Mercy for Those Who Doubt | Theocast

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Hi, this is John, and today on Theocast, we are having a simple conversation between two people.

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Those who want to justify their sin and say, it's okay, I don't need to repent,

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God is fine with me. And those who can't seem to find encouragement, you are so weak and discouraged.

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How could God ever love me and save me? We definitely want to talk about the law and the gospel for those who are weary and can't find hope in Christ.

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Stay tuned. If you'd like to help support Theocast, you can do that by leaving us a review on iTunes and subscribing on your favorite podcast app.

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You can also follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Plus, we have a Facebook group if you'd like to join the conversation there.

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Thanks for listening. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

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Conversations about the Christian life, as complicated as they may be, from a Reformed and pastoral perspective.

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Hopefully not that complicated. They are very complicated these days because sin still exists. Your hosts today are

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Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina. And I am John Moffitt.

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I'm the pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. And Justin, we have a couple of announcements we just want to remind people of if they care to partake.

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Remind the people, John. That's right. We've got a new logo with new stickers. Oh, that's upside down.

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New hats, as Justin is showing there. New shirts. We did a special shirt that's already done.

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We'll probably put another one out sometime soon, possibly. But it was Trust Christ and Calm Down.

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And if you didn't get notified by that, you probably should be following us on one of our social medias or sign up for our email list.

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You can do that by just going and getting a free e -book from us or something. So many ways you could have heard about that cool T -shirt. Yeah. So we're going to be doing more of those coming out.

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The other thing is we have these two books, Rest and Coffee Mug. Yes. Coffee Mug.

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Justin's left handed, so he holds it wrong. No, I'm not left handed. You were holding it. I drink it.

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I drink it in my left hand. There's a story behind that. For another day.

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Maybe. Yeah. We won't even tell that story in SR. It's not. Rest and Safe. They're rebranded. Amazing.

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They're still being updated. You can get these on our website or on Amazon. We have reformed that. It's coming out,

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Lord willing, at the beginning of the year. So stay tuned for that. Justin, I think that's all of the most important updates.

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We need to talk because today is a day where the subject matter is.

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I don't mean this lightly. It is often for people a matter of life and death.

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It feels so significant to them that they struggle with the absolute meaning of life.

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So talk to us, my friend, what are we talking about today? First I want to comment briefly on what you said, sort of jokingly, but I know you mean it.

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The complexity of some of the conversations about the Christian life being a thing because sin is still a thing and yet sin wrecks stuff and man, the battle against sin is a real thing for every

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Christian and sin produces nothing good in our lives individually, in our relationships, in the church, full stop anyway.

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So yeah, we're still talking about these things in part. We're talking about the gospel. We're talking about Christ. We're talking about doubt.

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We're talking about wrestling and struggling because sin is still with us and the corruption of the flesh is with us, right?

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So we are talking today about mercy for those who doubt. We're talking about grace for those who struggle.

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We're talking about compassion and gentleness toward people like that who are saints who are just mired in this battle with the flesh.

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That's something that's common, I know, amongst the members of Covenant Baptist Church. I trust that's true amongst the members of Grace Reform Church.

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I think that's true of the members of any gospel preaching church, any place.

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You're going to have these situations. You're going to have individuals who are doubting the meaning of life, doubting the truth of God, doubting the promises of God, doubting that the promises of God apply to them, doubting that they are in Christ actually, struggling against sin, struggling against the flesh, potentially being deceived by sin and the hardening effects that it has.

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You've got all this kind of stuff going on amongst the people that comprise churches, our two churches being included in that number.

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This is a very relevant conversation. It's a very applicable conversation.

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I'll speak personally, John, and I want you to maybe jump in on this too. In terms of my aim and motivation and even thinking that this would be a good episode to record, we talk all the time about the sufficiency of Christ and His work in the place of sinners.

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He has done everything that's necessary to save us, and so we can't have hope and peace and rest. That is our confidence.

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That's where we rest and stand. I trust that's going to come through today. I hope it does. Also, just the gentle, gracious, merciful disposition of God toward the weak.

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We want to talk about that. At the same time, many of you listening to us may know that like others through history who have talked this way and like others through history who have preached this kind of gospel, who have talked about Jesus and His work this way, we often get charged with things that are not legitimate, that are untrue of us and our theological position.

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We get charged with being antinomian, that we're against the law. Or we get charged with, you guys just don't care how people live.

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It clearly doesn't matter. I guess sin is okay, and you're just giving sin a pass, and you're just condoning sinful, foolish behavior, and those things are not true.

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I think that that's going to come through in this episode today as well, because we're going to make clear that there is a difference between being a struggler and a doubter and being weak and a person who is in a proud, high -handed way, utterly disregarding the

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Word of God. This is a loaded conversation. Justin, the way that I would describe the conversation today is those who justify their sin versus those who can't find justification.

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It's a beautiful way to frame it. I think there's a good company with those who often doubt.

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John the Baptist doubted, Thomas, Paul, Peter. There are a lot of people at moments in their life when it was complicated.

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This is why in my introduction, I referenced that sometimes the Christian life is complicated when we start having conversations about faith and fear and doubt and faithfulness.

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So ultimately, one of the number one emails that we get, got one this morning or a comment on Facebook or somewhere,

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I can't remember where I saw it, but there's people who have absolute horrible experiences with Christianity, and they start doubting everything.

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How can I trust anything? Everything I've ever known, everything I've ever been told, my entire life is wrong.

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Or they're in a context where that's not the case, but they can't seem to wrap their head around, I just don't think

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I'm saved. I just can't figure that out. It could be based on a number of things that we've talked about in the past.

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We did an episode called More Than a Feeling, if you've not heard that episode, where your justification is not based upon your emotional status, whether it's up or down at a moment.

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Justin, I'm going to let you take back over, because I really want you to get into Jude. I just want to echo what you just said briefly about the correspondence we get.

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We get so many emails and messages from listeners. I can't think of one that I would actually put in that category of trying to justify their sin.

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The people that we get messages from all the time are those who just think that justification is nowhere to be found.

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Maybe there is justification that does exist in Jesus' name, but I'm not justified. That's the struggle.

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I'm not sure. All the messages that I get on the SR app, quick plug for that.

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If you're not an SR member, become one. Get on the app. The messages that I get from people are all of this nature.

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I mean, not all, but some are other theological questions. But whenever there's a struggle, it's always,

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I read this, or I watched this video, or I heard this, and now I don't know that I'm saved.

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And I don't know that I'm Christ. What do you think? Man, this is rampant. Well, in many ways, it's like, and this is such a bad illustration, but it's like Theocast has thrown up this light and we're drawing, it's like a bug's app almost.

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We're drawing all these people who are like, I just don't know. How do I know? My heart just is crushed.

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Many of the subjects that Justin and I cover on Theocast are because of the interactions that we get on Facebook and YouTube and email.

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We want to help the weary Christian find the legitimate rest that can be found. Justin Perdue And our simple word toward people who doubt, people who struggle, toward the saint who is battling the flesh like crazy, and you're thinking, man, the flesh is winning right now, and I'm grieved by this.

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Our word to those people is that there is more than enough mercy in Christ. There's more mercy in Christ than there is sin in you.

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There is grace and compassion and tenderness from your heavenly Father toward you, and it's never running out.

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It's never going away. We're going to think more about that. Justin Perdue Just to add to that real quick,

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Justin, it's like the Bible is very clear. There's more than enough mercy for those who know they need it, and there's no mercy for those who justify their sin.

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Justin Perdue Exactly. For people who don't think they need mercy, there isn't. But for people who know they've got no righteousness and who have no confidence in themselves, there's mercy and grace.

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There's righteousness. There's forgiveness. There's absolution. There's all of that. Yeah, exactly.

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All right, so part of what even brought this up to my mind and brought it up for John and for me as we were talking this morning,

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I'm thinking about what I'm going to be preaching in the coming months and all that at CBC, and one of the things that I think

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I'm going to preach through in the not terribly distant future is the letter of Jude. I was reading it yesterday afternoon, just looking at it, thinking about this, and I was struck by a number of things in the letter that I don't have to get into in great detail, but Jude is very clear about the need to defend the faith and about how false teaching is a thing then in the first century and obviously it still is today.

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He talks a lot beautifully about God and His sovereignty and how He has called us and loved us and kept us and how

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Christ has us and all that, and he talks about division in the church and how terrible that is, but then he also writes these words in Jude 22, verse 22, and have mercy on those who doubt, right?

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And so in his mind, the very strong language that he uses about false teachers, the very strong language that he uses about those who sew up division in the church, he can, out of the same pen inspired of the

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Holy Spirit, say, have mercy on those who doubt, and I was struck by that because both can be true, and that's really what was driving my mind in this conversation.

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We can both talk honestly about division and false teaching and those who have no regard for the Word of God, and we can at the same time have mercy on those who doubt, and I think that blows the brains.

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It just breaks the brains of so many people in our modern context because it's like, well, if you're going to be merciful and gracious and compassionate, then it ought not matter.

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It's like, well, you need to be merciful to that person that is hard -hearted, and it's like, okay, well, on the one hand,

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I hear you, and on the other hand, we're trying to live according to the Scripture here, and there is mercy for those who know they need it.

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For people that don't think that they've even sinned, the Scripture actually makes no promise of grace and mercy to such as those.

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In fact, like in the letter to 1 John, if you say you don't have any sin, you've turned God into a liar. You have not agreed with him, and so all of that's in my brain.

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I hope that this is comforting and clarifying for people as we try to flesh this out, and I know, John, you're preaching through James, and you have thoughts coming from that, two from James chapter one, and so off we go, man.

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Let's try to say some things that are helpful to the saints. Jon Moffitt Yeah, so I think there's a great combination to your point with Jude.

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James addresses this in the same way. I've had several people in our church have come up to encourage me saying,

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I just always thought James was a legalistic, pietistic book, and now that it's all about perspective, the whole

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Bible is about perspective. I absolutely love James. It's been a wondrous gospel shot in the arm.

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Justin Perdue I felt the same about 1 John, and that's another book that a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, this is about, am

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I really a Christian? Jon Moffitt Oh yeah, it's the test of the Christian life. So just to use this as an example, the difference between those who justify their sin and those who can't find justification,

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James deals with this. Let me just read a section of scripture for you. This is James 113,

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ESV, it says, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

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The reason he has to say this is that James says that God does bring trials into our lives, but those trials, if they result in sin because of temptation, is the result of what?

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He says, But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires, then desires when it conceives gives birth to sin, and when sin, it is fully grown, brings forth death.

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I want you to hear this and hear it well. Trials can do two things. They will either create endurance of faith because our desires are godly, or they will expose our evil desires, and James says the only thing that comes out of you is death.

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One commentator put it this way, and it's quite harsh to hear, but I think it's a well illustration.

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He's like, Basically, you are giving birth to stillborn babies. There's nothing of value coming out of you based upon your desires.

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Then he keeps saying this, Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

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Why would James have to say that? First of all, we don't think of God in godly terms.

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We think of God in human terms, so he's going to clarify that for us. He says this,

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Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift, and when he means by perfect, he means that which cannot fade away.

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Houses, health, jobs, relationships will fade. Perfect means without fade, so every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and coming down from the

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Father of lights. This is an old reference, a Hebraic reference to the creator of the universe is how it's in reference.

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With whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. He's saying his gifts towards you are not based upon two very important things.

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First of all, God is the creator, sustainer of the world. He, in other words, is sovereign, and he does not give them based upon a transactional relationship.

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Justin, we were talking about this before the podcast. We naturally project upon God the way in which we interact here.

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We take our human interactions and project them upon our relationship with God. First of all, the emotional relationships that we have with people.

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You and I both know our wives. There are times that we love them more and we love them less, and it's a shame.

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It's to our own shame. Justin Perdue And we feel it more or less or whatever. Jon Moffitt And that's based upon the emotional reactions that we're having with them.

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This is true with anyone else in the human race. We also have transactional relationships. In other words, two people begin to date.

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Why? Because they're trying to determine whether they're going to enter into this relationship with them. Justin Perdue And in the other person, they each see something that will help them realize the dreams and hopes they have for their own lives.

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Let's be real. And so there's this give and take, right? It's transactional.

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Justin Perdue And what can you do for me? What can I do for you? Kind of thing. Jon Moffitt Let's just go back to what James just said here.

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He's saying everything that comes to you, first of all, from the

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Father of Lights, if he's the creator and sustainer of the world, it means he does not need anything from you, right?

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This is the satiety of God, or you could also say this is God who is without need.

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He does not sustain himself based upon reactions. Justin Perdue He is self -existent, self -determining, self -sustaining.

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Jon Moffitt That's right. And then he says, this is so important, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change, meaning

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God's response to us is, I'm sorry, God does not respond to us.

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That God's determination of what he will and will not do is based upon his nature, not based upon emotional changes to us.

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Justin Perdue Yeah, what I might say is God does respond to us, but he's not reactionary. His response is always driven by his character, which never changes, right?

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And by his attributes, and even by his love for us, his mercy toward us, his grace toward us as his children, that never changes.

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Jon Moffitt All right, so going back to verse 18 again, it says, of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creation.

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The point of it is that God's relationship, so he's tying it all together, God's relationship to us is not

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God watching us and then he's going to react to us based upon what we're doing.

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He's saying he entered into this relationship based upon his own desires, his own will, and everything he does to us is not based upon a reaction to us, but based upon his will.

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That's why he says every good and perfect gift that comes down is coming to you based upon his nature, not based upon you.

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Justin Perdue One, that kind of blows up the Christian karma nonsense that exists so often in the church. But the main takeaway for me is this has everything to do with mercy for doubters and compassion for strugglers and grace for all of us, because this is how

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God is inclined towards his own. And for those of us who, by the grace of God, have understood that we need mercy for our

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We need forgiveness. We need to be absolved of guilt. We need righteousness that we don't have. He always is mercifully inclined and always is graciously inclined, and we don't need to doubt that.

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I mean, we can trust that God is not responding to me in the ebbs and flows of my heart and mind, and that's a comfort.

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Jon Moffitt It is. I mean, just going back to the James's writing to a church that's left Jerusalem because of persecution, they're floundering in many ways, because the whole book of James is pretty harsh.

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You know, what's interesting is that we always think of James as like law beat down. What is James giving the believer right here?

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Justin Perdue Gospel. Jon Moffitt Hope. Justin Perdue I mean, he's giving them good news. Jon Moffitt That's right. You probably have given into your desires.

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Those desires have led to temptation, which led to sin. And by the way, that doesn't change God's perspective of you and what he does towards you.

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You're changing and you're ebb and flowing. What is God? Consistent. Never varying.

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If you're new to Theocast, we have a free e -book available for you called Faith vs. Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest.

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

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

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Justin Perdue Number of things, right? I mean, I'm inclined while we're here to talk about even the posture of our

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Lord Jesus. We've done this before. We've referenced how the Lord interacts with people throughout his ministry on earth.

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And I would encourage people, if you've not heard me say this before, wonderful. If you've heard me say it before, wonderful.

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Read the Gospels with an eye for how Jesus interacts with particular groups of people, with particular kinds of people.

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For people that know that they have sin and that they need forgiveness for those sins, that know they need mercy, that aren't confident that they have any righteousness to offer, that know they need

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Christ, he is compassionate and gentle and merciful and gracious. To people that trust in themselves that they either are righteous or can achieve righteousness, he is brutal.

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He crushes people with the law. That's a high -level observation. But a few particular instances that I think are cool of Christ and his mercy and his tenderness and his gentleness.

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I mean, one that immediately comes to mind is how he interacts with Thomas after his resurrection. When Thomas is like us, and Thomas gets a bad rap, right?

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Because he's also the guy in John 11 that says, hey, let's go die with him. Even if he said that in sarcasm, he's like, all right, let's just go.

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Let's just go with them. And if we get killed, so be it, right? You mean the Christian life is in an upward trajectory there?

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No, it is not. Yeah. The man that was even maybe sarcastically confident, let's go die with him, is the same man who after Christ has been raised from the dead, can't believe it.

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And is like, unless I can touch you and put my hands, my fingers in your wounds that you received on the cross, unless I can do that,

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I can't believe this. Or the man who chopped off an ear. Yeah, that too.

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But Jesus, in his response to Thomas in that moment, Jesus does not respond harshly. He doesn't rebuke him.

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He walks over and says, okay, do that. And Thomas is like, my

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Lord and my God. He confesses it. And then Jesus does say, blessed are those who don't have to do this, who will just believe based upon my word, based upon your testimony.

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And that's also true. But I think it's instructive that Jesus is tender and gentle and compassionate toward those who know, like who

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I think Thomas wants to believe, but he is struggling to believe.

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The Lord is gracious. The Lord has mercy on those who doubt in such ways. It's very different, though, to be the kind of individual, like you said earlier, who justifies his or her own sin.

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If you're the kind of person that justifies your sin to the extent that you just don't think you have any, or you look at God's word and you say, yeah, the word of God might say that what

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I'm doing is sin, but I don't think it's sin. Or even those who blame God. I mean, that's what James is saying.

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Don't blame God for your sin. Well, God's the one who put this trial in my life. He wouldn't take this job away. Then I wouldn't have done that. Well, God made me like this or whatever it is people are saying.

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It's like, no, God didn't make you like that. Sin made you like that. You want to blame anybody, blame yourself in Adam, because that's what wrecked us all.

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God didn't make anybody with sinful cravings. The fall has produced sinful cravings in all of us, right?

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So we need to get that straight. Yeah, because God is not the author of evil, and we need to talk like the scripture does.

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But then other people will look at the word of God and say, yeah, well, yeah, the word of God's pretty clear that that is sin, and I don't care.

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These are the ways that people talk. Or God has no right to invade my own personal life, has no right to invade what

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I do. I'm believing in Jesus. I know that I need him, but what I do over here has no bearing on my spirituality, on my spiritual life.

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This is how people talk sometimes, and we're going to get maybe more into this later. But when we talk about mercy for doubters, we're not talking about that person.

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We're talking about the person that's like, I know I'm a sinner. I know I'm weak. I know I need Christ, but I just struggle to believe.

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I struggle to do what I should do. I'm afraid that I've out sinned the mercy of Christ. And to that person, it's like, no, you have not.

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You can't actually. Go ahead. Can I dangerously put it this way? I struggle to obey.

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Yes. That's really what those people are saying, right? I struggle to obey.

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I have today. I mean, straight up. I told you this. I have felt like wrestlings with my own flesh today and have been very, very mindful.

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I felt this yesterday. I was texting with a pastor friend about it because he sent me a text, and I responded.

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I mean, he was just like praying for you today that you would see the implications of trusting and following the

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Lord Jesus today. And I was like, homie, I've already seen him. I've already felt him because my flesh is wanting this, and I know that it's wrong.

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And I know that God says otherwise. And I'm thankful to God that he's forgiven me, and I'm praying for grace.

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Such is our experience. Yes. So we struggle to believe. We struggle to obey. We struggle to feel what we should.

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But deep down, the posture of the saint is, I agree with God. He's right.

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Always. I'm wrong. I am not only agreeing with God about my sin.

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I am siding with him against my sin. And I'm saying, Father, give me grace. I'm with you.

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Give me grace so that I might not sin. It's not this proud, haughty, high -handed, to use kind of a biblical term, an

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Old Testament term, a Torah term, right? High -handed sin. It's not that. It's not arrogant.

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It's a humble posture of need. Can I, I'd like to read real quick a

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Hebrews just to kind of add to what you're saying. Hebrews 4, which is A .K .A. Justin's favorite book in the

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Bible. Hebrews 4. Hebrews is, yeah. Come on with it. Hebrews 4 .15,

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for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness. I think this is what we're talking about,

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Justin, right? He's saying, listen, dear children, and I'm going to cry here in a minute. I sympathize with your weakness of faith and of flesh and of doubting and struggling, but one in whom every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.

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And then it says this, let us then with confidence draw near in our weakness.

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Let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we might receive mercy and find grace.

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Justin, here is, like, I want this on a shirt. I want it tattooed on my arm.

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I want, I need to be reminded this. He says this, in a time of need. Justin, when do we need it most?

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When we doubt. When we're weak. Or when we're. When we disobey. Chapter two, when we're afraid.

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I mean, it's like, because the children share in flesh and blood, Jesus also took on those things so that he might deliver us, in this case, from bondage to death and Satan and the fear of death, right?

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So, yeah, like when we're weak, when we're afraid, you know, when we're doubting and wrestling with everything, that is when

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Christ, I mean, is in one sense most, I'm using this language, like he is

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God and man, is most moved with compassion and gentleness and tenderness toward us, right?

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I need to be reminded of that, that when I'm sinning, when I'm struggling, when I'm doubting, Christ's response to me,

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Christ's posture toward me in that moment is not one of, like, frustration and like, oh my gosh, like, again, really?

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You know, in that moment, he moves toward me, you know, in gentleness and love and mercy, tenderness, compassion.

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And I need to be reminded that that is what Christ is like.

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Justin Perdue I mean, Justin, just to jump in there, let's go ahead. Justin Perdue I was going to say, really briefly, though, to illustrate our point, in between chapter two and four of Hebrews is chapter three, where you get this language, take care, brothers, in verses 12 and 13, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living

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God, but exhort one another every day, as long as it's called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, right?

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And people read that and they're like, oh my gosh, you know, I'm going to fall away and I'm going to be, you know, that's not the point.

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The point is Christ is for us, right? He's for us when we fear. He's for us when we doubt.

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He's for us when we're weak, right? And at the same time, in the church, be intentional, be vigilant, love each other, exhort each other, right?

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And watch over each other, lest you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. And if you're the kind of person that bristles at the thought of people watching over you, you're not going to do well in the church of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, because we need this from each other. Anyway, and it's a means that the

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Lord uses. Anyway, we'll talk more about that in a minute. You were going to talk about Jesus, I think. Justin Perdue Yeah, no, I just wanted to say that, right.

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Well, going back to Hebrews, what the writer of Hebrews is saying, that you don't dip your toe into the water to see where it's at.

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You know, cold? Is God cold towards me? Is he warm towards me? He says, in your weakness, your

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Father knows, Jesus Christ knows your weakness. And he says, when you need mercy, boldly, without fear, without intrepidation, without concern, he goes, just run into it.

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Go get it. It's yours. In what there is not, you better first prostrate yourself.

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Remorse better be there. You better have this emotional experience. He's like, no, you've sinned.

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You know you have problems. You know you've messed up. Dear God, give me mercy, for without it,

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I have no hope. You know, this is going back to our confession. We quote this a lot, but I think it's just helpful.

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It says in Divine Providence 5 .5, there's a little phrase I want to read in here. It says, he says, his own children, for a time, experienced a variety of temptations and the sinfulness of their own flesh.

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This is James, I think he's talking about. He does this to chastise them for their former sins and to make them aware of hidden strength and of the corruption and deceitfulness of their own hearts.

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That's Hebrews 3. That's right, exactly. And James 1. That they may be humbled. He also does this to lead them to a closer and more constant dependent on him to sustain them.

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And I would say that the exposure of your sin is not to shame you, but to cause you to have a greater dependence upon him.

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So as your sin is being exposed, he says, I know your weakness. Come receive mercy. And the closer you get to Christ in relationship with him, the greater the exposure of your sin will be.

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And Justin, I feel like I'm a bigger sinner today than I've ever been because the closer

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I get to Christ in knowledge, the greater of need I have in him in mercy. I mean, the more that you come to know of Jesus, the more you come to know of God's word and God's law.

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You see what the standard is, and you are more aware of how short you fall of that standard and how far underneath that bar you are.

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A couple of thoughts here. I'm thinking of 1 John 2, another beautiful promise to us.

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And I think sometimes we miss this language. Shout out to Dane Ortlund in Gentle and Lowly. His book

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Gentle and Lowly does a great job. He has an entire chapter on Jesus Christ as our advocate and what that means.

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But I'm just going to read 1 John 2, verses 1 and 2. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

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But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And then he is the propitiation for our sins, not just ours only, but the sins of the whole world, like everybody who's going to be saved.

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He is the propitiation for everyone's sins. The whole piece about how he is an advocate, when we sin,

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I mean this is the language of John the Apostle, when we sin we have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous.

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So not only does Christ intercede for us in an ongoing way, we see that he does that in his earthly ministry in John 17.

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We're told in Hebrews 7 .25 that he always lives as our high priest to make intercession for us.

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But in addition to that, alongside that, he advocates for us when we sin.

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Not once we've gotten over it. Not once we're doing better. Not once we've adequately felt bad and repented and done all that stuff.

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When we sin, he pleads the merits of his blood and his own righteousness for us.

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And I mean, brief interjection, it's not as though Jesus has to persuade the Father to save us. The Father is in this with Christ.

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He's in this with the Son. And at the same time, principles and truths of God's justice and holiness and righteousness endure, and God delights in this whole thing.

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This is how this is going. But how wonderful of a picture is that? Not only is Christ our intercessor, he is our advocate when we sin.

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And I can't hear that enough. I'm looking at our time, and I want to make sure we can have this conversation well before the regular episode is over.

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If I was going to put a summary on this, and John, if you have something to interject on the advocate piece, why don't you do that, and then I'll say what I was going to say.

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No, I can finish up after you're done. Okay. I think the way that I would frame this, maybe in pivoting towards some of the other things that I at least want to communicate, is for the person who is a doubter, who is a struggler, who is wrestling and battling against the flesh, who, like the tax collector in Luke 18, is kind of beating his or her breast and saying,

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Lord, have mercy on me. I'm a sinner. For that person, we got nothing but good news.

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We got nothing but gospel. We're going to herald the mercy, the power, the grace, the love of Jesus Christ.

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I've come for the sick. Yeah. I've come for the sick. Come for the sinners, not for the righteous.

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How is our faith confirmed to us? We need to have, like I said, the power, the grace, the love of Christ extolled as much as possible.

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This is why we need the Sunday gathering, because we need to be reminded every week of what Jesus has done for sinners like us and how it's enough.

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And so we trust over a lifetime it's going to bear fruit. But then for the person who is arrogant, who is proud, who is disregarding the

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Word of God, seeking to justify himself, for that person we actually don't have gospel.

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We've got law. And this is the right application, the right preaching, the right division of law and gospel.

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We don't preach gospel to the proud and the self -justifying. We preach law to those people.

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And I will add alongside that, and we can talk about this for a minute, there is also another mechanism the Lord has given His church called church discipline.

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That is a means the Lord uses to humble and chastise those who are arrogant and to restore them.

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So I'm just kind of teasing out maybe the next ten minutes from me, but please add to what you were going to say.

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Comment as you want to, man. No, it's a great transition. This is exactly where I was going. In many ways, this again might be a shocking statement, so I will do my best to justify the statement based upon the gospel.

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Please do. We must accept our weakness. A lot of times, Justin, when we struggle doubting, we believe we must be strong, and our strength comes from our emotions and our actions or our discipline.

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And yet where are we told to be strong? Strong in the Lord. This is Ephesians 6, right? In something that is not in yourself.

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So why else would Paul say, walk by faith? Faith meaning

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I cannot trust myself. I am weak. And how is it that we find power and strength?

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And how are we sustained? We are sustained by our faith in Christ. This is why he says to them in Galatians, you begun by the

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Spirit. Are you now going to continue by the flesh? Your flesh is weak. It cannot do this.

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Who bewitched you? You must continue by the same way that you began. It is by faith through grace.

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And so it is okay, in other words, to be weak. And so to that person who is doubting, often your doubt is the result of the frailty and the weakness of your flesh.

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And in many ways, I am trying to tell all of us to say and admit you are not strong.

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You are strong in the Lord. When we think about someone who is strong, Justin, in Romans, going back,

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I had this thought earlier when you were talking about Jude, that we have to give mercy to those who are doubting.

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Paul says this in Romans 15, he says, those of you who are strong have an obligation to deal with the failings of the weak.

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He does not mean strength in faithfulness. He means strength in faith.

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How else do you have meekness and patience and gentleness and kindness? It has to come from the strength of our faith in Christ, not the strength of our own faithfulness.

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Totally. I mean, to be strong in the Lord is to cling to His promises and to trust

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Him. Absolutely. It is not about your performance or even your own godliness.

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I mean, it is clearly about you have firmly fixed your soul upon the promises of God to you in Christ.

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I mean, that is why he gives you the armor of God being your strength. In other words, again, it is something objectively outside of yourself that is strengthening you.

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I mean, the armor of God is Christ. It is quite clear as we read the passage. We are clothed in Christ. Literally, we put on Christ.

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So a few thoughts here, man, or at least one big one that may kind of parse itself out into several,

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I do not know. I think we see at various points, especially in the writings of Paul, this kind of paradigm.

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But I think it is obviously there in James as you are talking. I mean, the entire letter in one sense has this feel to it. 1 John 2 also has this feel to it at points where the apostles are very concerned.

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They preach Christ. They assure the saints of the sufficiency of Christ and how He has them.

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But then when they encounter what they understand to be proud, arrogant, high -handed sin that people are okay with and people are celebrating—so

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I am thinking pointedly like 1 Corinthians 5, where there is this gross sexual immorality going on in the church.

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Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, too, and yet you are arrogant. You think this is okay, and you are kind of even celebrating this,

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I would understand, as maybe an expression of Christian liberty or something. You think this is good.

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He chastises and rebukes the church, the whole church. He says, you guys are wrong.

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You needed to actually remove this man from your midst, put him out for the restoration of his soul, for his salvation, ultimately.

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This is what you needed to do for him. And then he goes on, because right after 1 Corinthians 5 is 1

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Corinthians 6, not surprising. And in 1 Corinthians 6, 9, he is reminding the whole church, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

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Do you not know? Don't be deceived that the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, thieves, greedy, drunkards, etc.

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These people will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do you not know that?

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That's law. That's law preaching. That is the first use of the law to crush a sinner.

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But then, of course, he comes right back in with gospel and says, and such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.

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So he comes back in and says, but here's the reality of the gospel. But it's law and gospel preaching that is the antidote to this and what we need to be doing in our own churches.

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And so there is gospel all day long for that Pharisee, for that weak sinner who knows he needs mercy, for that struggling sinner who knows that she needs grace.

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There is always mercy and grace and good news in Jesus Christ for that person. For those in the fight, yeah.

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By definition, if you're struggling against your sin, you have life from God with which to fight. The fact that you delight in God's law and hate your sin is only a result of the new birth, right?

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So this is all supernatural in you. But those who don't agree actually with God and who really,

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I mean, to use the language of the scriptures, I mean, to use the language of Jude even, you just want to live according to the passions of your flesh. If you just want to do what you want to do and kind of baptize that in Jesus name, we got law for you, right?

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That's the thing. And I'm not saying that to be punchy or to sound harsh, but it matters that we get this distinction right because this is why we can all day long to struggling, weary sinners and pilgrims can hold

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Christ out with complete confidence that we're doing what the Lord would have us do. And we're gentle and we're tender and we're compassionate.

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And we're not disregarding God's word. I want to be super clear on that.

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We are not disregarding God's word or God's law when we preach good news to weary pilgrims and to struggling sinners.

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We're doing what the Lord have us do. But then for those who are proud and arrogant, hard -hearted, who have no regard for God's word and just want to do what they want to do, we are following God's word and doing what we should be doing when we preach law to such people.

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This is James 122, the next section I'm coming to. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.

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That's law gospel right there. And even just the simple talk of the apostles like James and others, where like in James there's all this partiality and there's just this lack of love for the marginalized, the weak, the outcasts right in the church.

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And I mean his response effectively is, what are you doing? I mean like you realize that's not how the redeemed live.

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That's how the apostles talk over and over again is that here is how we live as saints with each other in the church.

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And they're clear and unashamed about that. And so we need to be doing both. And I think here at Theocast, we aim to do this where we offer mercy and grace to the struggler and we preach law to the proud.

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And again, to reiterate, the person that's wrestling with doubt, struggling against sin is freaking out like, no,

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I haven't obeyed. I haven't done what I should. That's where we say, brother or sister, just consider

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Christ for you. And for the other, like I said, we could talk about church discipline maybe later, but that's actually a kind tool of the

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Lord to do like what you read from 5 .5 in our confession, to chastise and humble and restore.

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Because somebody needs to love you enough to tell you that you running off in disregard of the word of God and running off toward your own passions is going to ruin you.

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Right. Well, I think this goes back to our episode that we did on the purpose of the church. If you've not heard that,

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I encourage you go to hear it because the Father knows our weakness and because of our weakness and our frailty, and often we fail to fight against our flesh.

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He uses the other brothers and sisters in Christ to build us up. There's two things that happens. He says in Hebrews, consider how to build one another up daily.

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You aren't hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. And when you are hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, Galatians 6 .1, you need brothers to pull you out and sisters to pull you out.

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So, what I love about the tenderness of our

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Father towards weak, frail, stumbling, cowardly, messed up Christians is

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He gives them the power of the gospel from page one to page end. And He gives the church as that constant reminder of when you fail to remember the gospel, your brothers are there to do it for you.

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And that's called the power of the local church. I mean, in the local church is the

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Lord's means of reminding us all the time of who He is and what He's done for us in Christ.

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And the local church is God's means to literally be the hands and feet of God to run after us when we're headed off into sin.

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Justin Perdue That's right. So, my encouragement to you as we get ready to transition, I'll explain what that is in a minute. But if you're not in a good local church, it's kind of like not having a job.

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You got to eat. You should go somewhere where they're going to feed you Christ and care for your soul and shepherd you well.

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And hopefully, Lord willing, we'll be able to provide more information for that coming soon. If you need help finding a church, a lot of people have done well in our

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Facebook group. So, join our Facebook group. There's over 2 ,000 people in there. It's growing. And sometimes we're able to help people find good local churches.

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So, Justin, we're going to be moving over to Semper Reformanda. Justin Perdue That's what I understand. That means always reforming.

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It's a podcast, a ministry that Justin and I started trying to figure out how it is that we can encourage those who want to encourage us.

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In other words, we have people who've partnered with Theocast. They donate money every month to make sure that we have the funds to do more books and everything that we do.

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Jon Moffitt Keep doing podcasts. Justin Perdue That's right. And one of the things that we love to do is we have an extra podcast we do every week where we take the subject that we just covered and we expound it to make it more applicable.

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And I would say kind of pull the curtains back a little bit and allows us to be a little bit more frank about the history behind this, the technicalities.

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Jon Moffitt Or even just like personally, pastorally, where we're coming from, whatever. Justin Perdue Yeah. So, if you want to participate, there's a lot more than that.

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We have an app where Justin and I spend time answering questions, interacting with those in the app. If you'd like to participate with us on the podcast and in the app, you can go to theocast .org

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to learn more about that. We're going to continue this conversation over there. Excuse me.

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The last thing I would encourage you to do if you're brand new to this podcast and you've never read our book, Rest, our understanding between the difference between faith and faithfulness, this podcast really is an explanation of that book.

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There's a free copy of it available on our website, theocast .org slash primer, or you can get it on paperback at our website or Amazon.