The Laborers' Podcast- Christology part 2

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September 23, 2022

We hope you can join us as we finish our conversation discussing the doctrine of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We appreciate your support.

The Laborers' Podcast- The Holy Spirit part 3

00:01: Hello everyone, you have made your way to the Labor's podcast. We're so thankful that you have decided to join us.
00:08: Hopefully you will choose to stay with us and watch the entire podcast. Tonight we are going to be talking about Christology, and this is our second episode,
00:17: Christology part two, the study and the teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
00:23: We'll see you in just a second. Welcome again to the
01:03: Labor's podcast. Thank you for watching. We really appreciate it. Thank you for your support and your prayers.
01:09: I'm blessed to be again with Big John, Pastor John, Claude the
01:16: Happy Calvinist, and Tyler from Bread of the Word podcast. So thankful for these brothers, these co -laborers of mine that join me in laboring in the
01:26: Word and really love to share God's truth, and thankful that they have a heart to do that in love, and we just love being with you and sharing
01:39: God's Word and sharing His truth. How are you guys doing tonight? Good.
01:46: I don't know about that, but whatever helps you, but we've got the comments open, so we're looking forward to hearing from you.
02:06: If you have any questions or comments or critiques, we'd love to try to answer your questions.
02:12: If we can, we have a good panel here, so ask your questions. At least let us know that you're watching.
02:18: Say hello. If we can pray for you, we'd love to be able to do that, too. So let's jump right into our part two of Christology, the doctrine of Jesus, the study of Jesus Christ.
02:32: We would encourage you to go back to listen to part one. I think it was really, really good, and I'm sure tonight will be good, obviously, because it's about our
02:43: Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That's what makes it great and awesome. Big John, let's start with you tonight with question one.
02:53: Why did Jesus have to live a sinless life? In order for the gospel to be complete, the sacrifice has to be blameless.
03:06: It has to be perfect. There can't be any spot or wrinkle whatsoever, so if our
03:14: Savior has sin, he's no different than anybody else, and what therefore is, first of all, his death wouldn't be one where the innocent were slain, and ultimately it would bring into question the holiness of God.
03:32: It would bring into question all aspects of the prophecy about how he was to be spotless and blameless.
03:43: There's a myriad of things. I'm sure I'm leaving. I'm probably walking straight over some low -hanging fruit that I'm missing.
03:54: Go ahead. Yeah, well, anybody can jump in. We can help each other out.
04:04: Well, I would say for one thing, building off of what John was saying about the sacrifice, that the sacrifice has to be blameless,
04:12: I'm reminded of the very first Psalm. Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the seat of the scornful, nor sitteth, and I might be twisting that a little, sitteth in the way of sinners, something of that nature, but his delight is in the law of the
04:31: Lord, and on his law doth he meditate day and night, and most of us, when we get to Leviticus, we don't delight in Leviticus day and night.
04:41: The sheer fact that this is in here, when we are as human as we are, means it's probably not about us.
04:50: Amen. And I would postulate that Psalm 1 is about Christ, that he is the only one that possibly lives up to the standard of Psalm 1, that he delighted in the whole law, all day, every day, any day, and that his living a sinless life, which has never been done before, is a proof, it is a testament to the fact that he is
05:15: God. Amen. Yeah, I think that's right on.
05:21: Evidence, just like just like his miracles, his signs and wonders being evidence of who he is. Yeah, I think that's exactly right, and you know, for me,
05:30: I think, I don't think there's a whole, God doesn't leave a whole lot of gray area. I mean, sometimes we think of grace, and we confuse that with being gray area, where we can we can live in gray area, but really, when you look through Scripture, I don't see a whole lot of gray area, and I think gray areas of living and grace are two different things, and we mix those concepts up, but I mean, we read in Scripture that sin cannot be in God's presence, so I mean, there's a total and complete separation, that sin cannot be in God's presence, he is not sinful, himself, and we'll get to another text tonight that kind of speaks to that, and the sacrifice, sacrifices had to be without blemish, you know, kind of as John was alluding to earlier.
06:26: I mean, there's that defined line, and then to me, that kind of speaks of Jesus' humanity, that he had to fulfill that, that being unblemished, being perfect, being sinless, you know, as a man, to be an acceptable sacrifice, but then also, you know, as Tyler was talking about,
06:51: Jesus as God, he would prove himself not to be God, you know, if there was any sin present in his life, heart, mind, or anything, so to me,
07:02: I mean, there's that line in Scripture, and it just, it's consistent.
07:12: Jesus living a sinless life is consistent with Scripture. That's kind of my thoughts.
07:18: Anybody else have anything to add about Jesus' sinless life? Yeah, I would
07:24: I would add that's the, you know, the idea that's taught in the Scripture of the active obedience of Christ, so Christ actively obeyed the law of God.
07:38: Hey, Matt Breeding! His perfect and sinless life ensures the righteousness we require, along with the canceling of our sin debt.
07:45: Man, that sounds good! That's the truth! Yeah, so active obedience, right?
07:51: That's what Matt was talking about there, too, so that's the active obedience of Christ.
07:57: Christ perfectly fulfilled God's law because mankind is unable to feel
08:04: God's law, and that's the first part, and I'm assuming since I'm beside Big John, was
08:09: I going to get the next question? Absolutely! Because this would be a perfect segue, so we had the active obedience of Christ, why he lived a sinless life, and now
08:19: I want to talk about the passive obedience of Christ.
08:26: So Christ actively obeyed and fulfilled God's law, and Christ, as the
08:31: Son of God, passively took upon himself the wrath of God. So why did
08:37: Jesus have to die on the cross and rise from the dead? Okay, he had to die on the cross because the
08:45: Lord, the Father established it from the beginning, according to Leviticus, that without the shedding of blood, there is no propitiation, no forgiveness of sin.
08:57: So according to the Scriptures, Christ had to die and rise again.
09:03: That's where we're at in Luke on Sundays, right? So he's told the disciples this three times already in Luke, up to Luke 18, that the
09:11: Son of Man will suffer, will be crucified, will die, will be put in the grave, and on the third day, he will rise again.
09:25: And so Acts chapter 2, verse 22, the
09:32: Apostle Peter's first sermon, he says, As men of Israel hear these words,
09:37: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which
09:43: God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves also know, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and the foreknowledge of God, that you have taken, everybody likes to have fingers pointed at him, but that's exactly what
09:57: Peter did, and that's still what happens every time we read this, you have taken by lawless hands, you have crucified, and you have put him to death.
10:06: There's crucifixion. Whom God raised up, and he said this, he added this, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holding of it.
10:19: So why did Christ, or how could Christ die and rise again?
10:24: Well, because he was, number one, fully God and fully man. He perfectly fulfilled
10:30: God's law, thereby becoming the propitiation for sins, the better sacrifice than the blood of bulls and of goats, which was only temporary because sins were remembered again the next year, but now, by the eternal sacrifice of the only begotten
10:50: Son of God, he took on himself the wrath of God passively on the here's the thing, because he is fully
10:59: God and fully man, only he could have took the wrath of God. Nobody else, no matter how good a person they had been.
11:08: Let's say, for example, that they quote -unquote didn't sin, it wouldn't matter, because they're still not fully
11:17: God and fully man, and they couldn't have bore the wrath of God on that cross for our sin.
11:24: And so he died, he was put in the grave, and he rose again on the third day, hallelujah, so that's his passive obedience.
11:34: Let me ask you this question, Claude, because I think this is a common question. You were speaking of Jesus taking on the wrath of God, taking on the sin of the world, so how could his sacrifice account and cover so many?
11:55: How could it be spread and be an account for so many? I'd like to speak to this, if I can.
12:02: So, to oversimplify the specific worth is infinitely more valuable.
12:10: Paul would say that the builder of a home is far more valuable than a home itself, and likewise, in like manner,
12:17: God is infinitely more valuable than creation, not just because he created it, but because he's God, and he existed completely complete prior to creation.
12:27: He needs nothing, so the fact that God is infinitely more valuable than anything that exists, because he is infinite, both serves to make our sin against him exceedingly sinful, and at the same time, because of his sacrifice, it makes his sacrifice exceeding whatever sin could be.
12:56: I think that I might have butchered the English language on that. Do you smell what I'm stepping in at? To use theological terminology, it was exceedingly propitious.
13:06: Yeah, we're sin abounded, grace did much more abound, but because of his infinite worth, that's why he's able to forgive all or have the capacity for forgiveness for everyone.
13:23: The way I put it with my Sunday school class is, if you had a balanced beam, this is a terrible example, but if you have a balanced beam, and if it was equally balanced, whatever load on either side would hold it level.
13:36: Well, all of creation in one leg with nothing on the other side would fall down.
13:42: As soon as you put Christ on the other side, it vehemently pushes all of creation up. His value is far more valuable than all that.
13:48: Therefore, his death is far more valuable than anything, and his resurrection equally more so.
13:55: Amen. On this subject, I have one more practical question, something that I've thought through for many years, and maybe you guys have never heard of this, anybody dealing with this question in their mind, but speaking of the sinless life of Jesus, and then referring to it yourself when you're speaking to someone sharing the gospel or in prayer, is it the same thing to say that Jesus was perfect and Jesus was sinless?
14:27: Have you ever heard anybody debate on which word to use there? Are they the same, or are they different?
14:36: Jesus lived a perfect life. Jesus lived a sinless life. Are they the same? Are they different? Is one preferred over the other?
14:42: What do you think about that? Pastor John? I think it goes back to some of what
14:47: Claude said. I've really never heard it debated a lot, but I think it's semantics. I think we think of a sinful life.
14:55: I have read stuff on it. I think we think of a sinful life as breaking a moral code or breaking the law of God, the moral law of God, versus obedience.
15:03: Jesus said, I do nothing except what I hear and see from the Father, so he was perfectly obedient in every aspect of the
15:09: Father. So he was perfectly obedient in every single moment of his life to everything he heard and saw from the
15:16: Father, when he's healing or when he's preaching or anything. So he's perfectly obedient in every aspect of life, which in his perfect obedience means he never broke any of the moral code, the moral law, any of those kind of things, and so therefore it is sinless.
15:32: I think it's semantics to help us reason through humanly how we think, because he that knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin.
15:41: So Jesus, not for one second, knew to do good and didn't do it. If he knew to do good, he did it.
15:47: You know what I mean? But we sometimes I don't think equate he that knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin.
15:55: I think sometimes we don't equate that as sin. You know, hey
16:01: Sean, how are you buddy? Thanks for joining in tonight. So I think that's one way of distinguishing it, you know, of the
16:10: Ten Commandments, thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not steal. Well, of course Jesus never did that. So sometimes
16:15: I think people equate that to sinlessness versus perfection.
16:21: Means not only never breaking a law or a moral law, but also always, and as Claude was saying earlier, completely perfectly obedient in every way to the will of the
16:33: Father. And that even includes motives, thoughts, like gossip and thoughts, or any of those kind of things.
16:40: You know, he was perfectly obedient to every aspect. So I think that's one of the ways that I've heard it distinguished.
16:45: I'm not sure if that's what you're going after, but. Oh yeah, absolutely. And Rob, I would add to the scriptures for that distinction, for that definition, because I've never really heard people, you know, make that distinction.
17:01: But our confessions, this is another thing why our confessions are good, because it points us, of course, to the scriptures, but concerning the person and the work of Christ in Hebrews chapter 7, if you read from verse 24, it says, but because he continues forever, and what the writer is doing is talking about the difference between the natural priesthood and Christ being the great high priest.
17:33: He says, because he continues forever and has an unchangeable priesthood, therefore he is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
17:45: For such a high priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, and undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens, who needs not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the people's sins.
18:05: For this he did once for all when he offered up himself. So those three characteristics, biblically, that's a good thing for folks to go to when, like, if they ask that question that you ask, or for us to answer, somebody asks that question, well, what does the scripture say?
18:24: The scripture says he was holy, harmless, and undefiled, separate from sinners, unlike sinners.
18:32: Amen. And even like in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 22, it always, I think where some of that debate comes in is just like what
18:38: Claude's saying, there's always definitive. Another verse is 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 22, he committed no sin, neither was there deceit in his mouth.
18:48: Right. So it always gives, like, these double qualifiers, like, to just, to give that, not only was he sinless, but he was perfect.
18:58: So there was no sin in him, neither was there deceit in his mouth. So obviously even
19:04: Peter himself in writing is saying he never broke the moral code, and he went even beyond the moral code that he was absolutely perfect.
19:12: There wasn't even deceit in his mouth, you know. So Peter's saying there's potential for there to maybe be deceitful things in someone's mouth, but it not be considered, in our mind, even sinful, even though there's, like, this deceitful talk.
19:27: We may not think it as a moral sin, but that sin, no, never sin, and perfect.
19:35: And even like what Claude's saying, there's those three qualifiers in Hebrews, but writers always take it on out to those extra steps.
19:43: I don't know about you guys, but I mean, when we exalt Christ and you having this conversation, exalt
19:51: Christ, I mean, this is worship, and this lifts my heart to hear you guys exalt
19:57: Christ. You know, I'm here being lifted in my spirit, you know, higher and higher, hearing you guys lift
20:03: Christ up and exalt him and talk about his character. And just one more question that, you know, that comes to me before we move on.
20:13: Practically, when we hear about these characteristics of Jesus and who he is and how you guys have described him so accurately from Scripture, where's the application in my life?
20:28: You know, what does that mean for me, you know, in my everyday life, in my thought life, in my actions, in my view of Christ?
20:40: How's that applicable to me, to know that? Well, if we look at the book of Romans, Romans is a fantastic book.
20:52: We could spend a lifetime pulling from the deep well that is Romans, but if we do just a brief flyover,
21:02: Romans 6 is about grace and how grace has conquered sin. That literally says the dominion of sin has been broken.
21:11: Amen. That grace reigns. We get to Romans 7 and it's, wait a minute, we're still gonna wrestle with sin?
21:19: Yeah. We still have this problem that the law is spiritual but I'm of the flesh?
21:25: Yeah. Then we get to Romans 8. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because the law of the spirit of life has done what has set you free from the law of sin and death for God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own
21:47: Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. Amen. He condemned sin in the flesh doing what we couldn't do in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, according to the spirit.
22:11: It was found. He was preaching. Yeah. Leviticus 19 says be holy as I am holy.
22:19: Amen. We can't get there. We can't apply that apart from Christ.
22:26: And Romans 8 is that one anchor. That is what holds us together in this is in Christ.
22:36: My two favorite words in the Bible, in Christ. And so the law of the spirit of, so the law of the, what is required of the flesh by the law is fulfilled in us when we walk in the spirit, when we walk in Christ.
22:53: And so what Christ did on the cross in part, in addition to purchasing our redemption, is he brought union with himself.
23:01: That we are united with Christ through his death, through his life, and through his resurrection.
23:08: That we are in step with the Spirit as it says in Galatians. That we have a new operating system now.
23:16: We have a different way of looking at things now. We have the means to do things we didn't before because now it's not the
23:23: Tyler show. Now it's not what is Tyler able to do. It is what Christ is already doing through Tyler.
23:31: Amen. And when Paul's writing this, the church is getting ready to go through some intense persecution.
23:36: If you keep reading Romans 8, we get into suffering. We get into some pretty heavy stuff.
23:43: And it's still very encouraging, very uplifting, because this is the high note of the gospel is that God wins.
23:53: Amen. That neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor demons, nor things present, nor things to come will separate us from the love of God.
24:02: Amen. Amen. I would, I'd build on that to say this as well.
24:11: In Hebrews 12, there's two portions of Scripture. If we're talking about how we we use
24:18: Christ's holiness as a standard from day to day life. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which does so easily entangle us.
24:34: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, for who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
24:49: For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
24:59: You take portions of Hebrews 12 like that, and then go in 2nd
25:04: Corinthians 5, and I'm not going to read for sake of time, but the way that I've always looked at it is... It's the
25:10: Scripture. Please do. Yes, sir. Read it. Read it. The word should never take that back.
25:21: Yes. For we know that if the earthly tent, which is our house, is torn down and have a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.
25:29: For indeed, in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with dwelling from heaven. And so much as we're having to put it on, will not be found naked.
25:37: For indeed, while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, so that the mortal will be swallowed up by life.
25:47: And that now he who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the
25:53: Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage and knowing that while we are at home and the body, we are absent from the
26:02: Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight. We of good courage, I say, prefer rather to be absent from the body is to be home with the
26:10: Lord. Therefore, we also have this ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to him.
26:17: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for the deeds of the body according to what he's done, whether good or bad.
26:28: Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God, and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences.
26:40: Every line of this weighs out for me the temporal against the infinite.
26:49: So that's how you go from day to day, is that while the co -workers may frustrate you,
26:58: Pastor John, or myself, or you become, I don't know, downtrodden from whatever reason or whenever depressing things come our way, we weigh it out, knowing that all this thing is working for us in the eternal weight of glory.
27:17: I think it's Romans 8 .18, isn't it, Brother Tyler, that says, For I reckon that the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us.
27:25: These things whenever we think about how we deal with one thing to the next, we think that we weigh them out with eternity.
27:34: In any case, I think that's how you look at practical application of it. It's amazing.
27:49: I can feel and I can understand when, especially if people who are not geared toward theology, studying doctrine, that they may say studying doctrine, studying theology is boring, and especially if you're not, like I said, geared toward that.
28:06: I can understand that, but studying doctrine and theology in relationship to Christianity, the
28:13: Bible, and the Triune God, that study is supernatural, and that's where we're at now.
28:21: So, you know, unless you're geared towards it, any other doctrine, theology, yes, it can be boring.
28:28: However, there's a supernatural aspect of doctrine and theology when it comes to Christianity, and that's where we are now.
28:36: When we begin to exalt Christ like we're doing now, it's amazing the extremes of emotion that Christ sends you to, because there's this extreme sense of all.
28:51: There's this extreme sense of exhilaration when we're exalting Christ. There's this extreme sense of refreshing, and there's this extreme sense of rest.
29:03: I mean, all those, and there's many more that we experience when we're exalting Christ and where He takes us when we're abiding in Him like we're doing now.
29:16: It's so amazing. Let me give us some summation words, Kenna, because that's really broad stuff.
29:23: Let's like bring it in just a few summation words. Yeah, yeah. Where does this apply to me?
29:28: Number one, imputed righteousness. Amen. Okay, number one, imputed righteousness.
29:36: Can you flesh that out? Redeemed and reconciled and regenerated and everything that comes from that.
29:44: So what we could not do for ourselves, He did. That's right.
29:50: We cannot live a sinless life. He did, and so that is so important that Jesus is sinless, because apart from that, imputed righteousness.
30:01: In other words, us being justified by Christ's righteousness, and where we were unrighteous,
30:07: He who knew no sin became sin. So He took our sin and became our sin, and then I love 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 30, where Paul said this, and Whitefield preached a great sermon on this, by the way.
30:17: It says, and because of Him you are in Christ who became to us wisdom from God.
30:23: He became to us. That's right. He became to us
30:28: God's wisdom, God's righteousness, and God's sanctification, and God's redemption to us.
30:38: So what we could not do for ourselves, that's what He imputed unto us. Righteousness, wisdom, sanctification, redemption.
30:47: So all those beautiful things you guys talked about, I Jesus had to be perfect so that He could become imperfect in taking on our sin, and trading that for us just as a law.
31:05: He became the scapegoat, or became the lamb that was slain for the sake of sin. So He laid on the altar, and sin was transferred on to Him.
31:13: Not that He sinned, but it was transferred to Him, and in reverse, what was transferred to us? Righteousness.
31:20: Righteousness. Amen. Righteousness. Standing with God. And what did we do to earn that? Nothing. That's right.
31:26: Nothing. So that's why it's absolutely crucial with the doctrine in Christology of a sinless, perfect life.
31:35: If we don't have that, there is no hope for salvation at all. We close the book, we close the podcast, we throw our
31:42: Bibles out the window, and we just hope for hell. That's all we have to hope for. But because He was absolutely sinless, and in the promises of the
31:53: Bible that that is imputed unto a sinner, because He was the perpetuation of sin, the satisfying savor, now the ultimate application, what do
32:03: I do? I worship like my hair is on fire. Amen. I give thanks, and for those that don't have hair, our beard's on fire.
32:11: Whatever. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it's like... Amen. Listen, John, we need a little more
32:17: Pentecostalism in the church to sit around and act all snobby and reserved all the time.
32:23: My goodness, brothers, when you get that of how good God's been to us, then that's what you're seeing in Robert's stand, too, man.
32:32: It's gorgeous. So anyways, just imputed righteousness is the way
32:38: I took everything that you guys were unpacking there. It's gorgeous. Well, and I don't know how everybody else is.
32:45: I'll just speak for myself. But one of the things that you were talking about that I think sometimes can be looked over when we're elevating all the things that you just said, taking it back to the beginning of what you were saying when you were talking about He was doing what we couldn't do, even that revelation and beginning to understand that we couldn't do and needed
33:11: Him comes from Him. Amen. So it's everything.
33:18: Everything comes from Him. All about Jesus. That's right. That's exactly right. That we are helpless and He is our help.
33:25: That's right. Amen. I tell you what, let me use a country term here that'll make an Episcopalian run right out of their choir robe right now.
33:36: I got a question. Yes, sir. I may have. I was doing some typing.
33:43: I may have missed it. We talked about why did Jesus have to die on the cross and rise from the dead?
33:50: Did I miss the part about rise from the dead? Did we answer that question? We didn't go into that, but I did read from Acts, right?
33:59: So it talks about that God raised Him from the dead, because that's the thing.
34:05: Had not He risen from the dead and only propitiated for our sins, it wouldn't have been efficacious, because the blood of bulls and goats were shed.
34:19: Those animals were killed for sin, but there was no overcoming of the penalty of sin, which
34:29: Christ did when He rose. So positionally concerning sin, we were, like Jonathan said, imputed righteousness.
34:41: Therefore, we were justified at the moment of Christ's death from our sin, right?
34:48: But we still, Tyler said it in Romans, we still struggle with sin, but we are delivered from the power of sin, and one day, hallelujah, or I'm sorry, the penalty of sin is what
35:06: Christ delivered us from, and one day we will be completely delivered from the power of sin when we are at home with the
35:13: Lord and when we get a glorified body. Yeah, and that last enemy is gonna be death, and He's defeating them all.
35:23: Yep. Amen, amen. Jonathan, I think you're next on the list, but I think
35:29: I definitely would love to hear from everybody on this one, because I want to give our brother
35:35: Matt credit. This came from him when we were putting together this podcast guide or question list, and it's a question that came that I've thought of way back when, and it's a really difficult one, and so I'd love to hear from everybody, but Pastor John, we'll start with you, and I'm gonna throw a curveball here because I'm gonna add two more verses that I think relate to this question, and so we can try to, you can go from whichever angle you want to.
36:09: So here's the initial question that come from Matt. In His, Jesus, human nature, did
36:17: He have the ability to sin? Now here are the other two verses that are kind of related to this question.
36:26: James 1 13, let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.
36:36: And then Hebrews 4 15, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
36:48: How do we reconcile those two verses? Did He have the ability to sin?
36:55: What say ye? So I'm really glad I got this question. I was reading ahead and trying to find the order, and so I want to be real transparent right off the bat.
37:07: I have waffled back and forth on this, and then I have arrived at a conclusion for me, personal conviction.
37:15: So let me share some of my waffling, if that's okay, because there is a logical explanation for being capable of sin, which we would call peccability in the theological terms.
37:31: So there is a peccability, and so in other words, Jesus is often compared to Adam.
37:37: There's the first Adam and the second Adam. So did the first Adam, was the first Adam peccable or impeccable?
37:44: Yes. So in other words, the first Adam was capable of sin.
37:52: How do we know he's capable of sin? Because he sinned. He sinned. And so we know that he was capable of sin, and I get the argument when people say, even in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15, he was tempted in every way that we're tempted.
38:10: In other words, he felt the weight, authentically felt the weight, the emotion, the seriousness, the anxiety, even the lure of this temptation, yet without sin.
38:26: And so that in our mouth and in our bodies, we feel the drawing of that of, okay, if he's tempted to sin, then therefore there must have been a capability of sinning.
38:39: So I feel like though it's a flawed question, because here's where I come back with the second part, and this is where I have landed.
38:47: I personally now, I for a while argued that I believed it made
38:53: Christ more glorious that he was capable of sinning, yet did not. That makes him more on our level.
39:00: And to me, that made him seem higher. But again, it's a flawed question, because you can't ask the question in his human nature, was he capable of sinning?
39:12: Because if you ask it that way, that means you're dividing that he didn't have the
39:19: God nature. Good point. Which would be what, the Nestorian heresy and a couple of others?
39:24: Exactly. And so where I have now arrived is I am in the camp of impeccability, and within the camp of impeccability, that's with the caveat though, that you don't reduce the authenticity of what
39:41: Christ experienced in being tempted to sin. And that's what the book of Hebrews chapter 4 is talking about.
39:46: And if nobody recognizes tonight, we're quoting a lot from the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews is a tremendous
39:52: Christology book. It's hard, it's lofty in thought, it's written to Hebrews, written to Jewish culture, so it's sometimes hard for us to understand.
40:01: But the book of Hebrews really is, to me personally, the Christology book that what we're talking about.
40:09: So now I'm in that camp of impeccability, as long as you don't diminish the reality that he was tempted as we are tempted in every way.
40:20: He was hungry, he was thirsty, he wept, the emotion was real, the alluring of that was real, but because he was not of only the nature of man, which the first Adam only had man.
40:39: He didn't have divinity. So therefore Jesus had to be impeccable, even though feeling the weight of that, authentically tempted as we are tempted, absolutely impeccable.
40:52: Why? Because he was a hundred percent God as well. This is not 50 -50, it's 100. So the hypostatic union is absolutely central to the doctrine of this debate of peccability versus impeccability.
41:07: So I would argue that it's a flawed question if you only evaluate Jesus from the standpoint of in his human nature.
41:16: You can't say that. The question has to be, because of who Jesus is, in his human nature and his divine nature, is he capable of sin?
41:25: And then the answer would have to be, no he's not, because the only way that he'd be capable of sinning is if God himself is capable of sinning.
41:32: And is God ever capable of sinning? The answer is absolutely not. So in a lower store perspective too,
41:40: I would also argue, now that I am much more of a sovereigntist, if you will, when
41:47: Jesus came, he did not consider his equality with God something to be held on to or grasped, but came as a servant.
41:55: When Jesus came in flesh, the incarnation, that the Logos and the
42:01: Word became flesh, when he came in that, there was such a sovereign plan for him to be the sacrifice also, that that plan cannot be thwarted.
42:14: So I find great comfort in that, in God's sovereign plan, that there is no human, nothing on the earth that could have thwarted
42:23: God's plan in Christ. And so that's why Satan went and tempted Jesus at the temple, or when he come out of the wilderness, took him to the temple and said, see all this, if you'll just bow down and worship me,
42:33: I'll give you all of this. And so I believe that was a lie to begin with. How are you gonna tell the guy that owns everything?
42:39: But at the same time, what Satan was wanting to do in Jesus' humanity,
42:49: Satan was forgetting his divinity. And so Jesus, I mean, Satan's come to Jesus in his humanity thinking he can trick
42:56: God. And so can he? Absolutely not. So I do believe
43:01: Satan in that moment wanted to see if he can thwart God's plan to make
43:08: God sin. And so was Jesus in that moment capable of being defeated by Satan?
43:16: The answer is absolutely not. That's like a gnat trying to chew up a block of granite. I mean, it ain't never gonna happen.
43:24: You know what I'm saying? There's never gonna happen. There is no wrestling match between Jesus and Satan.
43:31: There is no arm -wrestling match over eternity. Satan is an absolutely defeated foe.
43:36: And so I'm getting into our next question of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He is reigning and ruling. And so there is no arm -wrestling match.
43:42: There is no like this wondering who's in charge here. We can arm -wrestle though.
43:52: So that's all I'm saying. I do empathize with the impeccability argument.
44:00: Because we want to make sure that we don't diminish that he was tempted in every way just like we are.
44:07: In other words, I believe Jesus being a man of power, that there would have been women that pursue him.
44:13: There would have been that temptation of lust, the temptation of power, the temptation of the crowd and the allurement of all those kind of things.
44:22: There would have been the temptation to all of those kind of fame and fortune. Jesus could have been an extremely wealthy man.
44:29: Jesus could have overtook kingdoms. He could have raised up an army and restored the glory of Israel.
44:35: He could have done all of that. But in God's sovereign plan, it would be impossible for him to do that.
44:41: Because Jesus had one mission, to glorify God in complete obedience, to be a sacrifice on the cross.
44:47: That's the only reason he came to earth. And so in the result of that, it would be absolutely impossible for him to do anything but that.
44:56: And so because he's God. And so there's multiple things.
45:01: I do empathize with the impeccability argument, but I am now firmly in conviction of impeccability with the caveat that it does not diminish the authenticity of the struggle that he went through in flesh.
45:16: That he still struggled. He still hurt. He sweated drops of blood in stress.
45:22: He hungered. He thirsted. He was tired. He was depressed. He dealt with anger, frustrated, all of those kinds of things, yet without sin, absolutely perfect.
45:37: So, I want to add one thing to that before I forget, Brother Claude, if I can, then that means that temptation alone isn't a sin.
45:47: That's right, of course. That's what James says. So in that regard, for people who are listening online, whenever you think about whatever tempts you the most, there's a certain amount of,
46:04: I think, guilt. Is that the right word to use? That people tend to feel whenever you think, well, that not even be a draw anymore to me.
46:13: I wouldn't beat myself up too much over that. The fact that you recognize that and the fact that you lay that aside and don't allow that to entangle you is actually a sign that God is working on you and through you in that moment.
46:27: Is that fair? Yeah. So, are you saying...
46:36: Buenas noches, Ezzie Selmer. Muchas gracias para ver. So that's
46:43: Ezzie Selmer in Nevada. Praise the Lord. All right,
46:48: Tim. You were asking something, Brother Claude? Yeah, so are you saying that you made the reference to understanding that temptation itself is not sin?
47:04: That's correct. Were you speaking from another person's perspective when you said we shouldn't beat ourselves up about it?
47:14: Exactly. I've thought about it like this piles of times. I've been known to have a bad temper.
47:23: So oftentimes, my knee -jerk reaction would have been in the event of hearing something bad or getting bad news would have been to do something sinful.
47:33: I'm not going to make light of it. But since I've been saved, now there's this time that gets added between what my ears hear and what comes out of my mouth.
47:50: The delay. Yes, there's been a filter installed where at times I just say, you know what?
47:56: Okay. I'm going to walk away from it. But I would be lying if I said the temptation wasn't there at times to just throw the gloves on for just a few minutes.
48:09: You know what I mean? And I think that the fact that God gives us grace to not walk down that road is a sign that that temptation isn't something that's going to snag you up.
48:23: Is that fair? Somebody add or fix whatever I'm saying. That's fair. But I would also add that if a person assumes that they are above sin and temptation, that they are setting themselves up for a fall.
48:44: Because basically, when we do that, when a person says, oh,
48:51: I would never do that or I will never fall like this person does or I'll never sin like this person.
48:58: What that's basically doing, that is idolatry because they are setting themselves up to the level that only, as Jonathan proclaimed it just a few minutes ago, that only
49:09: Christ himself is at. That sounds like a sin. Right.
49:15: That's idolatry. That's what I was saying. So I think there's a balance that we have that where we recognize that we have confidence and trust in what the scripture says, that Christ has given us a victory through his death, burial and resurrection over sin.
49:37: Although the balance is that we realize that we still wrestle and struggle with sin, that we still deal with it on a daily basis.
49:47: And then again, we go to the word. What does the word of God say? First John, right? First John one nine.
49:53: If we can. John writes to the church there. If we confess our sin, he is faithful.
49:59: He is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
50:05: But he don't stop there. It's like Billy Mays. But wait, there's more. Or if we say that we do not have sin, we make him a liar.
50:15: And the truth is not in us. So the Christian life really is about maintaining a balance.
50:22: And the only way that we can stay balanced is by staying in the scriptures, because our humanity wants to go this way or that way.
50:33: But when we we just stay in the scriptures, we've got a balance. And I want to add to I appreciate what
50:42: Jonathan said there. I appreciate him going into that question right there because I was just I was sitting back.
50:49: I was just getting ready to put my press my mute button because that is one of the hardest questions.
50:55: But he answered that so clearly and so plainly. And again, he he simplified a difficult a difficult question and a difficult subject.
51:07: And he did it by simply going back to creation. Right. And again,
51:12: I just want to reiterate this because I loved it because it's and it's like, you know, when when when somebody when the preacher's up preaching and then he's in the word, he's in the truth.
51:25: And because you're in the word and you're in the truth, it's like, yes. And it's automatically fist bumps, chest bumps, right?
51:34: High fives, whatever the case may be. And it's like, yes, yes, yes. And that's that's what
51:39: I was like there. I'm not going to apologize for being excited about it because that's that's the unity that Rob was talking about, that the unity that God brings with his people.
51:50: And it only happens when we're in the book. So, Adam, again, just to reiterate what he said there, we go back to Adam.
51:58: Adam, my answer was yes to your question. Was Adam able to sin or able not to sin? I said yes.
52:04: Right. Because truly, Adam and Eve were the only human beings that were ever created before.
52:13: Right. Because Christ is the second Adam. But up until that time, Adam and Eve were the only human beings who were ever truly able to sin or not to sin.
52:26: And we know they sinned. But Christ, the second Adam, the perfect Adam, did not sin, like he said.
52:34: So that is that is just so beautiful, Jonathan. I appreciate that, man. I appreciate your words, too, big
52:40: John, on that. Yeah, I thought it was excellent. Really, really excellent.
52:45: And because in my mind and I'm thankful you guys are so smart. I'm learning from you guys.
52:50: In my mind, I oversimplify oversimplify my answer for that question. I mean, how
52:57: I explain it to myself. And I would say that Jesus could be tempted, but he couldn't be tempted.
53:07: And that makes no sense because there's no in my mind, there's no other words to explain it other than like you said,
53:15: Pastor John. He he felt it. It was there. It was in his presence. So in my mind, it could be thrown at him.
53:23: Temptation could be thrown at him like like a ball or or a bullet. But but within himself, he couldn't be tempted.
53:34: So it bounces off of him. The Matrix. It could be in his presence, but it just bounces off of him because he's incapable of sinning.
53:43: That's that was not a God's plan. Like you said, he he couldn't do it. So that's just me oversimplifying it for myself.
53:51: Well, I just want to make sure that we don't. 100 percent man, 100 percent
53:57: God, which the hypostatic was in the was in the first group. So we can't let one outweigh the other.
54:05: I think that's the whole key in this argument, because where I've always struggled on both sides of peccability and impeccability or sin, able to sin or unable to sin is both extremes tend to want to ignore one of the other one nature versus the other nature.
54:25: So the impeccability nature wants to elevate the God nature over the human nature and the peccability argument wants to elevate the human nature of the
54:32: God nature. And the fact is Hebrews four 15 is saying he was tempted in every single way like we were.
54:39: So he felt it. He experienced it. I want to be careful with the word that he struggled through it.
54:46: But in his human is in human nature. It was a struggle. It was painful. It was difficult.
54:52: So I'm not saying that he was struggling with whether or not he's going to sin or not. But but he struggled through it.
54:57: Father, if there's some other way to let this cut past. Way to do this. Let's do it some other way.
55:04: So his human nature was very real. So we don't need to like raise his divinity to a point that that that that relation to us is very real.
55:17: But then but then he is immutable. So when we think about the attributes of God and the immutability of God that he changes not.
55:26: That's right. Makes sense. And so. So that's. So we just have to be careful in Christ.
55:33: We're not talking about the father. OK. We're talking about Jesus, 100 percent man, 100 percent
55:39: God. So that's why I personally have always struggled with the argument. And that's why I've landed where I have again with the caveat that we're very clear.
55:48: Yeah. His human nature was real, but not but not a sinful nature. See, what we inherited from the first Adam, we inherited his rebellion.
56:01: So what did Adam do? And this brings up a whole nother debate. We don't we won't talk about it tonight. OK. But I personally believe again, this is my conviction.
56:11: I'm going back to kind of playing off what Claude said. I personally believe Adam and Eve were the only humans in all of history that had what we would call an absolute free will.
56:21: Mm hmm. Yeah, they had because they were uninfluenced by sin. That's right. So then what did they do with their free will?
56:30: They chose to rebel against God. Yeah. From that one man sin.
56:36: Now, all men in our free will. What are we choosing with our with our free will? It's not an absolute free will.
56:42: It's a limited free will. Because the only thing I want to do with my with my decisions. Yeah. Apart from the work of God in my life.
56:49: Yeah. Praise God for that. But apart from the work of God in my life, I'm only going to rebel against God.
56:55: Oh, that's right. Luther wrote about that bondage of the will is what that is. That's right. And so so now
57:01: Christ in his divine nature overcomes that.
57:07: And so now he uses his will to only be perfectly obedient. And God himself comes to do that because no man could could ever do that.
57:18: And so it so it does bring up a whole lot of other debates and a lot of doctrines. And it's not just a little package question.
57:24: So. So that's what I'm trying to say. I wanted to try to package this very simple. So. So I'm totally on the camp of impeccability, again, with the caveat that we don't diminish one nature over the other.
57:37: That is both end. But. But, yeah, he has to be incapable because of the
57:42: God nature. That's right. That's great. That's where I'm at. That's great. Praise the Lord. I don't
57:49: I don't see any disagreement from anybody here. Sounds great. Yeah, I want to read. I like that snowball you were packing.
57:56: Sorry, I know. But it's an ice ball, really what you're making.
58:02: That's going to be a hard ball. Let me read our friends comment before we move on. If we were trying to do it all on our own,
58:08: Satan would love nothing more than to bring us back into bondage through disobedience. Believe is the key.
58:14: Little children, you are from God and have overcome them for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
58:20: Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, Tyler. We got really we're breaking down the two more questions because we're running out of time.
58:28: So this this next question. Tell us about the kingship of Jesus. Is he keen?
58:34: Where and how does he reign? What are the implications for individuals and the world?
58:40: OK, well, the kingship of Christ, I think there are two facets to that.
58:48: That question that first and foremost, he's God that we've been talking about, that the hypostatic union, truly
58:56: God, truly man, that there is a sense that he reigns as God. That he is
59:03: Lord of Heaven. All of us can agree there. But when we look at how he came into the world and the way that he the way that he entered into human history is very unique.
59:17: And it was it was prophesied in the Old Testament that the Redeemer, the Messiah, would be of a certain family.
59:23: And so when we get to like Matthew chapter one, there's a very specific reason that it opens up with 30 names that it starts off with a genealogy.
59:32: Literally, an account of the genealogy of Jesus, the Christos, the Christ, the anointed one, the son of David, the son of Abraham, that there is an element that Christ is the heir to the throne of David, that he is not just a heavenly king, but he is heir to the throne as the king of God's covenant people.
59:57: That that title is his. So when he entered into human history, that is something he took for himself and he doesn't sit on David's throne.
01:00:08: He reigns in heaven. Over heaven and earth, and there will come a day where he will become visible, he will visibly reign in our midst.
01:00:19: When he comes back with the clouds of heaven, we will see him and he will dwell with us while remaining lord of heaven and earth that he will he will reign.
01:00:31: We will we will just see it then. But the reality is that when we say that Jesus is king, that there is somewhat of a twofold meaning there because he is lord of heaven and he is lord of earth.
01:00:45: He is the rightful king of Israel. Amen, amen, amen.
01:00:52: And this question could go on and on and on. But and I think I think that there's implications that we that we don't think about enough, that we don't reflect on enough, that we don't apply enough in our lives.
01:01:04: I mean, if he is lord, if he is the sovereign, if he is king over both heaven and earth, then
01:01:10: I really believe that that has implications for our lives, from our day to day individual lives, for our family, for our local government, national government and the world.
01:01:22: And. And that's a whole different subject, but Tim Keller once made an observation several years ago that when you realize that Jesus is lord of heaven and earth, it makes it really easy, easy to answer questions.
01:01:38: Why do I need to read my Bible covenant? Why do I need to go to church? Well, it comes back to the fact that we are
01:01:46: God's covenant people. Yeah, yeah. He is lord of all. Yeah, that's right.
01:01:52: Amen. All right. All right. Paul Washer said it one time real quick. Paul Washer said it one time.
01:01:59: He said, I won't ask you tonight to make Jesus lord of your life. He he he is lord of your life.
01:02:07: Now, you will either bow in grace or one day he will be the one that rules the rod with the with the nations, with a rod of iron.
01:02:16: That's right. Busting kneecaps because either you bow in grace. Yeah. You will bow under the rod, but every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.
01:02:26: Yes, sir. So I'm grateful for the grace that is lavished upon us.
01:02:32: And I gladly, freely acknowledge him as king of kings and lord of lords. Amen.
01:02:41: Big John, we'll we'll end with you. But, you know, this is open, of course, to everybody. And this is, of course, another long conversation.
01:02:48: But but Jesus, Jesus entered us into the new age, the new covenant. But we also have an old covenant.
01:02:56: What's our relationship now that with the old covenant, with the Old Testament, now that Jesus has come and he he lived on the earth, he fulfilled all prophecy there of himself and was lived the sinless, perfect life, died, buried and was raised from the dead is reigning now as king of heaven and earth.
01:03:18: What now is our relationship with the old covenant, the Old Testament? Well, now
01:03:23: I might have a weird way of explaining this, and I hope that it's I hope this comes across as solid.
01:03:31: I believe that with we tend to our discredit to think of the
01:03:37: Old Testament, the New Testament is somehow separated. I think I've heard it said that the
01:03:44: New Testament is a revelation of the Old Testament so that in some in some way what you see in Christ is what is what the
01:03:53: Old Testament was telling about. I think I take it a step further and say that what what we have in the final culmination, whenever we're made like him, was
01:04:02: God's original desire from the beginning. I believe that God sought or God wanted to make a people to worship him.
01:04:12: And because of sin and because of rebellion, God had to redeem these people to himself.
01:04:19: But that the original plan was this. If God's sovereign, then everything that's happened has always been exactly what
01:04:27: God had figured it was going to be. And it had planned it out. Otherwise, I always imagine when you read
01:04:33: John one, one, that in the beginning was the word and word was with God and word was God is with God in the beginning.
01:04:39: All things were made by him. So we're talking about Christ now being in the beginning, the creator of God, of Hebrews one and one.
01:04:46: For in times past to our forefathers, God has spoken to us through the prophets, hasn't these last days spoken to us by a son whom he's appointed heir of all things through whom he made the world.
01:04:58: This is this ending state, I believe, is what God really desired.
01:05:05: But for reasons known only to him, or at least I don't know them, he chose for things to happen the way that they've happened.
01:05:15: And, you know, I may be like, I don't want to be out of line. I know this opens up a big can of worms into a much deeper theological question in terms of sovereignty versus versus God not being sovereign.
01:05:27: But I really believe that God's sovereignty shows throughout the entire scope that the Old Testament law and all the things that the prophets set up made it impossible for man to be saved.
01:05:40: All that was set up so that it was absolutely impossible for man to earn a salvation so that whenever salvation comes, salvation comes can only come by way of God initiated by God or authored by God and completed by God.
01:05:56: And we can in no way, shape or form help God in this matter whatsoever. And if it were if it weren't so impossible, then
01:06:04: I suppose logically or at least theoretically, there would be a chance that someone could earn their salvation, which obviously is heretical.
01:06:13: So to me, the end was what
01:06:18: God desired from the beginning, but to be glorified in all of creation and throughout all the church, the way that it unfolded through the
01:06:29: Old Testament was simply so that it would be absolutely impossible for man to be saved apart from God. That's a bridge version as much as I could get out of here.
01:06:40: I hope I hope it made sense. Absolutely. I think he just preached the gospel right there.
01:06:46: Amen. Always laugh there.
01:06:57: There was a guy that was talking about the covenants and he says there's actually two ways to heaven.
01:07:04: He said the first way is to 100 percent fulfill all the law in yourself, which
01:07:12: John just so eloquently said is absolutely impossible. So there really is only one way to heaven.
01:07:21: So to sum it up for me, Jesus did not do away with the law, but he fulfilled the law.
01:07:26: And I go back to the statement I made earlier. What we cannot do for ourselves. He did it. So Jesus didn't do away with the
01:07:33: Old Testament. He fulfilled every single expectation of that Old Testament.
01:07:39: So our relationship with the Old Testament is Galatians says it's a mirror. It is a school teacher.
01:07:45: It's a schoolmaster to us that that teaches us of our lawlessness and our sin and our wickedness.
01:07:52: And so our relationship with the Old Testament just exalts Christ that much more because now it reveals it's a revelation of the utter dependency of Christ that we have on Christ.
01:08:06: And that's it. I mean, that we have no shot unless unless Jesus did what he said he did, which was fulfill all the righteousness of the
01:08:15: Old Testament and then imputed that righteousness to us. And so when I read the Old Testament, what do
01:08:21: I see? I see I see my sin. I see my brokenness. See my wickedness. I see
01:08:26: I deserve to be the wall broken down. I deserve to be the city destroyed.
01:08:32: My home deserves to be destroyed. My family deserves destroyed. Nothing deserves to be left alive.
01:08:38: Everything deserves to be annihilated. But grace, but God.
01:08:45: Come on, man. Jesus. So so that's where I see the relationship of the
01:08:50: Old Testament. The Old Testament tells us what is good, but the
01:08:58: New Testament shows us who is good. That's right.
01:09:03: Good work. Claude, I know you probably remember this controversy that come up not too too long ago.
01:09:09: And I don't know if I remember the phrasing exactly right. But the phrase or the statement was made.
01:09:16: We need to detach ourself from the Old Testament. Oh, I remember that. Andy Stanley's an idiot.
01:09:22: You can quote me on that. Unhitched from the Old Testament. Yes. What a buffoon. Why can't we do that?
01:09:28: Why is that not right? Because the Old Testament is Christ concealed. The New Testament is
01:09:34: Christ revealed. That's right. You can't you can't understand that the New Testament is the exegesis in the explanation of what the
01:09:44: Old Testament said in the New Testament. And again, they they are they are inseparable.
01:09:52: You can't have one without the other. One doesn't mean anything without the other. In truth.
01:09:57: It's like trying to tell somebody if you just walk up to somebody and say, hey,
01:10:02: Jesus, I shared this week before last. Hey, Jesus has a wonderful plan for your life.
01:10:10: So what? Right. If you just walk up and tell somebody you think you're sharing the gospel, you are dead wrong.
01:10:17: Because guess what? You could say the same thing about my wife, April. April has a wonderful plan for your life.
01:10:23: Yes, she does. She loves me and she has stuff for me to do. Right.
01:10:30: What does that doesn't change anything. So the Old Testament is the law.
01:10:36: This is this is why as men of God, when we proclaim the gospel, we have to preach law and gospel.
01:10:44: We have to preach law first because the law shows us the exceeding sinfulness of our sin.
01:10:51: And the gospel shows us the grace of God and the forgiveness of our sin.
01:10:57: Yeah. Amen. Amen. Don't unhitch the Old Testament. That's where Jesus is.
01:11:03: Hey, man. Good job. I need to put that on a T -shirt or something. That's quotable.
01:11:10: Speaking of T -shirts. Hey, that's a nice T -shirt you got there. That's right.
01:11:16: Hey, that is the Here I Stand Theology podcast new design T -shirt. Yeah. Not trademarked.
01:11:22: Not trademarked. I'd encourage you guys, if you've never done this in any pastors that listen to this,
01:11:27: I would encourage you one of my favorite series of sermons that I ever preached. And I don't do this much anymore now.
01:11:34: We just preach straight through books of the Bible. But I really felt convicted to do this early in our church plant just to just to help tie
01:11:42: Old Testament, New Testament together. We started in Genesis and preached preached all the way through the
01:11:48: Old Testament pictures of the gospel in the Old Testament. So hear this one out real quick.
01:11:54: In Genesis chapter one and chapter two, you have creation. You have Adam and Eve.
01:12:00: And in Genesis chapter three, we have the fall. How did God respond to the fall? He killed an animal and he clothed them with the skins of that animal.
01:12:10: And so guess what we have? We have sinful man, Christ who died, and now we're clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
01:12:16: The one that was sacrificed, Adam and Eve were clothed in that and Christ died.
01:12:23: The ark makes a beautiful illustration of the gospel because we have the wrath of God coming up on the earth.
01:12:30: But all who enter into the ark will be saved and were saved from the destruction and the wrath of God.
01:12:40: And so guess what the ark is? It's not the works of man. It's Christ.
01:12:46: So those are easy ones, but then you can go all the way through and you see the red line all the way through of the images of Christ all the way through the
01:12:56: Old Testament. So it might be concealed, but it's the foreshadowing of the Savior that is coming.
01:13:02: And if we detach from that, we lose a Savior. And most importantly, for me personally, part of my salvation was the
01:13:13: Messianic prophecies. Like I wanted to disprove Jesus in my rebellion because I had been raised a
01:13:21: Christian. I wanted to disprove. I wanted to live rebellious. I wanted out from under this religion.
01:13:27: And so I was like, I know what I'll do. I'll destroy it all. I'm, you know, and foolishly,
01:13:35: I began to study the Old Testament and to disprove, to find one of those
01:13:41: Messianic prophecies that Jesus didn't fulfill. And guess what? I found out you couldn't find one.
01:13:48: That's right. Every single one of them. So the only way is a sovereign
01:13:54: God himself came and fulfilled everything that he said about himself. And so, so the
01:13:59: Old Testament, you take it, you take it away. You take away a
01:14:05: Savior. You take away the gospel. There is no gospel apart from the Old Testament.
01:14:10: There is no good news apart from the Old Testament. There is no Savior if you take away the
01:14:16: Old Testament. And so, so it is, it is foolish to say such thing as that.
01:14:22: And it's heretical to say. But I would remind us, be kind once another, forgiving and tenderhearted and understanding because there are foolish guys in the passion of preaching say very foolish things.
01:14:33: Andy Stanley may have meant exactly what he said. I don't know. You go back and listen to it. This is not a heat of the moment.
01:14:40: This is a continued series. Then that's crazy. I know. That's why I said he's an idiot.
01:14:46: I agree. Yeah, I would call it my heretic.
01:14:51: So, so that's terrible. You know what I mean? So all I'm saying is though the
01:14:57: Bible, we already had a podcast on that. The Bible is God's inspired, infallible, inerrant word.
01:15:05: It is the word of God. And so we can preach a long time with all this stuff, guys. Tyler, I'm going to ask
01:15:14: Pastor John one more thing. But when he finishes, if you would, close us in prayer. Pastor John, somebody, somebody is,
01:15:23: Jesus is revealing himself. Somebody is being convicted because we've talked about the law.
01:15:28: We've, we've looked back at the old covenant. We've looked at the prophecies. We looked at the law and what it means to us and how it shows us our sin.
01:15:34: And Jesus is revealing himself to somebody and they're feeling the weight of their sin. And they want to come to Jesus.
01:15:42: How should they respond? Amen. Thank you for letting me speak to that. I was hoping I get to do this tonight, by the way.
01:15:48: Praise the Lord. Because this is, there's nothing more precious than this.
01:15:55: And tonight, if you've heard this and you've heard what we've been talking about, we've, we've been talking about Jesus.
01:16:03: Amen. And, and the Bible is so clear. There is, there is no other way for the forgiveness of sin.
01:16:11: Amen. Except Jesus. There's no other way to be reconciled to God except through Jesus.
01:16:20: And we spent just a moment talking about the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus.
01:16:27: Why is that important? And I love how Paul writes it in Ephesians.
01:16:34: In Ephesians chapter 2, it says this, you were, you were dead in the transgressions of your sin.
01:16:40: Why, why was it important that Jesus became, came as a man? It's because he had to come to where we were.
01:16:46: And why did he have to die? He had to come to where we were. We were dead in the grave, rotten in the grave.
01:16:54: That's right. And then by the power of his resurrection, what we could not do, he grabs hold of us and resurrects and by his life now
01:17:04: I'm alive. By grace I've been saved. And then what does God command? He commands all men repent.
01:17:11: Now let me explain what repent means. The word repent isn't just turning from sin. It actually, there's something that, that is a precursor to turning from our sin.
01:17:20: I believe turning from sin is a product. It's confessing we're a sinner. But repenting means changing my mind.
01:17:26: That is really salvation is when we change our mind that I am, I am incapable.
01:17:32: I've come to the end of myself. I am incapable of saving myself. And now
01:17:38: I'm going to throw the full weight of faith and the hope of salvation in the finished work of Jesus.
01:17:44: My mind is changed. And as a product of that, by all means, I will turn from sin. I'm going to look more like Jesus.
01:17:50: I'm going to, I'm changed because of him. But I'm going to change my mind and cast my full weight upon him.
01:17:55: So how do you respond? It's that it's repent. Stop believing that you have any ability to save yourself and call upon the
01:18:06: Lord and say, Lord, you're my only hope. And so today, if I stand before God and he says, why should
01:18:12: I let you in heaven? Or if I stand before God and he says, you deserve hell, what would I say? You're exactly right.
01:18:19: I deserve hell. And the only shot that I got is that Jesus is who he said he was.
01:18:25: And that Jesus did what he said he did. It would do, which is pay for all my sin. And if Jesus didn't do that, then
01:18:32: I will spend eternity in hell. But praise God, because Jesus did do that. We have eternal life for all that believe.
01:18:42: So God has told you a promise, loved ones. He's told you a promise. He said, you have sinned against me.
01:18:47: But here's the promise of God. I paid for all your sin through the blood of my son. He resurrected from the dead to conquer all of these things.
01:18:56: And it is absolutely finished. Now come enter into my rest and believe upon me. So what I'd say the call to respond tonight is this.
01:19:04: Believe God. Believe his word. Believe that Jesus is enough.
01:19:09: And the Bible says when we do, when our faith, this gift that God gives us, to believe this and find rest in it, it's miraculous.
01:19:17: We don't like it as humans because we want to somehow earn it. But it's miraculous that that pleases
01:19:23: God. And God then imputes a righteousness to us. He considers us right with him by us believing this truth, that Jesus is the son of God.
01:19:37: Jesus is God. He died on the cross for our sin, rose from the dead, and it was enough to save us.
01:19:43: And we now rest in that. And so I would encourage you to not respond and believe it's enough.
01:19:51: Believe in Jesus. And then call upon him. It really is that simple. Just say,
01:19:56: Lord, I get it. I can't save myself and I need a savior. Would you save me? And the beautiful thing is when we do that, he doesn't turn anybody away.
01:20:05: By all means. Yes, I will. And I already have. That's right.
01:20:11: That's right. So tonight, I hope that you will call upon the Lord, put your faith in Jesus, enter into his rest and know the salvation of God in his son,
01:20:21: Jesus. Amen. Tyler, it's yours, brother. Let's pray.
01:20:31: Oh, Lord. Our Lord. How majestic is thy name?
01:20:38: All of the earth. What is what is man that you are mindful of him?
01:20:45: The son of man. And you remember him. Lord, we agree with this.
01:20:53: We say this today. Having drawn our minds to who you are.
01:20:59: To what you've shown us about who you are. Through this word. And we've consumed this book.
01:21:10: Earn us to know you more. To know you and to know you more. Because in you, we live, move and have our being.
01:21:20: This is not just a book. And you are not just any person. We are bound to you.
01:21:27: The unshakable covenant. Yes. Not because of anything we bring to the table. But you walk through the entrails entirely because it is solely your covenant.
01:21:38: Yes. You did all the work that is necessary. You established this covenant entirely of your own means.
01:21:46: Of your own devices. Of your own being. And you have graciously invited us.
01:21:52: To be recipients of it. Not because we're deserving. Not because we have something impressive on our resume.
01:22:01: But solely because of how gracious you are our king. And Lord, we bow willingly.
01:22:10: And gratefully. To a good and gracious king. Amen. Amen.
01:22:18: Hallelujah. Thank you so much everybody for watching or listening to the
01:22:23: Laborer's Podcast. We really appreciate it. As always, we ask you to remember that Jesus is king.
01:22:29: Go live in the victory of Christ. Go speak with the authority of Christ. And continue to go out there and share the gospel of Christ.