Special Interview with NEW Theocast Host: Justin Perdue

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Welcome to Theocast. This is John, and we're excited to bring you a new update about the future of Theocast.

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And to be honest with you, I've never been more excited about what we have to offer and the future of the different material and content.

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And one of the reasons that I'm excited about being on the podcast today is I get to introduce you to a new host, one of our new hosts.

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We have two new hosts, and you get to meet one of them today. You know, Theocast was originally started by four pastors, and we've been very passionate about trying to continue it in that way.

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And so today I get to bring to you another pastor who hails to you from none other than North Carolina.

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So Justin, welcome to the team. Hey John, good to be a part of the team, man. Yeah, and greetings from Asheville, North Carolina.

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So Justin, tell us a little bit about you and your church, your city, where you're from. Sure, man. Yeah, so I am the lead pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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Our church meets on the south side of the city. Asheville, as many may know, is a kind of small, hipster city in the western part of North Carolina.

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As we say sometimes, the hipster meter reads about an 11 over here, but it's a beautiful place to live.

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The sister city to Nashville? I mean, it could be a sister city. It's a lot like Portland, Oregon, actually.

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It's like Portland got dropped off in the mountains of North Carolina. No, it's a beautiful area to live.

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The food and drink scene is great. It's a great place to do gospel ministry. Our church is coming up on four years old, and we're encouraged by what the

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Lord has been doing in building a culture that's honestly been driven by the kind of Christ -centered theology that we're going to be talking about here.

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Tell us a little about your family. Yeah, so I am married. My wife's name is

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Michelle. She and I met in Washington, D .C. a number of years ago now.

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We're coming up on seven years of marriage, and I've got four kids. Boy, girl, boy, girl.

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Our oldest is Josiah, followed by Noel, and then Titus, and then Scotty, Marilyn Scott.

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We call her Scotty. So yeah, our oldest child is five and a half. Our youngest child is one. So life is full at the

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Purdue house. You've got a lot of free time on your hands, huh? Absolutely, man. Lots of time.

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Lots of discretionary time. That's awesome. And you met your wife at church, right?

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That's where you met her? I did. Yeah, so like I mentioned, I met her in Washington, D .C., so we'll get into this more in a minute. When I moved to Washington, D .C.

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in the end of 2011 to do a pastoral internship at Capitol Hill Baptist Church up there,

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I met Michelle then in early 2012. She was a member at Capitol Hill. We met, started dating, and then we're married not terribly long after that.

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We didn't waste a lot of time. That's awesome. So a little bit about you and just kind of your church.

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So your church is strategically named Covenant Baptist Church. You guys are 1689.

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Yes. Strategically named Covenant Baptist Church. So I think for people who have eyes to see or antennas up for this kind of thing, people would understand that we are

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Covenantal Baptists. So truth in advertising, we are a Southern Baptist church in that we are in friendly cooperation, as the language goes, with the

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Southern Baptist Convention. And that's another conversation maybe for another time because people often come to our church and they're just kind of like, bro, this is an

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SBC church. And that's just because we do come across, we're Covenantal, we're confessional, and we're

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Calvinistic. And so we're very much in that sense reformed. So that's kind of where we are.

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I can talk a little bit about the church now if you want me to, brother, just in terms of how it came about. So when we moved to Asheville about five years ago, we moved to Asheville coming out of Capitol Hill Baptist Church to see a gospel preaching,

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Christ -centered church started in the Asheville area. The reason that we even came to Asheville in the first place is just a couple of things.

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One, I'm a native son. I basically grew up in Asheville, spent all of my formative years here.

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And so I'm familiar with the area, familiar with culture, also familiar with the church scene. The church scene here is still generally bleak, though there are some really encouraging works going on in various places around the city.

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It's a growing area, the population's exploding, and so we need good churches here. And the elders at the church in Washington thought that.

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My wife and I were aware of that. And so it made a lot of sense on a number of levels for us to come here and do this work.

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We moved here in the summer of 2014, and we started a

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Bible study that fall, and we're working to assemble a core group.

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That took some time, as that does take time to do that well. It was in the latter part of 2015, so we'd been here well over a year, when

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Covenant Baptist Church was constituted. We're coming up on four years as a local church. It's been hard, and it's also been really good just to see the kinds of ways that the

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Lord is growing us, not just numerically, but also in terms of the culture of the church. People, I think, really understand why we gather, and that is because we come in desperate need of what only

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Jesus can provide. That's very palpable in our assembly, and the culture of the church is one.

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Our tagline is, Imperfect People, Perfect Savior, and I think it sums us up pretty well.

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We understand that we're all wrecked, broken, that we have nothing good to offer in and of ourselves, and that we come in desperate need of Christ, His righteousness,

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His atoning work in our place. People have really found a lot of joy and rest and freedom in Christ and are loving each other, and we're excited about that.

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So, Justin, you didn't come out of your mother's womb with the Bible in your hand ready to preach.

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I mean, that wasn't kind of your career path. That's one way to put it, John. You're exactly right, man.

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I'll say this, and then I'll kind of fill this in. I mean, I think I've been a Christian since as young as maybe 11, 12 years old.

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My dad wasn't a believer when I was young. He is now, praise

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God. My mom, I think, meant to be. She had never been well taught. When I grew up, yeah,

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I was in a not great church environment, and we'll talk more about that maybe in a minute, but yeah, my plan was never to be a pastor.

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I meant to be a Christian. I wanted to follow Christ, but I was very interested in athletics my whole life, so that was a big thing for me.

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Then it certainly took school seriously. I was never one of those kids that didn't like school. I enjoyed it.

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So, I majored in business as an undergrad and was working a corporate job in a privately held corporation that my family owned majority of.

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I had a good career mapped out for myself and never envisioned that I would go into pastoral ministry.

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That's true. What was kind of the change? What made you decide, man,

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I'm going to pursue this? Yeah, man. So, the short version, kind of the 30 ,000 -foot flyover, is that after college,

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I moved back to Asheville and was working as I described. My plan was to become the next president and CEO of this kind of medium -sized corporation.

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I was going to a Baptist church in the area, and I'll talk more in a minute just about my theological heritage,

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I guess. Baptist church in the area. A new pastor came to this church. I'm in my early 20s at the time, and he was a

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Calvinist and an expositional preacher. I had never been exposed to either one of those things that being

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Calvinism or expositional preaching. My life began to change a lot, honestly, just being exposed to good teaching for the first time.

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The Lord had primed the pump with me for a number of years because I had grown up in a liberal

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Baptist environment that was also moralistic. I was incredibly disenchanted with the church as an institution and with Christianity as a religion.

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I think I've said this to you recently, bro. I grew up thinking and knowing that Jesus was legit, but then also at the same time thinking that the church was whack.

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I mean, just absolutely ridiculous. I almost was like, I'll deal with this church stuff because I think

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Jesus is the truth. In my early 20s, being exposed to good teaching for the first time, it was like, man, this is like an oasis in the desert.

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It's finally something that makes some sense and resonates with me and all of that.

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I'm just reading my Bible a lot. Light bulbs are going off, and I'm being given good stuff to read by my pastor, old dead guys and some contemporary guys that were helpful.

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Then as my life is changing, people are observing this. It was observed by some that I could articulate things pretty well in group settings.

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I was given things to lead and do in the church, Sunday school classes to teach. I was given college students for the summer, things like that.

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Those things flourished. Then people started to encourage me to go into ministry. At first,

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I was like, yeah, I don't know. I think I'm happy to just keep earning money like a grown -up and do my job here and then also serve in the church in any way

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I can. But over the course of time, the Lord brought me to a place where subjectively, I thought, okay, if God has gifted me to preach

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His word and potentially pastor people like so many of the saints around me think that He has gifted me to do this, then what else could

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I do with my life? I think I want to go this way. The spring of 2010 was a pointed time in my life where the transition out of business towards ministry was like, okay, this is what's going to happen.

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Circumstantially, we can talk about this a little bit too. Later on that fall, made a connection that resulted in me moving to Washington at the end of 2011 to do the pastoral internship at Capitol Hill, spent some time on staff at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, and then moved from there to Asheville in the summer of 2014, like I said earlier.

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That's kind of the general path. I'm sure some more of this will come out over time as we talk about various things on the podcast.

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The reason I was really thankful you bring all this up, and of course, we've had multiple conversations about this, but I think it's important for the listener to understand that you are very sympathetic to that transition of coming out of pietism and that struggle, and feeling it, and growing up, and understanding there's these layers that kind of have to come off, and in many ways are leading your church through that same experience.

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Yeah, brother, absolutely. My journey theologically has been all over the place. Again, the church that I grew up going to in my middle school, high school years was liberal theologically.

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It was a Baptist church. I didn't know any of this at the time. None of this was even on my radar screen as a teenager, but the church had three articles in its statement of faith on purpose.

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It's like lowest common denominator. Let's just set the bar as low as we can, and that way pretty much anybody can be here theologically by conviction.

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But then at the same time, the culture of the church was just straight up moralism, and I would even say legalism.

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Some people out there might be thinking like, bro, help me understand how in the world liberal theological positions can be married to moralism.

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It's like, look, I can't fully explain it to you. I think moralism and legalism, as we've said,

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John, is just kind of woven into our DNA, that kind of legal spirit. That met liberal theology, and it was kind of the worst of every world.

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I experienced those things. In my college years, I didn't really attend church that often, to be honest with you, because I really had never experienced anything good in the church, and so I thought, well, what's the point?

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But I was absolutely in just a mega church situation in my college years.

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Then I kind of transitioned into what I would just call Calvinistic evangelicalism, is maybe one way

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I describe it. Then over the last several years, pointedly, my journey into a more reformed confessional place has been taking place for probably the last 10 or 12 years, but pointedly over the last several, it's crystallized for me in my mind and in my heart.

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My wife has made this journey with me, which has been a great blessing. Definitely, I'm leading my church this way, and all of our people are coming out of various things in their backgrounds as well.

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Hardly anybody that came to CBC or that started with us at CBC started in this place.

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So yeah, definitely pastoring people into this confessional reform place where Christ is our righteousness, and to trust and rest in Christ is the order of the day.

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Justin, a lot of people who listen to Theocast are on this journey of coming out of pietism, and what does it mean to rest in Christ?

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Talk to us a little bit about, I mean, it's very obvious you've made this transition. What influenced you, and what was going through your mind, and what impacted you to make this pretty significant transition to a very, very, very small group of people in history?

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It's true, man. In trying to be considerate of people, I'll do this relatively briefly and not give everybody the play -by -play of my life over the last decade.

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I've already talked about my young years and just kind of how the Lord primed the pump there. I've already talked some about how

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I was exposed to good teaching for the first time in my early twenties and how I was given really good old stuff to read.

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Augustine, Luther, Calvin, John Owen, guys like that certainly were influential in my life and in my thinking.

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During my time in Washington, on staff there at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, I read a lot of B .B.

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Warfield, read a lot of J. Gresham Machen. Those guys were definitely influential for me.

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Warfield, in particular, there's a piece of his larger works where he wrote on perfectionism, and that was big -time impactful for me, just in trying to think about some of these issues and pietism and revivalism and those kinds of things.

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That was really helpful for me. Honestly, being the lead pastor of a church going on four years now has made a world of difference for me.

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It's caused everything to just really crystallize for me in my mind. I've continued to read.

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Even contemporary guys like Michael Horton have been really helpful to me. I have also found

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Zach Eswine, who wrote Spurgeon Sorrows and some other books, has also been just a very good companion to me in terms of just reading contemporary guys.

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But then just preaching and studying the Bible, things like law -gospel distinction has become very clear to me as I've preached through God's word now for going on four years as the lead pastor of our church.

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Covenant theology, I've been there for a number of years, but I just continually become more and more convinced of covenant theology and the covenantal framework of Scripture, just the redemptive historical framework of the

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Bible too. Again, it's just like, man, this is obvious, this is clear, this is good. I have come to a place now, brother, where I absolutely, as I read

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Scripture, it's evident to me that to trust Christ and to have faith in Christ is the fundamental battle of the

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Christian life. And it's about faith, it's not about faithfulness. I know you guys use that language all the time, have used that language all the time on Theocast, and I couldn't agree more.

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The apostolic pattern, like when I read the New Testament epistles, for example, it is always identity forward.

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It's status forward. Here's who you are in Jesus, and now let's talk about how we should live together.

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Martin Luther's simul justice et peccator also is another thing that I just see it everywhere in the

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Bible. Romans 7, maybe most pointedly, but man alive, we're just absolutely living life in a state, in a condition of sin, and that means all kinds of things for the

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Christian. We're trusting Christ, He is our righteousness, and we still struggle against our corruption. Those kinds of things are clear.

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Like preaching and teaching, man, and pastoring. Sanctification is a big thing, right? Like we talk about just transformation, like what does that look like?

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How does that happen? Again, man, I think the Bible is just absolutely clear about the fact that the

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Holy Spirit of God sanctifies. You do not sanctify yourself. The Holy Spirit uses ordinary means to accomplish extraordinary ends.

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I could go on and on about this, man, but the biggest thing for me, too, is that in thinking about the

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Christian life as we live it together in the context of the local church, we don't want the cart to go before the horse.

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It's like, hey, Jesus heralding Christ, looking to Christ, resting, trusting in Him, relying upon the

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Holy Spirit to do His sanctifying work in us. These are the things that are going to propel us forward in the

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Christian life. It's not this hyper -subjective, hyper -introspective, like, let me look in on myself all the time.

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It is, no, I'm looking outside of myself always to Christ and His righteousness, and that is really what is driving me in the

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Christian life. Safety and security and peace and rest and those things. That's just where I've landed, man, and I've crystallized there.

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It's changed my life as a Christian. It's changed my marriage. My wife and I talk all the time about how our home and our marriage is safer than it has ever been, and we rejoice in that.

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There's more grace and compassion in our home these last several years than there ever was before.

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I'm excited about that for my kids. Then it's changing the church I pastor.

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I mean, it's really been cool to see. I think what's fun is that when we first met,

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I think it was our first conversation, we both kind of pulled out all of our theological, what was most important to us, and we were kind of bouncing them off each other.

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Then I was like, I think I'm going to have to get obscure. To this day, I haven't found anything other than preferential, maybe some music, but it's been fun.

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I've been encouraged just going back and forth and clarifying. Justin Perdue I was talking to a couple of the dudes that I'm tight with here.

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I spent some time with you recently in Nashville and came home and kicking it with a couple of guys here from the church.

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I was telling them about you, and I'm just like, yeah, man, we really do have a hard time finding something that we disagree about theologically.

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I think that's good. I do think there are some things, like you said, that are tertiary that we can sharpen each other, but there's a lot of unity here, which

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I rejoice in. Justin Perdue Which was, I think, fun about Theocast originally is that because there's not disunity, it really created an opportunity to really get the ball rolling faster on a lot of theological discussions where we aren't trying to fight each other.

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I'm excited, for those of you, that Justin's role, he's not only a host, but he's going to be writing for us.

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We're actually working on a book called A Primer on Rest, which will be free starting in August.

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He's going to be a contributor in that as well as our other host, who I know is so mysterious, right?

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Justin Perdue John, it is so mysterious, man. Justin Perdue I know, man. I'm excited. As a matter of fact, the other host is the one who introduced me to you.

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Justin Perdue That's so true. Justin Perdue Yeah. So in two weeks, we're going to have a new interview. It will be our second host, and I'm excited about bringing him on.

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I'm very excited about just this conversation alone, just hearing you speak about the hope of Christ using all the same theological stances that we have.

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What I love about Theocast is that these aren't catchphrases that are fun to talk about.

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This is eternity that we're speaking of, and it's something we're passionate about. Justin, it's good to have you on the team.

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We're excited about moving forward. It's no longer in the studio. The theological octagon does not exist anymore.

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You did get to see it, though. Justin Perdue I did get to see it. Our setup's a little bit different now, but I'm looking forward to it too, bro.

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I'm excited to be a part, and I'm looking forward to the future. Well, I wanted to thank everyone who has been supporting

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Theocast through this transition, and you've been so kind and so faithful. Many of the members who continue to support us financially—that is what allows us to continue to work on books.

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We have a lot of books that we're trying to start putting out. Things on, for instance, covenant theology.

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That's one we're getting requested all of the time, and even more understanding of what does it mean to live within the means of grace, and just working through the law gospel distinction.

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These are all books that we're very passionate about getting out, and what makes that possible is your monthly listenership, that you continue to listen, spread the word, but also for those of you that are able, you continue to financially support us through the membership and through donations.

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Hey, Justin, thanks for taking the time this morning. Justin Perdue Absolutely, man. Pleasure to be on with you. Justin Perdue All right. We'll see you guys in two weeks.