Jon Moffitt Interview (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is

Mike Abendroth, and we are today in the studio talking to my friend, at least

I'm in the studio, talking to my friend and fellow podcaster. In England, they call them podcasts.

Fellow podcaster. And fellow partner in crime, because usually when he's in trouble,

I'm in trouble, and when I'm in trouble, I'd like to get him in trouble. Today on the show, we have none other than John Moffitt of Theocast.

John, welcome to No Compromise Radio. Wow, Doug, great to be here. What an honor.

Well, how long have we known each other? Have we known at least of each other for 10 years, 15 years maybe? At least, yeah, for sure.

I got to know your brother first, and then I was like, well, if he's that bad, his brother's got to be worse, so then

I just gave up on you. John, I liked it better 10 years ago when people would say, when

Pat and I were in the same room, who's older? I like that. But now, when we're in the same room, they all know I'm older. Before we talk about Theocast, tell me about your first love, that is, the church that you pastor and where you are, and I know you've got a lot of California people coming in.

Tell us about the ministry there in Tennessee. Yeah, so I've been in Tennessee for 10 years now, originally born and raised in California, and when we moved out here,

I never thought in a million years I'd be in middle Tennessee. But came out here, and five years ago, we had the honor and privilege of starting a church just south of Nashville, in a little town—well, it's not little anymore, it's growing—called

Spring Hill, Tennessee. And we have had the honor and privilege of being able to see two other churches come from our church.

We have one in Willmar, Minnesota, by Jimmy Buehler, he's the pastor there. He's been there for about two years.

And then Patrick Crandall planted just south of us a year ago, and it's been wonderful.

That's my heart. My desire is to preach the gospel, to help people find rest in Christ, and to teach others to do the same.

And as the Lord provides, we try and help provide that around other cities in the world.

So that's kind of where we're at. We meet in a gym right now, so if you come and visit us, we're in an elementary gym, and there's all kinds of weird, strange art all over the walls, and we love it.

Hey, that's just like the emergent church back in the day, you just have these weird art things on the wall. Yes.

Absolutely. That's one way of looking at it. So John, you and I talk pretty often, and I know you're going through the book of James now, verse by verse.

Give our listeners a little bit of the, I don't mean slant in a negative way, but the tincture of James as you would preach it.

Most people know that there are over 100 verses with half of them imperatives.

Seems like it's this kind of law -heavy, you know, Luther struggled with it at times. If I came to the church that you pastor,

I'm in Tennessee, and I sit down and I hear a sermon on James, what would I be familiar with?

What would be different? Tell me about the rest component. How do you preach James, in other words? Yeah. Well, one of the things that sometimes we ignore when we think about a book, and I don't mean preachers, but if you're just someone who reads the

Bible, sometimes we don't sit back and ask ourself who the author is, and the author is going to help you understand a lot of why someone says something.

If I were to read you a phrase, you know, any kind of phrase, and then tell you who then wrote that, you're going to have a context immediately, whether it was a comedian, it was a former

United States president, or, you know, you're going to have a context right away, like, oh yeah, their personality, their history, it all kind of makes sense.

Well, James is a very wise pastor who's very respected. We also know him as the half -brother of Jesus.

And so James is a shepherd at heart. He is counseling not only Paul and Barnabas, but he's helping guide these churches, and so when

James writes this letter, which from my understanding is one of the first, James is dealing with churches that have just been kind of theologically and physically punched in the nose, and it's that panic that you can see when someone's scared and they start running on adrenaline, and James is over here kind of like, okay, you guys are running into each other, and you're causing further harm and chaos, and so we need to kind of gather you back together.

His biggest concern for these churches, they just left Jerusalem, and they are acting out of fear instead of faith, and James is saying, listen, you are destroying the churches, and you're dividing them because you're acting more on the flesh out of this fear that you're living in instead of living by faith.

I mean, this is why he starts the book, right? James 1, what does he begin with? Trials. Count it all joy, brothers, when you need a trial.

But it's not this weird statistic joy, he's saying it doesn't matter what you faced and they were facing.

These trials that James is talking about, it's not like a flat tire, you know, like the power went out for an hour.

It's that kind of trial that sucks the air out of your lungs when you're kind of feeling like, wow,

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to make it to this next moment. And James says, God's the one who will create steadfastness in you.

He will produce it in you, which is interesting, James literally uses that word produces. And so from that moment on,

James walks these little churches that are walking by fear and responding out of the flesh.

He goes back and he grounds them in the very hope of why they should ever even consider themselves to be in Christ.

And so when you use James as kind of like a billy club to beat people up who are being lazy or who are, you know, to cause them to question their faith, within the first chapter he uses the word brother nine times, like brothers, brothers, brothers.

He's not questioning their faith. He's saying your eyes are clearly in the wrong place.

Your eyes are on this world. Your eyes are on your flesh and your eyes are not where they should be, which

I mean, right out of the gate, he says, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives generously to all without reproach.

Think about that for a moment. He goes, you can ask God for help and he's not going to cross his arms and say, did you ask me for that yesterday?

Or even just in the same chapter, you scroll down and he says in verse 17, every good gift and every perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change, meaning his gifts are not based upon your performance, but upon his sovereign will.

Next verse, of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

So this is where he runs in a cycle. He will give them a hope,

God's going to preserve you in the midst of a trial, then he'll point out where they're failing, and then he points them right back to their hope again, and he does this in every chapter, all five chapters.

So, John, you and I have similar backgrounds theologically. We were probably both taught, at least

I was taught, that James is this book, test of saving faith, do you confess trials, because Christians should, but we begin to study it, and even as you use the word brothers, so often used by James, the

Lord Jesus, he has died, he's been raised, he ascended, he's promised to come back.

Everything that have been written in the Gospels, or will be written in the Gospels, has occurred, but they're not written down yet, and the first book that pops up, as you said, either

James or Galatians, there are instructions, and there are guides, right?

The law is used here, the third use, as a guide on how Christians should live.

When did you come to the conclusion that, in fact, that's the way you read James?

I mean, what happened based on where you used to be and where you are now? Was it a process?

Remember, it's no Compromise Radio, you can't use the word journey, but what happened to you? Yeah, it definitely was me examining a lot of my theology.

So I grew up in a fundamentalist background. My parents were, I mean, my mom is still a wonderful, godly lady, loves

Christ, and my dad was a preacher for over 30 years before the

Lord took him home, and so I had a wonderful experience as far as just godly parents, but my dad definitely did not understand the law of gospel distinction, and often erred in legalism, where they would always say, you are saved by faith alone, and that was pounded from the pulpit, literally, there's like ring marks left in the pulpit from where my dad would pound his fist, it was kind of funny.

But it seemed as if there was always an and in that, and the legalism would often cause you to doubt.

I can't remember how many times I said the sinner's prayer, because I wasn't quite sure if I got it right the first time.

And, you know, I graduated from college and had my first experience as a youth pastor, and it was at that moment when

I was preparing sermons every week, I thought to myself, I have no idea what I'm doing.

All my sermons sound the same, aka at the time I didn't say it, they always sounded like law, all the time, no hope, basically do this and be accepted by God after salvation.

And I decided to go back to seminary, and it was while in seminary is when I started to really question a lot of the theology that I had been handed, which is a dispensational theology.

And when I was in seminary, I was very encouraged to read a lot of the Reformers, and so I started to do that, and when

I did, I started to hear phrases like law, gospel, distinction, Christ in all of Scripture, a redemptive historic understanding of Scripture, and I can remember the first time

I heard the phrase law, gospel, distinction, which was probably 11 years ago, maybe 10 years ago, something like that.

It made so much sense, because things like the rich young ruler, the good

Samaritan, you just hear these phrases from Jesus, and we make them into gospel, but they're law.

And so it was at that moment the Word of God became alive to me when I understood it from this overarching story of redemption, and the law exposes our need to Christ, and the gospel is that great promise that there's nothing that can be done on our behalf because it was already finished.

Like, if you try and add to the work of Christ, that's offensive. You're trying to put your dirty rags on top of His glorious, righteous robe, and that's just not acceptable in the eyes of God.

And that was so liberating to be able to use Scripture in that way. Well, John, one of the things

I've noticed is, I think maybe the old Mike would preach in such a way where I knew there were unbelievers sitting there, carnal

Christians, easy -believism Christians, 1 Corinthians 6, 9 -11

Christians, quote -unquote, and so I wanted to try to root them out and expose them, and I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, well, we'd like those people to come to faith.

But that seemed to dominate my preaching, preaching to those people. And over the years now,

I've been so convicted by that. Are we not supposed to, as shepherds, encourage the people that are professing

Christians, that are struggling Christians, that are Christians who are sadly sinning

Christians? What's your take on that whole way of even, not just theological, but homiletically in how you preach?

Yeah, so obedience has been an interesting conversation for me, not only for my preaching, but through Theocastra throughout the years.

The question that I've come to lately over probably the last seven years of my preaching is, why do we obey?

That's what's changed for me. A lot of times, almost my entire Christianity has been,

I obey so that I can receive rewards from God and actually prove that I'm legitimate.

And obedience is complicated, because if you take that approach, the question you have to ask is, well, how much of my obedience is required of that?

And do I actually have the capacity to obey in such a way that God would accept it?

Because outside of Christ, He requires perfection. So let's just take the first act of obedience, which is to love

God, right? That's the very most important act of obedience we could have. There's never been a moment in my life

I've ever perfectly loved God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. So I'm doomed from the get -go. So understanding the importance of Christ's righteousness on my behalf is that there's no way

I'm ever obeying in order to please God or to gain some kind of favor from Him.

But when you look at the New Testament, the obedience calls are horizontal.

They're not vertical. They're called for the benefit of those around us, because they have a mission connected to them.

Like, even when you think about the glorious section of Ephesians 4, when he says, right after he's done giving us all of our

Christology, he says in chapter 4, verse 1, he goes, "...walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called."

So he's saying, right, here's the worthy response to your election. He says, "...with gentleness and meekness and patience, be eager to maintain the bond of peace."

Well, think about where that direction flows, because the very next section, he says, you together have received one faith, one baptism, one hope, one

Christ. So our obedience is designed to care for and love one another, and Paul literally says in chapter 4, verses 15 through 18, he says that when the body functions properly, it builds itself up in love.

So the greatest need for my obedience is to create harmony and unity and love and affection and to build up my other brothers in Christ.

While we await our final resurrection, right? So obedience is no longer a dread or something to be feared, like going to the dentist.

But you see it as something that is wonderful. For instance, a lot of times when we think about obedience, it's hard because we're always examining ourselves, either in light of someone else or in light of the

Bible, and you're just going to always fail. But if we live every day walking by faith in the grace of God, then when

James describes it this way, he says, wisdom from above is pure and gentle, meek, open to reason, kind, thoughtful.

That's how he describes wisdom, which I think he's describing the fruits of the Spirit. I look at that and I'm thinking,

I would love to be more pure and gentle and open to reason. Those don't seem like bad things, they'll seem like good things.

But I'm not required to do them perfectly, and I'm not doing them. This is the way that Jesus describes it.

I love this. He says, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. So to obey Jesus, eternity is no longer in the balance.

If I fail to obey him perfectly, I am not doomed. That's why he says my yoke is easy, because he has now carried all of that weight and all of that shame and all of that responsibility.

So my obedience is done out of gratitude for what has been given to me and for the benefit of others.

One last thing I'll say, Jesus doesn't...he says, I say these things to you that you may have joy and that my joy may be in you incomplete, and he says that you love one another.

So our obedience, one, is for the benefit of others. It obviously glorifies God, but Jesus says that it's used as a means to give us joy while we await our final resurrection.

So it's a very different way of looking at obedience, in that obedience is not necessary to prove my salvation or to keep myself safe, but obedience is used for the sake of the advancement of the gospel and for our own hope and joy.

Talking to John Moffitt today, theocast .org. By the way,

John, my ratings will either go sky high with you on, or they're gonna just tank. Just kidding.

Probably the latter. I'm gonna read to you Heidelberg Catechism question 115, and then the answer, and then

I want you to just make some comments. Why will God then have the Ten Commandments so strictly preached, since no man in this life can keep them?

That's Heidelberg 115. Answer. First, that all our lifetime we may learn more and more to know our sinful nature, and thus become the more earnest in seeking the remission of sin and righteousness in Christ.

Likewise, that we constantly endeavor and pray to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we may become more and more conformable to the image of God, till we arrive at the perfection proposed to us in a life to come.

So Heidelberg asks the question, why preach the law if we know, in fact, we can't perfectly obey the law that you alluded to earlier?

What do you think? Yeah. Well, because our hearts are so evil, we quickly assume we have greater capacities than what we really do.

And the way I love it being described is that we kind of lower the wall of the law to make it achievable to climb over.

Law light, baby! And the wall. Yeah, that's right. So the law, when it's achievable, then guess what you don't need anymore?

You don't need Christ. But the law in its rightful place, and this is why Jesus says, well, you think that you're okay because you haven't murdered, but if you have hatred in your heart, you're guilty.

He took the law, and He put it so high that no one could achieve it, ever.

And this is what's so great about the law, in that when the law preached rightly, every person who hears it should say what the apostles say, well, then who can be saved?

And what does Jesus say? Well, with man it's impossible, with God all things are possible. So literally, what He says after giving the law to those who were accusing

Him during, what was that? During the rich and ruler. And I love it, because Jesus uses the law in such a way where the disciples finally understand that no one can be saved by obedience to the law, because it's not possible.

Well, it's interesting, because when we talk about proper motivations to obey and a holy living in light of our gratitude to the

Lord Jesus and the Father and the Spirit, we get accused sometimes of being against the law, antinomians, an antinomist.

But when you make extra rules, John, don't you think that a sheer legalism and neonomism, new law, that ends up leading to antinomianism?

It's functionally extra legalism, or legalism itself functions as antinomian, because you realize after a while there's no way you can possibly keep these extra laws or keep these laws perfectly, so if I can't keep these laws perfectly, then

I might as well just toss in the towel. Doesn't that happen a lot? Oh, all the time.

What's interesting is I've seen it in my own life. When I was a young man, I've seen it in other people. A lot of people, humans, struggle with this.

I mean, my own kids, some of my kids don't even want to try different sports because they can't do it right away, so they just quit.

We have this nature within us to say, well, if it's not achievable, then why even try?

And I know that that sounds crazy, but to preach the law and make it achievable or have lesser laws and make them achievable, it doesn't actually produce in us righteousness.

Here's the thing that probably gets me in trouble. The law cannot produce righteousness, right, because where does righteousness come from?

Correct. The law cannot change the heart. The law, because that's the issue of it, is that the issue is with our heart, and so you either are going to—this is the whole issue

Jesus is dealing with. You either trust that Jesus is sufficient to provide for you your righteousness, all of it, or you're going to have to create a combination, which is not biblical.

And there is a sense in which we want to fully give up on earning any type of righteousness at all before God.

This is why when people walk up to Him and say, what must I do to be saved, or what must

I do to inherit the kingdom of God, Jesus tells them what to do, and He requires perfection in it.

And so if we don't see that, the man walked away discouraged because he didn't know how to handle the perfection side of it.

But Jesus answered the question that he wanted to hear, which is, what must I do? But I agree with you that when you start adding law, and if you think that law is going to create this sense of obedience and a desire to obey, there's just—it's just not there.

The greatest section I see for this is—I'd already mentioned it—Ephesians 4, 1, that He gives the motivation for their obedience is their election.

Second Peter 1, 9, Peter gives them a long list of things that we should be adding to our faith, which are all really great things, right, gentleness, meekness, kindness, patience.

And he says, if these things are not yours and increasing, you have forgotten that you've been cleansed from your former sins. So what is

He using there? He's using the gospel as motivation, not law. It's so true, and when you mentioned a few minutes ago,

John, about our evil hearts, a lot of this results in the wrong view of the fall and original sin.

Of course, Romans 2, 13, you know, the doers of the law shall be justified.

We could get righteousness if Adam didn't sin and we were just doing right things, and we're not affected by the fall, he wasn't our federal head.

But that's just a hypothetical now, because we are affected by Adam. In other words, oh, let's just get our own righteousness.

Impossible. So when you ask me, where's our righteousness come from? Since it can't be by perfect, entire, exact, perpetual law -keeping, it better be from the one who actually, perfectly, entirely, exactly, perpetually obeyed the law, and that's why

Jesus not only died for our sins, but lived for our righteousness, meriting righteousness.

Now, John, I want to have you on tomorrow as well, we'll record that show in just a minute or so, but I wanted to let the folks know as we wrap up this show, your shows are longer than mine, so I have to stick to 24 -30, because of all the stations we're on across the universe, no, just two.

Theocast .org, Pastor John Moffitt, and we'll talk more about Theocast and the

Gospel Network next time, but I just wanted to say thanks for coming on. If you, dear listeners, would like to have some messages that are encouraging, not

K -love encouraging, positive encouraging, he'll talk about sin, but he'll talk about the cure, too. You want to go to Theocast .org.

Is there a link to your church there, too, John? Yes, yeah, gracereform .org. Okay, gracereform .org.

John Moffitt, Theocast, and Pastor of Grace Reform Church, thanks for being on No Compromise Radio. We'll see you tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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