Christian, You Are Not on Parole | Theocast

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Hi, this is Justin. As a Christian, have you ever felt as though you are on parole or perhaps some kind of probation where you've been released from prison but now you need to do regular check -ins with an officer, you need to keep the rules adequately and avoid doing the wrong things well enough to finally be set free one day and to finally be rid of doubt and to finally be rid of fear that it might not end well for you?

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Sadly, I think this is the experience for many in the church and so today, John and I are going to talk about this, about how

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Christians are not on parole but in fact, Jesus has accomplished everything that's necessary for our salvation.

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That's what justification means and to be justified is to be finally saved. We're going to consider all of that from a reformed and biblical perspective today.

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We hope that's encouraging for you and then in the Semper Reformanda podcast, we're going to touch on things like final justification and the writings of John Owen and what it is to be a fruitful

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

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

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

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Christian life from a reformed and pastoral perspective. Your hosts today are John Moffat, who is pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and he's drinking his tea out of a vintage Theocast mug today.

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The old school branding, that vintage theology. And I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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We have met again today on this Wednesday morning to record a podcast and we hope as always to encourage the weary in the

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Lord Jesus because he has saved us, period. John, you're just going to take us right in because we're trying to not waste people's time these days.

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That's right. I mean, I am going to say my adrenaline is a little high. Two things happened to me today. One, I taught my 15 year old how to drive an

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F -150 down an interstate. My adrenaline is high on that. And I may or may not have shot a bobcat off my front porch this morning.

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I told John not to talk about the bobcat, but here he is doing it anyway. Can't control him, friends. Can't control him.

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It's just... Can't make people do anything. Hey, this city boy is learning how to homestead at the moment. That's not true.

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Anyways... John lives in the cut. I do live in the cut. If you ever want to come visit me, come on down. I'll show you where I live. All right.

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So today is a fun conversation, mostly because Justin and I love talking about Christ and the gospel.

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And we are always stretching our minds to try and grasp the glory of Christ.

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And sometimes to do that, you have to pull things, clutters off. Sometimes we clutter it. Sometimes there's things in our past that have kind of confused it.

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One of the things that has happened recently, I love to listen to podcasts once in a while that are recommended to me. I was listening to one recently by a good friend of ours,

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Oscar Clark, and he was making some references to some theological issues. And he said a statement, which was

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Christians are not on probation in it. I mentioned this, I may have put it on social media or something, but Justin and I started talking about how that is the position of so many

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Christians today, where they can't seem to live one day without their feeling as if their justification is being called into question or legitimate.

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So today we're going to be talking about justification, how it is often seen as we would say most people's views of justification is only half correct.

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They've been set free from condemnation, but then there's more to it. And then we're going to be speaking about really the historical ramifications on justification.

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And this phrase really, which the title of the podcast is, Christians, you're not on parole and we're going to tell you why.

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So Justin, talk to us a little bit about justification, this concept of being on parole, and then we're going to kind of pull it apart, looking at history and looking at some modern day preaching and things like that.

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The illustration of parole or probation, both are applicable and useful, and we'll try to unpack those in a second.

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I think, sadly, accurately describe how many of us have felt or how many of us still feel when it comes to living the

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Christian life. And this is because of maybe some misunderstanding and some confusion, but at best, some seemingly contradictory things that are said and then implied.

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Out of one side of our mouth, we'll talk about justification in some good ways, and then out of the other side of our mouth, we unsettle the saints by talking about the

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Christian life as this project to vindicate oneself and prove oneself as legitimate. So the illustrations of parole and probation quickly and how they apply well to what we're considering today, and many of the things, frankly, that we talk about on Theocast regularly.

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So parole, many understand this principle, this idea, a person who has been in prison is released from prison.

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So we're justified. We're set free from jail. And now we enter into this season where we are on parole, where there are regular check -ins with our parole officer, there are a number of rules and regulations that we need to abide by, there are things that we need to be doing, and rules that we ought not break.

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And if we break too many rules or we don't do the things that we're supposed to do, then we might actually find ourselves back in jail and a prisoner once again.

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And I fear that that's how many people think about the Christian life or even have been taught to think about it, that at the moment of justification, they've been set free, they've been let out of prison, but now there are many things that they need to be doing and many things that they need to avoid doing.

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And depending on how well they handle those things, how well they perform, whether or not they break too many rules, people are concerned that what may end up happening at the end of all this is that they're going to end up back in prison, facing the judgment of God again.

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They will have demonstrated that they are illegitimate. And what that does is we live our entire lives kind of looking over our shoulders, proverbially, and we live our entire lives unsettled and not resting because we're trying to constantly prove and validate our release from prison.

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And the probation illustration is also useful because it communicates the same thing because it's this,

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I think, overemphasized, off -centered perspective on time will tell. You know, trust

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Christ, be baptized into the church, time will tell. Christians through history have talked this way, and that's fine, but I don't think they mean what we often take that to mean, as though, yeah, you're in right now, but we're not really sure you're really in, like really, really in.

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And so your life is going to be the validation project. It's going to be the thing that will prove or not that your being united to Christ was, in fact, legitimate and genuine.

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And the reason why this is unhelpful, if I was going to reduce it down in a nutshell, is that I do think it communicates a misunderstanding of what justification means biblically, historically, and theologically, and we're going to go there.

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But then I also think what it is, is a great example of putting the cart before the theological horse, where we have inverted a relationship that ends up producing a lot of harm and ends up producing a lot of doubt and wrestling and fear.

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And I think actually hinders real Christian sanctification and genuine Christian living and turns the gospel into this quasi -conditional covenant of works type thing, where we need to be doing a bunch of stuff, maybe not to save ourselves on the front end, but to certainly validate, prove, and maintain our status before the

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Lord. And that's problematic. So, John, I think now would be a good time where we can turn to justification and think about what it is biblically and historically and theologically.

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That's right. And the evidence of what you're talking about, Justin, is we're going to see here in a minute, just so you'll know where we're going.

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We are going to look at some theological movements and modern day preaching that has influenced this.

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Most people's perspective of the Bible is it's a story of what God did to get you cleaned.

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This is what we're going to talk about now. Then the rest of it is an instruction manual on how to keep yourself clean until He returns.

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Because if you don't keep yourself clean enough, well, then you're not getting in. And that's that probationary period we're talking about.

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And so justification for most people is just as I've never sinned. So God cleans the slate. He removes the condemnation.

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You're no longer in His judgment and He's set you free. Right. It's like, well, you're out.

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Good job. You believed. You put your faith in Jesus. You got out of condemnation. You're not going to be in prison in hell anymore.

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God's no longer angry with you. Now, here's what you need to do to keep God off your back. And here's how you check in.

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And this is some rules for you to follow. And these things can look different throughout the ages.

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This is where I'm going to get myself in trouble, but I've done a lot of work on this. So I'll put this some links down below.

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But this is where spiritual disciplines work hand in hand with this type of view of justification.

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Right view of salvation. Yeah, right. So your justification is the cleansing part and your spiritual disciplines is the parole officer giving you what it is that you need to be doing to one, verify you are no longer going to return back to what puts you in prison and that you're going to be progressing in your life.

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So you are then given fleshly works to do things that you are to do.

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And if you don't do them to a certain level and you don't have a desire to do them, I've literally had people tell me that if you don't have a desire to read your

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Bible every day for whatever long periods of time, you should question your salvation. And those are types of disciplines.

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And I would even say it this way. The confession, the Lenten Baptist confession makes a very important observation about Scripture in chapter 16 on Good Works point one.

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It says any works that are not instituted by God are not good works and they are not to be seen as good works.

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And good works meaning that God institutes them. They said they're good for his glory and the benefit for the believer.

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And so we can turn spiritual disciplines and use it and turn it upside down. Here's the problem. Okay. The problem is that view of justification is not a biblical view.

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It's only half true. You took half the truth of justification and then you added another part to it that is not biblical.

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The second part of justification is an accounting term, right? So it means that your debt that you owed has been paid, but there's still requirement for you to be accepted by God as righteous.

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So to be fully justified, it's not to be set free from debt, but to be fully justified means to be set free from debt and have full righteousness.

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So what are we told? That when Christ's life, it's his active obedience, active meaning passive is what was done to him on the cross.

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And he's suffering his whole life. Active would be him obeying the law perfectly.

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And that is told, we are told that that is given to us. The technical word, if you're new to this, is called imputation.

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It's imparted to us. Here's the key. By faith alone as well.

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So your salvation from condemnation and your inheritance into righteousness, into union with Christ is given to you by faith alone.

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A great example of this is Ephesians chapter one and two is a good example of this, also Philippians chapter one and two both explain that Christ's work on our behalf is given to us by faith alone.

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So Justin, that would be the technical, that would be the biblical simple view that the church has embraced for as long as we know that that is the biblical perspective of justification.

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Our salvation is not just from the penalty of sin, but we are saved from the penalty of sin and then adopted as children of God and given full right to the righteousness of Christ.

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Here it is by faith alone. You do not earn the righteousness of Christ.

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Yeah, in justification, what God is doing is he is declaring unjust people just.

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That's right. Through what you just said. Not sinless, not sinless.

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We are declared just, we are declared righteous and we're done, that is done by God, just as you described.

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The penalty paid by Christ, it is as though we've never sinned and the obedience of Christ, the fulfilling of the law and righteous requirements.

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It is as though we did and have done all the good works of obedience that Jesus did.

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So we've been given, to use the biblical illustration, we've been given his clothes, right?

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We've been given his righteousness to wear. It's like Matthew 22, 1 -14 in the parable of the wedding feast, where there's a wedding garment that's required, right?

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And there's a man in the wedding feast who's wearing his own clothes. He's wearing his own righteousness.

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In other words, he's coming in his own merit. He's the one who's hurled out on the street. The other people who are wicked, we're already told, are there because they've been given wedding garments to wear.

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And so that is what justification is. It's that it is as though we've never sinned and it is as though we have done all the righteous things that Christ has done.

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And what does that mean for us is really the question. I think some of the confusion, John. Hey Justin, can

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I throw one more illustration in there? You know, when the prodigal son comes home and he had squandered all of his own, he comes back shamed.

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And what does his father put on him, right? He puts on the ring, he puts on the robe. In other words, he treats him as he is not.

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That is that picture all throughout the New Testament of us receiving forgiveness and then receiving all of the favor of God based upon Jesus.

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And so a few, a number of things just pop cornered around in my brain, like as you were talking. So I think sometimes people get anxious when we say something like I'm about to say.

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We stand by this. Instead of emphasizing in the church the incomplete partial work of sanctification, what we need to herald from the rooftops all the time is the completed work of Christ in justification.

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And then what that will do as the saints look to Christ and as the saints can rest in what

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Christ has already finished, we then can pursue by grace in the spirit, via union with Christ, conformity unto the law, conformity unto the image of Christ, we can pursue obedience in freedom now.

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And people get anxious about that because when we say that we need to emphasize justification, what people hear us to mean is that it doesn't matter how we live.

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And we've tried to deal with that in a number of episodes, even recently. Of course, it matters how we live. But what we're trying to do here is to speak like the apostles wrote.

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And we've got an episode we plan anyway to record next week where we're going to think about how the apostles wrote to the saints.

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That's right. And so if this is of interest to you, guys, doesn't it matter how we live? Yes, it does. The apostles thought so.

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We think so. And at the same time, one need not clutter up the gospel in confused justification in order for that to be the case.

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So that's kind of an aside. That's coming next week. Yeah. So how we want to talk, John, I think in this whole thing, how we want to talk to the saints is the way that the apostles wrote.

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For example, 1 John chapter 3 and verse 1, John writes to Christians who have been bombarded by a whole host of things.

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But he says to them, see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God.

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And so we are. He talks with language of certainty. We are children of God.

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Not we might prove ourselves to be, but that we are. And then we live accordingly. Or the language of Romans 830, you know, the famous golden chain, as it is called, where Paul writes using verbs, all of a tense that indicate completion, like this is over.

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He says, those whom God predestined, he also called and those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified.

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How can he write that way? He can write that way because redemption is over. It is finished.

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Jesus saw to that. There is nothing left to be done. All we do is receive what has already been accomplished.

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And that is the language of justification. That's the language of the gospel. It's the language of the apostles.

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And that is what actually sustains and propels the Christians, the Christian in his pursuit of love and good works.

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That's right. Yeah. I'm going to add one to that. Second Peter one, verse three, his divine power is granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

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I think he means life in the new life, like regenerated birth, life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called him.

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And what's interesting is he keeps going through it and he says, well, how do you know this to be true by his by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature whose promises,

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God's promises, not yours, having escaped from the corruption that is in this world because of sinful desires for this very reason, make every effort to stop.

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And he goes on to talk about good works, which we'll speak of next week. But the point of it is, is that everything you need for your justification has been granted to you by God, right?

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Your forgiveness into life and your godliness, which is the part of righteousness that is required to you.

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Here's what's interesting about what James is saying. It's yours not to be earned.

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It's yours. It's there. He's given it to you. And it's really hard for us to hear that language because,

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Justin, we live as creatures who want to feel validated.

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We want to feel as if we can claim some type of control over what's happening.

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But I think the greatest illustration that even Jesus uses is that you and I didn't have any type of control who we were born by, yet we want to somehow say, no, no,

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I chose the parents. And it doesn't work that way.

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And so it goes with justification is that when we look at the promises of God, the promises are always stated, you are cleansed and you are clothed by God's power, none of it is by your power.

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Go ahead. No. You good? Yeah. Okay. Thinking back before we pivot to maybe some illustrations and as we consider how this manifests itself for many people, thinking back to the illustration of parole or probation, the way that we should speak when it comes to gospel and what justification actually means is not, you've been set free, now prove yourself, or you are forgiven, you are justified, now the vindication project is commenced, and one day we'll know whether or not you are in fact in Christ.

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No. The way we speak is, here is what God's law requires, and you, like all of us, are crushed by that, but here's what

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Christ has done. He is able to save the uttermost, all those who draw near to God through him, and he has accomplished everything necessary to save even you and trust him.

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And in doing that, you've been united to him and you are free. And we just let that sit, right?

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We don't qualify it. You are free from condemnation. You are free from judgment.

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And in light of all of that, go live. In light of all of that, go pursue love and good works.

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In light of all of that, go pursue righteousness. Trust Christ, love your brothers and sisters, right?

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And that, in a nutshell, is the message of the apostles, and they unpack for us, yes, what that looks like, because people don't know what it means to love my brother, and so they need to explain it.

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Or people don't know what it means for the church to be unified, so they need to explain it, and of course that matters a ton.

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But really, what we're getting at in so much of this conversation is, what is the emphasis in the church?

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What is the emphasis in preaching? What is the emphasis in terms of the tone and the tenor of the Christian life?

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I love the old word, tincture. You know, it's a word that implies, like, there's a little bit of tinting, right?

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Like, it's like water in a little drop of food coloring, and it just kind of colors and flavors the whole thing.

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What is that in the church and in the Christian life for you as you sit here as a listener?

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How have you been taught? What is your understanding? And our unashamed stance is that that tincture, that emphasis, it is always and only

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Christ and what He's done. And if that's not center stage, we've got a problem.

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I'm going to read a quote probably later from Sinclair Ferguson regarding some historical matters that we may get to in a moment that will,

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I think, highlight that reality. But John, why don't you take us into ways that this shows itself?

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You already mentioned disciplines earlier. You got that you went there. Anything else to say about that? Or maybe we think about some other things.

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A little bit. I know I kind of threw that out there as a bomb drop if you've not heard this, but spiritual disciplines within the church history has not been the way in which the church has understood spiritual growth and nor the application of it.

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They tend to be very individualistic and they tend to be for validating purposes.

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When you aren't trying to validate yourself and you understand that he who began a good work and you will complete it.

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Well, foolish Galatians, right? You've begun by the spirit. Are you now being perfected by the flesh? That isn't how this works.

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So we're going to look at this from a more biblical perspective where like in second Corinthians, where it says when we're looking at the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another.

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That's right. Or go ahead. I can say this now. First John three, three. He's just talked about how we're all children of God.

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And he says for everyone who thus hopes in him, for everyone who hopes in Christ this way, he seeks to purify himself as he is pure.

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In other words, for those of us who hope in Christ for life, for forgiveness, for righteousness and all those things, we'll seek to imitate him.

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We'll seek to purify ourselves because Christ is pure. We will seek to pursue righteousness because Christ is righteous.

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Amen. If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called

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

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

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slash primer. So you see the emphasis being there that we're looking to Christ and Christ is doing the work in us.

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Christians are very much disciplined because we have to be. To love neighbor and to fight sin requires discipline.

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But the question is, where does the energy and power to do that come from? And Paul says, it can't come to flesh.

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I mean, this is the end of Colossians 2 where he says they have an appearance of being helpful, but they're of no value stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

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Then he was saying chapter three, look to Christ, seat at the right hand of the father. So we're going to go through a couple of examples here, but when you're always looking at the

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New Testament, you hear the New Testament telling you to feed on the finished work of Christ.

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What does Jesus tell the man who was unfaithful to him just a few days before?

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Peter, if you love me, feed my sheep. But what does he mean by feed them? Literally in Christ's ministry, he's talking about feeding on him, right?

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It's my body, my blood. That's what sustains you. We are being sustained by. So when you go and read first and second

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Peter, you go read Paul's work, you go read John, where are they always pushing you to the finished work of Christ on your behalf?

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The way we could say is this way, Justin, it's like they are establishing your position as secure before they ever give you anything to do to practice.

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And we're going to talk about that next week. That's next week. That's right. Status forward. I write a good example of this and another zinger that is, you know,

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I'm going to go ahead and throw it out there because I think it's helpful. Lordship salvation has a history built upon,

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I think, a probationary platform in that you can't just claim that you love

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God, that you have to then make Jesus Lord of your life. And then there's, which

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I don't, I don't disagree with that. If you're going to say you're a Christian and there's no fruit evidencing that, that, that, that could be a problem, right?

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This is. Yeah. So a brief word here, we've done episodes on lordship salvation before, and we can refer you to those, but the really important word in my brain anyway, to speak right now is this, the reform through history have always said, and John and I wholeheartedly agree that where there is faith, real faith, there will be obedience.

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Where there is faith, there will be good works. Where there is faith, there will be a desire to obey.

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All true. And at the same time, obedience is not part of faith. Good works are not part of faith.

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A desire to obey is not part of faith. One must keep those things distinct or we really do confuse and compromise the good news itself.

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Good works come out of the gratitude of what we have in our position. And they flow from. That's right.

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Right. I use this illustration in my sermon in James on Sunday, the live people breathe. Well, the problem with lordship salvation and this concept is that those who've ever been under this type of ministry and type of preaching is that the believer is always being called into question their actions and are their actions matching their profession?

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And listen, I don't, I don't have a problem with that. Um, there are times where that is necessary, where if someone keeps professing to be a

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Christian and yet they reject the truth of Christ, that's a problem, but in lordship salvation, the problem with it is, is that you, there is always a self -examination where you live every day trying to determine, have

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I made Jesus Lord of my life? And the question on that is the last word on that, Justin, I'll throw it to you is, have

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I made him Lord of my life enough? And you're going to demonstrate that through these various ways.

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I think my biggest hang up here biblically and theologically with this whole thing is that lordship salvation is one way this occurs, but in this whole principle of parole or probation, what we're effectively doing is instead of communicating what we said earlier, that's biblical, you are a child of God.

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You are justified. You are saved because of Christ. Trust him and now live and love and pursue righteousness because it's good.

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Rather than talking like that, we talk in such a way as though, yeah, you've been set free.

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And now you need to go about the work of doing this in such a way where there might come a time in the future.

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It's not, it's not this. Like I do think we can rightly say that our profession of faith in Christ will be vindicated over the course of our lifetime.

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It will be, and God will see to that. Okay. That's true. But what we do is introduce a lot of doubt into the equation about what's going to happen at the end.

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We say, yeah, you're set free. And now one needs to go about the vindication project.

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And the implication is that the future and how this will end is uncertain.

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That's right. Right. And that uncertainty bit is really what we're driving at right now, because there's this doubt in the

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Christian's mind and the church doubles down on it that you might end up being lost.

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You might end up not being justified and raised incorruptible in the end because you will have not done this adequately.

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You will have not done your part. And of course people will backpedal on that and say, well, if that's true of a person, then they never really were a

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Christian and all, and that's fine. But rather than talking in these ways of, yep, there's going to come a reckoning and it might not go well for you.

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We should say, no, Christ has saved you. Now live in him. And that I think is the real rub for me.

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You mentioned lordship salvation. While we're here, historically, there is a controversy in the 18th century in the church of Scotland known as the

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Merrow controversy. And we don't have time to explain all of the context and everything that was going on there. It was around a book written in the 17th century called the

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Merrow of Modern Divinity, and there were a number of men in the church of Scotland in the 1720s or so who were referred to as the

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Merrow brethren because of their appreciation for this book. There was a rural presbytery, the

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Octorator presbytery, in which there was a question for ministerial candidates that was worded effectively this way.

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Must one forsake sin in order to come to Christ? Now, I fear, John, that many of our contemporaries in the lordship camp and many of our contemporaries in the

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Calvinistic evangelical church would maybe answer that question, yes. A person must forsake sin in order to come to Christ in faith savingly.

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Our answer to that, and the Merrow brethren as they were known, their answer to that question is no.

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If we need to do anything, then we cannot come to Christ. But in fact, what we need to do, we don't need to do anything, we trust that Christ is able to save all those who draw near to God through him, period, right?

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And then from that, all this other stuff flows. So I'm going to just read a quote. This has everything to do with preaching.

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This has everything to do with that emphasis thing that we were talking about, where is the emphasis in the church? What is the lifeblood of the church?

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So listen to Sinclair Ferguson's words from the whole Christ. He says, is it obvious to me and of sermons

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I, excuse me, let me just start over, it is obvious to me and of engrossing concern that the chief focus, the dominant note in the sermons

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I preach or hear is Jesus Christ and him crucified, or is the dominant emphasis and perhaps the greatest energies of the preacher focused somewhere else, perhaps on how to overcome sin or how to live the

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Christian life or on the benefits to be received from the gospel. All are legitimate emphases in their place, but that place is never center stage, close quote.

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Very helpful. He goes on to say, the warrant of faith in Christ is neither knowledge of election, nor a conviction of universal redemption, nor is it a sense of our own sinfulness.

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It is that Jesus Christ is able to save all those who come to God through him. Since his is the only name given under heaven, whereby we may be saved.

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Christ himself is the gospel. And that's all we are saying is we need not qualify this thing for people to come on the front end and we need not throw all these qualifications on the back end to say, well, you need to have done all these things and you need to do all these things in order to be in Christ, because we have put the cart before the theological horse in doing so.

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Well, we have history now on either side where you have this good word as a punctiliary time, right?

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There's a period of time where you get, you are dead and now you're alive. And when we're looking at that, the debate is, well, did you do what was required to become alive and now are you doing what's required to prove you're alive?

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And neither of those are biblical concepts. Being dead is sure. If you want to do the law to live, do this and live.

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Sure, you can try and do that, but no one is able to. This is why Christ was the only man to do that.

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What I've been obviously been preaching through James, it's on my mind, but there's a couple of passages in James and in first John.

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I'm just going to read this to you. James is dealing with, he's in chapter two, so he's already dealing with some issues with the church and he says he's established their faith.

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We'll look at this next week. But I just listened to this phrase, Justin. He says, so speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.

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It's almost an oxymoron. He's saying you can't be judged under the law anymore. So live like that.

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And what he means is the way that you talk and the way that you act is a reflection of what you are.

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It is not a reflection to prove what you are. He's like, you are this. So speak and act that way.

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Another great passage is a first John, and we use James and first John all the time to beat people up, but listen to the hearts of these pastors.

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This first John 417, he goes, by this love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment because as he is, so also are we in the world, wait a minute, as what?

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As Christ is, so we are. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear for fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected by love.

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Again, what is he doing? He is dealing with an issue of obedience in John, but what is he first doing?

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He's making it very clear that one is not justifying themselves and one is not proving their justification.

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I think it's so important here that we, that Justin, it's so easy to collapse these two, this is a whole law gospel thing too.

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If you've not heard our episodes on law gospel, the one we just did a couple of weeks ago on law gospel and sanctification, you should go back and listen to it.

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But when you don't understand gospel, gospel is you are saved, sanctified and glorified all by the work of God on your behalf.

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It's really important. And next week, we're going to explain this whole idea of progressed sanctification, stay tuned for that.

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But for the sake of today, I think it's important for us to realize that the Christian life is in a position of resting.

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I mean, Jesus literally said, come to me and find rest. And what's interesting is that the promise, he says, your soul, which is weary, it's no longer, it's being, what is it being infused with?

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It's being infused with him so that when you go to carry this burden, it's a light burden and it's not a burden of proof, but it's a burden of loving one another.

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So all of good works are flowing away from your salvation because of who you are.

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Paul says it like this in Philippians too, right? Work out your salvation for he is at work in you.

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And we seem to not quote that next passage for whatever reason. We talked about the tree and the fruit illustration last week.

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We even mentioned a little bit of the body and breathing. And I think those are helpful because we all understand the reality that you're ill highlighting right now, that our obedience and our

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Christian living flows out of the fact that Christ has accomplished everything and we can't invert that relationship.

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One way I might put it that's different this week is I think we often take things that are fruits of grace, like repentance, obedience, right?

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And turn them into qualifications for grace. And that's very unhelpful in the church.

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And we do that not just on the front end, you know, in terms of regeneration or conversion, but we do that in an ongoing way, retroactively, right?

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Like one needs to be demonstrating all of this in order to prove that one has in fact, you know, received grace.

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And it's like, well, rather than talking in all of this, again, you might not be and you might one day face a judgment and all of these things.

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It would be better to say you have received grace purely because God is gracious.

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You've been justified on account of Christ alone. You've received all of this by faith. And now you are born again and united to the

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Lord Jesus. And in light of all of that, you're going to live life in the community of the church and pursue righteousness and love.

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And now go about the business of doing that. And guess what? We're going to watch over each other and we're going to try to protect one another.

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And we're going to come and partake of the means the Lord has given us, you know, to nourish and sustain and strengthen our faith.

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That would be a much better way to talk, rather than always using this,

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I don't know, this unsettling tactic. I don't think it's done maliciously. I think it's done with the best of intentions because we want to be sincere

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Christians. We want to be legitimate Christians. We don't want to be Christians in name only.

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We don't want to bring reproach upon Christ. We don't want to harm other people. But oftentimes we get at this the wrong way.

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I say that humbly, but sincerely, that in fact, what we need to do is emphasize the realities that God alone has accomplished through his son and given to us.

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And then we live from them. We're not chasing after something and we're not living with this uncertainty that it might not end well.

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We know we're secure and that affects how I live today. Yeah, be strong in the

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Lord and in his might. Not be strong. I just got to read this paragraph. I think we read it last time, but I think it's helpful.

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This is from Lenten Baptist Confession chapter 16 .4. It says, those who attain the greatest heights of obedience possible in this life are far from being able to merit reward by going beyond duty or to do more than God requires.

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Instead, they fall short of much that is their duty to do. And the point of it is, is that what's sad,

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Justin, is the works that we think are adding to this parole, this probation,

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God looks at and goes, those are not acceptable. Yeah, they have to be under the righteousness of Christ.

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Yeah, it is very different to say those who have received justification, those who have received grace, now live this way, versus saying, live this way in order to prove that you've been justified and to prove that you received grace.

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The former is apostolic. The latter is not, in terms of how we talk.

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And yeah, we're going to have another episode next week related to these issues. And so if today has sparked some thoughts in your mind and has piqued your interest, then tune in again next week.

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I would also refer you back. John, you already did this. The episodes that we've already released this year, a couple of them are very applicable in this too.

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Clearly, this vein is definitely in our minds and in our hearts because we keep kind of turning this diamond slightly each week and thinking about the law and the gospel and sanctification of the

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Christian life and justification and how we do this. And I think these things drive at the heart of rest and they drive at the heart of why so many of us feel exhausted and afraid and have felt that way for a long time.

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Justin Perdue, I know you're closing this down, but just to add to that and we can talk about what we'll talk about in the

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Semper Firmata podcast, but you know, Justin, there's no, I have no greater desire than Christians to be as effective as they possibly can.

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And how does that occur, John? That's right. By resting in Christ. And what I mean by effective, people hear me say that and they think, oh, effectively proving they're a

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Christian. No, I want you to rest in the sufficiency of Christ and so act and so talk as one who lives under the law of liberty.

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Or we'll talk about this next week. But when James says, what good is it, brothers, if you say you have faith in that works, the point of it is,

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I want you to be effective in evangelizing and caring for the law or caring for the brothers and sisters in Christ, because that's what we've been called to do.

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But we spend so much time trying to prove ourselves to God and God says, dear child,

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I already proved myself to you and you need to accept that promise. Over to you. So we're headed over to the

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Semper Reformanda podcast, or if you hear us say SR, that's what we mean. It's an abbreviation because we're cute like that,

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I guess. And it's just more efficient. So that's the second podcast that John and I record every week for our members, people who have partnered with Theocast financially, but also just partnered with us to see this ministry and this message mainly spread as far and wide as possible.

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We all have been affected and set free and have found rest and are fighting to rest, frankly, in the

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Lord Jesus and what He's already done for us. And we try to love and encourage one another in the Semper Reformanda community, the app that we have helps facilitate some of that.

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And so check that out if you're interested in Semper Reformanda and how you could partner with this ministry and get to know other people who are wrestling with the same things you are.

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You can find information about SR over at Theocast .org. John is making gestures at me.

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What are we talking about? I know, I'm getting there. But in this podcast that we're about to record,

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John and I are about to talk about something called Final Justification. And if you don't even know what that is, you should tune in.

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Very briefly, we're going to be talking about how there are some who will say that we are justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

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And yet at the end of the day, our final salvation will be based upon not only what Christ has done, but also our good works.

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And so we're going to consider whether that's legitimate or not. And if that interests you, think about signing up.

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Justin might even just name names. It's possible. Drop bombs. And so we're headed over there.

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For those of you who are members, we'll talk with you then. For many of you, we'll talk with you again next week on this platform. Grace and peace.