Can't Believe I Did It Again | Theocast

Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we're going to be considering besetting sins, habitual sins, the whole, I can't believe that I've done this again. In other words, we're going to be talking about the regular Christian experience of the battle against the flesh.

It's hard. It can be very discouraging. And at points, the church has not helped us in this battle against the flesh, has not helped us to think through the accusations of Satan and even of our own consciences.

So John and I today are going to do a little bit of history talk. We're going to think theologically. We're going to think biblically about this. We hope to encourage us all in the Lord Jesus Christ as we continue to wage war against our flesh.

And then over in SR, we're going to answer some potential objections, the yeah, but guys. And so we hope that's also helpful to you and instructive for you.

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The Battle Against Besetting Sin

Welcome to Theocast. Encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed and pastoral perspective. Your hosts, our hosts today are John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

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

John, my man.

I think I'm going to put the sticker right here.

You've, yeah, you got a sticker hanging off your microphone. You got other, you got other things, other new branded.

That's right. Hey, real quick, for those of you that don't know, that's right. Those of you don't know, if you don't watch us on YouTube, that's okay. But for those of you that are on YouTube.

I don't watch us on YouTube either.

So yeah, you don't watch us in general. Here we go. And here's our new logos and new stickers. It's all great stuff. But what's really great is the rebranding of our books. They look better. They feel better.

And it's a new series that we have. And it's called Theocats Vintage because guess what, Justin? The theology is very old. Old theology in a new medium.

Old world theology, one might say.

That's right. That's right. We don't have anything new to say. We're just dusting off all the good stuff. And that's what these books are, Theocats Vintage. So we got rest and we definitely have safe and reformed.

It's on the way.

It's being formed on the way. Not new theology. We're just forming the words. And man, I am excited to read Justin's chapter here pretty soon on confessionalism.

And on law gospel.

On law gospel. I'm working on Calvinism and covenant theology. And then Justin and I are going to be working on ordinary means of grace together. So it's good stuff. But Justin, tell us, my friend, why is it that we have gathered to podcast today?

Brethren, we have met to podcast. Yeah, we have.

Or is it my job? Am I supposed to bring it? I'm supposed to bring it in.

You know what?

I'm cool either way. We need to talk to the show director on this.

We're professionals here at Theocats.

That's right. Someone did ask me if we had like a director, like someone who actually shares names.

The reason that we don't ever name director so-and-so is because we don't have.

One.

So that's right. Well,.

Today is a very near and dear conversation to my own spiritual experience. And as a pastor for many years, I was telling Justin, I've actually been preaching on a weekly basis for almost 20 years. Yeah.

Started right out of college. I know. And I went to, I graduated from college when I was 13. I was brilliant. So, but it's, it's a part of the Christian life that I think is often very confusing and demoralizing.

It creates angst in, almost all of the questions that we get at Theocats are related to this subject.

In some way or another. Yeah.

Yeah. In some way or another. It is the relationship between the struggle of sin. I can't believe I keep doing this. And my relationship to God as my adopted father.

Right. And the peace that I would have with him or not.

That's right. That's right. And so we, I know I have said this in my head. I know that other people have where you just feel demoralized. You feel completely humbled and crushed by the reality that you could still sin and do the same sin that you thought you would never do again, or you would never struggle with again.

Or it's you thought by now and my Christian walk by now, this should not be a problem. You know, it's like, I should be mature enough in Christ where this shouldn't be tangling me up over and over again.

Or let's not even say possibly you give into it. It's the struggle of, it's there. The fact that it tempts you.

The fact that it's always present, that at times it does feel like it's grabbed ahold of you. But even when it doesn't have its claws in you, it's always there. It's always just kind of lurking and you might be more or less aware of it at points.

But what we're talking about in part is the battle against the flesh and how the corruption of the flesh remains, even in those who have been redeemed in those who have been regenerated by the spirit of God.

There is a regenerate part of us. There's our inner man that's now alive and united to Christ. And there is still our corrupt flesh, which will at the resurrection need to be raised incorruptible. And so between now and then we fight this battle, this war between our spirit and our flesh.

And I think you're exactly right in just rip my earbuds out. So what happens when you talk with your hands, it's what preachers do and then sometimes you rip your buds out. So smack your microphone and smack your mic and everybody's welcome.

So try to get myself back on track here. I think you're right though that we all battle this in various ways. We're going to talk about a lot of stuff today because there's a number of different theological principles that we talk about on the show a lot that are going to come to bear here and hopefully we can do a decent job of unpacking.

That.

But I think at the heart of this conversation is every Christian's experience and every Christian's predicament where we, like Paul writes in Romans seven, we often find ourselves doing things we don't want to do and we're grieved by.

That.

Or we find ourselves not doing things that we know we should do that are good and we're grieved by that. We find ourselves doing things yet again that we either swore we would never do again or like prayed and hoped that we never would.

And yet here we are. And there are any number of reasons why we question our legitimacy in those moments. Some of them have to do with the accuser, Satan, who is our enemy. Some of them have to do with our own consciences and some of them have to do with bad theology and things that we've been told in the church that have not helped weary strugglers, that have not helped people who are still fighting this war against their flesh, but if anything have discouraged us and piled it on.

So that's right. There's all of that going on here.

And part of today's podcast is helping you to identify the difference between someone who should question their theology, I'm sorry, their assurance versus someone who should question their theology, meaning that maybe you aren't looking at this from a biblical standpoint.

I love when Paul says this, Paul present tense says, I am not was the foremost. I am. Yeah. The greatest foremost center that I know. And Paul is not justifying his sin. He's not saying it's okay. He's definitely not.

You know, I can wallow in it and it's fine. He's admitting his status, right? His status is of obviously the spirit lives within me and I continue to see how sinful I am.

In first Timothy one 15 and 16, which is verse 15 is where he says, he's the foremost of centers, but he's talking about the patience and the mercy and the grace of Christ that's been shown to him so that if he's the foremost and he's been shown this grace and patience and mercy, Christ will be the same with everyone else, you know, who is in him, who has believed in him for eternal life.

Right? So it's a comforting reality. And of course, Paul, at other places like Philippians three is maybe the most well known and beautiful how Paul rejects any notion of his own righteousness and is like, look, even the good things that I think about myself, they're actually like trash.

They're rubbish. And I forsake those things for the surpassing value of being found in Christ Jesus and receiving a righteousness by faith, you know, that is Christ's. Yeah.

I will leave it just real quick to add to that. Uh, it seems like in almost every letter that Paul writes, he mentions this about a right Galatians five, 17 Romans seven. Uh, even this, even the churches in Corinthians, he's dealing with this battle of listen, you are spirit.

Cause he doesn't call them unbelievers. He's like, you are doing things that are really bad and need to repent of those.

And he doesn't question God is against such things. Right. Right. Yep. Right.

So there's never a justification, but we do have to answer the question. And this is where we want to go now and really examine, uh, our hearts and our intentions and the spirit and our flesh in light of what scripture has to say.

And in many ways, Justin, what, you know, I know some of the areas that we're going to get into, which is bad theology, come from revivalism. It comes from perfectionism, comes from Methodism. And all of that is the root of a theology called Pietism, which we're going to talk about in the podcast today.

Christian Identity, Assurance, and the Battle Between Flesh and Spirit

Yeah. Really quickly, just to maybe clarify and go ahead and set this out at the beginning. And John and I were acknowledging this reality in our pre-recording conversation. It's super critical that we understand what I'm about to say.

And John, I'm happy for you to riff on this and interact with it too. Um, the difference between a Christian and somebody who's not a Christian is not that the non-Christian still sins and Christians don't.

The difference between less, right. Or sin, or even just sin a lot less. The difference at the most basic level, at the fundamental level between a Christian and a non-Christian is that the Christian has agreed with God about his or her sin and has sided with God against his or her sin and has casted himself herself upon Christ Jesus for salvation.

That's the difference. And that needs to be reiterated because just to be super clear here, none of what we're saying today is, um, meant to condone sinful behavior is meant to give it a pass. I mean, we're not saying that it doesn't matter how you live.

We are not against the law at all. We are all for the law and its various uses being preached rightly in the church and even guiding our lives in Christ. Right. But what we are saying is that we are not saved by our performance and the fundamental difference between a Christian and someone who isn't is simply that we have agreed and sided with God against our sin.

And we have trusted in Christ alone for the satisfaction that he has made for our sins and for his righteousness and holiness being counted to us.

Yeah. And you may have even said this, but to restate it, I mean, ultimately Christianity is agreeing with God on your sin.

Exactly. Well, and it's, and it's agreeing with God on, about your sin, about yourself, about him, his law, his requirements and his way of salvation. It's what it is. I agree with you, God, I am guilty and I believe these things.

Right. And here's what's hard, Justin, is that, um, the wise men have been saying this for hundreds of years now, but the closer you get to the light of Christ, the more exposed you are to the darkness of your sin.

And this is, this is after you've been regenerated because we live in an already not yet status. This is probably the theology that skips most people's training when they're being brought up in Christianity, as if there's this process of sanctification where the old man is completely.

Abolished over time and the new man is being transformed. Yeah. Right.

And there there's an already not yet aspect to this. And the new Testament is highly clear on the reality that we have the hope of Christ in us and we have the power to Christ to obey, but we have not been set free from the burdens of our flesh, that which is under the curse of sin.

You can't be set free from that because you've been born into sin. You've been born under Adam, right? So only Christ who was not born under Adam, he was not born of the seed of man who did not carry the burden of a sinful nature.

Now he had to deal with the temptations of the flesh, but never gave into them. We, unfortunately, as Paul has already said, and like I said, almost every letter he writes, he describes a battle that happens, this war, and it's a, it's not ended until you die.

Right. And then, then Christ returns. Correct.

Right. Right. And we affirm wholeheartedly that, you know, as Paul writes in Romans six, that we have been set free from the tyranny, the dominion of sin. We are no longer under the law. We're under grace.

We become obedient from the heart. We now delight in the law of God and our inner man. All of that is true. And at the same time, the corruption of the flesh is still with us. And we will not be finally delivered from that in totality until the resurrection.

And we are raised incorruptible, imperishable, and we'll no longer be able to sin. And we no longer will want to because we will be pure and righteous and blameless. And wow. I mean, mind blow. Can't even comprehend what that's going to be like.

Yeah. It's an incredible promise from the Lord. Go ahead.

I just want to mention one more thing to just theologically set this up. And then we'll let you take it over from this point. But Paul even talks about how, and this is an encouragement. It should be for anyone, but there's a desire change.

All of a sudden we see our sin. We hate our sin. But just because our desire change doesn't mean our abilities always change. Because Paul flat out says the things I want to do, I'm not doing them.

Right. And when, when you talk about the desire change, the new desires come from the regenerate part of us. So it's from our spirit. There are also cravings and desires of the flesh. This is what the war consists of, right?

It's the desires and, and the aspirations, the good things that I want in my spirit and my inner man now born again by the spirit of God versus the things that I crave and desire. And I lust after in my flesh.

And both of these are at work and both of these are at war within the Christian, which is a completely unique experience that only Christians go through. That's right. Right. One of a kind. It's one of a kind thing.

And this is the war that is now on our hands for the rest of our lives on earth until Christ returns or we die as we've said. And so how can we speak honestly about these things? How can we speak in a way that is hope giving and not soul crushing, right?

Because I fear that a lot of times you not only, as I alluded to earlier, have the accusations of the enemy who tells you, if you were really God, you wouldn't do this. If you were really a Christian, you wouldn't think that.

If you were really in Christ, you wouldn't feel that or want that. That's what the enemy says to us. You know, the enemy on the front end of things, John, when we're outside of Christ, to all those outside of Christ, Satan says, you're good.

You don't need, you don't need mercy. You're fine. And then when we're in the Lord Jesus, he tells us, oh, there's no mercy for you. You're not worthy of it. You're not good enough for it. You're not legit.

Right. And this is what he does. He accuses us. But then there's also our own consciences that accuse us because we know that we sin and we know we're wrong. And oftentimes what you see with people who are legitimately running off into lawlessness and antinomian theology, it's that their consciences have beat them up for so long.

And the church has piled it on that. They just are like running, kicking and screaming the other direction with their fingers in their ears, you know, so that they can't hear anything because they just want to go do what they want to do and not feel bad about it, you know, and, and they want to escape their own consciences that rightly accuse them.

And they think that if they can kind of turn this whole thing on its head, where the only good is that we would be free, then maybe, uh, maybe this can, can work for them. But in addition to Satan, and in addition to our consciences that rightly accuse us of the wrong that we do, you have some bad doctrine that's contributed to this issue.

So we're talking again, the title of the episode, I can't believe I did it again. Like here I am again, struggling in the same way, perhaps falling in the same way, wanting the same thing, craving the same thing.

Why is this not gone yet? I thought I would be better by now. And I'm not, here I am. What, what do we have to say about these things? And some of the bad theology, John, maybe we can start with some of the poor things that have harmed people and have not helped.

And then we can pivot to the better stuff. Um, so we've talked a lot about you. We could start with revivalism and some of those things, the American church. And I know at some point we're going to be doing some episodes on confessional theology and just confessionalism and the history of American Protestantism.

I don't know exactly what that's going to look like, but eventually we're going to talk more about that stuff. Um, it's important that we understand that so much of the conservative church in America is steeped in revivalism and has roots in revivalism.

There are, I mean, I'm going to say this and I'm not trying to get shot at here. There was the second great awakening that most people agree with, agree with me and saying it was really bad. You know, Charles Finney and the new methods and all these things.

People are, yes, terrible, but the first great awakening as it's so called, uh, many Calvinistic evangelicals think it was great. And I'm, I'm going to say publicly that one was not so great either. The theology may have been a little better in ways.

Um, and I realized to criticize Whitfield or even by implication, Edwards is near blasphemy for some,.

But you know, my name is Jonathan Edward Moffitt. How dare you?

But the problem in part with even the first not so great awakening is that it relocated the real work of God from the local church to these special meetings where you would go hear a fiery preacher. And then here's the thing.

It became about your own personal fervor and intensity and devotion. That's what it was to really be a Christian. Was to feel it, to be on fire, to be devoted, right? And all of that. And that was the thing that you were looking for, you know, as evidence of having been converted and as evidence of being legit, right?

Because there was this concern that if that stuff wasn't present, then one wasn't really in Christ. And so all of that has permeated so much of the conservative church in America. Certainly the conservative church that we would call evangelical hails from that revivalistic stuff and from those revivalistic roots.

So that's a big deal.

Revivalism, Pietism, and the Pressure to Prove Your Salvation

Yeah. Revivalism in by nature rejected all of basically the tenets of reformed theology. It was not covenantal in, in the most part. I would definitely say the second great awakening for sure. Not, not Calvinistic.

It rejected the

The first great awakening was Calvinistic. The second was not.

Right. Yeah. Calvinistic is a good way of saying that. It was definitely losing its reformed roots on its way out.

And it was not confessional.

No, no, no, no. And when you, the, the, the second great awakening really took a lot of roots in how many evangelicals, many Christians in America think about their Christian faith and your actions were directly tied to your standing before God.

This is where the anxious bench became very popular, where you were called down.

The new methods, the new measures you developed by Charles Finney and others.

I mean for those of you that are either grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist church or are aware of revivalism, you know, the sawdust trail, it's a funny phrase, but people don't understand what it means.

They would have these big tents they would bring into towns and you have, and this is before entertainment. This is before you have radios, before you have the internet. So when a tent gets raised, yeah, sporting events, when a tent gets raised, you go out to see and most preachers became the entertainment for the town.

When you have these guys coming in and they're preaching fire and brimstone and they're preaching against alcohol and, and just loose living and sexuality. Well, they're calling you to rededicate your life or to get saved and they had so many people walking down this aisle, down to the front of the anxious bench.

They were kicking up dust and you just, it was distracting. So they would put sawdust down to kind of prevent that and they called it the sawdust trail, but they were, they were just driving emotions.

I mean, Fenny literally said that you put me in a room with a hundred people and enough time, I can convince them all that they were on their way to hell.

That they're unregenerate and need to be saved.

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Alone,.

We wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a reformed confessional perspective. You can get your free copy at theocast .org slash primer.

That's right. And I mean, Fenny would even say that when Christians sin, they need to be saved again. I mean, he was completely heterodox and in so much of his theology.

He was, I want to say had a massive influence on the way in which we understand Christianity in the United States,.

But in both of both of the awakenings, right. And the revival, and that kind of revivalistic stuff, there is a massive emphasis on transformation, right? And this can look several ways. And this is where, you know, I'm going to kind of weave the talk of pietism into this.

So just really quickly, I'm gonna try to define some terms and hope this is clear. Piety is good. Piety is God wrought transformation of life by the power of the Holy Spirit through the means that God has ordained, right?

That's awesome. That's what we all desire. You know, that we would grow in piety in godliness wrought of the spirit. Pietism though, is a hyper emphasis on personal transformation, on personal moral transformation, on feelings, on affections, on devotion, on obedience, on performance, right?

So that's true at the individual level. But pietism also has this transformationalist instinct at the societal level too. And it depends on whether you're a conservative or a liberal as to what that looks like.

If you're a conservative, it's like, well, we can transform the culture and the society through people being saved and then living like Christians. I mean, this is very clear in the revivalistic movement, you know, in the States.

I mean, even what you just said, I mean, we're going to come in here and we're going to preach against sin and call people to repentance and to trust Christ and then live this way. Or you could just be a liberal, which surfaced obviously later in the game, latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th century, where it was just kind of unashamedly aimed at the culture.

Like we just need to love others and be, you know, doctrine doesn't so much matter, but what we want to do is try to change society for the better. Progression, you know, and, but still it's transformational at its heart.

And there's this hyper-focus on transformation. And so you take all of that formula and you, you put that down on the conservative evangelical church, the Calvinistic evangelical church in America, where many of our listeners have found themselves.

And what you get is a real struggle to be able to process the ongoing battle against the flesh and the life of the Christian, because you have people being told that, well, if Christ is in you and you've been united to him, you're going to be sanctified and you ought not be how you used to be.

And if you still struggle with this sin, then you need to call into question everything with respect to your standing before God. And, and, you know, with respect to whether or not you've actually been adopted by God as your father, you know, like you use the analogy, man, it's almost like we begin to argue with God over the legitimacy of our adoption papers.

You know, like, exactly how have we really been adopted and have we blown this somehow?

That's right. You know,.

As if somehow the Christ's blood as the signature can be erased, you know, it's ridiculous. Well, and, and from this, and it sounds, it could be sounding like we're picking on this particular area and it doesn't make any connection, but let me help you make a connection here.

Because psychologically this has passed down where doctrine was very much downplayed. Doctrine divides, Christ unites. And what Christianity became about was what we don't do. What we abstain from. That's right.

Christians don't do this. So you were given a list. And if you could look at your life and you could see I am not doing these things, therefore I'm an acceptable Christian. The problem was, as Justin said, is that the real struggles of the Christian life, you couldn't bring those to the surface because then you would have to admit there is something wrong with you.

So what happens is you start hiding sin and you suppress it. And we feel very justified in our life because well, at least I'm not doing this and I'm not doing, and whatever that list may be, and it has changed over the years.

I mean, back in the day in revivalism is you didn't drink, you didn't dance, you didn't smoke, and you didn't wear a certain kind of clothing. And, you know, any type of rock music, which would have been, you know, Elvis Presley in, in the early days it was wrong.

And all of that has progressed. I mean, today it is just, it's different. It's your view on vaccinations. It's your view on social justice. I mean, it is the don't, these things justify you as a Christian when you participate or don't participate in them.

And they're all biblical. There's nothing in the Bible about this, but we create it. And what it, what it, what it does is that it, it creates this achievableness to where you can look at your Christian life and say, I am good because, and then you have your list.

And the Bible makes it very clear that the only reason you are ever acceptable in the eyes of God, the only reason your adoption papers are handed to you is because of what Christ has done for you. You, let me, let me put it this way.

And this is Justin. I'm telling you, man, this took me a long time to understand. And even people in my own church, it's we all struggle with this. When God looks at you at the end of your life and he holds your adoption papers in his hands, and he's looking at the check mark of righteous, right?

You are righteous. You will enter into my glory. You are clean. Do you know whose righteousness he's looking at? He's looking 100 at the work of Jesus and never at your works at all.

Well, and I mean, it's like our confession says in 11 .1 chapter 11 paragraph one, that Christ is our whole and only righteousness by faith. That's right. And that is so hard for us. And then, and then immediately, somebody is going to rise up and say, well, but brothers, does it not matter how we live?

And we're going to say, of course it does. Of course it does. And we are going to uphold the clear teaching of the scripture, that all those who are in Christ have been perfected for all time as they are being sanctified.

We will uphold that sanctification for those United to Jesus is a certainty. And that God will see to it and that he is the one who sanctifies. And he does that through the means that he has given. That's right.

And this is not an ordinary means of grace podcast, but those are the primary ones, the ways that God normally grows and sustains and nourishes, not only the faith of his people, but the piety of his people is through word and sacrament and prayer and song and the fellowship of the saints.

Right. And he does that over the course of our lifetimes. But we'll talk about that more some other time.

Can I just jump in and add to it? So I don't forget, you know, um, when we see when our little children see, uh, whether it'd be an actor or sports figure, let's just say a basketball player, and they're a good basketball player and they want to emulate their moves, their style.

And in many ways, when you look at the glory of Christ, this is first. John three, he says, when we see his purity and who he is,.

We purify ourselves. Yeah. First Corinthians three, two. Yeah. Oh yeah. First Corinthians three, 18, et cetera. Yeah. Yeah. First John,.

Second Corinthians three, eight, and then first John, uh, three, one through five. But he says we purify ourselves as he is pure. The meaning of the point of it is, is that we don't, we don't fight the flesh and we don't pursue righteousness because it gained something with us in, in God.

We do it because we see how beautiful and glorious and wonderful it is. And we want to be like that. Like we want to reflect what Christ is.

And we want to be because we now delight in God's law and our inner man, because we've been brought again by the spirit of God and we do the whole Christ.

Go ahead. That's right. But the one thing doesn't always match up with doing and that's because of the.

Flesh, right? Because the flesh is always there. So yeah, absolutely. And we want to uphold this reality that we will do good works in the Lord Jesus.

Christ.

We will walk in the good works that have been prepared beforehand for us to walk in. We will do all of that, but we will not do that in our own strength. And we will not do that motivated by fear or striving after merit.

We will do that because only because we have been united to the Lord Jesus by.

Faith.

We are now in him and his spirit is in us and he is at work to produce these things in and through us. Streams only flow downhill. So if we want to see the transformation of life, if we want to see sanctification occur, we do that best by heralding the mercy, power, grace, and love of Christ.

And then we rightly teach God's law. So we preach law and gospel, which brings me to something else I would like to say about the current theological environment that doesn't help us in this conversation.

Two things. There is a lot of in the current church context, there is a lot of biblicism and there is a lack of a right understanding of law and gospel. And so this is super confusing and I think piles it on in this whole situation that we're describing today, the battle against the flesh and even the battle against besetting sins, you know, yeah, John, please.

Hey, real quick for someone that being me, bright, brand new to theocast definition of biblicism.

About to go there. Sorry, go ahead. About to go there. So biblicism would be where you, you isolate texts, you just go and you read verses and you say, well, see, it says right here that this is what it says.

And you end up, maybe not intentionally, but unintentionally, inadvertently, you end up pitting texts against each other and introducing contradiction and tension into the scripture that is actually not there when it is rightly understood and viewed through an appropriate theological framework.

And the scripture does not contradict itself. The writers of scripture are not schizophrenic. And so when you say, you know, it's mysterious, like for example, a great example of biblicism and a lack of an understanding of the flow of argumentation and how people do this.

It's one of my favorite examples. Romans two, six through like 13, you know, where people are reading, you know, again, Paul's doing something in the flow of his letter to the Romans, but Paul brings up in Romans two, six and following how God is an impartial and righteous judge and how he rewards those who do good with eternal life.