Did We Fail 2020? | Theocast

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Hi, this is John, and today on Theocast, Justin and I are together in Knoxville.

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In the same place. And we're going to do a podcast on reflecting on 2020.

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We've been together today planning for 2021, Theocast -wise. And we thought, you know, why don't we reflect a little bit on 2020, things that we have learned as pastors, as Christians, as guys, husbands, dads, whatever, and hope that it'll be helpful to the listener.

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It's a little bit random. I will tell you that we dig in on maybe you shouldn't hold on to your opinion as much as you think you do.

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Yeah, we do. We do. Hopefully you'll be humbled by that as we have been, as we think about our own failures in those ways.

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And as we meander here, there and everywhere, we hope that you find things that are applicable to your life, that are maybe poignant and can point things out in your life, but also encourage you as you think about living life in a fallen world and fighting your sin and trusting

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Christ and a pandemic and every other thing. We hope it's helpful. So stay tuned for Reflections on 2020. Hey everyone, if you'd like to help support

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Theocast, you can do that by leaving us a review on iTunes and subscribing or on your favorite podcast app.

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

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

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Christian life from a Reformed perspective. Our hosts today are, together, live and in person, we have

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John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and myself, Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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But we sit here today in Knoxville, Tennessee, sort of in between the two cities, in between Nashville and Asheville, respectively.

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We are on site at Albright Grove Brewing Company. They've been very kind to us in allowing us to record a podcast in their space.

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It's a pretty cool venue. So for any of you that live near Knoxville or make your way through here, come check them out.

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Again, we're appreciative to them. John and I have been spending time together today. I mean, we've been enjoying one another's company,

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I guess that's fair to say, but we've been working. We've been reflecting on some things for Theocast, but mainly trying to plan for the future and thinking about 2021 as the new year is fast approaching.

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We're sitting here today in the middle of December. And so we're making a lot of plans for not just the podcast, but things beyond the podcast, the scope of which is exciting for the two of us.

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And so it's been a really good day, an exciting day. And as we reflect toward the future, we can't help but think,

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I shouldn't say reflect toward the future as we think about the future and make plans. We can't help but reflect back on 2020 as we come to the end of this year.

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And everybody knows that 2020 has been a year. But one of the things that we thought we might do today in recording a podcast, sitting here together over a beer, is to have a pretty easy conversation on the one hand, just a natural conversation about things that we have learned as pastors and as men in the year 2020.

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And who knows where this is going to go? We've primed the pump a little bit and thrown out one or two things that we've each considered or learned this year.

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But hold on, friends, who knows? Well, in general, it takes a lot to fluster me, to make me feel awkward and put me in a circumstance where I just don't feel comfortable.

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There's not very many times that happens. And 2020 has shown me new heights of that.

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I find myself in situations where I feel highly uncomfortable in front of unbelievers and believers alike, that where normally

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I would never feel uncomfortable. I feel like my skin is crawling and I want to get out of circumstances or conversations or you can feel where the conversation is about to lead by the questions that are being asked.

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And the conclusion that I have come to about 2020 is that you don't want to talk about COVID anymore. Exactly.

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The conclusion I've come to is that people are far more in love with their opinions than they probably should be, and their opinions tend to be almost on a biblical level.

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Their thoughts about something, they come at it with such passion and such vigor.

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That just seems like we're talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Right. Or the deity of Jesus or something like that.

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No, you're right. We were using the phrase before we recorded, married to your opinions. And we were saying, yeah, people probably need to just go and get divorced from those things because it is unhelpful.

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You're right. I think 2020 has revealed how opinionated we all are. And some of our opinions are better than others.

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And some of our opinions are more or less informed than others. But all of us, I think, would do well to take ourselves a little bit less seriously.

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Right. I don't have a problem with people having an opinion. Me either. They are based on preference, history, taste, flavor, experience.

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But the key to what you just said is that people take themselves way too seriously as it's related to their opinion.

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Speaking as a pastor, this is a conversation about two pastors who happen to be Christians, who struggle with sin, who struggle with their own pride and arrogance.

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And I realize as I sit back and listen, I was speaking with a

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CEO of a very large company yesterday over dinner. And he was saying that this last year, just even like on social media, it's so uncomfortable because you say and do the wrong thing.

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You can literally blow up your life. It's true. It's because of how you potentially mishandle

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COVID or racism or the election. There have been so many things to divide over for Christians in the church this year from COVID -19 and how to approach it, how to navigate it corporately, individually, whatever, masks and the whole nine yards.

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There's been politics in an election year. There's been a supercharged conversation about race and racism.

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No doubt. And I'm not against opinions at all. I mean, I'm a very opinionated person and I usually have about 17 reasons for every opinion that I have.

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I mean, you could ask my wife if you don't believe me. I mean, if she listens to this episode, she would be amening this right now saying, yeah, you guys have no idea what

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I live with. It's not necessarily that having opinions are bad, but I think we need to recalibrate our thinking and we need to rightly assess the importance of the things that we have opinions about.

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And we need to do a little bit of triage. These things are primary things about which we cannot disagree, even in the church.

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There are secondary things that matter for us to be able to associate together. And then there are other things, frankly, that we need to agree to disagree and we need to love one another in it.

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And I think 2020 has revealed the fact that we're not very good at doing that. Right. Well, I think what we do is we marry convictions and opinions.

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We can't differentiate between the two. So we assume, and I've seen this, we're good hearted.

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And one of the things that I'm going to just say this up front, I think the church has failed in shepherding and teaching people the difference between your opinion and biblical conviction.

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And by biblical conviction, you would mean doctrine. What I mean is the Bible says this is wrong. Yeah. Which is teaching.

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And this is right. Right. Yeah. And the Bible is very clear. Right. So the Bible is very clear. This is wrong. This is right.

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And then on very complicated situations, we turn it into a theological issue.

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When it really isn't, it's an opinion issue. So I think 2020 has exposed the fact that we, and again, we're

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Christians who happen to be pastors, like you said earlier. But we're talking as two believers here.

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I think 2020 has revealed the fact that we do, in a just really unhelpful way, tend to over -spiritualize everything.

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And we tend to make spiritual and moral issues out of things that are not inherently spiritual or moral. And so, for example,

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I think of the things that we've already brought up this year, or that have occurred this year, I think the pandemic is maybe the best illustration of that in terms of how we handle things as a church.

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I know I've had a number of conversations in my own context with people who are really, really wrecked in their own consciences over wearing a mask, or wearing a mask in a church service, or things like that.

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And it's very clear that for these people who are sincere and mean to trust and follow

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Christ, and are not being angry or sinful in their disposition, are just mega, mega perplexed and troubled, and are concerned that they might be sinning by whether or not they wear a mask, or they may be harming corporate worship, or harming other people.

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It becomes this spiritual concern, at least a moral concern in their minds. And I think one of my jobs as a pastor, one of my tasks as a pastor,

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I trust you feel this too, has been to try to set people free from that kind of thinking in 2020, to help them see, no, the wearing of a mask, for example, in a church service is not a spiritual issue, it's not an issue of fidelity to Jesus, and it is not a moral issue.

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This is a common sense, love of neighbor consideration, and I think a lot of times people just need to hear their pastor say that, so that they can be set free.

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But that's one example of how we do turn things into a much bigger deal than they were ever meant to be.

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And I think you're right, the church has not helped people do that kind of evaluation in their minds and hearts as to what's most important, what is spiritual, what is moral, and what is something else that we can make decisions about and feel freedom to make the best call we can and move forward with our lives, trusting

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Christ. Justin Perdue I know I'd say masks are just an example. The problem didn't happen because there became a mask mandate.

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The problem was already there. It just exposed it. Justin Perdue Right. So we're about to see a new round of issues with the whole vaccination.

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And I'm really thankful that there are certain... Justin Perdue Don't even say that word right now. Justin Perdue I'm really thankful there are certain theological websites out there that are giving us science information on how to think about this.

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Justin Perdue I'm really grateful for that. I think we should just draw attention to every potentially divisive cultural issue that we can.

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That's what I think we should do. I think it's good for the church. Justin Perdue But here's a great example of what happens when the church is not careful, or I would say, historically speaking, certain theological movements.

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I am legitimately getting questions from my church members who are covenantal. They love our church.

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They're part of the Reformed Church. And they're saying, my parents or my siblings, my relatives legitimately think that taking this potential vaccination could be like taking the mark of the beast, and that's not a joke.

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They're saying they're legitimately afraid. I love my dispensational friends.

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I've got a lot of them who listen to this podcast. I've got great respect for them, and they would deny that.

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They would get on the microphone and say, no, that's not it. But there are two things that break my heart about the pandemic and 2020 in general, and then there's something that makes me hopeful.

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What breaks my heart is that the church really is in a worse spot than we probably realize.

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For instance, a marriage, there's an underlining problem in it, and it's not exposed until there's pressure put upon it, and then the real state of the marriage comes out.

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So I think the real state of people's faith and their theological training and their view of the church and their view of love for one another is coming to the top because of the pressure that we're feeling.

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One initial reaction, and then maybe another thought alongside it. The initial reaction, one, praise

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God. Christ is our righteousness. We're not saved by our sound theology. We're saved by Christ.

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Praise be to his name. But I think one of the things that I have tried to discuss with people in having this conversation about not spiritualizing something or not moralizing something that isn't inherently spiritual or moral is to help people understand that motivations do matter on the one hand, so the objective reality of wearing a mask in a church service is not a sin, and it's not a moral issue.

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Now, if we were being purely motivated out of fear, fear of man, or if we were just really, really literally bowing the knee to the government in unhelpful ways, letting them dictate to us the practices of our faith, of course those things would be cause for concern, but that's not what we're dealing with.

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It's not what people are encountering in their local churches week after week. I think maybe pivoting slightly to this, we were talking about this earlier, something that I think 2020 has revealed to us individually about ourselves, but it's something that we've also seen in others is

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I think we're all far more selfish than we would ever care to admit, and we are very much attached to comfort and our own comfort.

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When those things are upset, when things don't go the way that I want them to go, when my rhythms are disrupted, and when

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I now am not able to do the things that I just want to do, whether those are good or bad things is almost irrelevant, but when

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I can't do what I want to do, man, I don't handle it well. Somehow we've equated

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Christian liberty with personal liberty, and then what I mean by that, for someone who may not understand what

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I mean... I want to riff on this. Go. So Christian liberty means that we were underneath the tyranny of sin, we were a prisoner, and we've been set free from that through the power of the

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Spirit, and we are no longer... The master of our life is now Christ. We are slaves to Christ, and that's a beautiful thing.

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Yes, and in Him we are free. Right, and so we will not allow... I know Paul says in Colossians, don't allow anybody to basically put you back underneath slavery.

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Exactly, and he says the same thing in Galatians 5. Right. We take that, and we then turn it into American freedoms, and we can't let the government...

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And people think I'm crazy, but I'm not. I've seen people do this. I've seen... You're a little crazy, John. Well, if you've been listening to Theocast, any amount of time, everybody knows

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I'm crazy. Crazy about... Whatever, I'm going to let that one go. Keep your thought going.

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But I'm going to try and say this in a thoughtful way.

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I appreciate what America is, what America stands for. I'm not proud of our history, but I'm proud of what we are trying to do, but how we have accomplished it, we're sinners.

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There is no nation under the sun that has ever done anything on a moral level that is pure in the eyes of God.

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So if you want to point to a nation and say they've done it right, you're wrong.

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They don't exist. But somehow we have then said our American freedoms are the same as basically when the government is encroaching on our

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Christian liberties. And I'm saying, if you understand when Paul wrote

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Romans and what they were going underneath, it's nothing what we're going under.

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So one way that I might say it is that libertarianism is not in the Bible. I've said this before, too.

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I'm not trying to open up a can of anything here, but it's not that I see capitalism in the

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Bible or something like that either. But I think there's been a tremendous confusion, and I've seen this in our local context and with Christians in our area.

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There's a tremendous confusion, like you're saying, in Christian liberty and the Christian faith and libertarian thinking from a political perspective.

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And those two things are not one and the same. And it's unhelpful when we sort of blur those lines and blend those categories, for sure.

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And hopefully you hear the tone of what we're trying to accomplish here. We just kind of want to almost hold up a mirror and say, hey, step back a moment and reflect on, am

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I looking at this from a personal preference? And have I stamped it with the

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Bible? Or am I truly allowing God's word to govern how I'm interacting here?

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Because I will tell you, the Bible is going to call you more to set down your own preferences a whole lot faster than they are for you to pick them up and defend them.

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Word, brother. I know it's a podcast that we talked about recording next year, how the energy in pietism is always focused inward on me, but the energy in the biblical

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Christian organization is always focused outward on neighbor. And I think that we would all do well to remember that too, that what we need to be pouring ourselves into is into our brothers and sisters in the faith, into those in close proximity to us, whom we are called to love and serve.

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And so if we would get over ourselves on the one hand and take up the theology of the cross, that we are called to die to ourselves and love others and serve others, we would do far better.

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You know, it's interesting to love someone to totally jump in here. I do this a lot in marriage counseling.

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I do this a lot in pre -marriage counseling. We tend to love people the way we think they should be loved.

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Totally. So I think you should feel this from me. And if you don't, then you're in the wrong because you didn't accept my love.

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Actually, if the person isn't feeling loved, maybe you should rethink what you're doing.

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Maybe you should rethink them and try to understand them. Exactly. Because typically, to love someone well, you actually do have to die to self.

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You have to be humble and you have to suppress preference. When I first got married to my wife,

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I didn't understand how many preferences I had, and I clearly didn't see how many she had.

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If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith vs.

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Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what does it mean to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a

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This is a monthly membership where we provide additional content each week, and your support is what allows us to keep spreading the good news of resting in Christ.

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You can learn more at theocast .org. You're talking about the thing that's sort of underneath so many fights in marriage is this issue of preferences and the way that individuals tick and unwillingness, frankly, to compromise and an unwillingness to do the hard work of trying to understand another person and laying your own preferences aside and saying, no,

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I'm going to do what's good for him, what's good for her. For instance, if I had a brother in Christ tell me, or a sister who said they were a

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Democrat, we immediately project upon them and assume things about them instead of hearing them out.

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Brother, I'm glad you said that. I aim to make this my posture, and I'm going to go ahead and say that I think we all should aim to make something like this our posture when we hear something like that, because you're right.

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In the conservative, reformed world, to say, yeah,

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I voted Democrat is, I think, in some context, a shocking statement. Rather than immediately concluding a bunch of things about that individual, we would be far better served and the church would profit if our posture was, okay, let me humbly seek to understand my brother or sister who just made that statement.

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Let me see if I can listen to them well enough and take seriously enough their concerns. It's not just that they're made in the image of God and I need to take them seriously.

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It's, no, I need to legitimately listen and take their concerns seriously enough that I could then articulate what they're saying and make good arguments for them.

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If I've done that, okay, now I can respond and think and reason with you about, here's why

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I maybe made a different choice and here's my first, second, and third reason. We would be helped by those kinds of conversations rather than immediately jumping to these really reductionistic, unhelpful conclusions where we really do just kind of,

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I don't know, write people off and we don't seek to understand them. To be clear, for those, if this may be your first time listening to Theocast.

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Yeah, this will be an interesting first episode. No kidding. To love someone is not to excuse sin.

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It's like, for instance, when the Father says to us as children, I love you unconditionally, that's because all that God cannot love about us or cannot,

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I should say, cannot accept about us has been taken care of in Christ. So when

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I say you love someone, that doesn't mean you have to wash over any sin if it's a sin issue.

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For instance, we had this conversation a couple of episodes ago, if someone's absolutely demanding for me to accept their position on, let's say, sexuality, and if I don't accept their position, they won't feel loved.

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Right, or that abortion is good or something. To love someone does not mean

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I have to fully agree with them, but it also means that on certain areas that are not, this is why

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I said it's so important in the beginning, the difference between preference and doctrine. Is this a doctrinal issue or is this a preference issue that I can set aside?

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We don't need to rehash old things and talk about politics, but I think the assumption should be made, you should assume good of your brothers and sisters.

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So if somebody were to say to you, for example, I did vote Democratic and you understand that the Democratic Party platform is pro -abortion and pro -LGBTQ, etc.,

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you should not immediately assume that that person was voting for that candidate because of those things, but they were voting that way in spite of those things.

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Again, I think to assume well of one another is something that we should do biblically, and then we should seek to understand each other.

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You're exactly right that what we are not advocating for is to just dismiss sin or act like it's not a big deal, or to try to call something that's wrong right.

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That's not what we mean, and I think that needs to be cleared up immediately. We talk a lot about grace on this podcast, and we get shot at on occasion as being hyper -grace guys, and I don't have time to get upset about how that's a misnomer and you can't overemphasize grace biblically, but I think what exists out there commonly in the church is a misunderstanding of what grace is.

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So some people think that grace is a methodology in which we call things that are wrong right. No, grace exists because there is real wrong.

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I think we talked about this recently in one of our episodes on sin. Grace exists because there is real wrong and we all do it, and we are in need of something that we don't have, namely righteousness, and we only can receive that through the unmerited favor, the grace of God applied to us by the mechanism of faith as we look to Christ who has done these things for us.

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I just want to be clear on that. Justin Perdue I think it's a huge point, though.

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Grace covers our sins, but it does not excuse them. Justin Perdue And it doesn't make them right. Justin Perdue No, absolutely.

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Justin Perdue I get upset when people talk like this. Justin Perdue I know you do. Justin Perdue It really does. It works me out.

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Justin Perdue I know it does. Justin Perdue We have done a lot of criticism, and so I want to help you maybe think through some of this.

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What is the goal? Me, you, and Jimmy all have opinions about a lot of things.

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How churches should be run. We have opinions about things that are non -theological, and we have very strong opinions on those.

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When it comes to being able to unify in a family, my wife and I have had to make compromises on our preferences because someone has to compromise.

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Otherwise, there can't be unity. You can't have two people wanting to go in two opposite directions and assuming that you're going to walk step in step.

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Justin Perdue How is it that we as believers can demonstrate mercy?

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Let me go back to Ephesians chapter 4. He says, I think you can hold your opinion and even have a meaningful conversation with someone when it is presented with meekness and patience and gentleness.

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That does not mean passive, that doesn't mean passionless, and it doesn't mean weak—meekness is not weakness.

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It means that you are being generous and kind and patient towards the person to whom you are engaging.

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Unfortunately, Justin, you and I have talked about this, there are churches who are just absolutely splitting right down the middle.

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It breaks my heart because the mission of the church should be one of unity so that the gospel can advance, so that sinners can find the light of Christ.

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What's happening is that the world is unfortunately looking at the church very confused at the moment, saying, this seems like they are more passionate about something other than who they say they are, which is

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Jesus. Justin Perdue I know I have to be careful with the broad sweeping. Justin Perdue I want to be careful on how

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I say this, too, but I think you're right. I think that in many situations, in many church contexts, 2020 has been something, with everything contained therein, that has been an occasion to expose perhaps the fact that our unity in the church doesn't run as deep as we would have thought.

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I think you have seen that many Christians are very happy and very ready.

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Maybe not happy, that's unfair, but are very ready to divide over things that are, honestly,

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John, tertiary issues of theological consideration at best. So tertiary, just to be clear, there's primary, secondary, and tertiary.

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We're talking kind of peripheral stuff, and there's a confusion of categories that exist for many, but people seem ready to divorce themselves and divide from a local church context where they seemed otherwise happy and content to be.

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Because of these considerations, and that's a sadness, I agree with you. I think,

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John, the prescription for what ails us is to continue to herald

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Christ and his finished work and his righteousness in the place of sinners and to rally people around Jesus.

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There's a lot of things that we can get people geeked up about that are pretty good, but there's only one thing that's great and ultimate, and that is

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Christ and what he's done for us. Obviously, we've got to have doctrinal solidarity, and there needs to be a confession that we would adhere to, and we've got to agree about stuff to have a church together.

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But I think as pastors, we need to take it very seriously, and as Christians who are members of local churches, we need to take it seriously that we are unified around Christ and around doctrine that really is clearly derived straight from Scripture, and we are willing to charitably disagree about other stuff to demonstrate where our unities actually lie.

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I'll say personally, I'm fine to boast in what the Lord Jesus Christ has done by his

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Spirit in our own local congregation that I am mega encouraged by the saints of Covenant Baptist Church and the unity that clearly seems to exist in our congregation.

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I'm thankful for that, and that is certainly not because of me. It's because of what the Lord has done.

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I trust you would say the same thing and have even to me today that in the midst of a year where this is not true in a lot of congregations,

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I'm very thankful that we are unified around the Lord Jesus Christ and are seeking imperfectly but sincerely to love each other and understand each other.

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One other observation, which we've mentioned a little bit, but there's an additional thought I've had on this from other podcasts.

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I've never really been involved with politics very much, you probably more than me, just from conversations we've had, and I realized

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I needed to be a little bit more aware. You mean just thinking and talking about them? Yes, just politics in general.

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I know your time up at Capitol Hill probably influenced that. Yes, I lived in DC for a period of time. I've always liked history. This year

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I definitely engaged way more in politics than I have in the past, just so I could learn how to shepherd my church better and make good decisions based upon what

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I think is about to come down the pipeline. One of the things

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I discovered was, and there's a lot of reasons why, and this is probably a whole other podcast, but unfortunately, and again, it really makes me sad, that a lot of Christians put trust in governmental systems for their protection and their spiritual journeys going forward.

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If America doesn't do things this way, then this is what's going to happen to the church. Now listen,

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I am in no shape or form wanting to be underneath a persecuted state. I just don't. I don't want to.

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Well, brother, we should not wish that upon ourselves and we shouldn't pray for that. We should pray that we can live quiet, peaceful, and godly lives.

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But we should also not live in fear because God's church is not dictated by any human being in the history of man.

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God's church will always go forward because it's, again, think about the title of it, it's God's church.

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Again, where I see this division that people have taken their political views and basically said, if you vote for this candidate or if you hold these perspectives, then you are going to put the church in harm or in a compromising position, which may be very true.

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It could make things different than they are now, but I don't ever think you can put the church in a compromising position because the world cannot dictate the advancement of the church because that is wrought by the

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Spirit of God, not by any human organization. Just as I said earlier, we ought never pray for persecution.

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We ought never pray for trials. Those are things that God does ordain, but we ought to pray for peace and those kinds of things to reign.

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We would never sign up for persecution or never sign up for trials, but if it does come our way, the Lord will use it, and the

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Lord has grown His church through suffering for 2 ,000 years. That is clear as day, and we will endure and we will press on.

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I'm happy to say this, even over the airwaves like this. I took some heat for some of the things that I wrote around the election, encouraging charity and stuff like this.

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At the same time, I want to be really clear. Our elders have led our church to try to, in a good way, submit to the authority that we're under, in a

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Romans 13 way. At the same time, our elders right now, we live in a state where restrictions are being tightened back down, and we've been very clear with our congregation that we have no plans of stopping gathering.

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We will be responsible, but we're going to continue to meet. We do not understand that at this point we are at the place of civil disobedience, but it may come to that.

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If it does, we will try to reflect well and think about all related concerns, but we want the people to know that the assembly is not going anywhere.

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The Lord Jesus Christ will build His church, man, and I'm with you on that. Justin Perdue And that's what I was gigging at.

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We're just going to keep trusting Him and being responsible, and we're going to keep meeting. We're not going to be governed by fear.

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Second Peter says, you're going to suffer. Don't add to it through your stupidity of sin.

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First Peter 1 .4 says, don't be surprised when you encounter sufferings of various kinds, as though something strange is happening to you.

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All of that to say, and part of what Theocast is designed for and what this conversation is where I want to lead it to for the next few minutes.

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Justin Perdue I have one other thought, but anyway, I'm not going to try to derail your train. First Peter 1 .4 says, my encouragement to the person who lives in this constant state of fear, that there's anxiety upon them that the government's going to collapse in on us and Christ's work is going to stop.

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I just don't want you to say, great, John, you have that confidence, but I want you to understand from a historical standpoint.

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We look at the church in the New Testament and we read about the persecution that's there.

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They were underneath tremendous amounts of persecution. The Lord grew their number by 5 ,000 that day.

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When Peter's in prison and they're all praying and Peter shows up at the door and they're like, what are you doing here?

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You were praying for me to be set free. My encouragement is that what we're doing, which is emphasizing the finished work of Christ, finding people who are exhausted by sin, leading them to find rest in Jesus, finding people who are exhausted by the evangelical train, pulling them off and leading them to trust in Christ, all of that is only going to increase in advance because that's the promise that God gives us.

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Vote responsibly, live responsibly. But put your hope in something that obviously is not founded on a government.

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Brother, the government is nobody's savior, and it is a poor one. I don't want to say that in a condescending way.

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I want you to hear me saying the Bible actually does speak to this, that our foundation is so solid in Christ.

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Actually, you look at persecuted countries right now, and Christianity is exploding. It's thriving. Well, in the

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West, where there have been more personal freedoms and liberty and the like, you see that Christianity is largely on the decline in terms of biblical robust Christianity.

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You think of places like the UK, and you think about America. Christianity is not doing well in terms of robust confessional biblical

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Christianity, in terms of numerical growth, but in other areas of the world where there is not as much liberty, not as much freedom.

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Think about sub -Saharan Africa. Think about China. My gosh, the church is growing like crazy.

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We need not fear about the growth of the church. As you said very well, brother, put our hope in something that is solid rock.

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That is not ebbing and flowing, but that is never changing. That's the faithfulness of God.

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Use the whole entire of the Old Testament and Israel as an example. Where God is using, He legitimately is.

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This is the nation of God. God is their king. A legitimate theocracy.

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They fail miserably, and God still accomplishes salvation. That's so much the story of redemption.

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The people fail, and God overcomes that failure, and He is going to save His people.

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We are safe, the church is safe, it may not look like it did last year or the last 10 years, and we may not live in the comfortable state we used to live in.

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Obviously, we're all going to die some kind of death, and it's not going to be pretty, but that doesn't mean

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God's mission and plan is not being accomplished. Nothing's going to stop Him. Maybe one other thought in reflecting on 2020 before we end the regular portion of the podcast,

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I think 2020 has reminded me and taught me anew of how much

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I love and how much I need the corporate gathering. Holy smokes, that season of time where we weren't meeting at all as a church, because we don't own our own facility.

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We had no opportunity to meet anywhere for a period of time, and then we met outside for a while and have been inside since late

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October. Even with the COVID protocol and everything else, it is just so good to assemble and be together.

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This is my own personal opinion. I'm a pessimist by nature, but I think most people that I talk to who are even pessimistic like me, think that a year from now, things probably look different in terms of our ability to gather and not have as many restrictions and stuff, and maybe sooner than that.

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I really look forward to the days to be able to gather without masks on, to see people's faces, and the rest.

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In the meantime, brother, it is worth it. Wherever you are, whatever your locale and your state is requiring and all those kinds of things, that's for you and your elders to navigate, but it is worth it to gather, and the

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Lord is the great overcomer. He overcomes every distraction that we bring in with us on Sundays.

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He overcomes our burdens and our sins. He can certainly overcome some masks and can minister to us through the ordinary means of grace, can meet us in our desperation,

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He can build us up, He can sustain and confirm and strengthen us, and He does that. It has been a great privilege for me to gather with the saints of CBC in recent weeks, even inside in a new space, and I look forward to continuing to do that.

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Amen. Yeah. Good times. Yeah. Anyway, that's a few reflections from a couple of broken sinners, a couple of guys who are trusting

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Christ and happen to be pastoring churches, as we have been planning today for the future, but also reflecting on the year that's passed.

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That's a good thing for us to do as mortal creatures who are finite, as we worship and serve an infinite

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God, and we look forward to the new heavens and the new earth. The fear and the thought of bad news will just go away.

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There will be no more bad news. There will be no other shoes dropping ever, and we will be with God, and it's going to be epic.

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Anyway, we're going to make our way over now to the members podcast, I Trust. We're going to do it here on site together.

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Who knows what we're going to talk about? I do have one word. Please. Yeah, absolutely. It's a little bit of a downer podcast.

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I think we're just trying to help people think through some things. The mood is somber in here.

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It's dimly lit. It's a very cool space. Dreary day in Knoxville.

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It's been raining all day. My encouragement to this podcast is that there are a lot of listeners

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I know who are really down. Yeah, let's talk about that for a minute before we go to the members. Yeah, I'm not going to get emotional here.

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We get some very complicated emails, questions through social media.

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Some very transparent emails too. Oh man, so transparent. My encouragement to the listener is that there are many people who are in between churches or their church isn't meeting.

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They hear Justin talk about his church. And their thought is, if I could have a tenth of that, it would feed my soul.

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Maybe so. I understand that and I feel that. My encouragement to you is that there is much to be done.

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There is much that's going on. The frustration that you feel is legitimate.

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You are not alone. Justin and I can tell you at one point, we all felt this angst within us.

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Like something's off, something's wrong, something needs to change. And it's over a lot of pain and a lot of trial and a lot of circumstances that we find ourselves in here today.

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And I will tell you that there is a hope that is outside of your circumstance.

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The one thought I want to leave you alone with when it comes to 2020 is that what we experienced yesterday is not tomorrow's hope.

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God tells us that this world should never bring you hope. There's nothing in this world that can...

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Everything you have turns into dust. And if I learned anything about 2020, it reminded me that there is no value in putting any hope in this world.

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My encouragement to you is to continue to read, listen, and find a good church that will point you past this life and find that hope in Christ.

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Who will bring you and resurrect you to eternal life with God.

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And who is gentle and tender and kind to you in the midst of your struggle and your pain.

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Who entered into this wasteland called fallen earth and knows what it's like to suffer. I mean, he is not remote and distant in any way.

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And when we sin, his heart is moved with compassion toward us. He is not angry with us.

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He is not distancing himself with us when we struggle. If anything, he draws nearer. He loves us.

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Second Peter, cast your anxieties on him because he cares for you. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.

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This is our Savior. He does not break bruised reeds. He doesn't quench smoldering wicks.

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He is gentle and tender and he loves us. And so trust in Christ, pray to your

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Father in heaven, and continue to fight the fight of the Christian life as we move into 2021.

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So with that, we are going to transition over to the members area. And I have a feeling it's going to be maybe a grab bag of topics over there.

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We hope that it will be encouraging to you. If you don't know what the members podcast is, you can find more information about that on our website, which is theocast .org.

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We're going to have some updates to the website coming soon. It may already be live by this time. And those are exciting to us.

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We hope that they are exciting and helpful to you. We are thankful for all of you who are listening, who partner with Theocast to spread this message of rest in Christ as far and as wide as possible.

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And if you're not yet partnering with us, please consider doing that. Help us with your prayers and with your downloads and with your money.

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We are unashamed to ask for that. So anyway, we're going to head over to the members podcast. We'll talk with many of you there.