How Do We Know God Is Pleased With Us? | Theocast

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A question that many Christians struggle with is this question, how does

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God really feel about me? I know the sin that I try to hide, I struggle with. He knows all my frailties and my failures.

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And in the back of our hearts and our minds, we struggle. Does God, is He angry?

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Is He upset? Is He going to discipline me? Is He going to come after me? I keep failing. How is it that God could keep loving someone like me, even though I continue to fail?

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This is an important question. And Justin and I want to tackle this, this morning, because understanding

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God's position towards you changes your experience in this world and the Christian faith. And we want to comfort you and remind you that God's disposition towards you is not based on your performance.

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Come hear us out and find out why the gospel sets you free from the burden and shame that we often face.

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If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word. It's called pietism. Have you ever felt like the

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Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy? That you wake up worrying about how well you're going to perform instead of thinking about what

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

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

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

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Reform theology, really. How it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ, and when

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

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Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast.

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Encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a confessional, reformed, and pastoral perspective.

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If you're wondering, maybe you're new, maybe you've been here a minute, but you're not sure, what are these guys really trying to do?

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We're trying to take the clutter off of the gospel. We don't want Christ to be obscured at all. And we are seeking in doing that, to reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom that he has brought, that he has given us.

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And so, in order to do that, we're going to have a conversation today, two pastors. One of whom is

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John Moffat, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. And I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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If you are used to consuming this content on the YouTubes, just public service announcement, we're not quite sure about the video quality of today's episode.

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That's because John and I are recording in the near immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene ripping through my city, here in North Carolina.

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And so, I still am without internet. And so, we're using cell phone hotspots and cell phone service is spotty at best.

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And we wanted to get content to you guys, though. We know that the audio will be fine. We're not quite sure what the video will look like.

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I just want to say a quick thank you. We did this last week at more length. I don't feel the need to labor this. If you want to hear a longer,

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I don't know, monologue from me about the hurricane and the support we've received, you can go back and listen to last week's episode.

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But I just want to express sincere and heartfelt thanks and gratitude to you guys, the listeners, and all the ways that you have prayed for me, for our congregation, for our city, the ways that you have given so generously, even of your own money, to support us.

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And I'm so thankful for the Grace Reform Network, John, and the support that that has meant for our congregation.

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And I'm just very thankful for the love and the support and the prayers of the saints broadly. So, for those of you out there who have been supporting and praying for us, thank you so much.

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It means more than you know. The love of the saints from all over really is a great encouragement in the midst of suffering and difficulty.

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We have experienced and felt that. Challenges aside, it's good to be behind the microphone with you, brother.

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I've been encouraged by the episode that we just recorded. It was good for my soul. I trust this one is going to be the same.

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I'm a pretty OCD person. This hurricane has continued to kind of rend that from my hands in terms of being able to let go of things that might not be my preference.

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Hopefully, you can do the same thing and not worry about the video quality too much, and we can just talk. That's right.

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Believe it or not, we're recording this on LTE, not even 5G. We're talking like two bars of LTE, and somehow, hey, we got that holy ghost power working for us.

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God has defeated Satan, and Satan's the prince of the power of the air, but the Lord's overcoming right now. That's right.

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For those of you that are wondering, as of right now, Lord willing, we do plan to still have the conference in Asheville coming in April.

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If you bought tickets for that, we are excited to still have you there, Lord willing. Then as well, we still have a few tickets left, so please come join.

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If I can briefly say, John, you and I had a convo about that. Hey, do we need to move the conference? I said, it's going to be six months from now.

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There's going to be stuff. Yeah, all the hangout spots and the cool places that we might have gone, not all of them are going to be open.

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That's for sure, but there's going to be places to stay and plenty of things to do. I think it'll be a great encouragement, not only to our church, but to even people in our own city that we have the conference here.

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So please, buy tickets. Come. We'd love to see you. That's right. We didn't mention this last week, but one of the things we use the community for was to encourage

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Justin, also get an update from him, and it's your way of supporting Deocast and what we do.

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We're always providing more and more content that's available there, so you can go check out the community. It's an app where my sermons and Justin's sermons and all of our previous podcasts.

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There's a lot of stuff there, so you can go check it out. No more for advertisements. Well, today's episode is a little bit in light of last week's.

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We wanted to provide some clarity in the midst of suffering, but one of the things that we talked about is

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God's disposition towards us. Justin, one of the things that we decided early on when we were recording is that we really wanted to emphasize the sufficiency of Christ.

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We got interviewed by Sean DeMars recently, and the way he defined our ministry was really on the doctrine of assurance.

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It's how he really said, this is what you guys pretty much provide people week in and week out.

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Sure, we'll do some stuff here and there, but he's correct because if you're going to rest, you have to be assured, and that's what we want to do today.

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That's right. Speaking of, we have a book called Safe. If you haven't read it, you can go do so. A little book on that, but my encouragement today is coming from Romans 5, some thoughts that I've had recently preaching through getting preparing my church to work on through Pat Evendross' book on the act of obedience of Christ.

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Just in light of thinking about suffering and pain, how do you wake up every day and not really worry and doubt,

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Justin? How can God continue to be gracious and kind towards me, want me to talk to him, want me to pray to him, and yet I doubt him?

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I fail him. I sin against him. I love other things more than him. I put other things in front of him constantly, and I'm not justifying my sin or excusing my sin.

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This is not a podcast that's on that at all. I think it's important that we don't listen to our hearts and our flesh in these moments.

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We have to constantly listen to the gospel. We're going to read a little bit out of Romans 5, and we're going to work through this because we want to talk about God's disposition towards you.

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How does God feel about you? Does God's love and affection or the way in which he thinks of you, is it in relation to your actions or, according to Paul's argument, the actions of another?

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That's what we're going to argue for today. Justin, let's go ahead and just jump into it. Do you have any thoughts before we jump into Romans 5 and kind of just work through Paul's thoughts here as he's encouraging the believer?

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Justin Perdue I think one of the great things that plagues the minds and the hearts of the saints broadly—I don't think this is an experience that is only shared by a few, in other words—is that I'm a

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Christian now, and I mean to love God. I want to love him.

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I want to obey, but yet I fail so much in a way that discourages me and in a way that I lament and even in ways that frustrate me and disappoint me with respect to myself.

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I'm not holy intrinsically. I'm not like the

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Lord. The Lord is intrinsically holy, and so if I am disappointed in myself and frustrated with myself, and when

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I say that, I mean my flesh, then God has to be frustrated with me. He's got to be disappointed with me.

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How can I really know not just that God has saved me, but that it's not a reluctant thing?

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It's not this thing that his love and his grace and his mercy have kind of trapped him into.

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He's not been painted into a corner, but he actually loves me. He likes me.

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He delights in me. He wants to save me. He wants to be with me. How can

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I know that? I think at the heart level it's something that plagues many people broadly in the church and obviously people that listen to this podcast.

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Jon Moffitt That's right. In Romans 5, 17 and following, just for the sake of time,

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Paul identifies your status and situation. It's important that you understand the seriousness of the situation because you won't embrace the reality and the hope that comes with Christ's righteousness.

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He sets this up in a way that a lot of people really fight back against this and they struggle with it.

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They're saying, how can I be held accountable or responsible for another man's sin, for something I haven't done, something

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I didn't do? Paul creates that reality for you and then gives you the solution.

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Let's just read through some of this and then we can come on it, Justin. For if because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through one man,

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Jesus Christ. As much as you want to reject and hate the idea that I cannot be held responsible by someone else's sin, you don't really get to define terms.

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You don't really get to define how the world works or how God started it. It's important because the reason why you want to embrace this is because there's a positive reverse to this.

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This is why Paul is bringing it out. He's saying you are in a circumstance where death is upon you and that's the result of Adam's sin.

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Adam failed as your first representative. It's called a federal head. Adam failed you and when he failed you, what it meant is if Adam would have obeyed and stayed loyal and true to the king, he would have earned for you a perfect place of righteousness in the kingdom forever and we would have been walking with him based upon Adam's actions.

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But because Adam's failed, you also are going to receive the consequences of those actions, which is death.

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This is important because Paul is setting something up that, Justin, you and I would argue Christianity has lost this.

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This was reclaimed during the Roman Reformation against the Roman Catholic Church, that the righteousness of Christ given to us because of the actions of Christ is so important because it is what frees us from the pain and suffering of trying to assume that God's position towards us is based on an action.

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Let me just read one more verse and then I'll let you comment. Verse 18, therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

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He keeps creating this contrast and it's important that we understand that it's not those who fit a certain circumstance.

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If you're a human, you were born with a dead soul because death came upon all because of Adam.

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Now, it's not those who do the best, those who obey well, those who act righteousness.

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He's using that as an illustration to say, just as one man, Adam, just as the other

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Adam, the second Adam, the one man, Jesus Christ. Justin Perdue verse 19, the very next verse reads, for as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

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The way you should understand this is everybody who is in Adam, everyone whom

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Adam represents, they are made sinners through Adam's disobedience.

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So by the one man's obedience, this is Jesus, the many, i .e. all who are in him by faith, will be made righteous.

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So yeah, it's this covenant representation thing that you've already alluded to. I just want to double down on this.

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I don't know that we can understand the gospel. I don't know the right way to say this.

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I don't want to overstate it. I don't want to get out of my skis, but I think that your understanding of the gospel will be limited if you don't have a covenant representation.

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Because Jesus, as our representative, it's undeniable biblically that Adam represented us all in the garden.

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Paul does a wonderful job of laying out the fact in the first several chapters of Romans that every single human being is condemned under sin.

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This is why the only way that you could ever have a righteousness is if God gives it to you that you receive by faith.

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You will never attain it. You will never achieve it on your own effort. That's absolutely clear in all of Paul's argumentation.

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We can talk about that more if there's time. But then to understand, okay, just like Adam represented me,

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Jesus, as I'm united to Christ by faith, Jesus represents me. So that everything that is true of Christ is true of me.

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Everything that is Christ's is mine. Everything, and this is where we're going to go, we'll get to this probably more later in the episode.

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Everything that the Father feels about Jesus, the Father feels about me. The Father's disposition toward Jesus is the

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Father's disposition toward me because I am in Christ. All of these things are so critical for our understanding.

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I know that you probably want to go here. There's a number of different things that we can say about the law and why it was given.

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We talk about uses of the law a lot here on Theocast. The first and greatest use of the law, we always will say, is to show us our sin and to drive us to Christ who kept it for us.

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Verses like Romans 5 .20 are the reason that we say that. Verses like Romans 3 .19

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and 20 are reasons why we say that. Verses like Romans 7 .13 are reasons why we say this because it's very clear that the

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Lord gave the law to shut everybody's mouth, to hold everybody accountable. No one will ever be justified by keeping it because through the law comes knowledge of sin.

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That's Romans 3. Romans 7, through the commandment, sin was shown to be sin and it's shown to be sinful beyond measure.

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Oh my gosh. Then here in Romans 5 .20, I love how he says the law came in to increase the trespass.

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A lot of times if you listen to Christians talk, they will talk as though, okay, well, we have the law, we have our marching orders, and if we get to work and we obey sincerely enough or we obey well enough, then things will get better in terms of how

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God views us. Actually, the exact opposite is true. When the law came in, it made things worse, not better.

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It made the trespass of Adam and our own sin, it made it that much worse.

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Justin Perdue It pointed out our blindness. Exactly. There's a lot that can be said.

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It showed sin to be sin. It showed how sinful sin is. All the things I was saying earlier, through the law comes knowledge of sin.

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It holds us all accountable. It shuts our mouths because we look at it and you're like, man, I have not done that. Not really, not at the spiritual level.

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I've not done that for five minutes, let alone my whole life, and it ruins me. The law does not make things better when it comes to our standing before God or how

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God would view us. Then you get these words of, but where sin increased, through the giving of the law, where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

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Grace is unmerited favor. It is free gift. Can't earn it, never could.

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It's given to you. All you do is receive it with an open hand so that as sin reigned in death, grace might also reign through righteousness.

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That is righteousness of Christ for us, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the great juxtaposition that Paul sets up.

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Adam and Jesus, and I would even argue the reality of the law and the reality of the gospel.

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They're all there in Romans chapter five. Justin Perdue Yeah. What I love about everything you're saying is that Paul is setting you up.

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You're dead, and you were dead born this way. Before you even had a shot at this, if you wanted to try this out, you were already dead in Adam.

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To help you even see this even more, the law came to increase upon you the weight of your sin.

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You should weigh it. Not only was I born dead, I'm adding to this problem because he says it increases it.

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The law came to increase so much so that if you were to look at your life, you should feel absolute hopelessness.

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What I think is interesting, and you pointed it out and I want to restate it again, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

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The more of the weight of your sin that you feel, in this particular context, grace is not forgiveness.

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This is not what he's talking about. He's talking about what is required to not be underneath the condemnation of the law.

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To read the law and go, I'm righteous. That's what he's getting at.

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In order for me to live within his holiness, to live within his presence, to be accepted by him, the law requires perfection.

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Paul goes, and that's given to you by grace. Justin Perdue If I can briefly jump in on that, John. You and I have defined these words before.

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We talk about how both mercy and grace are used. These words both matter. When we're dealing in the realm of forgiveness, like you said, to be forgiven of sin, we're talking about mercy there.

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You're not going to receive the punishment that you deserve. That's forgiveness and mercy.

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God does not deal with us according to our sins. That's mercy. Grace has everything to do with the gift of righteousness.

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He gives us something that we did not earn, his favor, the righteousness of Christ for us, which is where we're going to go.

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I agree with you wholeheartedly. When we read about the grace abounding all the more in the face of our sin, it's not the mercy of God abounding and forgiving, though that's true.

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It is the grace of God abounding in giving us the righteousness of Jesus Christ, so that, like you said, we can, in Jesus, look at the law and say, not that I've done it, but Christ has done it for me, and I am united to him.

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My old man that broke the law has been crucified with Christ. This is where Paul is going to go later in the letter.

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He's going to say, it's no longer I who sinned. It's no longer I, but the regenerate new creation in Christ Jesus who sinned, because this who

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I am now, I don't sin anymore. It's actually sin that lives in my flesh. Anyway, he's going to go there.

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We've been united to Christ, and so his righteousness is ours. That is the grace we're talking about. Justin Perdue is creating impossibilities and extremes so that we would never consider ourselves to be in the equation.

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He's like, this is your situation that you find yourself in, and it's very dire, and it's about as worse as it can get.

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It can't get any worse than this. The law came in to help you feel that you were crushed to powder, so that you wouldn't offer dust to God.

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Then he comes in and says, now I'm going to offer you something that you have every reason to rejoice, because your eyes will never be on you, just as the one man, the one man.

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It's important. The reason why we mention this is that there is a doctrine that just keeps seeping back in.

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Paul was dealing with it in Galatians. We dealt with that during the Reformation with the Roman Catholic Church.

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It seems to be coming back up again. One is declared righteous because of the righteousness of Christ, but now

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God's disposition towards you is going to fluctuate and change. You may not even make it to the end based upon your righteousness, based upon your performance.

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I want to go to a story real quick. I mentioned this to you before, but this is Matthew chapter 3. This is the baptism of Jesus.

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I think it's important for us to understand something that happens here. It's this dialogue that happens between John the

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Baptist and Jesus. Matthew 3 .13. A shout out to if you've not read Doug Van Dorn's book,

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On the Waters of Creation. I encourage you to do so because he does a long exegesis in this. It's connected to the priesthood of Jesus.

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It's a beautiful explanation. You need to read it. This is Matthew 3 .13. It says this,

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Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him.

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John would have prevented him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?

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But Jesus answered him, here's the key, let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

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What is Jesus setting up for us? His life is here to complete a work given to him by the

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Father. What is Paul saying in Romans? That work to which he completed is this act of righteousness, the fulfillment of it, given to us so that we can benefit.

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Benefit what? Let's keep reading. Then he consented. I love this, by the way.

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John's like, no, you've got to baptize me. He's in this argument, and Jesus goes, we're fulfilling righteousness.

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John stops because he understands what's happening at this moment. This isn't a baptism for sin. This is a baptism of reflecting his entrance into the royal priesthood, his fulfillment of righteousness, the culmination of his life for 30 years.

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Then it says this, when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him.

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He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. Behold, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved

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Son, with whom I am well pleased. This is after he fulfills righteousness.

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This is after. Justin, I want to connect this back to John 17 last week when we read this.

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It says Jesus' prayer. Remember this? He says, Father, remind them, help them to see that you love me the same way that you love them.

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It's safe to say that to love would also mean to say that when the Father looks at you,

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Justin, and the Father looks at me, it is safe to say that he is well pleased. Why? Because Jesus fulfilled all righteousness.

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You can share it and ask questions. You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. I mean, this is the beginning of Jesus' public ministry.

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We would all acknowledge this. He's baptized. Like you said, there's priestly components to this because he's not being baptized for his own sin.

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There's no cleansing that he needs in that regard. This is effectively a rite that he is going to go through in order to represent us as the great high priest.

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He's doing that, and then he's anointed by the Spirit of God for the ministry that he's going to do.

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He's about to minister for roughly three years. He's going to preach a sermon just a couple of chapters later in Matthew, the most famous sermon ever delivered, where he's going to say,

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I have not come to abolish the law and the prophets. I've actually come to fulfill them. This language of fulfillment continues to show up from the lips of Christ in terms of what he understands himself to be doing.

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Obviously, he's going to die for our sins to take our penalty, but he's going to live for us, and he's going to be our representative.

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He's going to be the priest who's going to represent the people. He's going to be like the Davidic king to represent the nation.

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He's going to be all of that. It all is driven down on one man, and he represents us, and that's beautiful.

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Then, of course, right after the baptism, he's going to go out, and he's going to be tempted by Satan in the wilderness. Talk about second

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Adam in Romans 5, first and second Adam stuff. In every way that the first Adam failed, the second

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Adam, Jesus will succeed, and he will have victory over Satan and the like. Then I know where we want to really camp out for a minute is the voice that comes from heaven.

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This happens here, and it happens also on the Mount of Transfigurations. The two times that the

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Father speaks from heaven to God the Son Incarnate on earth that people can hear, what does

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He say? He talks about how much He loves His Son. It's what the Father always says.

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I love Him. I'm well pleased in Him. Then in the

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Mount of Transfiguration, He says, listen to Him. You should listen to Him. Amen.

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It's He feels about us in that we're united to the Son. I think a lot of times this lands on us in weird ways.

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It's like, well, does God love me? It's like, yes, He does. He loves you in Christ, and that does not mean

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He does not love you because we were just talking about this. Your new nature that the Lord has given you, you've been united to Jesus.

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You've been given a heart that loves the Lord, that loves His law, that loves your neighbor, etc.,

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and you are in Christ. You've been vicariously and vitally united to Him.

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When the Father looks at Jesus, He is looking at you through Christ.

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When He looks at you, He's seeing His Son, but He loves you. We said this from John 16.

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Jesus says to the disciples, the Father Himself loves you because you've believed in Me.

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This is the thing that we really want to major on today. I think we often wonder, what does

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God feel about me? Yes, He's saved me, but what does He feel about me? He has told us what He feels about us.

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He delights in us. He loves us as He loves His Son. He's well -pleased with us as He's well -pleased with Jesus.

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He looks forward. I said this last week, but I want to keep hammering this too. The end of Jude, we know that doxology really well,

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Jude 24 and 25. The Lord looks forward to the day when we're presented pure and blameless before His throne.

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There will be great joy there. Or Luke 15, the parables we know so well.

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What's the point of all of those parables, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son? It's that there is rejoicing in heaven when a sinner is united to Christ effectively.

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When a sinner repents, when a sinner is united to Christ, there's rejoicing in heaven. How does the Lord feel about you?

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He feels joy over you. How does He feel about you? He delights in you. How does He feel about you? He's well -pleased in you.

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He looks forward to the day that you're presented in Christ pure and blameless before His throne. He wipes away all your tears, and He says, come and live in the city that I've prepared for you.

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That's how He feels. Justin Perdue That's right. When you're anxious about that and you're not sure, He goes, you can come cast that on me.

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You can give that to me. It's so good. We already did a podcast on that. That's right. We did a podcast on that. This is important because,

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Justin, there's going to be people who are going to be hurling accusations at us of antinomianism. Let me come in here and speak to the heart.

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I like what you guys are saying, but I'm wrestling. Let's speak to the wrestle. As it relates to God's acceptance of you right now as a sinner,

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He only accepts you because you are in Christ. That's the only reason right now.

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In the future, when you live with Him, when you finally die or He comes back and He gets us and you stand before Him, you will be standing before Him in Christ.

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At that moment, He isn't going to look at your past, present, and future. He's going to be looking at what

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Christ did, and He'll look you right in the face because you're wearing the robe of Christ. He's going to say,

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I am so accepting of you. It's full acceptance. There's nothing else required.

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There's nothing else left to do. This is so refreshing. This is absolute promise.

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Just go read the first chapter of 1 Peter and the first chapter of 2 Peter because what you're going to be faced with is everything that you need for life and godliness is already being granted to you in Christ Jesus.

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The apostles understood this. Obviously, Paul understands this in Romans 5 because he flat out says that by one act of righteousness, the many shall be made righteous.

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This is grace upon you. It's not the many will be made righteous if you obey enough. This is not transactional.

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This is so important, church. I feel like I'm preaching. Amen. Praise God. Here we go. Point one. Dear listener, this is so important for you to understand because God is not coming to you saying,

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I've done my part. You do your part. That's the point in Paul's argument. Adam failed you, and Christ came and rescued you, and you are the recipient of his grace.

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Now, that being said, Justin, that being said, that doesn't mean that the believer now is just ushered off to go wander and do whatever he wants.

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There is a difference between who we are in Christ and what God calls us to do in his work.

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Our call to do work is because we want to glorify him. We want to honor him. We want to love him, and we want to set other people free with the same hope.

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But that work that is called for us to do, which is to live for him, to resist temptation, to love others, and to proclaim the gospel, is not connected to who we are in Christ.

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It's a reflection. It comes out of it, but at the end of our day, there is no final tally where it goes, okay, well, you've got

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Jesus' righteousness, but we need to see yours too. That is final justification. That is final junk.

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That is Roman junk that has just got to be put down. I don't mean to be rude and harsh here, but I do want to be exacting in that when he says,

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I am well pleased, it's not for now. Let's see how you do. Let's see how well you make it out.

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That's pietism. That's garbage. That's legalism, and it's got to be put to bed. Justin, we want to obey.

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We need to obey. We're called to obey. It's for the glory of God. It's for the good of the kingdom, but it is not for our justification on any shape or form.

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Paul is clear on this in Romans 5. It's by one man's act of righteousness, and it's not ours. Justin Perdue Amen to everything you said.

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My favorite part of what you said is, I am well pleased with you, and he doesn't just mean for now. He means now and forever.

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That's going to become clear in the way that Paul writes so many places in Romans. Before he talks about the imputation of Christ's righteousness in Romans 5, he begins

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Romans 5 by saying, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't mean temporarily, because he goes future here. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

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When he starts talking about rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God, that's eschatological. That is the culmination and consummation of all things in terms of God's making all things new and the return of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and God will dwell with us. That's what he means there. How would we ever have hope for that day if there is some component of this that we need to contribute in order to finally be legitimate?

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Like you said, I'm pleased with you for now. I'm pleased with you today. I might not be pleased with you tomorrow is how many of us have experienced the

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Christian life and have been taught to think about the Christian life. Is God grieved by sin? Yes, of course he is.

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What kind of God would he be if he were not grieved by sin? What kind of earthly parent is pleased that their child does something that hurts them and hurts others?

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No good parent is. We can understand this category. For me, with my four children, nothing that you're ever going to do is going to mean that you don't have my last name anymore.

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Nothing that you're going to do is going to mean that you're kicked out of the family. I might be saddened by the fact that the choice that you have made has hurt you and has hurt other people, but I love you, and you're accepted, and I'm pleased with you and in you.

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If I can think that way as an earthly father, how much more so our heavenly father. I agree with you,

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John. The way that it's often posited is you've been given the righteousness of Christ.

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The Father is pleased with you, etc. Now you need to do your part. You need to get to work. You need to obey well enough to prove your legitimacy.

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If that's what people are given, or even to put it negatively, if you don't obey well enough, you're just going to prove that you were a faker all along.

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You're just going to prove that you are an unbeliever. That's Calvinistic pietism, and it's the worst of every world as far as I'm concerned.

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What we need to see and believe is to tell people that they are safe and secure, which is what the gospel says, and to say that you have been united to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. You've been united to the Holy One. You've been given a new heart. You've been brought from death to life, and the fountainhead of holiness, who is

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Jesus Christ, has begun to flow in and through you. That's how you're going to change. People talk about personal holiness all the time, and I often want to know what people mean by that.

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It's just like you talk about personal holiness, oftentimes what you mean is morality, and I think holiness is something that has to be received from the

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Holy One. Only God is intrinsically holy, and so the only way that you would be holy, John, or I would be holy,

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John, or any of the listeners would be holy is if God makes us so.

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Well, how does that happen? It's because we're united to Christ, and we're now holy, and then through our union with Him, there is all kinds of outflow, and there's all kinds of effects that our union with Christ has in terms of how we live.

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We want to love and serve Him. We want to love and serve our neighbor, but we do that out of freedom, out of peace, out of rest, out of security.

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We live from the heart that the Lord has given us. All of this is the way that we need to talk more so that people understand.

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Last comment. I love what you said. It's not like there's a tally at the end of the day.

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It's like you have the righteousness of Jesus, but now you need to show me yours. That's not how it works, and we're going to gauge whether there's enough of it.

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It's better to just say we've been given the righteousness of Christ. We've been united to Jesus, and now our lives will change.

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Let's keep preaching Christ because He's the power unto good works and sanctification, and we use the law in good ways to know what righteousness looks like and to know what's good for my neighbor.

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You know what Paul says? We are more than conquerors through Him who loves us.

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This is so important. The success of us making it through life and conquering death and conquering evil and storming the gates of hell.

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The gates of hell will not prevail. All of that. It's so important. Through Him who loved us.

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Listen, that's the righteousness of Christ being clothed in us. I love when Paul's like, listen, when you're facing opposition, stand in the strength of the

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Lord and the strength of His might. Why? Because your strength is worthless. You have no strength.

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I love when Paul says, when I am weak, when I finally am like, man, every time I think I'm strong,

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I end up falling flat on my face. When I'm flat on my face, that's when I find the strength of God because I have to walk by faith now, not in my faithfulness.

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I've got to look to God's power, not my power. We want to obey and we will obey, but we're always going to be grasping, looking, and holding tightly to the promises of Christ for us and in us and through us.

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This is why when Peter says, suffer well, says 1 Peter, suffer well and endure well.

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Why? Because you're not going to be pointing people to your strength. He says, be ready to give an answer of the hope that lies within you.

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The hope is the power to suffer well. I can go through this. I can endure this because I have a hope that's beyond my obedience, beyond my circumstances, beyond my situations.

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I have a hope that is in Christ, the one man who perfectly received my sin and paid for it and who perfectly did the act of righteousness so that I might inherit it.

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This is how we live day in and day out, reminding ourselves as we fail God, he does not fail us.

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He does not look to us. He's well pleased with us because we're in Christ. That's how we pick ourselves back up.

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I'm going to keep fighting for the king. I'm going to keep loving him. I'm going to love others because he perfectly loves me in my imperfection.

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What I will be, I'm not yet. He will transform me into this. The righteousness of Christ, the act of obedience of Christ, the imputation, all these doctrines that you want to talk about, the federal headship of Jesus, all of these are deep doctrines of the

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Reformation designed to fuel our hope and our joy and our rest so that we find energy not in our performance, but we find energy going, look what he did.

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Therefore, I can keep going. Look what he did. Look what he's doing. Look what he's done. Look what he will do.

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I can conquer. I can do. I will make it because of his love, not because of my performance, but because of his love.

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Justin Perdue A little bit for me, last comment. I'm going to speak about a related doctrine that we often will riff on here, and that's the saint -center reality.

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It's relevant for this conversation because I think a lot of times we're acknowledging this reality, John, that why is it that we question how

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God feels about us? It's because we sin. I mean, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, that's it.

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It's like I sin. How does God feel about me? Or let me go even deeper. I actually kind of like sin sometimes.

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Oh, like what does God feel about me now? It's not just that I like, oh, I didn't want to do this, and I gave in.

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It's like there are times when it's like, no, I kind of want to do this, and I did it, and surely that's it. Surely I have ruined it now.

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Well, here's the thing is that we, you just said, covered in the robes and the righteousness of Christ in our new man.

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That's who we are. It's how the Lord views us. Where does sin come from? It comes from the corrupt flesh.

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It comes from the old nature. All right, a couple of thoughts here. One, because we are right now new creations in Christ Jesus, united to him, robed in his righteousness, given a new heart, that wants to love and honor

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God. That's a piece of us. Then there is this old nature that we still drag around, and that is why we still sin.

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That is why there are times when even the believer finds sin attractive because the flesh is not made holy.

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The flesh still loves sin. The Lord knows this about us. Here's the thing. He's already dealt with the sinful nature.

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He killed that thing on the cross with Christ. Does the Lord hate sin?

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Yeah. Does he abhor evil? Absolutely. He has dealt with all of the wickedness and all of the evil and all of the sin that we bring to the equation.

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He killed it on the cross with Christ. Even though our flesh still rears its head, that is not how

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God sees us. He sees us as new creations in his Son who have been covered with the blood and righteousness of Christ, who have been united to Jesus, who have new hearts now.

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He does not see us the way that we used to be anymore. That's important for us to realize.

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I still sin because I have this nature. I hate it about myself. I hate my flesh. The Lord doesn't deal with me according to that anymore.

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He put it to death once and for all on the cross, and now he views me in Christ. He loves me. I have his favor.

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That's not going anywhere. I don't need to worry about the sins of yesterday or even the sins of I can press on knowing that I'm loved, that I'm known, that I'm safe and secure now and forever.

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That's a better motivation for obedience. It really is a better motivation for holiness. We are not antinomian. We are all about obedience and love of neighbor and service to the

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Lord, but we don't want to ever be doing that out of fear and dread, thinking that God is going to flip the script and drop the hammer on us.

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You can produce some change in the near term, but it doesn't work over the long term. I'm going to stop talking now. John, final comment from you.

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Final comment from me. I think this is what makes the call in Hebrews 4 when he says, in time of need with boldness, run into the throne room of grace.

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The reason for boldness is that the circumstances that you find yourself in does not change the disposition of God.

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He doesn't say walk in with humility and afraid of what you might receive. He says you come running in.

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Your situation has changed in that you sinned, but God's disposition towards you has not.

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That's what allows the boldness. You run in and say, I need mercy and grace again. He's like, well, that's what you're here for.

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It's what I'm here to give you. If it was transactional, then you would have to come in offering some appeasement like the prodigal did, but we don't offer appeasement.

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We come in saying his disposition towards me never changes. This is why I can come and be cleansed and gifted grace anew because that's the relationship that I have.

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Justin Perdue Yeah, or you'd have to come and bring a sacrifice of some kind. You don't need to do that because there was a once and for all sacrifice offered for you, and it's over.

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He's seated at the right hand of God, and he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

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May that encourage our hearts. John, it's been good to talk about this. I hope people have been encouraged to know and be reminded that they have been given, we have been given the righteousness of Christ, and so when

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God looks at us, that's what he sees. Just as he says from heaven to Jesus at his baptism, this is my beloved

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Son in whom I am well pleased. He says the same thing to us. What a God he is that he's going to look at us in the eyes when this is all over and say, well done, my good and faithful servant.

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We'll say, when did I do that? We will. It's wonderful, and we'll continue to plumb the depths of this for all eternity.

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We're grateful for you, friends, for listening to this, and again, hope it's been an encouragement to you. Know that the

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Lord loves you. Know that he's pleased with you and that that's not going away. So love and serve your neighbor today, and we will talk with you, should the

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Lord tarry, we'll talk with you again next week. Amen. Grace and peace. Hey everyone, before you go,

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Justin and I first wanted to say thank you, and if this has been encouraging to you in any way, please feel free to share it.

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But we also need your support, and it's when you give that it really helps us financially reach more people.

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So the next time you consider giving to a ministry, we hope that you would pray about Theocast and partner with us as we share the gospel around the world.