The Dark Side of Christianity Part Two - Members Podcast

Welcome to the members podcast. We just want to start off by thanking our total access members.

We couldn't do what we're doing without you guys. I'm just going to be straight up. Jimmy and John are chomping at the bit, so I'm going to go ahead and let them get right to it.

So fellas, let's continue this conversation. This conversation started at dinner. It really did. And then we, we hit the porch and we laughed and played a lot of music and then we regained it and we were,

I mean, look, you, you guys, you care more about what we have to say than anybody else in the world. So there's a side of us where it's almost like,

Hey, pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee and something else, bourbon, gin and tonic.

Yeah, exactly. Um, the, the conversation on the porch was, was pretty raw and I'm, and I'm, I'm going to be like completely

Frank. My heart exploded in a good way. That's why we're recording at 11.

It is. We can tell our members. Yeah, there's a slate. Yeah. In my basement, which you're probably hearing my water heater at the moment going off word.

Um, there's a side of me listening to the two of you go back and forth with the frailty.

I love that not one time, not one of you guys try to excuse to me your sin.

When we had the conversation on the porch. Yeah. You were so embarrassed and horrified by it, but there was a side of it that goes, but without God's grace, why go on?

Sure. Like what, why not go headlong into this if it's not for God's grace?

And I think this, what we're really asking people when we talk about this kind of thing, what we're really asking of you is look, we're just, we're just asking you to be honest with yourself.

You have to be. Just be real with yourself. You are far more wicked than you could ever imagine.

So for example, if you guys could know the level of godliness that I had attained before marriage and children.

Come on, come on, come on, preach it. Like I had it down. Preacher's been reading my mail.

Amen. Like, y 'all, I had it down. I had the discipline down.

I had the battle down. I had the reading down. I had the prayer down and then you get married.

And you know, a sinner moves in with another sinner. And so you get some things exposed to you.

But by and large, you know, marriage, you know, it pushed me towards, wow, there's some, there's some things in my life that I didn't know were there.

But then bros, bros, our first kid.

Exposed it all. And here's the thing. And I'll just be really Frank is,

I mean, it's members podcast. Our first kid was up every 40 to 45 minutes for like the first 13 months of life and not just awake and like just rolling around all cute, but like awake.

Crying. Yeah. There ain't nothing cute about that. There's nothing like, and I'm just going to be really Frank. I remember watching the news and seeing a story and this is horrible and tragic.

And I'm not making light of this at all. But of a woman shaking her child to death is awful.

But here is the depth of my wickedness is that I looked at her in that moment and there was a moment of compassion of, yeah,

I'm just sorry there was nobody in your life to help you. But at the same time, there was a moment of I've had those thoughts.

Oh my gosh. I mean, I could say, I'm probably not going to say them right now, but I could say,

I could say even more extreme thing. I mean, with respect to even the children piece, man, like some of the things that my wife and I have struggled through, um, they're intense and they're real.

Like you, you have thoughts that you could not have imagined that you would ever have.

No. I mean, so I recently did a wedding and I think we're all around this table.

We agree that like the most substantial things that we could ever say in a wedding message or the most substantial things that the

Bible says that are relevant to marriage are not found in Ephesians five, necessarily. They're not found in first Peter three.

They're found in just the grand truths of scripture. Um, that like the reality is that you are far worse than you could have ever imagined.

So like when you get married and you say, you know, I never thought that I would marry somebody who would say that to me.

It's like, well, it's like, well, why not? I mean, you're a sinner or, Hey, I never thought

I'd marry somebody who would do that and it's like, well, how many things have you done in your life that you swore you would never do, right?

Like this is what we're talking about. Yeah. It's just this honest, like, let's call it what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And, and particularly as pastors, you know, one of the things I'm, I'm pretty sensitive to, and you know, we live in the social media world, it seems like every week you're hearing of a new pastor falling and you're hearing of, and I remember when

I, when I first started ministry, those things would, I mean, they would just blow my mind and I've come to the place and, and some people might interpret this as, you know, you're just insensitive or you've been desensitized to it, but I think moving into this reformed confessional mindset has helped me to see that I'm not,

I'm not desensitized, but rather I'm, I'm just not surprised.

And that's hard. And that's, that is so hard. Like, I, you know, it's, I get, we get texts.

I know you guys do. We get texts of, did you hear about, did you hear about, have you heard? Oh yeah.

Or just get asked, walk into a service on Sunday, like, Hey, let's talk about that. Yeah. I'll be,

I look, I have compassion towards the pastors who have been. Unwise with their gifts.

Sure. Um, I don't, I'm not excusing it. It's not appropriate. It's not wise. No, they made bad decisions.

They made simple decisions. They gave in to temptations. Sure. Um, I look at that and go, don't judge or else there go

I. Oh, absolutely. It were not for the grace of God, there go I. Right, right. And I'm not saying, okay,

I'm going to look at their mistakes and then I won't make those mistakes. Listen, I think the Apostle Paul looked a lot of his mistakes and went, man,

I wish I, if I could do that again, if I could do that, if I could do that again, I would do it differently. Well, I mean, so Galatians 6 .1,

when your brother is caught in sin, like ensnared in sin, right?

Those who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness, keeping watch on yourselves lest you to fall, right?

And, and so, I mean, they're included in that verse is a lot of what we're talking about right now that, hey, people are caught in sin, therefore, like compassion is the order of the day.

We should seek to restore people in a spirit of gentleness and we should be aware of our own frames because we are capable of falling the exact same way.

And so, yeah, it's a good thing that we would be mindful of that. Yeah, at our church, we were going over John 10, you know,

Jesus is the good shepherd, and one of the things that struck me there, uh, you know, doing a little bit more research into that passage, when

Jesus says, all that came before me are thieves and robbers. All. Yeah.

And, and, and, and he's really, he's, he's talking about, you know, all the, all the figures of Christ that came before him, thief and robber.

Yeah. When Ezekiel says the same thing, obviously in Ezekiel 34. Right. Right. The shepherd. Yeah. Yeah. God says,

I will, I'm going to shepherd my people. Exactly. Because everybody else. Yeah. And so. Is corrupt, ultimately.

And, and in light of the pastoral ministry conversation that we're talking about here, this is why it's so important for us to understand our role rightly.

That we, you know, first Peter five, the chief shepherd, when the chief shepherd appears, we're merely under shepherds and I think the, you know, kind of the, the typical, and I won't even say, you know, the evangelical understanding of ministry, because this kind of can span all traditions, you know, is that money, power, dare

I say sex, success, you know, those things are not unattractive just because we're in the ministry.

Yeah, absolutely not true. Which is why I want to pick up on something that we've alluded to a couple of times, once in the regular podcast, once even now, that kind of removal of the shock factor, that removal of the surprise piece.

So I'm, I'm happy to say this now we've got a primer coming out. Yeah, you do. It's out.

Well, I guess it is by this point. It's out. It's available. Faith versus faithfulness. Yeah, go get it. Unrest. Yeah. Go get it.

Go read that thing. Get you some. Yeah. We worked hard together to produce that and we hope, we hope it's helpful to people.

Well, I know that we sent that out to a number of people for feedback and I know I'm happy to say in one of the sections that I wrote,

I was talking about this, like how a biblical understanding, a robust understanding of sin, it allows us to not be surprised when other

Christians fall, even in heinous ways. And I think it originally had some kind of line in there.

I don't know. Maybe it was pretty provocative. Not sure. But some of the feedback we got is like, well, hey, I think if like a very prominent, influential, evangelical leader.

Matt Chandler. Okay. So the feedback was, okay, so bro. His illustration was helpful. It was very helpful.

It was very helpful. And I'm happy to talk about this. So he's like, the feedback we got from this one brother is helpful because it caused me and us to kind of go back.

He's a pastor. Yeah. He's like, hey, look, man, like, I, I hear what you're saying, but I, I think that if Matt Chandler like murdered somebody tomorrow, you'd be shocked.

And at the risk of sounding like you said, like desensitized or callous or something, which

I don't think that I am, I literally was looking at that feedback and I was like, I understand what this brother is saying and I want to make some adjustments to what

I've written here, but I can honestly say that I would not be surprised as to like how that might happen.

Like our hearts are that jacked up and like my desires and our thoughts, our passions are so intense and so dark at times and so corrupt that we are capable, like ordinary

Christians are capable of extraordinary evil. And we got to own that. Yeah, we do.

Which is scary to people to hear. It's scary, but yeah, it's true. Yeah. How many people in David's day?

Oh man. God's anointed one. People do say though, they were without the spirit. So let's transition to Acts though.

Um, Peter. Bright. Getting rebuked by Paul. Sure. For requiring circumcision.

That's right. But, but, but how many, how many people in David's day, let's just be clear, David, God's anointed one who had the spirit on him.

Right. Yeah. How many people would say, you know, Oh, David wouldn't, he wouldn't commit murder.

Well, we already mentioned this in the podcast. Read first Corinthians. And here's,

I think it's important for us to hear to say, we aren't leaving you without hope, like, Oh, Christianity is debauched, like you are without hope.

That's right. I think if anything, if you could hear us say anything, this is why the church and God's organization of approved elders and the ordinary means, which is preaching of his word, the

Lord's table and baptism are designed to bring the weary, broken sinner back and saying, listen, there is hope outside of yourself.

And God will do it. I mean, this is why I want to, I want to go somewhere else for just one second to pick up on what you said,

John, but this is why it's so critical that we herald, you know, not only Christ, but we help people understand that their sanctification, our sanctification is as certain as our justification and our glorification because of the

Holy Spirit of God who dwells in us, who will complete the good work he's begun, who will conform us in the image of Christ.

He who called you is faithful. He will surely do it. Like that's the hope, right? And so, no, we're not saying that like Christianity is a sham.

That's not at all what we're saying, but I just want to be really clear as a pastor, like you talk about first Corinthians, I get really worked up when

I get the kind of pious types in our context to come in talking about, man, we got to go back to the days of the early church when it was, when it was grand and glorious and golden.

And I'm like, I'm like you, bro. I'm like, have you read the new Testament? Acts was a mess. It was a disaster.

Well, and, and even, even like you're talking about the letters to the Corinthians and others, I'm like, you clearly have not thought much about the church in Corinth because you talk about the early church.

The apostate Ephesian church. Seriously. It's like, I mean, have you read, have you read Revelation two and three?

Yeah. You know, like you talk about the early church as though it was this, this perfect, like Holy grail era, right.

And I'm like, man, it, it is, it was messed up. And I think that you sort of shackling the church of our era with this burden that we can't bear, like that we're supposed to somehow be near perfect is absolutely insane, like read your

Bible. We, we, well, but here's the problem though. We do. And we look at the old Testament and say, wow, what a bunch of jacked up weirdos.

And then we think the new Testament is full of all these heroes. Oh my gosh. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. In the grand redemptive historical view of scripture, what we see is that in the old

Testament, it's groaning. It's groaning for redemption to be accomplished.

There is one faithful. That's right. It's like, it's like the old Testament, the old

Testament makes Jesus obvious when he shows up, cause it's like, thank God that he has come.

The one who actually has fulfilled the law. What's the first thing said of him when he shows up on the scene by John the

Baptist? Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. My encouragement to you is go read the first five books of the

Bible. And if you don't walk away going, I'm not sure humanity has figured this out.

Right. But this is why you can't go, you can't, humanity can't go three chapters without there being a promise that someone's going to come fix what humanity completely destroyed,

Genesis 3 .15. Yeah. And for the rest of the Bible, it's like he, one day the fixer's coming, you know?

And it's not only the fixer. It's the one who makes all things new. That's right. Right. Not fix, all things new.

That's right. And that's where we say, listen, actually Christianity is an epic ride to look at the disaster of humanity and the glory of Jesus.

So the encouragement for me, I actually chuckle. I go, man, we humans are so foolish to think we actually can produce something that is worthy and when you read the

Bible, you go, oh no, you know, as Jimmy says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's not going to happen.

No, that's right. And so I think one of the ways that pastorally you work through this with people is, and I believe

I might even heard this on this podcast, is the idea of when we're sitting down with people, it's the idea of, look,

I'm just going to assume that you're a mess. Which is not dark. No. And I'm not saying, you're cheating on your wife, you're a classed alcoholic.

I'm not saying I'm assuming the worst about you or impugning your motivations. But what I am saying is, hey, as your pastor, part of my commitment to you is to keep calling you to Christ and the day that maybe you do make a mess of your life.

I'm not going to come at you, but I can't believe you did that. Yeah. Right. Which as a congregant, you go, well, at least my pastor isn't expecting me to be better than what

I am. Yeah. And this is how we can free people from like this nonsense. Like we practically in the evangelical church sometimes talk like we can change our own hearts.

Like if we just keep doing this and we're diligent enough and we try hard enough and we mustered up or whatever, it's almost like we can change our own heart.

How are you posturing your heart? It's absolute lunacy, right? Where it's like, this is maybe teeing up something else.

We're not even talking about this now, but we got more to say in future podcasts. Like, man, the whole sanctification debate,

I'm just like, look, answer me this question, can you change your own heart or not? That's right, baby. Come on. And that's a tricky question depending on who's listening.

Yeah. No, it's true. That's true. And so again, we're just saying that, look, man, the Spirit of God is the one.

And the answer to that is no. The answer, of course, is no. If you go read Galatians 3, your only conclusion is you don't change your own heart.

No, you don't. It's not the law. Absolutely not. Which we'll get on another podcast. We will. Guys, this has been a good conversation.

Just want to say thank you again to our members. And we, I know the three of us are really excited about the future of Theocast.

We trust and hope that you are too. And so again, thank you for your faithful support and we look forward to future episodes and spending more time with you that way.

We'd like to thank you for your generous support through your membership at Theocast. You can contact us with questions, feedback, or encouragement at theocast .org.