Forgiveness for Homeschoolers and Hitlers | Theocast

Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we're having a twofold conversation. The title's provocative, Forgiveness for Homeschoolers and Hitlers. So in the first half of the conversation, we're gonna talk about the gospel that is the free offer of forgiveness and righteousness in Christ to all people.

And we mean all people, that can be hard for us. And then not only that, but then once people are saved in the Lord Jesus Christ, we're brought into the church, we seek to live lives of holiness and faithfulness and obedience to the Lord in a way that's good for one another.

And honors him. And basically guys, the church can be misunderstood in both facets. The free preaching of Christ on the one hand, and also trying to live in faithful ways on the other. John and I are gonna talk about all this in one episode.

We hope it's helpful to you. Stay tuned.

We are excited to announce we have a brand new podcast available called the Kingsmen Podcast. It's where we are reclaiming biblical madness by training and equipping men for the work of the kingdom. You can find it anywhere you download a podcast.

You can also watch it on YouTube. We have new episodes that come out every Monday.

The Free Offer of Forgiveness and Righteousness in Christ

Welcome to Theocast. Encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a confessional reformed and pastoral perspective. Here at Theocast, we are seeking to clarify the gospel and reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ.

And to do that, we're gonna have yet another conversation behind the microphones. Your hosts today are John Moffat, who is pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. And I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

And John, sometimes people are interested to find out that we don't live in the same place and we don't record these episodes sitting across the table from one another very often. And clearly people are not listening closely enough to the intros.

Maybe they're just skipping from one to the other. We're not only not in the same location, we're not even in the same time zone.

Man.

We always have to, we have to work on that.

Different state, different time zones.

That's right. We often have to work on that because I'm an hour behind you. You're Eastern, so.

Yeah.

Yep. Yeah.

Yeah, we are about five and a half hours away.

Five, yeah, five. And a few times a year, we get together and record content face-to-face. And that's always super fun. Some of that's coming soon.

That's right. I'm gonna be driving out to Asheville. Spend some time out there. I'm looking forward, I get to see your new house. I'm excited about that.

Word.

Excited to host you.

I get to see your beautiful family. Love your kids. Your wife is always so kind and gracious.

They're pretty great.

So, your kids, dude, seriously. I have, look, tell them. I have a photo of them. It sits right up on my marker board.

I get to see them all the time. We'll take more pictures this time.

That's right.

They'll be very excited that Mr. John is coming.

Yeah.

Hey, for those of you that may want to know, we do have some fun merch. A lot of you take photos of it and you share it with us. I think it's super cool. I'm using right now, this Trust Christ and Calm Down Dirt.

I don't know what you call this. What do you call this?

A tumbler?

A maybe, but I don't know.

Tumbler. You know, you can put something hot, something cold in it, whatever. It's pretty cool though. It comes with a metal straw, which I think is pretty cool. And then if you didn't know, we're doing something new.

Every Wednesday we send out an email with what's going on with Theocast because there's a lot going on right now. And one of the things that we started is a book recommendation. So we send out, we've got a top list of books that we would recommend that you would read.

I think last week was like the whole Christ, I think is what we recommended. So if you're new to Theocast, and you would like to know what books we would recommend, and that's growing because Justin and I are always reading, I've added a couple of books to that list that I'm reading right now and I love.

So you just go to the website, scroll down to the bottom, and sign up for the weekly email. There you go. As easy as that, Justin, that's the only announcement I have. Isn't that quick? Oh, well, no, I got to make one more.

It's an important one. We're going to take like 10 seconds to talk about it.

Okay.

The Grace Reform Network charter meeting.

Word.

Yeah, we're excited. So in October the 3rd through the 5th, which is a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we have our charter meeting, but we're announcing it to you because Justin and I are going to be speaking for two days, the first two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, we're going to be speaking at the conference.

And so if you would like to attend, we would love to have you. It's going to be in South Nashville in a town called Smyrna at Grace Church. If you'd like, we're going to, in this episode will be information to the link to register.

It's a donation of $20. If you can't afford it, don't pay it. Just show up and let us know you're coming. And we're going to be covering things like confessionalism, law gospel distinction, covenant theology, saint center.

Those are some of the like, we're going to be doing live Q and A's. And then also each Tuesday night and Wednesday night, you and I will be preaching one of those nights. I can't remember. We haven't decided who's preaching what night, but I'm really excited, first of all, for the network.

But for those of you that like to be encouraged by good theology that represents the network, we'd like to invite any Theocastleister that would like to come and participate. Noah, did you have anything you want to add?

No, just looking forward to the event and yeah, excited to be participating in it and it'll be here before we know it. And so, yeah, the first two days are open to anybody. And if you're interested in making the trip and meeting some like-minded people and enjoying some good time of teaching, we'll do some singing.

There'll be some preaching, a lot of time to hang and get to know people, panel discussions with the board of directors, the whole thing. We hope that'll be a profitable time for everybody who comes. And then the last day is reserved, of course, for the churches that are going to charter.

And God willing, we'll have our first general assembly in 2024, so there we go.

Pray, that way more churches can be encouraged and started. There we go.

Yeah, man.

The Gospel Is Preached to All People Without Exception

Speaking of the gospel and advancing the gospel,.

My friend, this is

And the whole Christ.

And the merit controversy and the whole thing.

That's right. Why don't you tell us why? I mean, what a big, I mean, you know, forgiveness for homeschoolers and Hitler. That was a big deal.

Yeah, I'll start us off and then maybe you can add too.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're

Oh yeah, I guess I was supposed to be the topic of today.

Yeah, we got a kind of a twofold conversation today and I'll say this really simply and then let John say more.

Yeah.

The first half, we want to speak to the whole Christ, that Christ is the savior of sinners. And that means from bad to the worst because there are no other kind. And so we're going to discuss that and how there really is no one that the Lord Jesus Christ cannot save.

There is no one for whom he could not make satisfaction for sins. There's no one for whom his righteousness is not enough. So we're going to talk about that and what that means for us in the church. And maybe all of us will be a little bit like, man, I'm pretty self-righteous and I feel a little offended and that's okay.

And then in the second half of the conversation, we're going to talk about living in the church and the reality of spiritual warfare and indwelling sin and how we then need to watch over one another and how that too is sometimes misunderstood and can be difficult.

Yeah.

You know, this is something I wrestle with. So when Justin and I present this to you today, please do not assume that we are immune to this or we've never struggled with it or we are over it. God's grace still amazes me to this day.

And there are times I still scratch my head where I'm like, wow, I don't understand it. I really don't. It's super fascinating. You know, when you think about when Jesus leaves the world behind and he commissions his disciples and he tells them to go into all the world and preach the gospel, there's zero caveat that's given to that.

And there's no caveat given to it ever, right? There's no hope for those who deny Christ, right? That's pretty much it. Like there's no forgiveness for the denial of Christ. But when it comes down to violations against God, we're just not given something that's the unpardonable sin where God can't forgive you for that.

And Justin, this can be complicated. You know, this is why kind of we decided to use the homeschool versus Hitler's title because we wanna see the little sinners who've kind of messed up and maybe been in a divorce or maybe committed a crime or been trapped in alcoholism or whatever.

We wanna see those people saved and see them have a new life and just have the amazing story that I once was on drugs. I once was an alcoholic, I once was a homosexual and look what God's done. He's completely transformed me.

We love that story of transformation. But the thief on the cross who dies and then goes to heaven, that's a whole nother ball of wax, right? You know, there's this legend out there that Jeffrey Dahmer turned to Christ before he died.

That is, you know, whether that's true or not, I don't know. But some people, if you don't know who Jeffrey Dahmer is, I know we have children who listen. And so I'm not gonna describe everything that happened, but, you know, it's pretty horrendous.

What he did was very horrendous. It's hard to even think about or describe what he's done. And, you know, one of those illustrations I gave you, Justin, when we were talking is that, you know, imagine a man who's aborted hundreds of babies for his career.

You know, he literally just murdered, illegally, legally murdered babies for his entire career. And the gospel is presented to him and he believes. And all of that sin is washed away. You know, that's hard.

That's hard for us to hear. It really is. And that's where this conversation, we have to have it. Because when we think about the role and the responsibility of those of us who, Paul says, such were some of you, right?

Such were some of you, that that's who are the ambassadors for Christ. That's who represent him. Literally, Paul says, we are ambassadors for Christ and we implore you, the whole world, be reconciled to God.

And he doesn't say those who haven't murdered, those who haven't, you know, changed their gender, those who haven't committed homosexual. He says, you, the world, you be reconciled. The gospel is a proclamation to the whole world and that anyone can be saved.

And I'll just give one last illustration, even in the New Testament. I'll save it, go ahead.

Well, I was just gonna read from 1 Corinthians 6.

Really quick.

Go for it.

Because when Paul is writing to the church at Corinth, and there's some not great stuff going on in that church.

Think maybe?

Yeah.

Yeah, I always laugh a little bit when people say that, you know, we need to go back to the golden age of like the first century church.

Like this is what we need to do.

So golden.

And the implication is that, man, things were better and it was more pure. And I think, I don't know, based upon how I know you and how you struggle, you know, in a modern church context with fellow sinners, you might not get along really well in the church in Corinth or some of the other churches that existed in the first century, because there was a lot of tough stuff going on.

And churches then are just like churches now, comprised of sinners and all the rest. So Paul's writing to people who are, you know, there's sexual immorality, there's division, they're suing one another, taking one another to court, things like this.

And he says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? So he's using the law here. Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you. So these are things that are not insignificant in terms of sin. They're not, that list is not the respectable kind of sin. I mean, a number of those are the highly inflammatory, like, oh, kind of sin, you know?

And such were some of you, but you were washed, he says, you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. And yeah, John, I think we can all say, on the one hand, like, we're kind of a paradox, right?

Because we love the gospel, and we sing of the gospel, and in our sane moments, we know that when Paul writes of himself that he is the chief of sinners, we're like, man, brother, I'm right there with you.

I am the chief of sinners too, and I'm a miserable wretch, and who's gonna deliver me from this body of death? We feel that in our sane moments, but then there are times where, if we're honest, we are so bothered and offended and everything else by the sin that we see around us in the world, and we're so threatened by the trajectory of the culture in which we live, and we're afraid, we're uncomfortable about things, and so I think sometimes it can produce a feeling of animosity toward our fellow man.

That's right.

That's not helpful to us as Christians. Now, don't misunderstand me. Should we be grieved by sin?

Yes.

Should we be burdened by the things we see around us? Yes. Should our hearts break? Should we lament? Should we be indignant towards sin that is destroying people's lives? Yes, we should, and at the same time, we would do well to remember that, were it not for the grace of God, there go I, that I was no different than these individuals that I see doing all kinds of things out in the society, and may that humble us all, and we're gonna talk more about all this, I know, in terms of how we view other people, how we think about the free offer of Jesus Christ to sinners, like we preach the whole Christ.

You don't need to forsake your sin in order to come to Jesus. You don't need to do anything to qualify in order to receive the righteousness and the forgiveness that is ours in Christ by faith. That's a tough thing for us because I think there's always been a tendency, even amongst serious-minded, like sovereign grace kind of Christians, to look for evidence and fruit, and are you maybe elect?

Are you maybe regenerate? Are you open to receiving the good news? And then kind of going in with the gospel then, but not, man, to the chief of sinners, to the miserable wretch, we're gonna herald Christ.

That's right.

I think we struggle with that.

I think it's fascinating how Jesus calls Zacchaeus and says, I'm going to your house today, which is that, everybody's like, whoa, right? Obviously, God is sovereign, and that's an amazing interaction, but Zacchaeus comes to faith, and everybody's having a hard time believing that because he was hated amongst the community.

It's hard for us to understand that. We don't really have the tax collector position in our culture. I guess the only way I could maybe give us an illustration, it would be like an abortion doctor or a surgeon who does children's transitions.

I don't know. People, everybody's kind of like, that is a gross position in our culture, and no one really appreciates it. Like, it's disdained. Are you following me? It's hard, because we don't understand the cultural dynamics that are there, but I think it's fascinating that when you find Jesus interacting with sinners, he's interacting with those whom the culture rejects, the woman at the well, the prostitute at his feet who's washing his feet.

You know what I'm saying? There's an essence where, like, why? I love it. These men are saying, why is he letting that woman touch him?

Sure.

Right, and I mean, even with Zacchaeus, when Jesus, at the end, pronounces that salvation has come to this house since he is also a son of Abraham, I think there he means spiritually.

That's right.

It's not just that he's an Israelite. It's that he spiritually is Abraham's child. Think Galatians 3. But then he concludes, Jesus does in Luke 19 .10, for the son of man came to seek and save the lost.

He said that at a number of different places in his earthly ministry,.

That he didn't come for the righteous.

Right, yeah, he didn't come for the well. He came for sinners. He came for the sick, and

Yeah, and sick meaning like, you need to think sick, spiritually.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not physically.

No, sick spiritually, like sick of soul. These are the people that he came for. And I think that it's good for us all, especially as believers in the church, because I trust that's the vast majority of who's listening to this.

It's good for us to remember that in our flesh, there is only sin, and there's only sickness of soul. And there is nothing that is well or whole because the dead man, like the corpse of the old man, is not sanctified.

That's not how this works. And so we would do well to remember that such were some of you should humble us all and should make us the most enthusiastic heralders of the righteousness and the forgiveness that is held out to all men in Christ Jesus.

I think this, we talk a lot, John, on the show about how we wrestle with doubt, and insecurity, and anxiety in our souls about our standing before the Lord. I think a lot of that has a similar root to some of what we're talking about today, and let me try to explain.

I think that when we struggle and are afraid of how we are viewed by God, it's not because we see a defect in the righteousness of Christ. It's because we see a defect in our own righteousness. And we have convinced ourselves that my righteousness in some way qualifies me to receive Christ's.

We think that as Christians in the church.

That's right.

That's bad for us as saints, as we think about our peace, and our hope, and our joy, and our obedience. But then it's also detrimental on the front end of things too when we think that there is something, there's gotta be something that would make a person fit to receive the Lord Jesus Christ.

There's something that we need to do, or feel, or whatever to make us fit to receive the Lord Jesus. And we say, well, if that's the case, then no one would ever come to Him. Because it's impossible for us to do anything about our spiritual condition in order to come to Christ.

It's a work of the Spirit of God, and it occurs as Jesus, His person, and His work is heralded to us. And as we understand that the law is our death sentence because we've not done it, and Jesus is the only one who has.

And so we trust Him.

I'll make a book plug right here. We plug it all the time, but The Whole Christ with Sinclair Ferguson and the Merriman Controversy is what you're referencing right here, that there is no cleaning up of the act, there is no self-righteousness that is needed before one receives Christ.

You don't need to put down the bottle. You don't need to put down the needle. You don't need to have a change of your, even how you feel about your sexuality. You don't have to change that yourself through your willpower in order to trust Christ.

Yeah, I wouldn't even say need. I would say you can.

Well, you know, you can't, but obviously there is no need of it. It's impossible, but there's no need of it. And even as we talk about repentance, repentance is agreeing with God about your sin, siding with Him against it, and trusting Christ.

It's submitting to God's righteousness, which is the righteousness of Christ that you receive. And you're turning to Christ from yourself. That's what repentance is. And so in no way is anything that we're saying to be understood as like, well, repentance isn't real.

Of course it's real. And it's something that God grants.

If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith Versus 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 Reformed confessional perspective.

You can get your free copy at theocast .org slash primer.

I just want to give one more thought, Justin, and let you comment on it as well. You know, we love reading biographies about, you know, Nate Saint and these different guys who have dropped into cannibal

David Brainerd, you know, I mean, yeah.

Justin, or what's his name? I can't think of it now. I'll think of it in a minute. But who have dropped down into these cannibal cultures where they died, you know, they died for their faith. And we have a lot of compassion for those people because they're like, oh, they're so ignorant.

They spear each other to death. And, you know, they rape and murder each other. And so we have compassion on these people. And we want to see them liberated. And yes, amen. I want to see the whole world liberated.

But what's interesting is that God has called us to have that same compassion on all people. And so when I think about our culture, like we're willing to give up our life and be sacrificial and lay it down for the sake of the cannibal.

But when it comes down to the people in our own country, we start to struggle with compassion here. You know, it's like, you know, the thing of the day is, Justin, you and I both agree, this is slavery.

It's a mockery to God. And it's nothing in reflection of purity and goodness and kindness. But the whole homosexual transgender movement and those who are promoted, and I would say at times violently so.

And we might even see more, like you're in our careers, we might be experiencing some pretty serious persecution. We may have to be living sacrifices, as Paul says, lay it down, be consumable for the sake of the gospel.

We tend to lack compassion for those people who are also enslaved, sick to sin. And that was the point of this podcast was to say, we can't pick and choose who we have compassion on.

Well, it's funny because I think your observation is a good one that when we think about, I'm just gonna use language that I think we all understand. When we think about, you use the cannibal or the tribal people in the undeveloped world.

You know, we have more compassion towards those people instinctively, I think, because there's no sense in which we think they should know better. I think Romans 1, 18 to 20 would say otherwise.

That's absolutely right. But then They're under condemnation.

But then we're very inconsistent because of the ways we think about people in our own culture in the West. The assumption there is, well, they should know better. And it's like, we expect people because they live in the quote unquote developed world or they live in a context that has been informed by Judeo-Christian values, et cetera.

We expect non-believing people in those contexts to live like believers and to value things like believers do. And I think that's just very inconsistent because if we take our theology to heart and if we believe our doctrine that we are all by nature dead in our trespasses and sins, we are inclined toward all evil because of the corruption of the flesh, we deny the truth and suppress it in self-righteousness, we exchange the truth about God for a lie, like this is what we do by nature, then why would we expect people even in our own society to do anything other than that?

And so we should be compassionate toward them and preach the law and the gospel in a way that would be helpful to them. And yeah, it's

And not only preach the gospel to them, Justin, but the way that the Bible describes it as, to the point where you'll endure anything for it.

Sure.

I mean, this is 2 Timothy 2, when Paul says, I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they might find salvation. And compare that to Romans 12, it's like, look, your body is a living sacrifice.

So I think sometimes we have like, I don't mind giving my life up for the cannibal and the indigenous people, but I'm not giving my life up for this person who should have known better.

And yeah, that's, so I'm gonna transition with this thought because I think it's related. Whether we're talking about the kind of loving the world and loving our neighbor and enduring all things so that people might come to Christ, we should have that posture.

And not that you and I are doing this perfectly. I think we both see our own failures. I mean, we operate out of fear and comfort just like anyone else does. And so I think we all should feel some sense of, man, like I could absolutely love more.

And I could endure so much more.

We're both guilty of being judgmental of people.

Sure.

Both of us.

Of course.

I mean, brother, I live in Asheville, North Carolina, man. It is a weird place.

Beautiful.

Great food, great drink, great music, great topography. It's a weird place. And it's a very antagonistic place toward Christianity and toward the church, right? And so of course there can be a sense in which you feel, and people even in our own local congregation can feel like, you feel defensive.

You feel like, man, is this a good place for me to be? Am I hated here? And when you feel like you're maligned by the culture in which you live, a lot of times that can produce an antagonistic perspective in your own heart toward the culture and toward the people that live in your community.

And that's the danger for us. May the Lord give us grace so that we wouldn't be that way. But I think not only is there the kind of outward facing, toward the world, evangelistic instincts, inviting people in to taste and see that the Lord is good, and there's a fear factor and a discomfort there with that.

I think there can also be some fear of man and fear of the culture and fear of public opinion as it pertains to life in the church in an ongoing way. And that's where we're gonna go now. I'm mindful in both facets of this conversation, the evangelistic, reaching the lost, advancing the kingdom of light into the kingdom of darkness angle, and life in the church angle.

I think we wanna be otherworldly in our perspective. I'm convicted, and have been for some time, and I just, this past Sunday, preached Romans 8, 18 to 25, and in applying that text about how we're groaning, you know, the present sufferings and the groaning that the creation is doing, but also we ourselves, as we await the redemption of our bodies, and we hope for what we don't see, you know?

I mean, that's an otherworldly perspective on suffering. And I'm mindful that I'm just far too earthbound. I care far too much about this life. I care far too much about what people think of me. And I wanna be an otherworldly man.

I wanna think in an otherworldly way. I wanna live in light of the new heavens and the new earth. And my prayer and hope is that that will make me more willing to be misunderstood, to endure all things for the sake of the elect, like you said.

And may the Lord give us grace and wisdom, and may He enable us all to live by faith and not sight, and trust that He's gonna keep His promises, and that the world to come is going to be wonderful and worth it, and may we pour our lives out now.

And so that's true in the way that we've been talking, but it's also true in the way that we're gonna be talking now in the next few moments. Go ahead, John, start us off.

Yeah, Peter uses that exact same language. He says, set your hope fully on the grace that is to come.

Yeah, you know.

And having that concept, you know, I think that every Christian should have short-timer syndrome. You know, like we're not here long.

That's right.

And so, you know, because when you think about short, I remember when I, whether I was at a job or when I was in school, and you knew those people were coming down to the end, you could see them caring less and less and less about what was going on.

Less about school, less about their job, because they were excited about where they were going, because this was coming to an end. And that's, I think the language that you hear is that we don't care less about the work we have to do.

It's just the place we're at. We're not real excited about this place because our hope isn't here. This is just transition period for us. And then we're gonna get to where we really wanna be. And he goes, but while we wait, right?

While we wait, we thus hope. While we wait, we endure. I love this too, because it's a good warning, because it's true, man. Justin, you and I are pastors. Unfortunately, we have to do church discipline.

We gotta counsel people, gotta love on them. Satan's still alive and well, and he is still entangling people. So this is why, going back to the Corinthian church, he had to write this to them. But I love how he uses this language.

So 1 Corinthians 6, 18, flee from sexual immorality. And then he explains how this is really damaging to the body, like every other sin is outside the body, but this one's inside the body. And then he says this, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

Now, at first, that kind of sounds negative. You're like, wow, ouch. But then he turns it, and he uses this beautiful picture. He goes, verse 20, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God with your body.

Now, I love how he uses that. You have to understand, it's like you once were this evil, wretched person who was only using your body for the glory of self and the detriment of God. And then he's like, that unworthy, useless body, God actually bought it, not because it was worth anything, but he bought it because he wanted it, and he's gonna let you use it.

He wants you to use it. That's like, now glorify, what you used to use for the disdain of God, you're gonna use for the glory of God. And there's something beautiful about that, that redemptive language of that, because sometimes you're, you were bought with a price, so it sounds like slavery, but if you were a slave to sin, he's like, yeah, you were a slave, I bought you.

Like, I freed you, I paid the price to get you out of there. And now look what you get to do with your body. You get to do something that is eternally valuable. Now go do that with your body.

So here's where my brain's at at the moment, and we'll maybe talk about this for a minute. And I'm reaching back a little bit into what we talked about in the first half as well. So I think that the gospel and the way that we should preach it indiscriminately to all men and what the gospel offers us, righteousness, forgiveness, eternal life on account of Christ alone, apart from anything that we have done or ever could do, acknowledging that we still have indwelling sin, that's a lot.