What Happened to Freedom in the Gospel? | Theocast

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Jesus said that those whom the Son sets free are free indeed, but maybe you're listening to this podcast and you're thinking, bro,

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I don't really feel free. There may be reasons for that. The gospel is marvelous and wonderful and it has many facets, and there are times that certain things aren't talked about so much.

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The forgiveness of sins, absolution from guilt, the imputation of Christ's righteousness are wonderful, and we have also been set free from the kingdom of darkness and from the evil one.

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So today on the podcast, John and I have a conversation about that freedom and how that is an essential part of the gospel message.

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Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word. It's called pietism.

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Have you ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy, that you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna 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 gonna explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism,

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Reformed 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 on our website.

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Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary Pilgrims to rest in Christ, because he is a sufficient

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Savior. We're gonna have conversations today, or a conversation about the

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Christian life from a confessional, Reformed, and pastoral perspective. Your hosts today are

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John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Springhill, Tennessee. and I am Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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We are back in our respective locales. John and I do not live in the same place.

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Some of you know that. Some of you are surprised to find that out, that we don't live in the same city.

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They sound similar. John is near Nashville, Tennessee. I'm in Asheville, North Carolina, but we're about five hours apart down Interstate 40.

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We were recently together in Bentonville, Arkansas for an event with our friends at 1517.

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Got to meet several of you. It was a good time. Got to meet some of you. Thanks for coming and saying hey. And now we're back at it, back to the grind, and we are back behind the microphones today and looking at each other on a screen.

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Can I say something about the Bentonville trip? Go ahead. I was gonna say, when people hear our voices on the pod and then they see our pictures, everyone assumes your voice goes with my picture.

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Isn't that funny? I don't, yeah. I think it's funny. I've never, nobody's ever said that to me.

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They always say, oh, they always like, oh, I always picture, because our names aren't on the photos. Yeah, that's true. People are always like, oh,

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I always pictured Justin's voice with you. And I was like, oh, I appreciate that. Thanks, I guess.

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I'm not quite sure what to say about that. I don't know what to do with that either. So anyway, now that we've acknowledged that,

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I will also acknowledge that some of you are gonna be disappointed that there are no announcements today. Oh, I'm gonna break that one too,

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Justin. I do have some. Oh my gosh. I mean, flipping the script on me. I know. And we're polished and professional.

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Go ahead. Simple stuff. Like for instance, we do actually send out an email every week with a book recommendation that corresponds with the podcast.

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And if you're not on that list, you can go to our website at the very bottom and sign up for the book rec.

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How about that? And for those on the video probably saw, I held up this mug, but we have hats, shirts, stickers, coffee mugs, books, all at our store.

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And it's good quality mugs. This is a big mug. We got rid of the little ones. Remember the little ones, Justin?

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We got rid of those. We got the big ones. I don't mind the little ones though. I like both. You were the one that said you didn't like the little ones.

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All right, whatever. Just like you changed your mind about the announcements. Anyway, we're good here.

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Why don't you tell the people what we're gonna talk about today? Yeah. So thankfully,

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Theocast can be very much a part of what Justin and I do on a week to week basis in our sermons.

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And so this episode and Lord willing, the next episode are gonna be much related to what we're preaching. And that just helps us out.

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You mean we're preachers and pastors before we're podcasters? Yeah, something like that. Man. Okay. Man, I love triple dipping, man.

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Whatever I do in the pulpit, doing, do a Bible study on, do a podcast on. It's where our minds and hearts are. That's right.

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It's where our minds and hearts are right now. Yeah, it's good. And I'm gonna apologize ahead of time to the listener.

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I am, I'm fighting off a really bad chest infection. So I'm gonna do my best.

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I may talk a lot less in this episode, just depending on how we're doing. So Justin - Justin, don't say you have a chest infection, man.

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Those people out there who are into positive confession are gonna have a problem with that. You know, you can't say you're sick.

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Just say you're overcome by a multitude of symptoms, man. Make it sound better. Multitude of symptoms.

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There we go. That's right. Go ahead. When I have been preparing to go through first Peter, which has just been a delight, but it's complicated, man.

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Peter has some things in here that are hard to preach, you know. He had his whole submission section that I just went through.

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Submitting to the government, submitting to tyrannical bosses, wives submitting to husbands, all this kind of stuff.

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But when you lose sight, Justin, of why we're doing what we're doing, then those verses are hard.

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But when you remember the gospel in its entirety, then those make a lot of sense because we become light.

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You know, the way that Peter really references it quite often is that he calls them living stones, temples, and he calls them royal priests, which means we're representatives of the king.

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And in this particular section I'm covering, first Peter 3 .18, Peter does something that I think is extremely important, and Justin and I wanted to talk about it today because I think it's an aspect of the gospel that is often ignored in modern contexts.

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So let's just walk through, I would call the three essential parts of the gospel, Justin, that you just, if you leave one of these out,

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I think you don't have a full gospel, in my opinion. The first one is the forgiveness of sins, right?

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We are completely pardoned of all of our guilt and shame. And that part of the gospel is not new nor confusing to anyone.

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I would say Justin and I have tried really hard to reclaim the second part of the gospel. Go ahead, JP. No, I was just gonna say that, so the two words that are associated in my mind with what you just said are forgiveness and absolution.

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That's right. The forgiveness of sins, absolution of guilt. The second part which

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Justin and I really try to bring clarity on constantly is you cannot have salvation if you do not have righteousness.

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And that righteousness has to be alien. It has to come from outside of ourselves because we're not capable of producing perfection and obedience.

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So we believe that the gospel is the good news, that all of Christ's righteousness is our righteousness by faith alone.

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We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. It's wonderful. 1 Peter uses that exact language. That's what it means to be clothed with royal robes.

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We're priests and we wear the robes of Christ's priesthood because he was the one who fulfilled all righteousness as a priest on our behalf.

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So we become priests in that way. That's the second part of the gospel. And the third part of the gospel,

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Peter uses in this particular context, and I think it applies in our modern day American context as well, in that he has these dear churches who are living in Rome.

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And man, it's rough. Like first of all, life's just hard. Like in general, you have death, you have cancer, suffering.

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And he talks about that. How even there's tyrannical governments, and he just talks about suffering in general.

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And then he talks about spiritual suffering, where he says, now listen, because of your faith, and because you're not gonna be in Rome, they required people to bow down to other gods.

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And they're like, no, we're loyal to one. We're loyal to one God. And they're going, this is why he has to say, you're a master of the home.

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Like let's say you're a servant. The master of the home worships multiple gods. And typically, whoever the master of the home worships, you worship.

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And so you have to somehow with humility and total submission, object to that, and only serve the king.

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And he goes, you're probably gonna get persecuted for it, but do your best. Do your best so you can be a light, and you can be, hopefully draw them, because he even says to the woman that your husband might believe the gospel.

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So he uses an illustration in 1 Peter, which I think is interesting. Let me just begin with it.

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So he just finished the whole suffering section, and he's moving now on to giving them hope.

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This is a long section of hope. And so he begins this post -suffering, submit yourself, even the tyrannical bosses of government.

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He says, for Christ, this is 1 Peter 3 .18, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust.

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So that's part of our, right there, that's part of the gospel, right? He received our payment that he might bring to us

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God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit.

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So remember, he's using this as a comfort. And then he says, by whom he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient when once the divine, sorry, once the divine long -suffering waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is eight souls, were saved through water.

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So we're not gonna get into the theology of this. I'd encourage you to read San Renehan's book that he has on this particular, the primer and reader on the descent of Christ.

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So not gonna get into that. But what I do wanna point out is Peter is pointing to an

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Old Testament story, and I'm doing a full exegesis on this if you wanna go listen to the Kingdom Unveiled podcast.

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He is pointing to an Old Testament story. And where I want you to pay attention to, he says he preached or proclaimed victory, what he's talking about, to the spirits in prison.

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Now, what I wanna point out is this. There's a third aspect to the gospel that is often used for comfort.

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We may be a little bit more familiar with it for passages like Ephesians chapter two.

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He what, delivered us out of the domain of darkness and transferred us in.

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Yeah, that's right, Colossians one. Or Ephesians two, that was the other one I was thinking of, which is we were under the control of the prince of the power of the air, right?

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So you have this ransom theology where we are being delivered from one tyrannical slave owner who absolutely had control over our life.

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And now we live in total freedom and we live in total, we've been set free to live within the power of Christ and his kingdom.

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And we are described as slaves there, but this is a wonderful slave relationship because he calls us brother, right?

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He calls us beloved. So Justin, this podcast this morning is really reclaiming the third part of the gospel that is often left out, which is our freedom in Christ.

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How we've been set free from this supernatural war that enslaved us.

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And now we have a true freedom in Christ to walk by the spirit. Unfortunately, still living in the battlefield because we can't leave the battlefield because there's still work to be done.

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That's why Peter's warning him, he goes, look, I know you're suffering, but you're not a part of the slavery there anymore.

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You are now free. That's a good part of the gospel. You are cleansed, you are clothed and you are free.

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So that's what we're gonna talk about today. Yeah, really quick theological comment because you brought it up.

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You and I were acknowledging this to each other a little bit ago. Whenever we start to talk about being ransomed from the devil, sometimes some people out there who have read on these different theories of the atonement might get a little bit nervous.

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We just wanna be really clear. John and I 100 % are affirming and joyful over penal substitution, that Christ took our penalty as our substitute and that he kept the law in our place and all those things.

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That's absolutely true. And alongside that, it's very plain in reading the scriptures that we were delivered from slavery to the evil one.

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And so the ransom theory in that regard that Jesus ransomed us from the strong man,

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Satan, the ancient serpent who is the devil is very plain in scripture. And we need not pit that against penal substitution.

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Both are true. And so - I mean, it said he had power over death. Yeah, well, and I mean,

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Satan is the God of this world. He is very powerful. He's the one who holds, like Jesus, Hebrews 2, which you're alluding to,

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Jesus frees us from bondage to death by conquering the one who has the power of death, namely the devil.

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And so that's a big thing. I mean, even in the high priestly prayer, what you were just talking about,

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Jesus says, I'm not asking, Father, that you take them out of the world, but I am asking that you protect them from the evil one.

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So that's what we're talking about. But I think - And that is a part of the good news of the gospel. Amen, dude. I mean, and I would -

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I know you don't disagree with what I'm about to say, too. I think that we often, yeah, there's forgiveness and absolution.

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There's imputation of righteousness. And then we don't talk about being set free from bondage.

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And the fact, too, that in that freedom, Jesus brings us all the way home, right? I mean, this is the good news.

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Like, we ought not stop just with forgiveness, absolution, righteousness, as great as that is.

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It's like, no, our union with Christ means that we've been set free from bondage to the evil one. We've been set free from the tyranny of sin and death, and we will be brought finally home to be with the

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Lord and with one another. And so I think, for my part, I'm not meaning to be punchy, but we were talking about titles for this episode, and I don't know what the final title will be because we kicked around about 12 different ones.

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I think that, sadly, many people, when they preach the gospel or preach the message of Christianity or whatever we want to call it, they leave quite a bit of bondage and slavery in the thing, or maybe just kind of redefine it.

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So I was having a conversation recently on the flight back from Arkansas with a guy, a

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German guy that I met on the plane, and he was very warm, gregarious, and I was very tired, but I was like, clearly, this guy wants to engage, so I guess

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I'm gonna do that. And yeah, he asked me if my travel was for personal reasons or for work or whatever.

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I said, well, it was a work trip. And we get in, of course, to what do you do? And so I said,

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I'm a pastor, and he was very interested by that and wanted to engage. And he asked me, amongst a whole host of other things, he asked me if I had read the

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Quran. And I said, well, I've read good portions of it. And he's like, what do you make of it? And I said, well,

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Islam is a religion of law. You do all of these things, and maybe

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Allah will be merciful. But Christianity is a religion of grace and freedom, and it's a religion about what

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God has done for us, right? And so that was kind of the way I contrasted Islam and Christianity.

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And I'm saying this because Christianity is utterly unique in the scope of world religion. It is the only religion in the world that is about what

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God has done for us, and God has set us free. We are no longer in bondage. Every other world religion is a religion of slavery and a religion of bondage.

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What's sad to me is that in many well -intentioned churches, and from the lips of many well -intentioned, sincere people, the way that Christianity is spoken of still sounds like a kind of bondage and slavery.

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It does not sound like freedom. And I don't care if you redefine the bondage or the slavery, it still is bondage and slavery.

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And so what we're contending for today, and trying to shout from the rooftops, is that we really are free in the

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Lord Jesus Christ from Satan, from death, from hell, from fear. And for freedom, we have been set free.

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Like Galatians 5 is the way Paul talks about it. Of course, not freedom unto sin. No believer would ever think such a thing.

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But we are set free unto righteousness and unto hope and peace and assurance in knowing that the

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Lord loves us. And because he loves us, he sent his son to die for us. And so now we are no longer enslaved in that kingdom of darkness in which we used to reside.

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And we are no longer slaves to our cravings and passions, but we have become new creations in Christ Jesus, and we have been liberated.

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Jesus has bound the strong man and he has set God's people free, and we are free indeed. Those whom the son sets free are free indeed.

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And so, yeah, I think you're right, John. I mean, you were the one that, you started talking about this earlier.

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This needs to be said more often. And freedom in Christ this way does not produce licentiousness or apathy or any of those things that people often think that it will.

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But in fact, it motivates godly living, love of neighbor, and I'm doing it from a place of freedom and joy and peace and security, not thinking that I'm still kind of shackled to something.

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Well, I just want to read, just so people understand, we're talking about a freedom.

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That is, we're talking about it from the kingdom of darkness, okay? So this freedom for me, it really matters in the way in which the

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New Testament writers use it as a place of hope. I mean, Romans 8 talks about you're not being given, you don't go back into bondage of the spirit of fear.

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Why? Because we're afraid of what might happen to us. To fall back into slavery, that's right. That's right. So what

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I want to point out is this. The gospel takes care of the judgment side. It takes care of the requirement side.

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And the gospel takes care of the supernatural spiritual side, right? This is what

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I'm trying to get at. We've removed the supernatural spiritual nature of the gospel and the

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New Testament writers. Well, I can't get my tongue to catch up.

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Go ahead. You know, Satan may be the God of this world, but he is no longer our God, man. I mean, that's a big deal.

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That's a big deal. No, but he still rules. So like, for instance - Well, yes, but he doesn't rule over us.

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No, and I've got two verses I want to quote. This is one that I told you. I just like, I don't know why. I'd never heard this verse before.

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But I'll just read the whole context. You got Hebrews 2, 14. It said, since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil.

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I mean, that's the supernatural nature of the gospel. Come on, man. And then it says, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

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For surely it is not angels that he helps, but it is he who offers - The children of Abraham. The offspring of Abraham, that's right.

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Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

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Now, here's the verse that threw me for a loop, but I just never paid attention to it. For because he himself has suffered when he tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted, which is true.

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Actually, that's not the verse I was thinking of, which is an incredible verse. What's the one

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I was - Oh, here it is, 2 -8, the one in front of it. Hebrews 2 -8, putting everything in subjection under his feet now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control.

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At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. Now, that is important, and this is a part of the good news of the gospel is that, hey, listen,

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Christ rose victorious. He holds the keys of death. Every creature that has ever been created in heaven and earth will now be under his authority, but that is not our experience, and that's what

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I think the writer of Hebrews is trying to set us up for. It's like, listen, he is in control, but that may not be your experience at the moment because he has not brought final judgment yet, right?

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So, because that's the case, let me read to us Ephesians 2, which we all know it well, but let me put some context to it a little bit.

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It says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the evil one, the spirit, now listen to this, that is now, present tense, at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

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So, that's what you're being freed from. When he says he's delivered you from slavery, the prince of the power of the air, who is at work in us, is no longer at work in us.

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That is good news. So, when we talk about freedom, dear listener, we are talking about freedom from the slavery of a tyrannical leader who absolutely obliterated us with licentious, sinful, horrible slavery.

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And Jesus is like, dear, dear precious, precious child, I saved you from that.

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Now, obviously we still struggle with the flesh, but it is the good news of the gospel to remind us that we are still gonna feel the attacks.

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This is why Ephesians four is important, because the body is set up to protect itself, and Ephesians six, because that's where the armor of God comes in, right?

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Put on, stand firm in what? In the strength of the Lord, and put on the armor of God, so that we might fight against, that we might fight against what?

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The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that's now at work in sons of disobedience. This is all part of the good news of the gospel.

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So, every Sunday when we preach Christ, we have to preach the whole Christ, right? Forgiveness, imputation, and deliverance and freedom, all of it.

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And if we don't, we leave freedom out, man, where are we gonna go look, Justin? We're gonna start looking for our own strength to pull us out of that stuff, and it won't work.

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We'll remain a slave if we try and use our own strength to come out of the kingdom of darkness. Hey guys, real quick, some of you are listening to this, and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions.

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So where do you go? How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources? We have started something called the

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Theocast Community, and we're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like -minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there, and you can share it and ask questions.

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You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. That Hebrews 2, eight verse you read is profound because it's such an encapsulation of so many things in the

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Christian life because we live by faith and not sight. Like, we don't yet see these things realized, which is why we need to talk about this all the time.

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I mean, take all three elements of the gospel that we're talking about today. I mean, when it comes to the forgiveness and absolution part, why do we need to hear that all the time?

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Well, because I feel guilty and ashamed often because I still sin and I struggle against my flesh and my conscience accuses me and I need to be reminded repeatedly that I'm forgiven and that I am absolved of my guilt.

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Why do I need to be told regularly that I've been given a righteousness? Well, it's because I all the time know that I don't have it, and I realize that the

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Lord is holy and requires righteousness, so I need to be told regularly, you've been given a righteousness, a righteousness that is perfect and invincible that you never could have achieved, and Jesus has won that for you.

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Well, I also need this, because let's be real, like this freedom from slavery piece,

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I need this preached to me because I live in a world where I still see evil all around.

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I mean, the paradox of this life is just striking to me often. I mean, you look around, it's like, man, there is such gripping beauty in this world and there is such absolutely devastating evil in this world that what do you make of that if God is not, if God is not, like, what do you make of it?

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That's a whole other podcast for another time, right? So I need to be told, though, on a regular basis, you are free, you might not see, you might not feel it all the time.

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Jesus is victorious and he is triumphant over the evil one. It might not always look like that, but he is.

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He reigns, he rules, he has bound that strong man and he has stepped on his head and he will one day throw him into the lake of fire.

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We know the end of the story and I need to be told repeatedly that the fact that I still see evil and the fact that even when

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I look around, I see bondage and slavery everywhere. And even for myself, I can sometimes still feel like and live like I'm in some kind of bondage.

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It's like, child, you are free indeed. You've been set free by the son of God. And I need to hear that week over week over week and that things are not always what they look like.

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Things are not always what they seem. This is why, as Christians, we always are believing and hoping and trusting what is so, even when our experience and our sight might preach a different word.

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So yeah, for any Christians or preachers out there, let's say this to each other more often so that we can be reminded.

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You mentioned Romans 8 and I'm gonna throw it back over to you. But what a beautiful, in Romans 8, 15, we have been not given a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but we've been given a spirit of adoption.

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And if we've been adopted into God's family, we now call him father and that has changed everything.

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And because he rules and reigns over the devil. And like, you know, Martin Luther's famous hymn, man, a mighty fortress is our

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God. What a wonderful song of freedom from bondage. What a wonderful song about the reality of the evil one and the kingdom of darkness and all these things that wage war against our souls and against the church.

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But one little word will fell the devil. And Luther, two different things he said.

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One word that was in his mind was liar because Satan's a liar. The other word that Luther had in mind was

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Abba. The fact that the Lord is our father ruins the devil. So let's proclaim that to each other all the time.

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Be a good thing. So a couple of weeks ago, Justin, we did, what does it mean to walk by the spirit?

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Let me make a connection to the two pods now. So Ephesians 2, okay, we know the verse that says, if you walk by the spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh, right?

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So it says Ephesians 2, 3, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.

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So our sinful pleasures that are very selfish in nature is the only thing we knew how to do, right?

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Exactly. Now we still live in that body. We still live in that body, unfortunately. The dead man, we drag that corpse around.

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Yeah. And we still have the capacity to do that. And that's where the gospel comes in.

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And it says, well, those desires have been covered by the blood. Your righteousness that you can't produce because you still live in the flesh is been given to you.

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So then how do you fight your flesh? You walk by the spirit. You walk by believing that you've been transferred out of the power of the darkness.

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And you now live in the power of the light that lives now within you. And so how do you enact this power?

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How do you use this power? He says, by faith, right? Believing the gospel.

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And Justin, this is where you and I get popped because it's like, you guys emphasize grace too much. It's like, well, you weren't transferred out of the kingdom of light into the dark into the kingdom of light because you did something.

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May I keep reading? But God being rich in mercy because of his great love, which he loved us.

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I don't know how else you live, but if you live by mercy and grace. So every day we walk going, how am

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I not going to carry out the desires of the body today by God's mercy and by his grace, by realizing that it's through his power and his strength.

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So dear preacher and dear believer, you have to have a whole gospel or you will have a half salvation.

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You're gonna remain in slavery and we don't want that for anyone to remain a slave to Satan anymore, especially when you've been set free.

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Allow me to make a brief observation. Of course not. Let me make a brief observation that is related to the gospel from Ephesians 2, 4, and 5.

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Like that whole thing, God, because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ.

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I think a lot of times a misconception that people have, I mean, I'm talking about serious minded believers. We think, okay, well, the father loves us because of Jesus and the father is good with us because of Jesus.

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And it's almost as though Jesus came and suffered and died so that God would love us.

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And it's like, that's completely backwards. It's because God loves us that he sent his son.

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I mean, that's the most famous verse in all of scripture. For God in this way loved the world, right? I mean, it's like that he sent his son.

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And so that's just very encouraging to my soul as I was just listening to you read it. And it's like, man, how liberating is that?

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To know that the father has always loved me, has loved you, has loved his people. And because of his love, he sent

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Jesus. That's pretty cool. But then if I may, I'm gonna say things that probably will get us shot at even more, but I'm just gonna do it.

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So I think what often occurs is when I said that oftentimes slavery and bondage is sort of left in the

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Christian life, what I mean is this. Forgiveness of sins is preached. Even the imputation of righteousness is preached.

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And people might even say we've been delivered from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's beloved son. But then the

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Christian life becomes not about freedom in Christ by the spirit to love and serve neighbor in joy, but it then becomes about all of the duties and the obligations and the disciplines that you are now shackled to.

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Now, don't hear what I'm not saying. The law of God is good and wise, right? And it guides our living and we seek to live in conformity unto it by the spirit in freedom because we have come to agree with the

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Lord that his law is good and we delight in it in our inner man. So don't hear me saying that how we live doesn't matter.

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But oftentimes, it's kind of this interesting sort of bait and switch thing that happens, or it's this kind of flipping of the script where it's like, yes, you've been set free in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let me tell you all the things that you need to get to work and do so that you'll be finally saved.

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Well, what is that? Other than a just redefining and a repackaging of some kind of bondage that I now, it's just the terms of the game of change, right?

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The terms of the game have changed maybe, but it still is incumbent upon me to deliver something and to do something and to train myself and to discipline myself well enough that I can finally be the

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Lord's. And I can finally be with him. That's not the freedom that we're talking about. Now, will we live different lives?

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Yes, because God sanctifies his people. I was talking to a guy on the phone yesterday. It's like sanctification is real and sanctification is

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God's work. And then we are the recipients of that work in and through us by the power of his spirit alone, right?

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And so then, yeah, I change because he's sanctifying me. I don't sanctify myself, right?

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I don't change myself. And so these things are important, dude, when it comes to talking about freedom. Go ahead,

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John. Get us in more trouble. Go ahead. It just kind of feels like it's the older brother in their prodigal son story.

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It's like everyone who's worried about sanctification of other people, sometimes the least sanctified people that I know, like people who really harp on daily

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Bible reading, and I listen and I watch and observe how they act online, I'm like, dude, you need to start obeying the very word that you're telling everybody to read.

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How about you obey it first? And I know that sounds really condescending, but man, it's true. I find that the self -righteousness that comes out of this lack of gospel is just not...

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All right, let me give an example here, Justin. Yeah, please. This is Titus 3, eight. I love what he does here.

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He says, the saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things.

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I mean, Paul says this a lot. He says it in Colossians too. I want you to insist on these things. So that those who believe in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

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So believe in God, that's an encompassing of like the gospel, right? You trust in God. Well, no, when he says

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I want you to insist on these things, he's referring to verses four through seven, that the goodness and kindness of God, our

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Savior, appeared. He saved us, not because of works done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the

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Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

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This, like, that's what he's saying. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things. So, and what does insisting on the gospel do?

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It's exactly what you said. So that, right, people, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

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These things are not opposed to one another. It's actually the insisting on the gospel that produces good works.

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And then I love what he says here. But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, this one's funny, and quarrels about the law, which is interesting to me.

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We do often quarrel about the law. Oh, we quarrel about every jot and tittle. That's right.

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For they are unprofitable and worthless. Now, let me stop there. Paul isn't saying the law is of no value and we shouldn't talk about the law.

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Of course not. The difference between quarreling about the law and understanding the use of the law, as for a person who stirs up divisions after warning him once, even then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, he is self -condemned.

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Now, I want you to understand the contrast that Justin and I just pointed out here, the difference between the person who is insisting on the gospel and versus fighting about what

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I would say, self -righteousness. Dude, dude, the contrast is epic because insisting on the gospel leads people to devote themselves to good works.

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And Paul says these things are excellent and profitable for people. And he contrasts that with people who are all geeked up over controversy.

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It's like, well, just look at Christian social media. My goodness, people are fueled by controversy. Then genealogies, dissensions, quarrels about the law, like you're saying, these things on the flip side are unprofitable and worthless.

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It's like, so stop arguing about all of these things in terms of obscure things regarding your conduct or various controversies of any number of things about how you're to navigate this thing or that thing.

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Insist on the gospel, and what will that do? People who have been set free by Christ will devote themselves to good works.

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It's what will happen if we insist on the gospel. And part of - That's only a supernatural gospel.

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A natural gospel does the opposite, Justin. That's right, that's right. It's a supernatural work of God where we have been born again by his spirit.

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We've been united to the Lord Jesus Christ. The stream waters have begun to flow.

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The fountain is flowing, and it's not gonna dry up, and we're gonna be transformed. We're gonna be sanctified, and we're free.

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And so we can live in that freedom and in that joy and devote ourselves to good works. Man, it's remarkable.

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Going back to your point about the Quran and other religions, that every other religion outside of the

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Bible teaches a naturalistic view of salvation. And the

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Bible says it's a supernatural gospel. This is why you have to have all of the gospel, right?

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His forgiveness, his righteousness, and his deliverance. It has to be done by the spirit.

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And if it's not done by the spirit, then you're without hope. And in our opinion, what

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Paul is teaching and insists on it is that for those who truly believe this gospel, good works are the outwork, the outflow, the result of a supernatural gospel.

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And Justin, I'll just say this now. We're not gonna do it. I know we got 30 seconds, so this is my last five -second comment.

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We'll do a whole podcast on this. But I am exhausted by guys who insist on preaching a half gospel and then somehow believe that it's gonna produce in some people this obedience.

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And what they do is they preach about the gospel. They'll talk about regeneration. They'll talk about what must be required in election and predestination, but they never offer them the actual hope of the gospel.

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And therefore, they just brow people, they beat people with the law, assuming the law will produce obedience.

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The law cannot, it cannot produce obedience. Only the gospel can.

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I'll just stop there. Yeah, that's another podcast for another day, and I'm not even gonna engage with it because we'll be here for another five minutes and nobody needs that.

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This has been a good conversation. The main thing we wanna leave you with is that, if anything,

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Jesus has done more than you even think he has, that he has dealt with your sin and set you free from that.

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He has given you a righteousness, but he has set you free from every kind of bondage, including your bondage to the kingdom of darkness and to the evil one.

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And you are free indeed, and you are free to love and serve with joy. And so give your life to those things.

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It will not be in vain. Because Christ is victorious. And even when you look around and things don't look great, believe what the

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Lord has said is true, that Christ rules and reigns and that he is victorious. So with that, man, we'll -

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Can I give a plug? Yeah. I'm gonna give a plug for next week's pod, but that's exactly what we're gonna talk about next week, is how the

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Old Testament helps our faith in believing the gospel. The Old Testament preaches the gospel and defines it, yeah.

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So that's next week, God willing. All right, well, thank you for tuning in. We hope that this has been of encouragement to you, and we're grateful for all of you that give us a listen week over week or from time to time.

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We're thankful for you. And your support and kind messages and all those things mean more to us than you might even know.

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And we're not able to reply to a lot of those, but please do know that we see them and we're thankful for you.

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Well, Lord willing, Jesus will return and maybe this next podcast won't even air, but if he tarries, we'll talk with you again next week.

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Peace. Hey everyone, before you go, 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, but we also need your support.

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And it's when you give that it really helps us financially reach more people. 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.