What Is The Gospel? | Theocast

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Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, John and I are going to seek to answer a simple question, what is the gospel?

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If you are out there and you're listening to this episode and you are discouraged, you're confused, you're disheartened, you're afraid that you might not finally make it and that you might be one of those individuals that on the last day

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Jesus looks at you and says, depart from me, I never knew you. If you were to think, if somebody asked me what is the gospel and you don't know how to answer that question without saying something about yourself, this episode is for you.

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We hope it encourages your soul. We hope that you're comforted in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is mighty and able to save.

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He's done everything. That's what we're going to talk about today. So we're going to leave it with you. May you be encouraged in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. We're excited to announce we have a brand new podcast available called the

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Kingsmen Podcast. It's where we are reclaiming biblical manhood by training and equipping men for the work of the kingdom.

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You can find it anywhere you download a podcast. You can also watch it on YouTube. We have new episodes that come out every

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Monday. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

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Conversations about the Christian life from a confessional, reformed and pastoral perspective.

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We are here at Theocast aiming to clarify the gospel and reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ.

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And your hosts today are John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Springfield, Tennessee, sitting right here to my left.

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There it was, reached out and touched me. And I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, which is where we sit tonight,

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John. We are spending time together here in western North Carolina. We've had a full day.

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Beautiful day here. We've enjoyed a number of things. We've talked about a lot. We've talked things in circles at points.

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Now we're ready to record another episode. This one is a basic one.

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We could almost call this another gospel episode. We've been accused. No, we haven't.

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But maybe we even, in our own minds, are okay to be one -trick ponies as long as that trick is Christ and the right division of law and gospel.

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I want to proclaim nothing among you except for Christ and Him crucified. I'll walk on Paul's footprints on that one.

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I think the apostle was on to something. I think he was. Absolutely. Now, anytime

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Justin and I record a podcast, we do try and speak to a specific audience of people we're thinking about.

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In this one, I would say someone who has heard the gospel and they can't seem to make up from down as far as, is it some of my works or some of Christ's works?

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What does experience they have when thinking of the gospel does not bring rest but anxiety?

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It doesn't bring hope, but it seems like it exhausts them. When they think about the future, they don't have joy.

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They have anxiety. A way I might put it is they've heard the gospel, and I'm using those air quotes, in a way that is thoroughly confusing and in a way sounds inherently contradictory because, on the one hand, there's a lot of talk about Jesus and what

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He did, but then on the other hand, there's a lot of talk about me and what I need to do.

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Which is it? That confusion can rob people of peace, joy, and hope.

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It can make people far less effective in the church, things we talk about pretty regularly. We're going to have a basic conversation, and I trust a sincere and,

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I hope, in good ways, lively one about what the gospel is. Try to remove some of that confusion and make it sound, rather than cluttered and even schizophrenic, make it clear.

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We have three points we wrote down that we were trying to summarize it in its simplest form. I tried to get three eyes.

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An intro and a conclusion with three points in the middle, baby. That's right. Here we go. When we think about the gospel, you'll notice in each one of these points, we're going to show you the difference between grace and works, law and gospel because we do get a lot of collapsing of the two.

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Our hope is to show you the clarity of the offense of the gospel because it does offend prideful human beings.

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Then, for the weak, it brings a balm of hope. I might like to expound on what you said, the contrast between grace and merit, the contrast between faith and works, the contrast between law and gospel.

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Those things matter. They really do because as you walk the road of sola fide,

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Satan tries very hard. For the people out there that don't know, Latin means faith alone. As you walk the road of faith alone,

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Satan strategically very much pulls your eyes off of Christ and puts it back on you.

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We'll start with the first one, which is the forgiveness of sins, which I think most people understand. Jesus died on the cross to forgive my sins.

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I think we have to dive deep into the nuances of that because when you don't, as the

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Bible says, the great accuser comes in and finds ways to put your sin back on your slate, put your sin back on you.

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I'll start with the first one, Justin, and then I'll hand it over to you. We love the concept of a clean slate. Here's all of the list of the sins and ways in which you have failed and continue to fail.

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Praise God, he came and he wiped them away. It's like, I will no longer accuse those of you.

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All of your past and present sins, they are gone. Praise God, you've now been set free from them.

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You no longer have to be addicted to alcohol or to drugs or pornography or whatever it is. That is the goodness of the gospel.

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He set you free from your debt, but what's the negative part? Well, it's that you now need to change.

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Don't mess up. Don't be like you used to. If you don't change, if you are ending up being like you used to be, then you should be concerned.

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Justin Perdue That's right. We were thinking through the clarity of this, which

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I love gospel conversations. As I was thinking about it, it's like, all right, here's the slate by which the great accuser and God, the accuser uses it, but God is the one who keeps track of all of our sins.

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I love the picture he says, where your sins have been tracked, they are tossed into the deepest parts of the sea not to be found.

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They're separated as far as the east is from the west. It's not that he gives you a clean slate. It's that the slate no longer exists.

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It's removed permanently. Tim Cynova Let's talk about us for a second.

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This is not the gospel directly, but I think this will shed more light on forgiveness and how much forgiveness is needed.

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We're worse than we think we are. Let's say that. We obviously flatter ourselves as human beings.

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We tend to think we're better than we are, but the reality of the situation, biblically speaking, is that we have never kept a command that the

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Lord has given us, really kept it. Jesus in his earthly ministry does this all the time.

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The best sermon on the law ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount, he makes it very clear that no one has ever really kept the law because keeping the law means not just some kind of external conformity.

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It means at the level of the heart, at a spiritual level, you've got to keep it. No one's ever done it.

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That's important. We've broken all of God's commands. We've never really kept a single one of them.

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We've got to start with that. Really, have I broken all of them? Yes. It's what the scripture says. The one who says, do not murder, also says, do not commit adultery.

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If you've broken one part of the law, you're guilty of breaking the entire thing. This is how it works. Just start with the greatest commandment. You don't even need to move past that.

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I agree. Martin Luther used to say that. We're not all sixth commandment breakers. We haven't all killed someone. That's right. But we've all failed to keep the first one.

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That's right. Love God above all things. We have not done it. Every moment of every day. We have not done that. We're worse than we think we are.

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We have broken all of God's commands. We've never really kept a single one of them. All of us, even once we are converted, even once we become

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Christians, we are still inclined toward all evil. When you begin to talk about forgiveness of sins, you better have a gospel and a forgiveness that will overcome all of that.

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That's right. Let's say this too. A lot of times, the way that the gospel and the forgiveness of sins is presented is you need to change.

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You need to forsake your sin. You need to do something and then come to Christ. You need to change and forsake in order to come to it.

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Put the bottle down. Put the needle down. Quit messing around with your girlfriend or your boyfriend or whatever you're doing and come to Christ.

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They justify that by saying, repent. Right. The Bible literally says this. How do you counteract that, Justin? The Bible says, repent.

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So you're teaching a non -repentance gospel? Not true at all. Repentance, biblically speaking, at the most fundamental level is a change of mind, and it is an agreement with God about our sin, and it is a siding with Him against it.

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Repentance does not mean that I literally change myself in order to be fit to come to Christ.

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What I am seeing is that what God says about me in His law is true, that what

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He requires I have not done, and that I am in need of forgiveness because I'm a miserable offender.

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When I agree with Him about that, I am casting myself upon another who has taken my sin upon himself and has endured the entire curse of the law that my sin deserves.

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In agreeing with God and siding with Him like that, that is repentance. We're not saying that repentance is insignificant.

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That's right. So what you're saying is that repentance really is, I am agreeing with God at the level of my offense, whereas often as humans, we don't.

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I'm not that bad. No, that's wrong. You have to change your mind about that. Number two, how to deal with one's sins is not done by transaction.

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I do my part, He gives me forgiveness. And number three would be, because we always do three -point sermons, right?

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Number three would be what happens to sin once Christ has finally dealt with it.

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I think that it's important that we understand that in order to receive the forgiveness that is offered to us freely in the

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Lord Jesus Christ, there is nothing that we need to do in order to receive it. Faith is an open hand that receives from Christ these benefits, and you can't separate

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Christ from His benefits. That's right. I gave three points of repentance, but Justin, according to Scripture, I can't even do those three points of repentance because I am dead in my trespasses and sin.

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I'm blind. I'm not spiritually alive. These are important because I would say that repentance, which we would say is an amazing fruit of the gospel, is not the gospel.

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It's not. The reason I have to mention this is that often people say, unless you repent of your sins, you cannot have forgiveness of your sins.

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How do you respond to that? I try not to trample on point two, but I don't know how to talk about this apart from saying what

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I'm going to say. I've already said I'm agreeing with God in terms of what He has said about my sinfulness.

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I am a sinner. I understand that God is holy. I understand that the standard of His law is something that is perfect and good and holy and just, and I have not met it.

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So there's that. I acknowledge that I am in need of a righteousness that I do not have, and so then

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I agree with the Lord about His plan of redemption and how I can have forgiveness and how

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I can have righteousness, given that I am a corrupt human being who has broken all the commands of the law and has never kept one.

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What is that way? He says, do not. You can't work for it. You cannot earn it.

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You will not merit this. You will receive it from me. I think that even when we talk about repentance in this way, we could get into these things.

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The Lord God Almighty, by His sovereign grace, causes us to be alive and unites us to the

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Lord Jesus. Galatians 1, where Paul says that the Lord was pleased to reveal His Son to him.

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When you see Him, when He's revealed to you, you don't know everything, but you know,

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I need Him. He is the only one who can atone for my sins.

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He is the only one who can achieve righteousness as a human being that can then be counted to me.

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I am running, and I'm casting myself on Him in faith. In that regard, brother, I think that we try to pull faith and repentance apart.

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Sometimes we do a disservice to that, because faith incorporates repentance in that sense.

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I am agreeing with God. I'm siding with God. I am trusting Christ, who is

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God's plan of salvation. Justin Perdue That's right. This leads us into the second point.

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To say that that is the gospel, the forgiveness of sins, would be a half gospel or a one -quarters gospel.

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Jon Moffitt Can I say something? I think in most churches, and I am not trying to be arrogant or condescending.

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I am not trying to impugn my brother's decision. Justin Perdue We're bringing relief to the person who feels like they're crazy. Jon Moffitt For the person who has only heard that the gospel is that Jesus died for your sins, with all due respect, you are cutting the work of Christ in half, at best, because He did far more than just die and endure the curse of the law.

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We might be forgiven. As magnificent as that is, He did more than that.

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He lived for us. Justin Perdue That's right. Can I jump in here? That's like a guy who breaks the law, jumps into the water, and is drowning.

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You say, you know what? I forgive you for what you have done. In order for you to be safe, you must get back into the boat now.

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They can't, because why? They're drowning. Exactly. The person is drowning, and you just throw them the life raft.

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They literally are going under, and you're going to say, well, you need to grab hold of it. In reality, the presentation in the

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Scriptures is that we are drowning. We're actually dead. We're at the bottom of the body of water, and the

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Lord reaches down with His arm that, by the way, is not short to say. He rips us up from the depths of death and gives us life and unites us to His Son.

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That's gospel. So it's bad news if someone says, I forgive you for drowning and dying because of your disobedience.

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Now, if you get back in the boat, you will be saved. We're saying the good news is Christ grabbed you and put you in the boat.

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He did the work you could not do. You could not swim from the bottom to the top. You could not crawl in, and He proved it perfectly.

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This is what we call technically imputed or imparted, given over to you on the behalf of the works, credited righteousness.

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So He did more than just die for our sins. He lived for us. What do we mean? Well, not only is it the fact that we have broken the law and we've never kept a commandment.

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God requires actual, perfect, perpetual obedience if we're going to dwell with Him.

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We have not done that, obviously. We have not rendered it.

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We need it. Christ did achieve it. He says this many times in His earthly ministry when

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He's baptized by John. He says, it's appropriate. I know that John's wigging out John the

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Baptist. I shouldn't baptize you. You should baptize me. Jesus says, no, it's appropriate that we do this. Why? So that all righteousness might be fulfilled.

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I came not to abolish the law. I came to fulfill it, He says. Then the apostles pick up on this hugely that the righteousness of Christ is counted to us.

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So in Adam, let's talk about that. Adam represented us all. When Adam sinned, his sin and his guilt is counted to us.

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The same is true in the gospel that though we are guilty and vile and helpless, sinful, the righteousness of Christ is counted to us by faith.

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So that just as Adam represented us all in the garden and he fell, Christ is the representative of everyone who trusts in Him.

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So everything that's His is ours, and that includes and begins with His righteousness. If I may, at the end of it all,

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God will declare us just because Christ is just. He will declare us righteous because Christ is righteous.

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Justin Perdue Yeah. This is why Paul says the gospel is so offensive because within the human nature, within the fallen human nature, and it's not only within us, but Satan breeds it in us, there is a sense of self that must be involved.

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You can't just say, God forgave you of your sins, and there's nothing else required for you to do.

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But that's exactly what faith alone means. Paul says it this way. The way that you began, which is by faith in Christ's forgiveness, is the way that you continue.

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Pete That's the way you'll finish. Justin Perdue That's right, because now you're putting faith in God's forgiveness of your sins and the required obedience for the rest of your life.

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And so I love how this is a wonderful image when he says you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

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The story of the good Samaritan, not the good Samaritan, but the prodigal son, the son comes home, immediately receives the forgiveness of his father.

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I have forgiven you. And then what does he put on his son? The works of his own hand.

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Pete He puts a robe on him. All of the benefits of my own hand, I now am going to give to you.

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What did the older brother get upset about? How do you give him what he did not earn?

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That's the offense of the God. That's why Jesus gave that. He was saying, you're the older brother. You think you deserve this, and you don't.

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You didn't earn it. The Father has given it to you. Justin Perdue Amen. When it comes to the imputed righteousness of Christ, what we need to understand is that at the moment we are united to Christ by faith, at the moment we trust him, all of the righteousness that God will ever require is given to us.

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What could ever be asked of us beyond the righteousness that Christ achieved? I may say all this at the end to put a bow on this conversation at the end of our episode today, but it is as though we were as perfectly obedient as Christ was.

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We don't think in these terms because we get very concerned as Christians because we look at our lives and we see that we don't meet the test.

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We read the scriptures, and we're like, I haven't done this for five minutes of my life. How in the world am

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I going to stand before the Lord with any kind of confidence and not absolutely terrified? We are haunted by these thoughts.

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Whenever we look at ourselves, we have no reason to think that we could ever be saved. We need to be reminded constantly that all of the righteousness that we'll ever need has been given to us and that God will be satisfied to pronounce us just because we are seen in his

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Son. What this means for us is that when we pursue obedience, we are not chasing after something that we don't already have.

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We are actually pursuing obedience from a place of being given everything that we ever need. That's a paradigm shift.

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How many times in the New Testament do they explain this idea, like all of the righteousness of Christ that's required is given to you therefore?

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Exactly. And the therefore is the response out of what you've received, not to receive. Right. Because an objection that's immediately going to be raised is like, well, guys, we do need to live transformed lives.

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Amen. It is good to do good works. We should pursue obedience. We agree with all of that. The question is, how do you do it?

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It's not this whole thing. You're forgiven of your sins. You've been given the righteousness of Christ. Now don't mess it up.

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That's not how it's done. It's like the gospel is absent of adoption.

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Sure. If you think about it, it's like, look, I know you messed up as a child and I forgive you, but it's like, no, the offense is he says, now you're my child, which means you receive the benefits of my home because of birth, of a new birth, a rebirth.

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And that's really hard for us because we're like, no, no, you have to earn that. And it's like, has any of your children had to earn your love?

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No, they were born into it. We are born into by God's rebirth. We were born into the favor and righteousness.

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It's a part of the gift. Amen. And my kids are still relatively young, but I tell them all the time.

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I mean, several things. I'll tell them I love them, that I'm very happy to be their dad. And then I tell them often that there is nothing that they will ever do that would ever mean that they no longer have my last name.

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And you're an emperor. And I am a sinful. You're an imperfect father. How much do you think your father can do this?

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I am a sinful man who is far. I mean, here's a problem we have. We often tend to think that God is far less merciful than we are.

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Say it again. We often tend to think that God is far less merciful than we are. That's right.

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Because we twist his holiness and his righteousness to mean that he lacks mercy and grace and compassion and that somehow, though we would never disown our own children, he's going to disown us.

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That's not true. That's so crazy. I agree. What a lie of Satan. How well he has done.

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Of course. So I want to reiterate this, though, because why do we obey?

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How do we pursue obedience? Because we should. We've said this many times, but it bears repeating.

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If this is the first time you've ever listened to Theocast, we pursue obedience in light of what

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Christ has already done for us. And the pursuit of righteousness in my living is a because of my union with Christ.

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It's a because of what Christ has done. It's because I've been given a new name. It's because I've been given a new status.

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And so I now live this way. I never pursue obedience so that I might be a son of God.

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I never pursue obedience so that I might be forgiven. I don't pursue obedience so that I might be counted righteous.

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That's right. I do it from that. That's right. Streams only flow one direction. They only flow downhill.

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Pursuit of obedience only flows from salvation receipt. That's right. I mean, even when Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God, right?

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And he tells you, do not worry about what you wear, what you eat, what you drink.

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This entire relationship with your father, he's like, all of that's been taken care of, which means you now have the freedom to not go and perform to gain.

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You have the freedom to go and give away that which you have received. He turns everything upside down. When I was in Romania, they have a lot of orphans there.

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And a lot of them survive by having, they get into crime syndicates and they go out and they steal and they bring it back.

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And so they earn basically the favor of the boss and they earn the favor of like, this is how I'm going to earn my food. And for that child to then be adopted and to receive, it would be hard for them.

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Like, wait a minute, I don't have to earn my stay at this house. Like, no, it's been gifted to you. Not only that, here is money.

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Here is clothes. You will never want again. And so dear child, if you're hearing this friend, brother, sister, we feel that weird pull within us.

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It's like, no, no, I really think God requires me to do my part to remain in his family.

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And I don't know else to say it, but that is a lie of Satan. So many passages in scripture would tell you the exact opposite of the truth.

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That you cannot one, earn your right standing before God. Number two, you cannot, I'm sorry, your forgiveness and you can't earn the right standing.

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We literally, I'll say this last thing, I'll send it over to you. When it stands, when Paul says in Ephesians, stand in the strength of the

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Lord, that's what he means. The work and the power of Christ is not, we stand there.

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We don't stand in our own capacities to obey our own righteousness. We don't stand in our strength.

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We stand in the strength of the Lord. Amen. First, I have two comments. One, we all, whether we would admit it or not, once we've trusted

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Christ and say, okay, I'm forgiven. And maybe I even understand that I've been given his righteousness, but we think that we need to change and continue changing in order to stay forgiven, in order to stay covered in the righteousness of Christ.

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And that we might not change enough. We might not do well enough. And then what will end up happening at the end of it all is we will forfeit that forgiveness and we will forfeit that righteousness that apparently was given to us through our union with Christ.

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That is the work of the enemy. If we despair, I mean, just say it this way, if we maybe despair or lament, lament's a better word, or if we're grieved by a lack of obedience, a lack of fruit, a lack of faithfulness, what do we do?

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I think that what we tend to do and what the enemy would have us do is to look at ourselves somehow.

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My question is, where do forgiveness and righteousness, where does faithfulness, where does repentance, where does a desire to obey, where does that come from?

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It doesn't come from you. It comes from the Lord alone. If you are grieved at a lack of repentance or grieved at a lack of obedience, you know you should do better.

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What's the remedy? Dear saint, it is not to take your eyes off Christ and look at you. It is not to take your gaze off of Christ and fix it on yourself.

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I promise you that much. That to look to him always is the answer when we lack things because he is the only source of our sanctification and our transformation of life.

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That's one thought. Two. Can I add a verse? Please. First Peter 1 .9. He gives them the hope of the gospel in verses three through five, gives them how they then obey out of that, and then if they're not obeying out of that, he goes, you have forgotten you've been cleansed.

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He doesn't go back to their performance. He's like, look, if you're not doing the fruits of the Spirit, you forgot you're standing before your

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Father. That's important to remember. There is a rebuke, but the rebuke is where did your faith go?

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You lost your faith in the thing that actually sustained you. Second thought.

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For all of us, and I think there are many of us, that we've trusted Christ. We've meant to trust him anyway.

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We mean to be Christians. We mean to live lives that would be honoring to God. We're concerned that at the end of it all, when we stand before the

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Lord, our record is not going to be good enough. When our record is somehow exposed, we're going to be undone.

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Let me ask it this way. Was Jesus, in the way that he lived his life, obedient enough?

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What if I were to tell you that when you stand before Christ, who is the judge, by the way, when you stand before him, the very record of Jesus is the one that will be judged when you stand there?

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That's right. Point one. Let's compare your lives. If I were to tell you that, that you would have the exact record of Christ, that that's going to be yours.

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When I show up and it says, Justin Perdue, and here's my report card, and my report card and my works and all those things, they're going to be the record of Christ.

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I'm going to hold that out. Is this good enough? We would say, yeah. I would say to everyone, including ourselves, that's exactly what you've been given.

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What are we worried about? I'm saying this to myself because I worry way too much about all these things.

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If you turn this into an economic status of required money, put whatever number you want on there, but a hundred trillion thousand,

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I don't know, whatever. That's not a real number, but make a number that no one could ever achieve. You could say, listen,

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God requires this. You can either show up with Christ's account, which has that, or your account, which is actually minus the exact same amount.

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Justin Perdue Yeah. Matthew 7, you know, 21 to 23, we've talked about these verses in the past, but I think these verses have haunted many a believer through history.

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Many who say to me, Lord, Lord, look at all these things. Did we not cast out demons in your name?

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Did we not heal people in your name? Did we not do all these things in your name? I'm going to look at them and say, depart from me. I never knew you. We have been told, many of us, you don't want to be that person, do you?

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We're like, no. That's my greatest fear. It's that I'm going to be one of those people. It's an observation to offer.

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What is the confidence and what is the boast? What is the testimony of these individuals?

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Did we not do this? Did we not do that? I think that those individuals are a great illustration of people who are trusting in a transformed life.

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They're people who are trusting in works done. It doesn't matter if they're done in Jesus' name. If we are not trusting

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Christ alone, we have no hope. We have no reason to be confident.

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If we are trusting Christ alone, we have no reason to fear. It's like Martin Luther said. When I look to myself, I have no reason to think that I could ever be saved.

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When I look to Christ, I don't know how I could ever be lost. That's the good news. Christ is sufficient in those ways.

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Quoting Ephesians there, Ephesians 2 .8 -9. When we think about it, often we think, oh yeah, forgiveness of sins so that no one may boast, but that's not what he means.

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He means the entirety of the hope of your future. Your entire salvation. That's right. When you stand before the

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Father on the last day and he's saying, why are you here?

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If you offer one sliver of your own righteousness, you literally have a reason to boast. But if you hand over, as your illustration, the book of Christ's works and go, well, this is why

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I belong here. He's like, you have no reasons to boast because you're like, yeah, I boast in Jesus.

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This is what Paul says. Let anyone boast, let them boast in the Lord. We will be saved finally, and we will be declared just on the last day because of perfect righteousness earned, and Christ will have carried us the entire way.

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He will have achieved it all. That's right. This pod is not about obedience, and I will add this in here as we transition to this next section.

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Sometimes we're accused of antinomianism, and when it comes to the gospel, there is no law. We are antinomian in that way.

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There is no law in the gospel, but we aren't saying, well, then live however you want, because that would then to tread underfoot, to stomp on, to ignore the beauty of what

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Christ is for us. So, go ahead. He has become for us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

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He's all of that. Right. Because we've been delivered from sin, we don't want to return to sin.

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I think every New Testament writer alludes to this concept. Don't return back to the filth you were saved from.

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Sure. What good was it doing for you anyway? That's right. Why would you go back to the thing that was your death sentence? Why would you do that?

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That's right. On the final thought on Matthew 7, because that's the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus concludes that sermon by encouraging people to build their house on the rock.

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Beloved one, I promise you, the solid rock on which you would build your house is not your obedience. It is

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Christ's. Taking that whole sermon into account and how Jesus preaches the law, it makes it plain that no one's ever fulfilled it.

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There's only one man who's walked adequately to actually merit salvation, and that's

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Christ. Build your house on the solid rock who is Christ for you. When you are covered in his blood and his righteousness, there is no reason to fear.

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We need that word heralded over us as much as it can be, John. I love how the old hymn says it.

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It's not only you're covered in his blood, you're stained, which means it's there forever.

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It cannot be removed. Normally, at this point, at 30 minutes in, we go to Semper Reformanda, but today we wanted to go ahead and just continue this conversation here.

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Justin, I want to go into point three, and I'll set you up here as we talk about it and think about it.

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There are many who would agree with what we're saying. Many in the Reformed camp obviously would say amen to the forgiveness of sins and Christ's righteousness on our behalf by faith alone.

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But when it comes down to the future of our home, that often becomes confusing because it's like, well, if you want rewards in heaven or if you want positions in heaven, and I would say point two and three can bleed in together, which we're talking about our eternal inheritance, the future hope that we may have.

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The part of the good news of the gospel is that he who began a good work will complete it from the forgiveness of sins to the righteousness required and the glorified state which we live in.

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I think it's important that the powerful good news of the hope of us as we fail in this frail body, messing up in our obedience, looking unto

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Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, we know that what is secured for us, 1 Peter, what is secured for us, imperishable, unfailing, unfading, is our new home, which is a new heaven and a new earth in a new body that cannot fail.

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The reason why we have to put this into the gospel category is because it is given to us.

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It's granted to us by faith. Christ has achieved it. That's right. Christ has earned it. Before the world began,

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God the Father and God the Son agreed that a people would be saved and they would be saved by the work that God the

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Son would accomplish. So our bodily resurrection to live with God the Son and Jesus who took on flesh, our bodily resurrection to live with Christ in a redeemed heaven and a redeemed earth is the goal of the work of God the

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Son. It is the goal of the gospel. It is a part of what the Son has secured for us.

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I'll say it this way. To be united to Christ by faith, to be presently justified, means that we will be sanctified and it means we will be glorified, period.

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That's right. To be presently justified is to be finally saved. When we consider the witness of the scripture, you said it, he who began a good work is going to complete it.

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He's going to bring us all the way home. That's right. When you look at, for example, words in Romans 5, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. This is a forward -looking reality. It becomes very obvious. Through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

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We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. This is an eternal thing. Later on, he says, after saying, while we were still weak at the right time,

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Christ died for us. One will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.

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God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and here's where he goes. Since therefore we've now been justified by His blood, there's that present justification.

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That's right. Much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. That's final judgment time.

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That's right. While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Much more, now that we have been reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.

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That is the testimony. Think in Romans 8, the golden chain, the unbreakable chain, that we love.

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Those who are justified, He glorifies. It's as good as done. He will sanctify. He will glorify. He does all three parts.

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Right. When we start to pull apart present justification and final salvation, we are swimming against the current of the biblical witness, and we are gutting the gospel.

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That's right. We ought not talk like that. The rewards that await for us in heaven, that's where the confusion often can be.

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You better be doing your part because at the final judgment, God's going to come and look at your works. Basically, your eternity in heaven is going to be dependent upon your performance here.

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The hard part about that is that when Peter and Paul clump together your forgiveness, your righteousness, and your inheritance, as if none of those have anything to do with your works for boasting.

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When we get to heaven, it's like Christ and to be with Christ and the benefits of Christ are all a part of the inheritance that we don't work for.

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We don't work for those. We subscribe to a confession of faith, a historical confession, the Second London Confession.

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In chapter 16 on good works, it's very clear that even the rewards that we will receive for good works that are done by faith in Christ that were prepared beforehand for us to walk in, that reward is not based on merit.

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It's grace. The fact that God will look at us and say, well done, is astonishing grace.

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I think it's going back to Romans, thinking about chapter 12. The reason why we did this podcast is because the human heart and the deceitfulness of the kingdom of darkness and Satan, they want us to take our eyes and put it back on ourselves.

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This is why Romans 12 says, renew your mind. You have to renew your mind in the gospel. Paul's like,

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I want to come and preach to you nothing about Jesus. The reason is that if you put your hope in Jesus, you have the joy of the

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Lord that cannot be altered. No one can take the joy of the Lord away from you. If you put your eyes on your performance,

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Justin, we have no reasons for hope and joy. This is why many Christians struggle to find in a suffering world full of pain, darkness, and depravity.

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We have a hard time finding hope because our eyes are earthbound. Put your eyes on Christ for your justification.

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Put your eyes on Christ for your sanctification. Put your eyes on Christ for your bodily resurrection and your glorification.

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That is what the Lord would have us do. Do not look to yourself for any of that stuff. Why would you ever do that?

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That is the tactic of the evil ones, for us to take our eyes off of Christ and put them on us.

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Yet that is what many well -meaning saints are encouraged to do, to know whether or not they're legitimate.

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Justin Perdue I would say even fighting sin. In Colossians 2, he's like, here are all the ways in which you look to the flesh to fight your sin.

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Then in chapter three, he says, look unto what? Jesus, who is seated at the right hand of the Father. We don't maybe understand that phrase.

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What that means is that the work of the King is done. That's why he sat down. Look to where he's at.

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He's at a finished place. That place is where you belong, and it's granted to you.

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Don't put your eyes on physical means that you think are somehow going to deal with this.

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The only way you fight the flesh against the Spirit is by constantly looking to Christ over and over again.

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I think the message many people hear functionally is change in order to come to Christ and be forgiven.

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Change in order to come to Christ and be counted righteous. Change, continue changing so that you'll stay forgiven.

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Continue changing so that you will continue to be counted righteous. Change and continue changing so that you'll finally be forgiven.

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Change and continue changing so that you'll finally be counted righteous and found on the last day.

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In reality, what we're saying is, dear one, don't do anything. Trust Christ to be forgiven.

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Trust Christ to be found and declared just. Then from that, your life will change because you've been united to the one who is the fountainhead of holiness.

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That's good news. All who have been united to Christ, he says that I won't lose any.

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Any who come to me, I'll never cast you out. This is the will. He's speaking as a human.

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Jesus is the only person in the Godhead who has two wills because Jesus has the one divine will, but he has a human will. I'm just trying to be clear.

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He says, this is the will of my Father that I lose nothing of all that he's given me, but raise it up on the last day.

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This is the Father's will that all who look on the Son will have eternal life, and I'll raise them up. That's his message.

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I've gone to prepare a place for you. I wouldn't tell you that I did if it wasn't true. If I went to prepare a place, I'm going to bring you to be with me where I am.

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Look to him. Trust him. Justin Perdue What's interesting is when the New Testament believer embraces this, they're described in a certain way.

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For instance, they're described as ones who have a sweet aroma. The reason of that being is that they aren't self -righteously comparing themselves to others.

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There's something about being around a broken person who looks to Jesus. If I were to go back to the boat illustration, what's interesting, about most gospel presentations, it's like they're telling themselves to come back to life or climb into the boat or stay in the boat.

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They're constantly weary. They're weary. Am I still dead? Do I have the strength to get into the boat?

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Do I have the strength to stay in the boat? Jesus is like, no, I don't lose anyone.

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What I need you to do is to be crying out to those outside, crying out to them with patience and love, with hope, saying, you too can be saved by Christ.

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Once they're in the boat, we grab each other and say, hey, brother, remember how you got here.

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Remember how you're staying here. Until he takes us home, the waves will toss up and down, but you have no worry.

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You'll make it home. Encourage one another until I return. Strengthen one another. Remember, you're the beacon of light.

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You're the joy that brings people back in. I get so frustrated. I've already quoted this thing from Spurgeon, but Spurgeon said the work of Satan is often to get the preacher to discourage the believer.

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Justin Perdue Bro, there are many Spurgeon saying this in his own day. We're saying it in our day. Many people think that's good preaching.

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It's not. It's to actually preach in such a way that people are worried and anxious and concerned about their…

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I mean, not unbelieving people. That's preaching the law to crush us in our sin, but he's talking about there are many preachers who think they're doing their job well when they preach in such a way that the saints who trust

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Christ are afraid and are unsettled and are unsure as to whether or not they're going to finally make it.

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That is not… I've said this before. That kind of objective is the objective of Satan, not

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God. That's right. Justin, the freedom from the power of sin unto salvation is the gospel.

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Why would we assume that once we're saved, that would change? The freedom from sin from the gospel when you're saved is still the gospel, which is why

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Paul, writing to a really wicked church, Corinthians, says, I really need to come and preach the gospel to you.

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He didn't call them unbelievers. He called them my brothers at the beginning of the letter. My brothers, I need to tell you something.

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I want to do this just because to me, this is one of the best encapsulations in a succinct way of everything we've been talking about.

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There's an old document, an old catechism called the Heidelberg Catechism that's very useful. It's very good. It's written in the 16th century.

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Question 60 asks, how are you righteous before God? The answer is, only by faith in Jesus Christ.

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It goes on to say, even though I have broken all of God's commands and I've never kept a single one of them and am still inclined toward all evil, let those words sink in.

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That's our condition. It's the saint's condition. Even though that's all true, because of God's mercy, out of sheer grace, apart from anything that I've ever done or could do,

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God counts to me the perfect holiness and righteousness and satisfaction of Christ.

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Satisfaction meaning what he did to make satisfaction for sins. It is as though I have never sinned or been a sinner, and it is as though I have been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me.

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All I need to do is receive this with a believing heart. That is a good answer to that question.

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If that's not how we're thinking about this, we're not thinking after the gospel. We're thinking after something else.

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So the now what question often comes. Okay guys, but now what? Our answer to this is, go be a part of a body who will continue to encourage you in this truth.

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Remember you're a part of a kingdom, and the work of this kingdom is that this message spread around the world.

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Not moral transformation, not the law only. We preach the law, but it's this message.

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Why God still has us here. This is the last thing I'll say and I'll give it to you. Paul says,

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I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they might also find grace.

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This is why we're here. This is why we fight sin. This is why we continue to look to Christ because others have been trapped either as a believer, they're confused, the gospel has been muddied, or they haven't heard it.

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So dear saint, we need this to remain clear and bright so that the work of Christ continues.

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It will, whether we do it or not, it will. It will. This has been good.

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So for everybody listening, we've included the Semper Reformanda episode as a part of the regular ones today.

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We hope that's been good for you. We hope it's been helpful and encouraging. There's nothing that we like to talk about more than the gospel, and we will happily be called one -trick ponies all day long if that one trick that we have is to herald the sufficiency and the excellencies of Christ for the salvation of sinners.

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So we appreciate you listening, and for all of those out there, including our members, our

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Semper Reformanda members, who support us so generously and kindly, we're grateful for you. None of the things that we're doing, even

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John, you being here in Asheville, the things that we've been able to enjoy together, the content we're able to produce, all of this is only possible because of the generous support that we have.

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You support us not because John and I are great, but because we are heralding an excellent savior.

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And may we continue to do that. May the Lord give us grace to trust Christ and to know rest and peace in our souls on account of him.