into all the things you just described is related to the podcast we recorded last week.

12:55

It's because of that corruption of the flesh and the corpse of the old man that remains with us. Of course, we're going to do this.

13:02

In our flesh, we will. This is the reason why Romans 7 realities and center saint realities are the reason why the apostles,

13:10

Peter, Paul, and all of them exhort us the way that they do. Therefore, here's what you need to be aware of.

13:16

And therefore, here's how you need to live and what you need to set your mind on and be prepared for. There's a reason they write that way.

13:23

Can I just make a theonomy application here? Oh, dear. Set your hope on what's to come.

13:32

That God transforms, not what's being transformed. Just saying. The other worldliness of confessionalism.

13:38

I rejoice more and more the longer I'm a pastor and the longer I'm a Christian. I rejoice more and more in the unashamed other worldliness of confessional doctrine.

13:49

I need that otherworldly emphasis because I tend to be so focused on the here and now, which is what you were just saying.

13:55

If I can briefly comment while we're here in 1 Peter 1. Let me just briefly comment on the status. We can slow down and marinate.

14:00

Let's go. Because the status piece is so huge. We've used this language for a long time on Theocasta that the Christian life is status forward.

14:08

What is the status? Well, there are a number of words we could use. Justified. Adopted. Those are two of the best ones.

14:15

Union with Christ. The Christian life is identity forward, but what's your identity? In Him.

14:21

In Christ. But the language that Peter uses, you read some of it, but I love the sweetness of these words beginning in verse 8 of chapter 1.

14:31

Though you haven't seen Him, you love Him. We talked about this last week. This is the reality of the saints.

14:37

Sinner saints, yes, but this is only the reality for regenerate people. You have not seen Him with your eyes. You have beheld

14:43

Him with the eyes of faith, and though you haven't seen Him with your physical eyes, you love Him. You want to honor Him. You want to obey

14:48

Him. You don't want to offend Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him, and you rejoice.

14:55

That rejoicing is related to a future hope that is certain for you now because of your status.

15:02

Then the wonderful words about obtaining the outcome of our faith and the salvation of our souls, and then concerning the salvation.

15:08

It's epic stuff because this has always been the plan of God. He prophesied it, and then

15:15

He brought it to pass. He sent Christ. Christ came. Christ accomplished it, and this is so incredibly epic that even the angels long to look into this.

15:25

That's right. What a plan. What a message, right? And then from there, so then verse 13, the immediately following verse, therefore, well, what's the therefore, therefore?

15:34

It's in light of all that, and now here's what we're going to do. Yeah, and His first response is protecting what you just heard.

15:44

Because what does He say? Sober -minded. What's the opposite of sober -minded? It's intoxication, and the world's inebriation.

15:52

And we think, oh, He means here lust.

16:02

I also think He means bad doctrine, like anything that would come in and alter what you just heard.

16:08

If it's pointing inwardly on you, a self -focus, a self -work.

16:13

Sober -minded in your assessment of truth and being discerning. I think you can get that from the context where He says, and being sober -minded, and He goes immediately on to say, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, right?

16:32

So that's what it is to be sober -minded, is to set your grace on what's coming in the

16:37

Lord Jesus Christ. Not the fear. I mean, that fear is not the emphasis there. The grace that's coming when the

16:44

Lord Jesus returns. That's right. Right, so preparing your minds for action.

16:49

So what's interesting is that... Dress for battle like a man, John. That's right. But what He's saying is there is something for you to be doing, and you won't be able to do it if you're intoxicated with this world.

17:03

That's what He's saying, right? So we agree. So hear us out. Hear us out. Step one, we don't want to sin.

17:11

Amen. Amen. Step one, don't sin, and don't let your brain be intoxicated with the ideology of the world, the lies of Satan.

17:19

Don't just go and pursue these ignorant and foolish passions that you had. That's right.

17:25

And by the way, those things still exist in your flesh, but you are not just in the flesh anymore. You have this new nature.

17:32

You've been given the Spirit of God. You've been united to Christ. And so you've been set free from that dominion and live like that.

17:39

Live like who you are now. But there is something you are called to that's greater than not sinning, right?

17:47

Sin actually gets in the way of what you're supposed to be doing, and that's His whole point. What I love about this is that He gives you...

17:54

This goes back to the last episode, too. He gives you the fuel that you need. The law is a guide, but we need this power of the

18:01

Spirit to actually carry through the work. He's like, listen, here's the power of the Spirit. Live in it.

18:07

Set your hope for it. Man, what an unbelievable phrase. Set your entire existence, set your entire heart, everything in you, put it on the hope of Christ's return.

18:22

Because when He comes back, all things will be made new. Amen, dude. Man, that is powerful. Now... May the

18:27

Lord give us grace to live like that. I mean, may we live with that faith and that trust because... And Justin, it's easier to do for me as days go by because you look at the world and you're like, man, what chaos.

18:36

Well, sure. What chaos? Like, yeah, we kind of need something else other than this because this is not good. This is bad.

18:43

I agree with you. And just maybe a brief comment on sanctification and wisdom and how the Lord just kind of works and how this happens in us.

18:51

I'm the same way. The older I get, I'm 40 years old. I have a different perspective now than I did 10 years ago.

18:57

Yeah. I have a different perspective now than I did five or six years ago, and it's not because any theological shifts have happened.

19:03

It's just life experience, life in a fallen world, getting beat up by stuff, sin in your own frame, how it affects your life and the lives of other people that you love.

19:14

And you just realize that, man, if our hope, like the word says, if our hope is in this life, man, we are, above all people, most to be pitied, and we're living for the world to come.

19:25

I agree. It gets easier with time. I think you're just given perspective by the Lord and season through. Oh, man,

19:30

I'm 42. Coming up, I'm 42, and you don't live as long as we do, which to some people is not very long, but it's long to me.

19:37

And you don't come through with scars. And you and I got about a lot of them. And you start looking at them and you're like, yeah, this life is not it.

19:44

Well, you just long to be freed from some of the things you battle, and you long for the new heavens and the new earth more, and that's a good thing.

19:54

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

20:01

And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a

20:10

Reformed confessional perspective. You can get your free copy at theocast .org

20:15

slash primer. But what helps me wake up in the morning, and when

20:22

I'm dragging this bag of bones around and like, man, I'm so tired of this, what gives me that spiritual jolt that I need, the spiritual caffeine, you know, is the reminder of like my existence here.

20:36

First of all, it gives God the glory he deserves. And so you're like, if he's going to let me do that one more day, then you know what?

20:44

That sounds good. I'll do my best to do that. But then there's something that's even,

20:50

I think, additional and helpful here. So it says this, verse 13,

20:56

Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you, that's the revelation of Jesus Christ.

21:06

But it's not just you. It's other people that need this, right? It says, As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all that your conduct.

21:18

So it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. Now, Justin, that word in my history and that word in your history, boy, it's got a really bad connotation.

21:26

The way I've heard it in the past, it's like basically anything that's modern is unholy and everything that's old is holy.

21:34

That's not what he means. It's not like stay away from modernity. No, it's anything that's contrary to the nature of who

21:43

God is, because it's going to trip us up and keep us away from what it is that we're supposed to be doing.

21:50

If you are called on, sorry, let's see here. I'm trying to save us some time here.

21:59

All right, let me do this. So what's interesting is in Peter's second letter, there's a couple of the passages here, and I want to kind of bring them in and let you interact with them.

22:09

So when we're thinking about our interactions with the world, at times, so I'm going to set this next passage up.

22:16

At times, Justin, we don't think about God's perspective of his people in the world.

22:27

We often interact with God just on an individual, very narcissistic, self -focused relationship, going back to the beginning.

22:35

We think like, oh, God just wants me to go around not sinning, and then he's good with me. That's actually not why you are still here.

22:42

Yeah, the whole personal relationship with Jesus thing. We did a pod with Chad Byrd on that months ago.

22:48

We can maybe link to it in the notes. Right, right. When you start thinking about this interaction between what it is that we're doing, you have to ask, what are we fighting for?

23:00

We're putting our flesh to death last episode, but why are we putting our flesh to death?

23:05

What are we trying to do with this? This is Titus chapter three. He had just done the same thing

23:13

Peter had did as far as setting up where our hope is, and this is how he ends this section.

23:18

I just want you to hear it out. This saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, because he's talking about this is who you were, and this is your status now.

23:26

This saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things so that those who believe in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

23:36

Why? Hear this next phrase. These things are excellent and profitable for people.

23:42

Did you hear that? Your good works are profitable for other people, and I think they're profitable in two ways.

23:49

One, it is going to bring grace and mercy into their life, because you're going to be sacrificially laying your life down for their benefit.

23:58

Number two, you're going to be presenting to them the gospel that will liberate them and bring them home to their

24:04

Father. We don't necessarily always think about our good works that way. What does Jesus say? Let the world see your good works and do what with them?

24:11

Justin Perdue Glorify your Father in heaven. Justin Perdue That's right. Justin Perdue I love that Titus three text. I think it's wonderful to see how he grounds these things about the pursuit of good works, doing things that are excellent and profitable for people, avoiding controversy.

24:26

Justin Perdue That's right. Justin Perdue You know, and dissension and quarreling and division. We avoid these things in the church.

24:33

He grounds all of that in the gospel, so it's an implication of the good news. Christ for us and all the wonderful words of Titus three, four through seven.

24:43

He then moves from that in verses eight and nine and following to say, therefore, effectively, in light of this, pursue good works, because these things are excellent in and of themselves, right?

24:53

Against these things, there is no law. Think Galatians five, like fruit of the Spirit. Pursue these things. They're excellent. They are self -authenticatingly good.

25:00

We don't need to be told they're good. It's obvious they're good. So these things are excellent and they're profitable for people.

25:07

They bless your brothers and sisters. They actually are used of the Lord to bring people into the kingdom of Christ, etc.

25:13

And then, by the way, while we're here, avoid all of this other stuff, dissensions and quarreling and envy and division and stuff.

25:21

This is just no good. This actually has the opposite negative effect of what the good works have that we would pursue in light of Christ for us.

25:33

There's a side of Christian nationalism, Reconstructionism, Theonomy. I would say even those who are part of culture transformation, whatever you want to put in there, you're concerned for your fellow man.

25:49

I'm so thankful for that. I want to see hunger abolished. I want to see slavery. I want to see people who are abused.

25:58

I want to see it all stop. You know, I just do. I was at a meeting recently and they were talking about how just like in Haiti, children, because they can't afford to feed them, like families, to get to a point where they just abandon their kids on the sides of roads.

26:16

It's horrible. And, you know, Justin, I think sometimes because when we become so introspective and we become so infatuated with ourselves, that we are called to be salt in the world.

26:32

That literally means that we're beneficial for humanity. I'm all for it, guys.

26:38

I'm all for it. I think Christians should be the ones on the front lines helping people. I'm all for it.

26:45

I think the way in which we live our lives— And historically, that's been true. Yes. And I think that if we can get our hearts fully focused on the world to come, we can live as living sacrifices.

26:56

By the mercy of God, I implore you to do this for Romans 12, right? I think we can take our bodies and use them as wastes.

27:04

Like this is to be wasted for Christ. It to be poured out. And I mean for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of humanity.

27:12

Like we can be a mercy to people. Spend and be spent, right?

27:17

Two comments. Having a conversation with a mutual pastor friend of ours last week, and he's been a guest on this pod before, and we were acknowledging the death of Tim Keller and just talking about various things.

27:34

And in saying it, we were reflecting on our own lives. He's a little bit older than me, but still. It's like, yeah,

27:40

I mean, we're both here still. And what that means in part, like as Paul writes, to live is

27:47

Christ, to die is gain. And Paul understands that as far as his own personal situation is concerned, it would really be better for him to just die and be with the

27:54

Lord. For him, yeah. For him personally, right? Now, we tend to not think about that in those ways, and there are reasons for that too.

28:03

But if we had this perspective that the reason we're still here as Christians, the reason that we understand we're still here is because God really,

28:10

I'm not trying to be weird about this or like refrigerator magnet type stuff, but God really does have things for us still to accomplish.

28:17

Like the Lord still sees fit to have us around for a while. And so our perspective should be, how can

28:23

I live in a way that profits my brothers and sisters and profits my fellow man and honors God, since he sees fit to still have me be here?

28:32

So that's one comment, and I think we should all as believers have that posture and think in those ways more than we do.

28:37

Your comment about being useful to the saints and the cause of the redemptive kingdom of Christ, right?

28:43

So we want to live in the local church in ways that are good for our brothers and sisters. We want to engage our neighbors intentionally and give reasons for the hope that we have.

28:53

We don't invite them in to taste and see that the Lord is good. All of those things are true, and so we want to be in pursuing all of those things that are uniquely redemptive.

29:01

But then also we want to be used of the Lord as common grace blessings and as agents and conduits of mercy toward our fellow man.

29:10

So I've had two conversations with members of my local church in the last week, one of whom is a detective for the local police department, one of whom is a medical doctor, an

29:25

ER doc, and both of these guys have said beautiful things to me about their vocations and about the ways they think about their jobs.

29:35

I have said to them on more than one occasion, Brother, it's a great comfort to me to know that there are law enforcement officers such as yourself— we've got several of them in our own church— that are here in this local community who have a perspective on what they're doing that is informed by God's law and God's gospel, that's informed by a right understanding of human nature.

29:58

But what we're actually trying to accomplish here in terms of human flourishing and the good of our neighbor is the same thing.

30:06

A guy who's working in a local hospital in an emergency department where he sees all kinds of crazy stuff.

30:12

We've had members of our own church having to be taken to the ER, and they see this familiar face there, and he's able to administer care in that context for them and kind of pastor their families.

30:23

This man is going to be an elder in our church soon. In addition, just the way he's loving his neighbor in the community, these are good uses of a

30:31

Christian's life. We should think in these terms that we have an opportunity of the

30:38

Lord to bless people who are also made in God's image. Shame on us that we don't think in those terms more often.

30:44

I want to say this. You already said it. Even though we disagree with Christian nationalism and theonomy and everything else, we're thankful for some of the impulses and instincts that exist there that we want to live in a way that's good for the world.

30:57

We actually want to see human beings flourish and not be continually enslaved by things.

31:03

Amen to all of that. We, as Reformed guys, and I'll go ahead and say it, as Two Kingdoms guys, are not dudes that think we just batten down the hatches and stick our heads in the sand because the whole thing's going to hell anyway.

31:14

We're just kind of super pessimistic and are really insular and only looking inward, and we don't care about the world.

31:21

That's a terrible posture. Anyway, rant over. I'd love to jump on that. I'll jump on that.

31:29

Because of our second view of the kingdom, we believe that true liberation and joy in this world can be experienced if you're in the kingdom of light.

31:39

Amen. That's why the Two Kingdoms is so important, because it is a spiritual kingdom. The Redemptive Kingdom is, yeah.

31:46

Yeah, absolutely. The whole existence, for instance, you have the kingdom of light that is infiltrating into a dying world, just like the spirit is in a dying body.

32:01

That whole existence, the duality, so it's not like you guys are radical Two Kingdoms.

32:06

Are you a radical Satan center too? That's just crazy. Those two existences, we need a resurrected body, and we need a resurrected earth.

32:15

That's the world we live in. While we're waiting, we have a significant battle and war that we're a part of.

32:21

You can either sit back and just not care, but Justin, by nature, we have this in us.

32:29

You've ever been around somebody who's extremely health conscious? They're like missionaries for health or finances.

32:36

I used to go regularly to a CrossFit box and was competitive with CrossFit. You want to talk about proselytizing.

32:42

You want to talk about moralizing stuff and moralizing fitness and nutrition. Man Alive, you go in there January every year.

32:48

I mean, it is just a self -justification project. Anyway, I'm with you. Go ahead. Then you have the gospel of Dave Ramsey.

32:55

Then you have the gospel of keto. It just goes on and on and on. But why are people so passionate about it?

33:02

Because they believe in the benefit. That is a believer's existence.

33:07

They've tasted and seen that they're good at this. How much more so when it comes to the church of the

33:14

Lord Jesus Christ should we think of it this way? In all of life, whether you eat or drink, or whether you do for God's glory.

33:20

Because we think He's amazing. We think our King is wonderful. So I'm going to stay away from sin because it keeps me from being loving, effective, fruitful, and gospel -proclaiming.

33:31

That's why I stay away from sin. I've got a greater mission in life than just to not mess up. Amen. Brief comment on the whole two kingdoms, saint center thing.

33:39

I think what you said is insightful. If you object to an understanding of two kingdoms, which we've done some pods on this, we could refer you to them.

33:46

But briefly, the redemptive kingdom of Christ and the common kingdom of the world. God reigns over both.

33:52

He just rules over them differently. The redemptive kingdom of Christ is His church. The common kingdom of the world is obvious.

33:58

It's the entire world. The church exists within it. To say that to have a two kingdoms understanding like we do necessarily means that there is this,

34:08

I don't know, too strong of a distinction that's drawn. And there's this radical separation of the two where inherently what it must mean is you're all about the redemptive kingdom and you care nothing about the common is similar to the error that you just stated.

34:22

It's like, well, we believe in a sinner -saint reality, that there is a real sense in which there is a division of spirit and flesh within us.

34:31

There is the regenerate part and the unregenerate part. There's the new nature and there's the old corpse of the old man. Just because we hold to that understanding does not then mean that we just sit back and say, well, whatever happens happens and we're not going to worry about it.

34:48

No, like we talked about last week and we're talking about today, we live intentional lives and we live thoughtfully and we battle against the flesh.

34:55

We resist the flesh because of Jesus. I think that argument, that to have an understanding of these distinctions means that this just produces apathy and inactivity is absurd on the face of it.

35:09

I think we need to argue against it as we're trying to do in the pod today. So I have an introduction to something and I think we can continue into it in this

35:16

Emperor Firmata, but here's the introduction. I keep saying Romans. We're in Romans recently. Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is a great example of this, where Christ creates this reality for us.

35:28

He exposes the bad hearts of the Pharisees in Matthew 5. Go ahead.

35:34

No, it's the best sermon on the law ever preached and the way he uses the law, I think what you're getting to is very helpful.

35:41

In chapter 5, it's first -use stuff. I mean, it's just crushing everybody, but then there is also, he's depicting what his kingdom is to be like.

35:50

That's right. For those of us who are not under the first use, we look at that and go, hey, that's helpful because that's for the benefit of all.

35:58

Everyone is benefited if we all live by that. That's a benefit. This is why he goes, guys, look, the

36:03

Gentiles seek after the things of this world, what they eat, where they're going to live, what they're going to wear.

36:10

I don't need you to do that. And I don't think he means this. If you live for me,

36:15

I'll provide those things for you. I don't believe that. I think he has an eschological view there. Agreement.

36:21

He clearly doesn't have a temporal view there because there are many Christians who have died without those things. I think he's like, hey, look, in the new world, I'm going to have to all take care of.

36:26

You don't need to work now to prepare for that. I go prepare a place for you. You're good there. I need you to seek first the kingdom of God.

36:34

He goes, that's what I want you to pursue. That's what I want you to think about. So it's like, here's the law, which is your guide.

36:40

Here's why. Because we're advancing my kingdom. And we're like, bro, I love your kingdom. It's peaceful.

36:47

It has joy. It has love. It sounds amazing. It's great. Seek that.

36:53

Until you die. And then he goes, by the way, if they hated me, they're going to hate you. Most likely you're going to suffer. And most likely it's okay.

36:59

Your life is expendable. I love this about the Christian life. It's like, don't be worried about dying. That's the whole point.

37:05

You're going to be poured out. And when you're poured out, you're done. And you're going to go be with me. And then we're going to come back. And it's a wonderful celebration for the rest of the world.

37:12

So just give your life away. This is why he describes it as Romans 12. A living sacrifice. So I have more thoughts about that.

37:20

We can talk about it in SR. Sounds good, man. You, I think, should be the one.

37:25

Oh, I am the host today. Yeah, to me, I'm the host. I thought you were. No, it's okay. I'm happy to do it.

37:31

I've done it before. Yeah, yeah, good times. Hey, we first of all want to say thank you publicly for everyone who has been supporting us.

37:37

It's been extremely encouraging. We're working hard to produce more work. I'll just put a little,

37:44

I'll put this out there. Justin's working on something special for us to be putting out in paperback soon.

37:49

So stay tuned for that. That just got into the works. No promises of when, but it's underway.

37:56

TheoCastU, already 20 classes in there. Multiple lectures of all different kinds. We're adding to it weekly.

38:02

If there's several things that get added every month, we've got an app. Obviously, we're talking about an additional podcast that Justin and I do.

38:10

It's for those who support us called Semper Ferman. If you want to learn more about that, go to our website and you can join there.

38:17

If you have any questions, if you can't afford it, just reach out to us. We'd be more than happy to give you whatever it is that you want.

38:23

We're just trying to advance the gospel. We found this is a helpful way to do that. It allows you to partner with us.

38:28

It allows us to provide more materials. So thankful for that. Again, if you can't afford it, ask for it. It's yours.

38:34

And we'll see you guys next week, Lord willing. I'd rather see you in heaven, but if not, we'll look back to Christ and we'll find our strength and hope there.