This World Is a Sinking Ship | Theocast

Theocast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:02

Hi, this is Justin, and today on Theocast, we're going to be talking about all of the things that we tend to hope in that ultimately will disappoint us.

00:11

And we all do this anyway. We hope in things of this world that will never deliver hope and peace and rest.

00:17

But to make matters worse, in the church, we're often encouraged to place our hope and confidence and to put our effort into things that are earthbound and will not give us rest eternally.

00:28

So John and I are going to have a conversation today about some of that stuff, the things that confuse us and get in the way.

00:33

And ultimately, we're going to have a conversation about Christ, who is our rest and hope and peace.

00:39

We hope this is encouraging for you. Stay tuned. A simple and easy way for you to help support Theocast each month is by shopping at Amazon through the

00:46

Amazon Smile program. When you make a purchase through Amazon Smile, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to our ministry.

00:53

To learn how to sign up, just go to theocast .org slash give. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the

01:14

Christian life from a Reformed and pastoral perspective.

01:20

Your host today, I was distracted by John waving his mug around and not his face, not his face, but his coffee mug.

01:28

Thanks for the clarification. There that is, friends. I did wave my face around. For those of you who aren't watching on video, you'll just have to take my word for it.

01:36

It is good to be around the mics with you today. Our hosts today, I haven't even finished the introduction, are

01:42

John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and myself, Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

01:51

John, tell the people about stuff related to Theocast. I don't even know everything that you're coming out with.

01:57

Yeah, I've got some new stuff I'm trying to find. Oh, man, I left it. Oh, well, we'll have to talk about it next podcast.

02:03

Hey, check this out. I mean, I should just run and get it. Check this out. We got these new stickers by this time.

02:09

Hopefully, they'll be on our website. I don't know. We'll figure it out. Trust Christ and calm down. I need to get me one of them now.

02:15

Bro, I've got one that reflects. Should I run and go get it? I got one that reflects. We got 30 of them.

02:21

So people have been wanting those more. And then we've got other stickers. All this hopefully be available on the website.

02:27

Bringing those some of those my way and I've got them. We got a red one. We're going to get a black one of this. Yeah, of just the tea.

02:33

And then we got the regular Theocast. I need a black. I don't know. People love it. Hey, what about a button? We should do a survey.

02:39

I got we got a request to we got with this company. It sends me deals all the time. We get those buttons that it says vote.

02:45

I voted wherever it says Theocast. Speaking of voting. Oh, we got a comment to lead us into our.

02:53

Anyways, the other thing is books. You know, this is just like shameless advertising.

02:59

Vintage series. Go to Theocast .org. Get our new books and we'll ship them to you someday.

03:05

So someday. Oh man, I just spilled everywhere. Justin, speaking of disappointment, I'm very disappointed in what

03:11

I just did here. I'm going to let you give us our introduction while I run and get a tape paper towel because I just spilled all over my desk.

03:18

You'll be left alone in the seat here. That's right. Talk, talk to us about what we're talking about today. All right. So John and I were having a conversation before we recorded.

03:26

We always talk before we record and we were talking about life and our own personal struggles, even things that we're battling these days.

03:33

And some of the stuff that came up was just stuff that we're struggling with and disappointed about and ways that we're fighting our own constitutions, our hearts and minds like we struggle just like anybody else.

03:44

And so prompted us as we talked and thought together about this stuff that we all are, if we're honest, we're more fragile and sinful than we think, certainly.

03:55

But we all tend to hope in things of this world more than we think we do.

04:02

By definition, disappointment means that I have expectations that are not met or I have hopes that are not realized.

04:11

And we all know, I mean, we're just going to say this out of the gate that the Lord delivers on every promise he's ever made. So God will never disappoint us.

04:19

We will never be disappointed. We will never have expectations not met or hopes not met in God because of what

04:27

Christ has done for us. So all of our disappointment and our frustration, our anger and all that kind of stuff comes from, stems from the fact that we tend to hope for things in this life and in this world that we don't get.

04:41

And there's a lot that could be said about this stuff. But John and I were thinking about you guys that listen, and we are thinking that not only is this just a personal struggle in our lives, the church in a lot of ways has doubled down on this and has not been helpful to us because we're being pointed implicitly and oftentimes explicitly to things that are inherently of this world and are encouraged in various ways to put our hope in those things.

05:12

And just truth in advertising, right? Here's where we're going to end up. None of those things give us rest and none of those things give us peace.

05:18

So that's what we're going to talk about today. Justin, have you ever met anybody who's never disappointed? Nope. Yeah, but I've met people who pretend to be that way.

05:27

You know, there's a lot of fakers out there. Everything's just great, man. The Mr. Positive person.

05:32

And when I meet them, it takes everything within me not to just want to pull them aside and be like, how exhausted are you?

05:39

Like, you must be exhausted. This is quite a facade that you have put up here, you know, and it's a lot of work.

05:46

I trust to maintain this thing. Yeah, I think, and this is one of the things we'll argue with later, argue for,

05:53

I think the process of sanctification is becoming less and less disappointed in this world and more and more satisfied in Jesus Christ.

05:59

Yeah, I think it's not this idea where one becomes more stoic and less sinful.

06:04

I honestly believe that sanctification is the process of putting greater faith and trust in the promises of God.

06:12

And Justin, you said something that just absolutely got my brain like in fifth gear ready to run, which is always fun about Theocast.

06:20

This is what we're always trying to do. Like, how do we get this ship rolling? Right? Like, let's get this thing moving.

06:26

And what, for me, the statement that you said is that God never fails

06:31

His promises, which means we have no reason to ever be disappointed or discouraged with God.

06:37

But the problem is, is that we often are, like we are very disappointed, very discouraged.

06:43

One of the questions I get more than anything in my ministry is about prayer.

06:48

Prayer is the most disappointing, discouraging part of the Christian life. And it gets even worse when like,

06:55

Kevin, what's his name? Keller, Tim Keller yesterday put out a tweet about how our private prayer life is like the means by which we know whether or not we're a

07:05

Christian. You talk about being discouraged. I'm like, why would he say that?

07:10

And of course, the comments were like, what passage is he referencing where Jesus actually says this? But if we understand the truth of the scriptures, then every promise that God has ever given us, and here's what's crazy,

07:24

Justin, He even promises us suffering. Like, He promises us there's suffering. Yeah, He tells us that it will characterize this life.

07:31

Yeah, and the encouragement of James is that God uses that for the endurance of our faith, which is a great encouragement, should be a great encouragement.

07:41

Amen, and to produce steadfastness in us, which is exactly what you were saying a minute ago when you made the comment about sanctification, which we can pick up on later, that sanctification really is learning more and more to trust

07:54

Christ and the promises of God in Christ in spite of circumstance. Right.

08:00

So you compare this to where you were heading. One of the things that we're trying to do at Theocast is show the objective realities of Jesus Christ, and when we put our focus and hope in that, we will have no reason to ever be disappointed because He is faithful to complete what

08:17

He has started. If He started a good work in you, He will complete it. That means we have zero reason to ever be disappointed in our faith in Christ.

08:26

But when it comes to this world, we have every reason, and Justin and I spent many, many minutes, if not an hour, promoting our frustrations and disappointments with ourselves, with our life here on this world, with our marriage, with our church.

08:44

There's much to be disappointed in. And even just lamenting our own failures. We live with sinners, right?

08:52

It's like you're going to be disappointed. If I can really quick, John, you mentioned the comment

08:58

I made, which made you think a thing. So I said that the Lord delivers on every promise He's ever made, so He'll never disappoint us.

09:05

But then you said, but people are being, effectively the way I'm going to frame it is, people are being lied to about God and are being lied to about what the

09:16

Lord has in fact promised us. Because God has not bound Himself. God has not said

09:21

He's going to deliver on promises that He's never made. And we're being told a lot of things in the church.

09:28

And by that, of course, we mean like the American -ish church, where we find ourselves, and many people find themselves in that context.

09:36

We're being told a lot of things about God, like He's promised us this, or He wants these things for us. And in fact, in His word, rightly understood, like biblically and confessionally understood,

09:46

He's not promised us that stuff. And so it leads to a lot of confusion and a lot of disappointment.

09:52

And yeah, so. Well, I just, can I interject there to your point?

09:58

As an illustration, I put this tweet out, you know, you have the prosperity gospel preacher who's falsely advertising, you know, success.

10:06

God has designed success for your life. And to prove that, you know, it's like, God told me to buy this plane as a prophet of God.

10:13

And then I go read Ezekiel, and Ezekiel says, God told me to cook my food over poop and eat it.

10:19

True. Yeah. And I'm just like, we somehow want the promises of the new heavens and the new earth to be the reality that God says it can be yours now if you do enough of whatever.

10:35

You can put the enough in there, pray enough, read your Bible enough, do this enough, work hard enough, enough, enough, enough. Right. And you can have heaven on earth now.

10:43

Yeah. And this is what we want. And, you know, I made this comment maybe in another podcast, but when I look at the metaverse and this new technology that's coming our way, this is what the promise is going to be.

10:52

It's a perfection. I mean, if you ever watch, yeah, if you ever watch a cartoon of like Disney characters, they're perfect.

11:00

Like their skin tone and the design of them. And we imagine what this world could be.

11:08

And that's what we want it to be. And then we're disappointed when it's not that. And all of that is, and this is what we're getting into it.

11:15

All of that is, is the messaging of a sinful fallen world.

11:21

The advertisement is, in other words, you can have your cake and eat it too. Yeah. And the

11:26

Christian life is saying, no, you are going to die. You're going to suffer and then die.

11:32

But the difference is you're not going to suffer without hope and you're not going to be suffering without dignity.

11:39

And you're going to die knowing that the promises that you hold on to will give you the hope of what's to come.

11:47

So just in a little bit of a, if you're ready to transition here, I think we should talk about the false advertisement that many

11:53

Christians are embracing. And I think it's causing people to be robbed of rest. They are embracing agendas.

12:01

They're putting energy into things that are of no value. It's almost like, you know, it's, we're all on the

12:08

Titanic and we're trying to bail water so that we can preserve this beautiful ship. And it's like, it's going down.

12:13

Or yeah. Like we're on the Titanic and we're arguing about the furniture or the window treatments or we're complaining about the service, you know, because yeah.

12:24

Or like, yeah, my champagne is not chilled enough or something. It's insane. Right. I mean, that's basically what we're doing.

12:30

I don't know if that analogy holds in every way. They all fall apart at some point, but let me start at this transition. Like we're making the transition.

12:37

Let me start with this because I think this is a broad -ish one that we could riff on for a second and then maybe get more particular.

12:44

I think that there is a misconception out there that if the church would just be the church as God intended, that we could eradicate this world of evil.

12:56

And that if the church would just be the church, then our entire country would change.

13:02

If the church would be the church, the world would be transformed. Literally, we're going to usher in the new heavens and the new earth is how it comes across.

13:08

And I think this is a problem because we have been led to believe through bad theology and bad teaching that if we do what we are supposed to do, this evil that we're experiencing now will go away.

13:24

This suffering that we're experiencing now will be mitigated. And that these disappointments that we all have in this life will somehow just evaporate and all will be well.

13:36

And that is not true. It's an over -realized eschatology. I mean, that's a theological term to use where we do, as we've already alluded to at multiple points on the show already, we want to have heaven now.

13:49

And we want to build heaven on earth. And that is not what the instructions of the scriptures are to the saints.

13:56

That's not what the mission of the church is biblically defined. We are actually meant to herald the work of Jesus Christ in the place of sinners and love each other and help one another die with dignity and hope, trusting the promises of God in Christ, knowing the hope to which we have been called and knowing that that hope is coming.

14:17

And instead of building heaven on earth the way that I might frame it is we are called actually to be waiting for and hoping in the new heavens and the new earth, you know, all because of Christ.

14:32

And I think we've missed this in the church because the church, as we've stated before, and others have said, is incredibly earthbound in so much of her thinking and in so much of her theology.

14:44

Yeah. You know, this is the arrival fallacy. And I suffer from it.

14:50

We all do. You suffer from it. We all do. And the thing is, we have to be aware that we do. We all have that expectation.

14:56

If we could have this income, if I could get my body down to this weight, if I could have this house, if I could be married, if I could have children, if I could, if I, if I could, if I, and then we get there and we realize, yeah, and it always moves.

15:14

I remember when I was in high school, I couldn't wait to be, I could be married. And then it was, I could have this job and buy my first house.

15:21

And, you know, I couldn't wait to buy my first street bike. It was like, you always have that moment of, if I get here and we just never arrive because this world cannot satisfy, but man, does it advertise well, it has just an amazing, amazing advertisement.

15:39

When you listen to the New Testament writers, when you compare this, this, we are going to arrive one day.

15:47

There is this, there is this arrival Justin's talked about, but it says, while we wait, like there's a wait, it's not here.

15:55

You know, Paul says that the world is groaning. Our bodies are groaning.

16:01

And you both Peter and Paul talk about the return of Christ as something that we are anticipating as the arrival of everything that we have ever hoped for anticipated.

16:11

But Justin, what ends up happening in a, you know, I've gotten into some interesting conversations with friends, family, neighbors, and even unbelievers about the perspective of Christians.

16:21

And, and I'm just going to be frank here. I live in America, in America. There's this weird thing that has happened over.

16:29

I know he said, he's taking a big, deep breath. There's a weird connection that's happened between Christianity and America that I really haven't seen.

16:38

And I could, well, it happened right here. It did happen in Britain, but I'm talking about today where there's a connection between our

16:47

Christianity and United States. And I know everybody likes to say in the South that, you know, the United States is a

16:53

Christian nation and it's built upon Christian principles and all that. And I'm early here to get involved in that, but I do want to, and I'll set this up and throw it over to you,

17:04

Justin, that this connection that we have, and I'm going to try to be very careful and respectful here, but this connection that we have between Christianity and American politics,

17:13

I think is what causes a lot of tension and disappointment.

17:20

And people are being, putting their hope, I'll just say it, they're putting their hope in a sinking ship.

17:26

The United States is not the means of our salvation. And I don't mean, I don't mean eternal salvation. I mean that which we are holding onto as if it's going to protect us from all that is evil out there.

17:38

Very quick comment that I'm not going to spend a lot of time on. I'm saying this for my own discipline's sake, so stop me if I go too long on this.

17:47

I think it needs to be stated though that the church's tendency to get involved in political matters and the church's tendency to hitch its wagon to various political and social movements has its roots in pietism and revivalism in this country.

18:02

That has to be said. We talk about it a lot. I'm not going to labor it right now, but if you're interested in looking into some of those things more, hit us up, like DM us or whatever, and we can recommend some resources.

18:15

And we may be doing some more podcasts down the road on some of this. I'm going to be doing some teaching on it in my own local church next year, and maybe we'll make some of that content available.

18:23

So that needs to be stated. So this is a problem. It's been a problem for a long time in this country where the church ends up hitching its wagon to politics and social movements and all these kinds of things.

18:33

And it is a problem today where you see the polarization in our country generally, but the church, and in particular the conservative evangelical church in America, has hitched its wagon to the political right in ways that are just, in my opinion as a

18:50

Christian and as a pastor, nauseating and infuriating. That makes a mockery of the faith.

18:58

And I don't want to use inflammatory language in a bad way, but I'll start it like this.

19:06

I remember seeing a picture on Twitter recently, like a bulletin or a flyer from a particular church, where it basically is marketing itself to people who are tired of some of the things going on societally.

19:23

If you don't want masks and vaccine mandates, and if you don't want to have to pre -register, if you don't want

19:30

CRT and all these kinds of things taught, it's just like, then come to our church.

19:38

And I want to throw up looking at this. This is absolutely ridiculous, because we're being told in the church, in the states, if you're a conservative, if you're an evangelical, this is what we need to be pursuing.

19:53

We need to be squashing all of these things, and we need to be pursuing these things politically.

19:59

And then what's interesting to me, John, when it comes to the vaccine and all these kinds of things that are going on right now, still the conversations in our culture, you have a lot of people who are wanting to oppose the vaccine on religious grounds, because what they're saying is,

20:17

I have religious freedom to not take the vaccine. All they really mean is common kingdom,

20:22

I have personal liberty under the Constitution of the United States not to be forced to have a vaccine if I don't want a vaccine.

20:29

If somebody said that, I'm okay with it. I'm like, yeah, politically, okay, we can have a conversation about personal liberty. But can we stop for a minute talking as though libertarianism is taught in the

20:39

Scriptures for crying out loud? It's not. I mean, it's just so stupid, John. And I shouldn't say stupid.

20:46

It's not. It's foolish. And it is so this -worldly, right? And it's short -sighted, where we're thinking, we're being told that we need to fight these fights.

20:55

The church is literally called to take up arms and fight these political battles, and to fight these common kingdom battles over vaccines and viruses and certain political agendas.

21:09

And it's like, the last time I checked, do we not have Jesus in common? Is Jesus not what unites us? Is it this other stuff, really?

21:42

There's a tendency, too, to even justify our sin. Well, because the government is doing this, then I have the right in response to do this.

21:50

And I don't, you know, look, there are articles out there who are encouraging

21:55

Christians to lie about having the vaccine by pastors. And you were saying, John, somebody's like comparing this to the

22:02

Holocaust, like Jews. Oh, I know. I was like, huh? We're not even remotely there.

22:07

But I'm sorry, but we cannot justify our sins as a response to the government.

22:12

Now, listen, you know, are we in the same situation that we find ourselves where we're hiding a particular nationality of people because another nationality of people wants to murder them?

22:22

That is not the situation we find ourselves in. I think it's rude to even compare our circumstances to that circumstance.

22:30

It was an ungodly, unreal amount of pain, unspeakable.

22:38

Let's just be careful to not justify our actions by making comparisons that is just grossly not even the same.

22:47

I think it needs to be said, Justin, and we're going to help clarify the difference here.

22:54

In that what we are not saying is that all of the lives that were given by Americans to preserve and fight for,

23:05

I would say, against evil was an ungodly, unnecessary thing.

23:11

I believe that God has instituted governments and kings and to use them to suppress evil.

23:17

He says this in the Scripture. I think it's a biblical thing for us to be promoting and to support those who suppress evil.

23:27

I'm very thankful for any country whom God has rised up to suppress evil, and so I'm thankful for our police officers.

23:36

I'm thankful for any of one that's in the services of justice, whether it's military or local law enforcement, because God has instituted those to uphold the dignity and safety, and I would say those who are weak and frail and cannot defend themselves, that God has raised them up.

23:54

Now, there is a difference here, and I understand that the United States is full of people who are refugees from countries that are horrendous, and they don't have freedom of religion, and if you have any other type of religion, then you are going to be persecuted and in many ways killed, and I think it's horrendous that people have to suffer.

24:15

The majority of Christians outside of the United States do suffer from persecution, specifically in certain countries, but here's where the rub is and where I think we need to be very careful.

24:27

I'm very thankful for the United States and that God has allowed me at my time to live here and to be able to have an influence around the world.

24:34

We have just received several emails in the last few hours about people who have downloaded our free e -book in lots of different countries, and some of these countries are not safe to be a

24:44

Christian in, and praise God that those people are reading a book that's going to lead them to rest in Christ, and I'm thankful for all of that, and God has given us the opportunity to do that, and He's using

24:55

Theocast for it. The difference I want to make in our podcast and in our church and in our family, and I know that you do too,

25:04

Justin, is that no matter what country we find ourselves in, our hope is never based upon the nationality of the flag that we wave, because we believe in the power of the gospel.

25:15

We believe that God is sovereign and that we have been commissioned as Christians to be the ones who are constantly heralding the sufficiency of Jesus Christ, and no matter where we're at, we are going to reflect the nature of Christ and the nature of God.

25:31

Therefore, we're always going to vote and, as best we can, suppress evil, but it is not our mission.

25:39

It is the outflow of the nature of who we are, and that's where the difference is, and this is kind of where I want to take us, the difference between the character of a

25:49

Christian and the mission of a Christian. Justin Perdue A few thoughts just to put a bow on the government politics sort of side of it.

25:58

I like you. I'm grateful for our country. I'm thankful to be an American, and I'm unashamed about the fact that I'm a

26:03

Christian first and an American second. I mean, that's the bottom line here, too, right? And at a common kingdom level, like I'm very concerned—

26:10

Jon Moffitt Or a Korean or a Mexican, you know, from Mexico. Justin Perdue Right. At a common kingdom level, bro, I'm very concerned about things that affect our society and how our government functions, and I want to do everything that I can as a citizen to love my neighbor and pursue justice, you know, as I understand it, in this world according to the objective standards of righteousness that are revealed in the

26:29

Scripture. I mean, that's what I'm going to do as a citizen, right? But your thing, your point, the things that you're driving us to here are appropriate.

26:40

The mission of a Christian or the mission of the church and the clarity of that is critical for our thinking, and rather than being pointed toward things—like you said, this world is a sinking ship.

26:52

This country is a sinking ship. Rather than being pointed toward things that are inherently going to perish one day, let's be doing things that are of eternal value that have to do with the promises of God and Christ that are redemptive in nature, that are salvific in nature, that will endure literally for eternity.

27:11

That's what we need to be concerned with. And this is—a lot could be said here, but I think Christians would be helped to be reminded of the fact that there really are very few things in this life that we do that are sacred.

27:24

There are very few things that we do in this life that are redemptive, because out there in the church broadly,

27:30

I think this narrative exists, John. I think we've talked about this at other points. Christians are almost encouraged to think about everything they do as redemptive.

27:38

They're encouraged to think about everything they do as worship. They're encouraged to think about everything that they do being of eternal significance.

27:47

And we could parse some of that out and have a more specific conversation, but actually you lose the ability to rightly distinguish between things if you make everything sacred.

27:57

And in reality, there are a few things in the church that we do that are actually sacred, and those things occur when we gather.

28:04

And there is a distinction that needs to be made between corporate worship formally and other forms of worshiping the

28:12

Lord of your life. All of these things aren't talked about very well. And so then we get all kind of confused about how

28:18

I need to be living my life and what I need to be pursuing and doing. And bottom line, be a responsible citizen in this country.

28:25

And please, as the church institutionally, we ought not ever hitch our wagons to a particular political movement.

28:32

My goodness, that has borne nothing but terrible fruit over the course of history. And I fear that many in the church are doing that today.

28:39

And this doesn't mean you can't have political opinions based upon biblical principles. Of course. Right. As a citizen, you can.

28:47

Absolutely. Yeah. Right. I mean, I have to go back to a passage we read all the time, but I want to emphasize a particular section of it.

28:54

We aren't throwing our hands up in the air and just saying, well, the world's going to burn. Who cares? That's the exact opposite of what

29:00

Peter says. Right. Let me just read this to you. This is 2 Peter, and he's saying that God sovereignly is the one who has brought us from death to life, and he is the one who is going to be faithful to his promises because of who

29:13

God is. This is 2 Peter 1 .5. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self -control, self -control with steadfastness and with godliness, brotherly affection and love.

29:28

So the point of it is, as Christians, when you're talking about virtue, that it is a virtuous thing to be anti -abortion.

29:38

I think it's a great thing. My aunt, who I'm going to text her and let her know I promoted her ministry, but my aunt,

29:45

Jackie Moffitt, has started seven pregnancy crisis centers in the Chicago area over the last 25 years to help fight against abortion.

29:54

She has helped save thousands of babies, and I love promoting what she does because it's a virtuous thing to do.

30:01

Praise God for that, right? No, amen. I don't want to be misunderstood either. And when we're encouraging people towards keeping the sacred things sacred, at least for me, and I know you agree,

30:12

John, but keeping the sacred things sacred, keeping the redemptive things redemptive and being clear on that stuff, what we're actually trying to do for people, for the saints, is to help us be more fruitful and more effective.

30:23

That's right. Right? In terms of the mission of the church, keeping that pure so that we might see more people trust

30:29

Christ, but then it also allows us, as we've talked about in the past, even on our Two Kingdoms episode, you're actually freed up to be more fruitful and effective as a citizen of the common kingdom when you keep these things separated.

30:41

And so I don't want us to be misunderstood. Sincerely, last comment on the political government stuff.

30:46

I fear that what is happening, it's this over -realized eschatology thing again. We are deluded into thinking that if we do the right stuff politically and if the church gets behind the right political party or whatever it is, and we see these people voted into office, then we can have this utopian existence in the

31:03

United States of America under God. And that is where we go astray and we run this thing aground, because that is not the promise of the

31:12

Lord at all in His Word. The promise of the Lord is actually that government has been ordained by Him.

31:19

Of course, government is going to be corrupt at points. Read prophetic literature, apocalyptic literature, read

31:24

Revelation. It's very clear that the beast is the state. That's right. And so the state is going to prey upon people in this fallen world.

31:33

That is true. And we are called to hope in the one who ultimately will judge the beast and the false prophet and Satan himself and will be our deliverer and rescuer and who has saved us.

31:45

Right. And that's all we're advocating for on today's show. And the thing is, if you realize there's two things, and it's hard for us,

31:55

Justin, because when you and I get off this podcast, our bodies are frail. We're hungry. We're going to go to lunch. We want those to serve us a meal.

32:03

You know, I'm going to go get some taquitos at our local Oscars taco shop from San Diego. And, you know,

32:10

I'm expecting that food to be clean. I don't want maggots in it and I don't want it to be scraped off a toilet seat.

32:15

And, you know, I have these expectations. And, but, you know, there's this confusion that happens between, like, we are still living in this world.

32:26

So, but there's a difference between understanding that I am going to be disappointed by the sinfulness of this world, but yet I don't have to carry the weight that it's my responsibility that everything has to change.

32:41

And if it doesn't change, then we have failed and I have failed and God has failed. God does not and is not failing.

32:48

I trust this. It's hard for me to explain this to people that when their child dies of cancer and their marriage falls apart and the government, you know, when

32:56

I, you know, I, my blood pressure doesn't rise. You know, I like, I pay attention to politics. I pay attention to investing in the stock market.

33:04

I like to pay attention to all that kind of stuff just because it's the world that I live in and it affects how I pastor and affects the people in the economy and giving, and it really helps me a better shepherd.

33:13

But the difference is, is that my blood doesn't boil. When, when I see people who are doing things that are obviously wrong and they justify it and the world blows up over it,

33:24

I'm like, what, what, what did you expect? These are sinners. You know, in Rome or in Genesis six, when, when

33:31

God looks upon the world and says, there is nobody who can do good. I'm like, look, that not, you know, nothing changed between Genesis six and now.

33:38

The thoughts and inclinations of man's heart are only evil continually. Continually. So why are you surprised when the president of the

33:45

United States does things that are evil or your boss or your neighbor? It's a whole other conversation.

33:51

Like we would be helped to like, is God's law a thing? You better believe it's a thing. And is

33:56

God just? Yes, he's just. And at the same time to expect non -believers to live according to God's law is insane.

34:04

It doesn't compute to me, you know, why we would expect people outside the church to live as we strive to live within it.

34:10

And we should expect them to live according to their nature, which is evil. Correct. It's fallen. Correct.

34:15

So that's why I'm like, I'm never surprised by when sinners sin, because that's the nature of who they are. This is what they're going to do.

34:21

I'm not justifying it. No, me either. But it's like, my goodness, if in the church we've been given the Holy Spirit and we are saints and sinners simultaneously, and we battle our flesh and do things we don't want to do.

34:31

How much more so for people in the world who don't care about the law of God and all they care about are their desires, you know, their cravings.

34:41

And they're going to go try to meet those. Of course you are. What else would we expect? All right, let's maybe circle back to another big one,

34:48

I think, in terms of things that we're pointed to in the church. And this is a really good thing. I mean, like we just talked about government.

34:55

Government is a God -ordained institution for our benefit, actually. And when government functions as it should, it does protect our liberty and our property and the power of the sword is wielded in a way that benefits us.

35:07

This other thing that we're about to talk about is spoken to even more in some ways in the Scriptures, and it's a clearly good thing.

35:13

It's the design of God, and that is marriage and the family. But we are encouraged in various ways to put our hope in marriage and to put our hope in having kids and having a healthy marriage and having a healthy family in ways that I think are often to our detriment.

35:29

Because we end up, in one sense, almost idolizing and worshiping marriage and idolizing and worshiping the family in Jesus' name, you know, and that's not helpful for us.

35:41

And so we oftentimes, if we're honest, we are disappointed because, again, we have these desires, we have these hopes that are unrealized and unmet, even in our marriages and in our family.

35:54

Things are just harder than we ever expected them to be because life in this fallen world is often hard. And I think sometimes the way that marriage and family is presented in the church, it sets people up for this perpetual disappointment.

36:08

And there's this, I think, if you were to read Christian blogs and if you were to look at books that come out or even just posts by influential

36:19

Christian people, especially in that marriage and family vein, I think you would leave reading and looking at a lot of that thinking, my goodness, my marriage is an epic failure, and my parenting in my household is a dumpster fire, apparently.

36:33

Because all these people have this stuff together and all of their dreams and hopes are being realized and mine are not.

36:40

And so it's tough for us, you know, but it's very clear. I'll just go and say this as a husband and as a dad,

36:46

I find myself at times disappointed and frustrated with how things are going in my home.

36:54

And I have to take an honest assessment of that and realize that so often that has to do with my own unrealistic and sinful desires and expectations.

37:04

I am expecting something that isn't promised to me. And in fact, if we had a better perspective and a better handle on what marriage and family look like in a fallen world, you know, as we're trying to love each other, as we're aiming to cling to Christ together, we would do better,

37:21

I think. And by do better, I don't mean we would just like do better as most of them people mean it. I mean, we would trust

37:26

Christ and seek to love each other in the midst of difficult circumstance and in the midst of our own failure.

37:33

Well, this time of year is really hard. I mean, this is the Hallmark, you know, peak.

37:39

It's where everybody goes and subscribes to Hallmark to watch all the Christmas Hallmark things. And I make fun of it.

37:45

And I honestly, I cannot stomach it. It drives me absolutely insane. But, you know, every story

37:51

I watch, you know, I come by and I just ask, you know, my family, what's this one?

37:57

And they're always the beginning story. It's always exciting to see a new relationship start because it's the unknown, right?

38:03

It's buying a new house. It's buying a new car. New things are always exciting. Yeah, exactly right. And so if you ask most people, if they're honest, why do you get married?

38:12

What's your expectation out of this marriage? And let's not fantasize over this. Let's be real, right?

38:18

We get married because we want this person to make me happy. We have a dream.

38:24

That's right. We're trying to fulfill that dream delivered on. That's right. And so then, you know, the response would be then,

38:30

John, then why do Christians get married? And there's a lot of reasons why Christians get married. But what's interesting is that if your entire desire is to fulfill this fantasy of the perfect marriage leads to, you know, it's like you're doomed for destruction.

38:47

You know, there's a great book out there. You can help me with the title, but it's like something like to the effect that, you know, what did you expect?

38:53

You know what book I'm talking about? You've mentioned it before. Yeah. What did you expect? Yeah. When two sinners get married.

39:01

Well, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, what did you say? It's a great book, right? You know, and it's funny.

39:06

It's like in many ways, you put a dog and a cat in their natural habitat into one room. What did you expect is going to happen?

39:13

There's going to be fighting, right? And you're astonished. It's like, I can't believe that, you know, I never thought I would marry somebody who would say that to me.

39:18

And it's like, well, why not? You're a sinner. I mean, you say things all the time, you know, that we talk like this because we have these absurd expectations, because why?

39:27

We expect our spouse to be able to give us something that only God himself could give us. We expect our kids to give us something that only

39:34

God himself could give us. And we put these absurd expectations and burdens on people and it's impossible.

39:41

And this goes back to your statement that God never fails to give us what he has promised.

39:47

And if we allow God to bring that satisfaction, then when you go into marriage, ultimately, the way in which you understand that Paul designs it is that the joy of marriage is to reflect

39:58

Christ to our spouse with meekness and patience and mercy and grace. And we receive, as Jesus says, we receive joy and not only joy, but his joy when we love our spouse with the same love that we received.

40:13

So ultimately, Christians should be going into marriage, realizing that one, it is going to be a true fulfillment, not only relationally and physically and emotionally, there will be a joy.

40:27

And that's why we do get married, right? We desire those things to be emotionally and physically and even sexually satisfied in that way.

40:36

But those cannot fulfill the thing that ultimately it says it's better to give than to receive.

40:43

And the purposes of marriage, when Paul talks about it, is that it does reflect the relationship that happens between Christ and the church and that they are united as one and they give to each other with meekness.

40:56

We receive grace and mercy from Christ, and then we give that mercy and grace to one another as we await the final marriage, right?

41:03

As we await. And so God uses marriage within a broken world to obviously procreate.

41:11

I think it gives us as a means of help, right? Adam was given Eve as a means of help.

41:18

And so I think being married gives us a way of encouragement and strength and help and to be able to reflect those things.

41:24

But often, Justin, I mean, you and I, we've talked about our counseling sessions that we find ourselves in, our own marriages.

41:30

When our eyes get off of Christ and our expectations, we put expectations on our wives and our wives put expectations on us that are unrealistic.

41:41

Then what happens? Fighting and bickering and disappointment. It's just it. Despair, whatever.

41:46

The ship is sinking. And we're like, well, how dare you make me go and clean the kitchen at the sink? You know, it's weird.

41:52

It's this weird thing that we do to each other. No, it's so true. And it's all because we're attaching hope to something that we should never hope in.

42:00

And we're attaching our satisfaction and our happiness, our peace and our rest to something that could never give us that stuff.

42:07

And yeah, and a couple of other thoughts along these lines, and then we'll maybe land this thing and move towards SR.

42:14

Yeah, I think that what I'm about to say, I'm pretty confident it's true. I've just jotted this down as you were talking.

42:20

Whenever we turn something, because take marriage, whenever you turn something that is good and make it the greatest thing, not only do you make it an idol, if you make something that's good, the greatest thing, you make it an idol.

42:35

But if you take something that's good and turn it into something and make it the greatest thing, you're setting yourself up inevitably for disappointment, right?

42:43

I mean, that's obvious to me, I think. And I think that's a biblical principle. Where we want to go ultimately in the last couple of minutes here before we transition to the

42:53

SR podcast is that all of these things, as good as some of them might be, marriage, family, government, politics, personal liberty, other things that we pursue in this world, things that are championed in the church these days, as good as they may be, they're not the greatest thing.

43:09

And they're not what can ultimately give a believer hope and peace and rest. Only Jesus can do that.

43:17

And so in the church, we need to take great pains. And you and I are pastors. We're preachers of God's word.

43:23

And so we need to take great pains to communicate week after week after week that Christ is it. I mean, where is our hope found?

43:30

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, right? It's the solid rock of Christ is the place we stand.

43:37

And he's the only place we can look ultimately, because if we're talking in absolute terms, peace and rest come from nowhere else.

43:42

I might be encouraged by some other things. I can be thankful for some other things. Some other things are good. But man, hope and peace and rest come from Christ and Christ alone.

43:51

Justin Perdue Well, and this is a great transition over for our Semper Firmata podcast. And I'll let you explain what that is here in a minute,

43:57

Justin. But this is why it's so important that God has instituted the local church to gather because they are beat down by their own flesh.

44:05

Disappointment, the world, sin, destruction, decay. And they gather to be renewed in the promises of Christ that God is.

44:14

I mean, this is why Revelation is such a powerful book in that at the, you know, John writes it to the church who's discouraged and beat down.

44:21

He's like, listen, we're in the midst of this spiritual war. And in the end, Christ returns and he wipes away all tears.

44:27

He wins. But while we wait, let's gather to be encouraged. Build one another up and strengthen one another.

44:34

And so the message of Christ and the clarity of the preaching of the gospel is more important than a political view, a view on the vaccine, a view on COVID, a view on anything else.

44:44

This is why the church has to stay focused on preaching Christ. And we're going to talk about that in Semper Reformata. Justin Perdue It's more important than the public school system.

44:50

Are you feeling the way? All right. Let's just, you know, pull some pins on some grenades and walk out of the room.

44:57

Right. So we're headed over to the Semper Reformata podcast. Yeah, everyone, we would all be helped to trust

45:02

Christ and calm down as John is. Well, I'm putting that right there. Come on. Put that right on my microphone. Come on with it. We are headed over to the

45:09

Semper Reformata podcast. And that is an additional podcast that John and I record every week for our

45:15

Semper Reformata members. And if you don't even know what that is, what our membership is, you can find more information about that on our website, theocast .org.

45:22

It's all pretty plain laid out for you there. SR members are people that have partnered with Theocast financially.

45:28

And not only does it give you access to this additional podcast content every week, there's other stuff that goes on with being an

45:33

SR member. And you get on an app, you have access to an app where we all kind of have a community together.

45:39

And JP was over there posting something yesterday. Yeah, I did. I posted a sermon I preached recently. I've been trying to respond to messages on there.

45:46

And it's a sweet community that is being built over there. It is so safe. No advertisements and nobody fighting.

45:54

It's amazing. It's sweet. And there are other things just that come along with being an

45:59

SR member. There's groups and all kinds of things, plans for the future that SR members are involved in, too. So look into that if you're interested.

46:06

So John and I are headed over there. We'll talk with many of you over there. For those of you that might not be SR members yet, we'll talk with you in the regular podcast again next week.