The Resting Heart Rate of the Christian Life | Theocast

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Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we are talking about the resting heart rate of the Christian life. And we're not going to be having a conversation about Whoop or Fitbit or fitness trackers.

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We're going to be talking actually about union with Christ. We're going to talk about union with Christ and what that means for justification, sanctification and glorification, what it means for peace with God, what it means for our rest.

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We're also going to think about the church and its role and how the Lord has given us word and sacrament for our union with Christ and to sustain and encourage us in the faith.

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And we're going to think about the inherently corporate nature of the Christian life. All of that in one episode today.

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We hope that it's clarifying. We hope it's encouraging for you. Stay tuned. A simple and easy way for you to help support

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Theocast each month is by shopping at Amazon through the Amazon Smile program. When you make a purchase through Amazon Smile, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to our ministry.

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To learn how to sign up, just go to theocast .org slash give. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

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Conversations about the Christian life from a 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'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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It is another Wednesday. We have met to record a podcast. We've got some exciting stuff to begin unrolling for the audience today.

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If you're not watching on the YouTubes, you're just going to have to take our word for it. And let's go to the website.

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Maybe go to the website. Yeah. Yeah. Look at man. John's got something in his hand. I got some on my head.

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He's got something on his body. Well, that sounds weird. Yeah. On my shirt. I got something on my shirt.

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You're wearing a shirt. It's on your body. No, you got to tell him, man. What is it? For those who are listening.

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We have some new branding. A new logo, a new icon. And I don't mean that in a religious sense.

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I just mean that in a branding kind of way related to Theocast. So you're going to be seeing this rolling out over the coming.

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I don't even know days, weeks, months. You'll see this on our podcast stuff, all of our material on our website.

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There's going to be merch for sale in the store. Hang on. I'm going to pull the other.

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We're showing all of the merch off here. There we go. Boom. Come on. That hat is good.

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That's a good looking hat right there. So yeah, we're excited about this. I got to get another one. Shout out to Jeremy Weldon and his company,

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Brio, for the work that they've done and helping us brand this. And yeah, we're excited as the ministry continues to grow by God's grace.

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We thought, you know, now's a good time to, if we're going to change any of the logos, the colors, any of that stuff, let's do it now.

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And we've gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback on this. We're pretty pumped and there we have it. So yeah. Yeah.

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So all of this stuff eventually will be available on our website. So you can get stickers and mugs and hats and shirts.

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And we even have, uh, we're working on a custom shirt that will be a one print off, so you won't be able to, you'll, you'll get one chance to buy it.

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Yeah. Justin, tell us about that. We haven't got the final design down. We're working on it. We're figuring out the t -shirt is going to be one.

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It'll have the Theocast brand on it somewhere, but the phrase on the shirt will be trust

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Christ and calm down. That's right. And so that was, I think I threw that out on a podcast of,

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I don't know, the last few months. I know I've talked about it with some of the people here at CBC. I know John and I've joked about it before too.

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It's like, man, people need to just trust Christ and calm down. We would all be helped by that. So we thought, why not slap that on a t -shirt and see what that'll do.

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And so, yeah, you'll have an opportunity potentially to buy that in the weeks ahead or the months ahead. Sometime we'll let you know, we'll make sure you're aware.

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But yeah, exciting stuff with, with these are common kingdom things, but they're fun. They are.

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They're fun. Just easy ways to, to enjoy spreading the good news of resting in Christ.

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Funny story. I'll tell you, I'll tell you this, then we'll move into our, my kids are in theater, this thing called

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Christian Youth Theater, and last night they're getting ready for their big production that's coming up this weekend. And one of the boys walks up to my son and says, is this your dad?

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And somehow Theocast YouTube channel had popped up on his YouTube and he was geeking out, like, I know this guy.

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That's funny. So it was, it was kind of a funny, funny story. But speaking of the shirt, Trust Christ and Calm Down, that is basically what we want to talk about today,

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Justin. We're going to be talking about what should be the resting heart rate of the

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Christian life and what causes our anxiety or our heart rate to go up.

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And really how is it that we should day in and day out, what should be the normal, healthy experience of a

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Christian and how does one identify it? What does it look like? And how does one get there?

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So, Justin, that's kind of where we're at. That's the, the brief introduction. That's kind of the hidden one.

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Let's use the theological term, let's define it. And then we'll kind of talk about comparing this theology versus the theology that most people experience in their

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Christian life. Sure. The theological term for the resting heart rate of the

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Christian life as we're framing it, what is the baseline? What is the lifeblood of the entire

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Christian life from beginning to end? And by beginning of the Christian life, we mean from the time of, of conversion to glorification.

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What is it? Well, it is nothing other than union with Christ. I recently put this up on social media just as a kind of maybe launching point here, something to this effect that the entire

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Christian life can be summed up in the phrase union with Christ. And today's episode is essentially us unpacking that reality for the listener.

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And I think, I know you agree, John, that this is a very comforting kind of conversation to have.

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It's a reassuring conversation. And it is one of those conversations that can help us calm down, find rest, and think well about where our peace comes from, why it is that our peace never ebbs and flows, it never changes, how it is that we have assurance, what it looks like to just kind of put one foot in front of the other and keep living life in this fallen world, knowing that I am a pilgrim on my way to my homeland and I've not gotten there yet.

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I am very tempted to riff on that whole pilgrim metaphor, and I may later.

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I am so thankful. I'm more thankful all the time that we put that in some of our stuff, our branding, our tagline, whatever we want to call it, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, that is a true statement.

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Anyway, so union with Christ, before I just get completely carried away, union with Christ is the theological phrase that really is the marrow of today's episode.

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And by union with Christ, we mean the fact that by faith, we are now found in the

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Lord Jesus. I mean, that is the most common way that Christians are described in the New Testament, quote, in Christ, close quote.

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And so what that means is a whole number of things. We are, for example, like Romans 6, we are baptized into the

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Lord Jesus, into his life, death, and resurrection. Philippians 3, we are found in Christ, not having a righteousness of our own that comes from the law, but a righteousness according to faith in the

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Lord Jesus. This is a Romans 8, 1 kind of reality where there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, et cetera, et cetera.

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This is John 15, where Jesus talks about we need to literally dwell, abide, be in him, attach to him vitally is how we do anything in the

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Christian life. So that is essentially what we're driving at, is that union with Christ by faith, where we are found in him, we are taking refuge in him, we're hidden in Christ from the wrath of God and from the judgment that we deserve, everything that is his is now ours, meaning his fulfillment of the penalty of the law is counted to us, his death is counted as our death, his righteousness and obedience and holiness is now counted as our holiness, our obedience, our righteousness.

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The fact that he was resurrected from the grave is the guarantee that we will be too, because we will be raised and perishable to be like him, all as a result of being united to him by faith and now being found in him.

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So that's union with Christ. At least that's kind of like from the hip shot. Yeah, that's the introduction.

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Give us a little more there, John, if you want to. Yeah, I'll put a little bit of brevity to it. I will say the most significant truth that a believer needs for their daily life is union in Christ.

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It is the most significant daily dosage that drives your confidence.

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It drives your assurance. It drives your obedience. It drives your patience.

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It drives your endurance. Like for instance, when James says, count it all joy and you find yourself what in various trials, because what does it do?

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It tests your faith, faith in what? This is the most important thing. James literally says that he is the servant and slave of Jesus.

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He's referencing faith in Christ. A good helpful passage, I want to start with Justin, and I know we're going to use many of them here, but the one that we're aware of, so you understand union, and I'm going to use a metaphor and then

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I'll read this. But first, when the Bible says that man and woman, the two of them are two separate beings and they become one, united in marriage to become one flesh.

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That same concept is used of the believer. So when the moment you come to life by regeneration of the

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Spirit, you now become one with the Spirit. But all those benefits, this is what we call our inheritance from Christ.

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This is Ephesians 1, what we receive. All of these benefits become ours because we are now clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

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We've been covered with the blood of Christ. So who Jesus is, as far as the nature and person and work of who he is and who we are, are now intertwined as one.

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That's what union means. Here's a great example of this concept. Paul says in Romans 8, 29, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his

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Son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called.

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And those whom he also called, he also justified. And those whom he also justified, he also glorified. So he's talking about justification, sanctification, and glorification.

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From the beginning, all of salvation is wrapped up in. Yeah, from regeneration to glorification, the entirety of salvation.

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That's right. So from the moment of your new birth to the resurrection of your body, all of that is covered, it's protected, it's connected, it is secured, it's locked away in a safe, all of it is connected to you and Christ being one and together.

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And here's the kicker, okay? This is where we want to spend a lot of time explaining on all these passages.

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Your union with Christ is not a work of you and it's not sustained or maintained.

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In other words, God never looks to you to maintain, sustain, or develop this union.

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It's as Hebrew says, who began a good work and you will complete it.

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Meaning that your regeneration all the way to your glorification, this union is a work of God, monergistic, one doing the work from beginning to end.

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That's why it is the most significant doctrine for the daily life of the believer, because that's what sustains our faith in the midst of total chaos.

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Amen. So even thinking about regeneration all the way through glorification, regeneration obviously is that point in time where we are born again.

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And that is, you know, if we wanted to nail down a point in time at which we are vicariously united to Christ, it's there, it's at that moment of regeneration.

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And regeneration, we understand in terms of the order of salvation, the order salutis, regeneration results in faith and repentance toward Christ, right?

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And so those things happen in our experience, you know, oftentimes for many people, they're indistinguishable, right?

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Like they just happen in our experience. And we are now united to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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We're going to talk in a minute about the sacraments, because I can't wait to get there and thinking about the life of the church and the things that the

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Lord has given us that are all about our union with Christ, because again, it's the lifeblood of the Christian life and the resting heart rate of it.

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But in terms of, all right, we're regenerated, we're regenerated through, you know, the means that the

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Lord has given us, namely word, you know, and sacrament, those are the things that the Lord uses to impart faith, to regenerate people, and they have everything to do with Christ, His work in the place of sinners.

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And then when it comes to justification via union with Christ, well, what is that about? That's about the fact that I alluded to some of this earlier, but Christ fulfills the penalty of the law.

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He dies under the law to pay a lawbreaker's penalty, though he didn't break the law.

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And then in Galatians, for example, Galatians 2, 20, 21, we're told that our death occurred via Christ's death.

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His death is our death. Through Christ, we died to the law. It's as though we paid that penalty, but he did it in our stead.

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So we are forgiven of sins because the penalty has been paid via union with Christ, we're forgiven.

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But then also Christ's obedience to the whole law and fulfilling it all is counted to us as though we did that too.

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And so union with Christ and our justification means that we are forgiven of sin, we are absolved of guilt through the suffering and through the obedience of Christ unto death, and then we are also counted with perfect righteousness and holiness because Christ was those things throughout the entirety of His life, and everything that is

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His is now ours. Sanctification, this is a huge one, man. I think we've spoken about this quite a bit, and this is the one that I think gets people most worked up when it comes to our ongoing transformation of life, when it comes to us being conformed into the likeness of Christ increasingly, or even conformed to God's law, the fruits of God's spirit being worked in and through us, how does that occur?

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Well, it occurs via union with Christ because all of us who are in Him will be conformed to His image, and all of us who are in Him, we will see the fruits of His spirit produced in us.

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And I can't help but think of Romans chapter six as like the great place to go in thinking about this. We'll go back to it on baptism in a minute, but Paul's response to the charge of giving the imputation of Christ's righteousness, should we just sin, his answer is, well, no, you've been united to Jesus.

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He doesn't respond with law. He just says, you've been united to Christ now, and you've been set free from the dominion of sin via your union with Christ, you now desire to obey.

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You've become obedient from the heart via your union with Christ. And so union with Jesus drives sanctification and guarantees it.

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I mean, we're told that He's perfected for all time, those who are being sanctified, Hebrews 10, 14.

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So then the glorification piece I think is straightforward. As Jesus got up from the grave in the power of the spirit, we too will be resurrected from the grave to be like Him.

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I mean, this is 1 Corinthians 15. This is Jesus in John 11. I am the resurrection and the life. You know, so all of those who are in Him, I mean, we will, though we die, yet shall we live.

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And yeah, anyway, that's a brief justification, sanctification, glorification consideration. That's right.

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Even going back to sanctification, this is probably, most people would say if they're evangelical that, yeah,

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Christ is the one who saves us and we're going to give Christ the glory for that, whether you're Calvinist or not, we're going to give

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Christ the glory for our salvation. Christians say that. Yeah. And then most would say your glorification when you transform from this lowly body to the body that's been granted to us by Christ.

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Yeah. But the in -between period, that's where things get a little dicey.

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And this is where you get robbed of your assurance. This is where you get robbed of your energy.

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You get robbed of your hope and your joy. A lot of joy gets sapped right out of Christians' lives because their sanctification process isn't working out as they were read in the books that were told them or whatever.

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And this is a really dangerous, you need to hear us. We're teaching a union in Christ.

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We're not teaching you to let go and let God. And let me work through this with you.

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We're not teaching you Carrie Underwood. Jesus, take the wheel. That's right. That ain't what we're doing. No. So, we always quote

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Galatians 3, where it says, who be with you? Have you begun by the spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh?

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I want to use a passage from James that I think is helpful in this, in that James uses a phrase in the opening chapter.

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And I've always understood wisdom and as far as the need of it.

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So, this is first James chapter one, verse five. It says, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be granted to him or given to him.

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And Justin, normally when we think about wisdom, we think about intellect or Christian street smarts.

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It has something to do with a wise old gray haired man. Later in the chapter, in the book,

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James gives us his definition. He says, wisdom from above. This is James 3 .17. Wisdom from above is first pure and peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, good fruits, impartial and sincere, and a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

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James is not talking about intellect, intelligence, or street smarts. He's describing the works of the spirit.

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When he says wisdom from above, because he's comparing it from wisdom from the earth and he calls it demonic.

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So he's saying if you lack peaceableness, he lacking gentleness, open to reason, mercy, fruits, impartial since if you're lacking this, he says, how do you gain it?

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This is so important. He does not say discipline. He does not point you internally.

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He doesn't point you to anything about yourself at all. He says, when you go through a trial, because earlier in the verses, he's talking about trials, trials squeeze you.

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They make the worst of you come out. He goes, when you're seeing the worst of you and the lack of wisdom coming through these trials, he says, how do you gain wisdom by faith you trust

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God? It literally says, let him ask God who gives generously, meaning that it's not the word generously there.

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It literally has what's called the prodigality of God. It's this lavishness that seems irresponsible.

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He says, who gives generously to all without reproach. That reproach is like, Justin, if you were my son and you borrowed money from me and you spent it unwisely, and I'm handing you another $20 bill because you need gas, and I hold onto it for a second, and I say, don't waste this, that's reproach.

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I'm giving you a warning. James is saying your wisdom or these acts of righteousness, these works of the

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Spirit come to you by the Father generously without reproach, and how do you receive them?

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By faith. Because he literally goes on to say in verse six, but let him ask in faith with no doubting for the one who doubts.

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It's like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind. He's comparing it to trusting your own capacities to trusting

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God's capacities. I mean, listen to the last part. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the

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Lord, and he is a double -minded man and stable in all his ways. He isn't talking about the level of one's faith.

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He's comparing faith in God versus faith in your own capacities, faith in your own circumstances.

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So all of this to say, James is, I think, fully arguing for a union in Christ because he's saying if you see these qualities lacking in your life, where is the source of these?

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The source of them is in God. He gives them to you because he keeps talking about faith.

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In James, faith is always connected to Christ. It's not in this generalized faith.

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So my encouragement in the whole illustration from James is our passages that I think sometimes we just overlook and don't understand.

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James is using a very monergistic union in Christ, meaning the way in which we sustain ourselves in this life is by faith, trusting in Christ, asking for peace and mercy and kindness and gentleness and unity, and that comes to us by the power of the

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

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

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

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slash primer. I'm going to read a portion of Galatians 2, just a few verses that I think speak beautifully to the reality of union with Christ and living by faith and everything that that might entail.

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Beginning in Galatians chapter 2, verse 19, Paul says, for through the law,

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I died to the law so that I might live to God. And there again, he's talking about Christ's death being counted as our death.

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I mean, under the law, because he goes immediately into verse 20, I have been crucified with Christ. I mean,

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I don't know that we often connect those things the way that we should. That's another podcast for another day. Because he says,

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I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. I mean, if that's not a union verse,

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I don't know what is. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

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Right? And that I think is a beautiful picture of the life of faith and the fact that we now live in Christ Jesus.

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I mean, that he is our life at this point in, you know, in our, I mean, in terms of our

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Christian life and our Christian existence, it is all of Christ and it is all in him. There's nothing that we're doing here in the flesh that contributes anything.

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John chapter 15, I mean, maybe this is an obvious one, but just a few verses here. I mean, verse six is, or excuse me, verse five is perhaps the most in our face where Jesus says,

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I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he, it is that bears much fruit for apart from me, you can do nothing.

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You want a good verse on sanctification and where it hails from. It hails from union with Christ period because apart from him, we can do nothing, he says.

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And so we are to dwell in him and abide in him. And it is from him, like he is the life giver, right?

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I think that would make sense to communicate it in that way. Just like the whole tree and fruit illustration, living trees produce fruit.

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Well, living people in Christ Jesus produce fruit, but Christ is the one who gives the life and the life produces the fruit.

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We don't produce the fruit. And so we bear fruit because we're attached to the vine, right? Right. And at times

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Christians don't bear fruit and they should. And I think this is what James is saying. If you're lacking these things, where is the source?

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He doesn't point you internally. Well, you can't. It's like, I'm not the source of it. No, I must look unto

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Jesus because he is the source of it. That's right. I mean, Paul even talks about in the midst of a trial, he goes, how do you endure all of this suffering and pain?

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He goes, by the power of Christ, I can do this, right? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

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And he means endure these trials because I've been united with Christ. You know, just one of the things that sometimes people hear us say when we say the word rest and everything we're describing, there's only, and this is the comparative side

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I wanted to get to. And if you're not ready to transition here. No, I'm happy. I was about to say, let's pivot. Yeah. So let's compare this to what we would here emphasize.

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So we would argue that union in Christ is like the theme of the

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New Testament, resting in the sufficiency of Christ. But that doesn't mean, rest does not mean do nothing.

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Rest does not mean kick your heels up on the beach and let the world go to hell and you don't do anything.

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That's not what resting means. This is the confusing part. There's a difference between, we both, both parties agree obedience is necessary, but there's a position that it comes from.

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This goes back to the resting heart rate of the Christian life. If one is resting in Christ and understands the union in Christ, then obedience is joy in the process of our sanctification.

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For most people, obedience is fear of failure. I don't want to fail to meet the expectations that are required of me.

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Therefore, out of fear, I obey. And this is not why we obey. I mean, quote 1

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John again, by this we know love that Christ laid his life down for the church. We ought to lay our life down for the brother.

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He's not using fear there. What is he using? Union in Christ. He's using joy.

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He's using hope. He's using gospel. So all of this to say that we aren't saying obedience isn't needed, necessary, and required.

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It's the exact opposite. We're trying to give you the real reason and the real hope that you should never look at your level of obedience and determine your union in Christ.

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You determine your union in Christ by faith alone, by faith alone. I know that I am a believer.

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I know that I am unified with Christ because one cannot have this unless one believes.

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I mean, Jesus literally says that, how do you know this? He goes, believe in me.

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I mean, 1 John 20 says this. He says, I write these things that you may know that Christ was real and that you may have faith in him.

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So the conclusion is that there's so much introspection and it's all fear -based.

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You need to be proving to yourself the legitimacy of your union in Christ. That's upside down because you're unified.

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I mean, this even goes back to when Peter and Jesus are having this conversation and Jesus says,

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Peter, do you love me? And what does he say? Well, yes. Three times, Lord, you know that.

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And the point of it was like, Peter, you're a failure and what you're about to go do, what

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I'm about to send you off to do is not because you've been faithful, it's because I've been faithful to you. It's because I would not let you go.

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When you tried to run away from me, I would not let you go. And I think that's the way in which we need to understand this, that if you're trying to find your significance or even your assurance based upon anything outside of the promises of God fulfilled by faith to you, then you will be royally disappointed.

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And in my opinion, Justin, you and I, we look at obedience as a joy.

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I think it's a good thing to be merciful and peaceful, kind and patient. It's a joy to do those things.

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I don't do them out of fear. Right. And obedience is a fruit of union with Christ.

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That's right. Obedience is a result of union with Christ by faith. We don't then preach obedience as proof that one is in Christ.

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We preach obedience as a necessary outflow and as fruit of union with Christ.

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There is a difference in that. And so as a pastor and as a Christian myself who often struggles, what is it that is so hope -giving about union with Christ?

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It's like, well, via union with Jesus, there is redemption in Him. I'm just literally quoting biblical passages here.

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There's redemption in Christ Jesus. There is salvation in Christ Jesus.

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There is forgiveness in Christ Jesus. There is righteousness in Christ Jesus. There is peace with God in Christ Jesus.

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There is hope in Him that we are told that we are in His hands and no one can plug us out.

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In Him, there is the guarantee that the good work that's been begun in us will be completed. You know, all of these things are things that are promised to us via our union with Christ.

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We are promised that we will be conformed to His image, that we will be sanctified, that the fruits of His Spirit will be produced in us.

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We are told that we will be resurrected from the grave and that we will be presented pure and blameless in Him at the end of it all.

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You know, the Lord Jesus will quite literally present us in Himself to the Father, without spot, without blemish.

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You know, we were not chosen by God, you know, because we were something. We were chosen by God so that we might be something in Christ Jesus, namely, holy and blameless.

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And so all of this is a result of our union with Christ. All of this received by faith alone in Him.

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That is the, I mean, the wondrous, awesome aspect of the

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Christian message is that God freely gives this to sinners such as us, received purely by faith in His Son and on account of the work that His Son did, not on account of anything that we do.

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Generously without reproach. It's the heart of the gospel. Well, Justin, just to add to this too,

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I mean, I would love to hear you riff on this, is just the difference between when you wake up in the morning and you're resting heart rate as,

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I am safe in Christ. And when you get off kilter on that, you know where to go to find that encouragement, whether it be a brother in Christ or,

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I mean, there's a lot of, we can talk about that, but there's a difference between I need to make sure

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I obey today because X, Y, Z, God may not bless me. God may punish me.

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I mean, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You have all the blessings there are in Christ. So we have to take those passages.

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But the difference is I'm going to go obey today because it's a joy to give away that which

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I have received. I cannot, I mean, we talked about this in the podcast on the third, third, the you've been more than forgiven.

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You can't add to the righteous work of Christ. That's not why you obey. You don't obey to add to your righteousness.

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You obey because you're righteous, right? You are this now go do it. So you're living it out, basically.

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That's right. You're living in light of who you are now. Right. Fear is exhausting. It exhausts people.

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And joy and rest invigorates people. We pursue joy. We run from fear.

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And people are so afraid of what may happen to them if they don't obey that over time,

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Justin, they end up becoming very introspective and selfish because they just get to a point where they're like, this isn't really worth it anymore.

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I'm tired of living in fear. But those who live in joy, Paul describes them in Romans 15.

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Those of you who are strong, you have this obligation or capacity to deal with the failings of the week.

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Why? Because you're working from the heart rate of joy and union in Christ, and you're not entangling yourselves in fear and anxiety.

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I mean, Paul gets, I mean, when he says who bewitched you, that's a strong language because he's saying you are now entangling yourself in fear.

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Once again, unless I circumcise myself, unless I obey the law, I will not progress in the

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Christian life. And Paul's like, that's demonic. Well, that is not Christian. I might even put it this way.

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What is it that sustains us in the Christian life? The answer to that question biblically is only one, and I'm not trying to sound super pious, but it's

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Jesus. He is our spiritual food. He is our spiritual sustenance. And so if we're looking for something else to like fuel and sustain and motivate, propel, drive, use whatever verb you want, the

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Christian life, we've misplaced our confidence and we are foolish. I mean, this again, it's a very Galatians three thing.

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I mean, you've begun by the spirit. Are you going to be perfected by the flesh? I mean, the answer is rhetorically, obviously no, yet we often act like that in the church rather than encouraging one another to be sustained and motivated and fueled by Jesus, rather than reminding one another that he is our spiritual sustenance.

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We look towards all kinds of other things to feed us and drive us in our obedience. And we shouldn't.

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Christ is it. I mean, I would say coupled with the new birth reality, the union with Christ's reality of a new heart.

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And I now have the spirit of Christ in me that delights in God's law.

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And I'm now actually filled with not only affection and gratitude and all those things toward Jesus, toward God, but I actually now have concern for my neighbor and I want to love them because of how

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Christ has loved me and because of how Christ laid himself down for me and gave himself up for me,

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I now want to do so for my brothers and sisters. I want to do that as a result of my union with Christ by faith.

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And that's the kind of stuff that we want to talk more about in the church. And that's the way that we should try to talk to each other more.

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I know that we want to pivot a little bit, John, to maybe some like corporate church realities and some word and sacrament realities.

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We're probably going to let that spill over into the Semper Reformanda. Yeah. And to set that up, you know, it's interesting when

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Paul talks about be not conformed, this is Romans 12, right? Be not conformed to the world, but be what? Renewing your mind.

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He doesn't, renewing your mind in what? The fear that if you don't obey, God's going to judge you?

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No, renewing your mind in what? In the finished work of Christ. Romans, he just spent so much time talking about the sufficiency of Christ in Romans.

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There's no way he's now going to say renew your mind in the sufficiency of your own works.

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It's always the finished work of Christ. So I think that if you're lacking energy and joy and obedience, or if you're struggling with assurance, you're to renew your mind, as it says in Hebrews, setting aside the weight, not even sin, but just, that's right.

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Something that is getting your eyes off of what? The author and finisher of your faith. Look to Christ.

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That's right. That's Hebrews 12, one and two. So we have means by which God has given us roadblocks, places to stop and do this.

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And it's second Peter one that we referenced so often, like if we have become ineffective in terms of our growth in godliness and therefore we have become ineffective.

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I should say we have, we are not growing in godliness and therefore ineffective in terms of like bearing fruit in the church with our brothers and sisters, what's the issue?

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Second Peter one nine, such a person has forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. I mean, it's like, it's gospel amnesia.

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It's, it's a reality of you've forgotten what is now true of you, that you've been united to Christ and you've been saved from your former sins.

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You've been declared righteous and you've been redeemed, you know? All right. So it's interesting that you said that Justin is that the natural bent of the human

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Christian is gospel amnesia. Oh, hugely. Otherwise, why would the sacraments matter?

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You know what I mean? Yeah. We forget naturally. We just forget. I was having a conversation this morning with the dude that's on staff with me here at the church.

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And we were talking about just the natural Mackenzie Dinkins, AKA Dink. Shout out. Um, so we were talking about that reality, about how we, in our natural human frame and our natural intuition is just so contra everything.

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And we were talking about that in a number of different ways. I don't need to go into right now, but your point is made that so much of not only how we're saved high level, but certainly the

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Christian life and how we think about it, it is counterintuitive. You know, it's contra what the scripture reveals to us, because we are so wired to think that we have to accomplish something and achieve something.

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And before the fall, that was possible. But after the fall, you know, are being plunged into sin through the sin of our, our father,

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Adam. I mean, we can't achieve this stuff anymore. We can't do this anymore. And so we actually need to be reminded regularly that we need to quit trying to save ourselves and trust that Jesus has, you know, and that actually is helpful when it comes to living life in this world.

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It's a couple of thoughts for me, John, John's kind to me. He's going to let me talk about some stuff, I think. And he's going to riff on it too.

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Two, two big thoughts for me are what about the ministry of the local church and how that factors into this?

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And then also what about that metaphor, that illustration of the Christian life being one of a pilgrim on the way?

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I think both of these things are significant and we'll figure out what we have time to say now, and we'll say the rest in SR.

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The ministry of the church in union with Christ, a few thoughts here. The main ministries of the church that we've been given by God are the ministry of the word of God, where we preach

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Christ from scripture, and then we also have been given the ministry of the sacraments that is baptism and the

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Lord's supper. What are the driving things?

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What is it about word and sacrament that makes it significant and makes those things powerful?

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Well, it is precisely in word and sacrament that union with Christ is heralded and communicated to us.

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And that's huge. And I don't know that I always thought about word and sacrament in these ways, but it is a game changer when you begin to see this.

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We all know, most people listening to this podcast are going to be familiar, for example, with Romans 10, 17, that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.

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Amen. Well, when you think about the ministry of the word in your own local church, I mean, the purpose of preaching at its most basic level is that God's people, the saints might trust

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Christ. And so it is our union with Christ by faith that needs to be the takeaway every week from the preaching of the word.

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So the proclamation of the word, the right administration of the preaching of God's word results in just this reinforcement of union with Christ by faith.

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But then the sacraments, what is baptism about? Baptism is about union with Christ.

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I mean, this can't be said enough. I'm just going to read like a super brief paragraph, John, from, this is almost word for word with our baptism liturgy that we use in our services, but this is from actually a position paper that our elders have written on the sacrament of baptism and its administration for our church.

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This won't take long. This is all Bible stuff. All right. In short, this quote, in short, baptism is about union with Christ.

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It is the sign of our union with him by faith. It is the sign of our having been united with Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection.

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It is the sign of our being raised to walk in newness of life in Christ. It is the sign of the remission of our sins.

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It is the sign of our having been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. It is the sign of God's pledge to keep us unto salvation.

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And we've got a bunch of scripture references there that I don't need to name all of them, but Romans six, Galatians three,

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Ephesians one, Colossians two, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right. I come from a context, and this may be true for you,

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John, kind of a Calvinistic Baptist context where the main ways that baptism is talked about are in terms of a public profession of faith and obedience to Jesus.

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And I don't disagree with either of those. I mean, certainly baptism is never less than that, but there is much, much more from a covenantal confessional reform perspective from the scripture that we can say about baptism.

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It's not like we're forcing this. We're just using the language of the scripture to talk about what this sacrament is about, and it is about union with Jesus.

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So that's why we say in our church context all the time, I know you do too, remember your baptism, because when we say remember your baptism, we are saying remember that time that you were plunged beneath the cleansing flood, like you were literally baptized into Christ by faith and you have been united with him.

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Remember that, that that's true for you. And that was about God's faithfulness to you, to keep you more than it was ever about your faithfulness to him, to follow him.

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And that's a big thing. I comment on baptism, John, I want to talk about the supper too, but yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

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You know, what's interesting is that the Reformers are very clear, even in our confession, that baptism cannot be separated from the word.

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Like the word and the word in sacrament have to be, you remove the word, you have no, no power, no means, no connection to the sacrament whatsoever.

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This is why I tell people I don't see a strong evidence to be baptizing people outside of a local church, because the point of baptism is to identify you as in your union with Christ.

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I mean, this goes back to Romans five or Romans six. You've been buried with him, you've been united with him in his resurrection.

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And then you also see it being that those who are baptized are immediately unified into the church with who?

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Other common union people. Other people who have been forgiven and declared righteous.

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So they are now identifying. So like Justin, in the United States, our traditional history has been that when two people leave their individuality and they become one, they put on a ring identifying this is my significance of connecting to this.

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And baptism very much is saying I am signifying, this is a symbol of me raising up loudly in my hand.

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I am in one with Christ. I am one with these people. What's hard for us, Justin, is this.

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Baptism today, it's a weird celebration of one's individuality.

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Justin Perdue Yeah, or of one's own decision to follow Christ or whatever it is. Jon Moffitt Right. In the New Testament, when baptism is first being used after the resurrection of Christ, you have people receiving a sign.

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And this is in a common bath slash water slash communal place.

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And you are receiving a sign in a public form that is significant.

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It's almost like putting a tattoo on your forehead that everybody's going to see at all times.

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And today, I think it's still a significant sign. Obviously, we should practice it because it's commissioned us to do so.

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But I think the culture has kind of changed the purpose and meaning of it. And we need to go back to its biblical roots, saying this sign is one that it should encourage your faith as you remember what happened to you.

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But it should also encourage those who observe it in the church, our faith. That's right. Justin Perdue Yeah. Well, it's a sign of our participation in the covenant of grace.

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It's a significant thing. And I want to transition briefly to the Lord's Supper and then maybe make a few more comments about the sacraments in general.

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So the Lord's Supper is the ongoing sacrament that the Lord has given us. And what is the

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Lord's table about? It's about union with Christ and our sustenance in him. I mean, shocker, right?

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So the sacraments, like just hear us say this, these sacraments are about union with Christ and the sacraments are about God's faithfulness to us more than they could ever be about our faithfulness to him.

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They are given. I mean, this is to use the language of the reformers, right? The sacraments are given for poor, spiritually sick people.

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They are not given for the strong, but for the weak, not for the perfect, but for the struggler, right? Because we need things and our faith and love lack things.

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And the sacraments are meant by God, when received in faith, to strengthen, sustain, nourish us, right?

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And that's a huge deal. So when we come to the Lord's table every week, there are a number of things that we need to be communicating.

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I think for many Christians, for many evangelicals, if you have a tender conscience at all, the

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Lord's supper has been perhaps the most anxiety producing thing you ever do. And that's a sadness. That's a tragedy actually, because this is your life.

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I mean, just as the preaching of Christ is your lifeblood, so is the coming to the table to feed on Christ and what he's done for us.

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And so we should speak of it in these terms. In John chapter six, I do think the Lord's table is in view.

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But when Jesus says, you need to eat my flesh and drink my blood, what he is communicating is that I am your sustenance.

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Just like the manna came down from heaven and sustained God's people when they were on their pilgrimage in the wilderness. I am the bread that comes down from heaven.

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I am your sustenance. I am your life. As you are pilgrims, exiles, sojourners in this world, on your way to the celestial city, you need me.

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And in other words, so that's what we need to be saying. When we invite our people to come to the table, it's like, what this communicates,

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I mean, again, this is not new language, unique to us, John. This has been said for a long time. What these things communicate, bread and wine, what they communicate to us externally, they communicate to us spiritually.

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Namely that this is spiritual food and spiritual drink. And this is our life that we come to feed on.

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We've just received Christ in the word. I've been reminded of my union with him by faith. I've been reminded of everything he's done for me.

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I've been reminded that I'm safe and I have peace with God now and forever because of Jesus, and now I'm going to come and be fed literally and spiritually by Christ.

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I'm coming to his table. Go ahead. I'd like to read a quick quote by Bob Enke. He says, it's not merely a remembrance or a reflection on Christ's benefits, but it's most intimate bonding with Christ himself, just as food and drink are united with our body.

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This is what's so interesting is that when we think about gathering together, you don't take communion on your own.

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I think the word communion literally means common union. Union with one another and union with Christ.

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That's right. So we gather together as those who are in common union with each other to remind ourselves and benefit by faith our union in Christ.

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And so this is why, you know, both of our churches and Patrick's and Jamie, we all take communion every single week or the

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Lord's table, however you want to describe it. Communion, Lord's table, Lord's supper. Right. To go back and use your phrase because we have gospel amnesia.

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You need to be reminded and what that does. And I will say this, this is so important.

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If the gospel is not heralded over the elements, it's of no value.

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It is nothing. So if you just, at some point in your service, you can go and take the elements and go back to your seat and kind of take it willy nilly whenever you want.

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No, no, no, no. It is has to be coupled with the gospel. Otherwise it's of no power. And we need to be reminded, like when we come to that, we just, in our context, we just heard the word of God and we just had

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Christ preached. But then we're reminded anew as surely as you come forward and you put this bread and cup to your mouth,

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Christ died for you. I mean, it's what this is. Let me just look from our own 1689

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London Baptist confession. I mean, just to, to demonstrate that we're not coming up with any of this. This is chapter 30, paragraph one.

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I mean, why was the supper given? Quote, it is given for the confirmation of the faith of believers in all the benefits of Christ's death, their spiritual nourishment and growth in him and their further engagement in and to all the duties they owe him.

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The supper is to be a bond and pledge of their communion with Christ and each other. I mean, there it is. It's like, this is why the sacrament was given.

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And that's how we should talk about these things. The Christian life is about union with Christ. The preaching of the word.

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We preach the gospel every week because we have gospel amnesia and we need to be reminded of our union with Christ by faith.

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We're given the sacraments where like we are reformed guys. So we believe in the real presence of Christ in the sacraments that he is really spiritually present to minister to us and meet us in our need and blesses us, sustains and nourishes and strengthens us through these things.

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And so we do it every time we gather because that's what they're about. And so there's a lot more that we could say,

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I'm sure about the life of the church. The one thing, yeah, the one thing, this is where I wanted to go. So I'll let you take us into SR.

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The one thing we didn't spend a lot of time on purposely is we want to talk about the word publicly proclaimed in song fellowship and teaching and preaching and the nature of union in Christ within the local body and how we love to depend on our union individually.

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And you're not supposed to. And we are going to look at how God in his word has designed the individual

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Christian to grow and strengthen in their union in Christ. Gathered together. So Justin, how and where are we going to do that?

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Yeah. And I'm probably going to speak a little bit about the whole Pilgrim metaphor. We may do more on that in future episodes, but I at least want to tease a little bit of that out today cause it's on my brain.

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We are going to do that. We're going to have that conversation. We're going to talk about the kind of corporate dimension, the church shaped reality of union with Christ that John was just describing.

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We might talk about that Pilgrim thing a little bit too over in the Semper Reffermanda podcast. So that is alongside other things that Semper Reffermanda means and entails.

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There's a weekly podcast that is a part of that ministry that you can gain access to by becoming a

50:31

Semper Reffermanda member. Semper Reffermanda simply means always reforming and you can find more information about SR.

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That's what we kind of like to call it in short around here over on our website, theocast .org. And there's all kinds of things that go along with SR aside from this additional podcast you get access to every week.

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And you can get connected to other people via an app that we have. We have groups that are forming both virtually and geographically where you can lock arms with other people who are trying to think through these same things theologically that you are and potentially making the same shift that you're making from wherever you've been to rest in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And so we hope that's encouraging to you as you think about that. Avail yourselves of that resource as you can.

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John and I are headed over there. We realize many of you will be too. We look forward to chatting with you. For those of you that aren't going to join us on SR today, we'll talk with you again next week in this format.