The Slow Death of Pietism | Theocast

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Hi, this is Jimmy. On today's episode of TheoCasts, we are able and blessed to sit around the same table and discuss and meet with our old friend,

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Pietism. The other night, the boys, we were discussing in John's living room how Pietism dies a very slow and painful death, and the damage it can cause to our assurance and what we see when we look at ourselves in Christ.

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We discuss the slow and painful death of Pietism and how it can harm us.

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In the members' podcast, we get a little bit more punchy, and we talk about the dangers of Pietism as it relates to the gathered saints in the local church and the damage that it can cause.

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We hope this conversation is beneficial to you as it was to us, and we look forward to you listening.

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A simple way for you to help support TheoCast and join their information is by shopping at Amazon. That's right, everything that you purchase there, they will take a percentage of it and donate it to our ministry.

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All you have to do is go to smile .amazon .com, and then search for TheoCast, Inc., and choose us as the supporting donation.

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To learn more about this and other ways of supporting us, you can go to theocast .org .give.

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Welcome to TheoCast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. This conversation is about the

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Christian life from a Reformed perspective. Your hosts today are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, Jimmy Buehler, pastor of Christ Community Church in Willmar, Minnesota, and I am

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Jon Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Well, gentlemen, we are finishing up three days together, recording, prepping for some new material that's coming out, so we're excited about that.

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We'll talk about that in a little bit, but we really want to hear from Justin Perdue. We just threw this on him, and so he's going to talk about his pro -con.

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We're in the same room right now, which is very rare. So that could be a pro. I think it's a pro.

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We're not able to record this video, so we're sorry you can't see it, but it is definitely funny. That's a con. That's a con.

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We're having a good time. We're having a good time. We're at the slap -happy stage of our time together. We've recorded six hours worth of stuff right now.

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You guys get two pro -cons, two for the price of one today. One pro is that we're together.

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A con is that we're about to depart. I've been thinking about deep spiritual theological matters, thinking about life, love, and other mysteries in recent days, and I'm looking right now at a bag of peanut butter

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M &Ms. I am for M &Ms.

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That's a pro. I'm for M &Ms. Absolutely. I like a number of the varieties, but when

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I go to the candy aisle, which I don't do all that often, but when I do go to the candy aisle, and I see that there are now 14 different options of M &Ms, it's mildly overwhelming.

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I'm like a kid at Disney World, and I'm like, what do I do with this? But then there are some varieties of M &Ms, and I look at it, and I'm just like,

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I have less than zero interest in this. That's sort of my con. Can we just calm down for a moment and just do the real classic varieties of M &Ms?

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Give me three choices. There are only three I eat. For the triune

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God we serve. If you say that you eat plain M &Ms, I'm going to walk out this room right now.

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I eat plain M &Ms. I will happily eat plain M &Ms. Peanut M &Ms. Here's my order.

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The peanut butter M &Ms is number one. Peanut M &Ms is number two. And then the regs, number three.

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Specifically, the light brown ones. With peanut butter one? Yeah. Peanut butter one. Peanut two.

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Regular three. Okay. You got it. Listeners, do you see what I work with? This is why

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I am the way that I am. We don't even pay you. That's right. You volunteer to be here. That's right. Regular M &Ms are terrible.

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I mean, I was going to come up with an analogy. Hot take. Wow. This isn't your pro -con. I have to cut you off.

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No. No. You listen to me when I'm talking to you. I'm important. Oh my gosh. I can't.

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Yeah. He's eating M &Ms, everybody. Peanut M &Ms. I mean, it's a protein snack.

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Am I right, JP? It's a protein snack. One could say that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to hold back

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Dave Chappelle references right now. Yeah. Well, you know what trail mix is, right? Oh, yeah. Trail mix is

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M &Ms with obstacles. We even have a bag of stuff upstairs. It's called a wholesome medley. Wholesome.

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To which I renamed the holy mix. The holy mix. Yeah. The holy mix. Because food is righteous or unrighteous.

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Yeah. Well, we all know that you are righteous based off of the food that you eat and how you understand it.

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Thank you, David Zoll. Yeah. So anyway, I mean.

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I'm setting a timer up over to my right, John's left. We need to get into our topic today.

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So guys, in the same way that you all need to die to your love and affection to regular

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M &Ms, we also need to recognize something that we probably haven't discussed in a little bit.

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Last night in John's living room, we were discussing the slow and painful death of pietism.

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By pietism, how we like to define it here at Theocast, pietism is this extreme focus and concern for what we call the interior of the

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Christian life. That is the feelings, affections, the things that I do for God and his kingdom.

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And so pietism has a very intense focus on how I feel for Jesus, how

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I feel when I wake up about Jesus and spiritual things. And if you've been listening to us a while now, pietism and our battle against it with this podcast is something that's always on the back burner, simmering.

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However, we also recognize, and the three of us were talking about this within our own lives and in the context of those we minister to, that pietism dies a very slow and painful death.

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It is very difficult to walk away to a pietistic approach to the

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Christian life. And so that is what we're going to talk about today, and so I just want to throw it out to you guys to help flesh this out.

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Why does pietism seem to die very slow and very painfully? First of all, it's not like we're talking about a diet or some other temporal matter of our life that has zero significance at the end of it when you die.

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What pietism does is it trains your brain to think about eternal matters and where you stand with them.

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So it's a serious matter, and pietism is always looking at the end, which is your eternity with God, and looking at the journey of how you get there.

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That's what it's always looking at. So if you, from the moment that you are born, are being trained to think about your participation in this end goal, which is to be with God, and how you perform well or how you don't perform well is the determining factor of this end goal, this is not something that will die easy, especially if that's how you have learned to think and live your actions or that what you refrain from is all determinant on that, then when you talk with people, which we do.

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We get emails and we get comments on YouTube and we get comments all over the place where people are wrestling.

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What about this verse? What about this passage? What about this sermon? What about this book? Because it seems their entire world has been under this canopy of pietism, and when you pull that person out from underneath the canopy, they feel exposed, there's no longer safety because in pietism, you have a form of control.

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And then you pull them out from underneath that canopy and they feel exposed and out of control. It's scary.

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Jimmy, you said this already, I'm going to add one or two things to thoughts about what pietism is.

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It's a hyper focus on what we should be feeling and a hyper focus on what we should be doing.

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It's an emotional requirement. It's a hyper focus on my feelings about Jesus and the things of God, and it's a hyper focus on my performance and my obedience.

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How well am I doing at fulfilling my duty? We've said a lot of this before, that pietism tends to just invert the relationship of identity and duty, and that matters because what we end up doing is we determine whether or not we are legitimately children of God, whether or not we are legitimately in Christ based upon what we're doing or not doing, or based on what we're feeling or not feeling.

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Can I interject and dare I say, are we deserving of this relationship? Exactly. Here's the thing, guys,

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I think like so many other things in life, the switch doesn't happen immediately for the purpose of this episode.

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It's kind of like a detox season that people have to go through where you have to reprogram the way you think and the way you operate and the way you look at the

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Christian life. It's hard for us because naturally pietism just jives with the way we operate.

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We may talk more about this in a minute, but we all have a legal spirit. It's as natural to us as breathing, where we think about obedience in certain ways.

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We're like, well, the motivations for obedience must be merit, or they must be the escape of punishment.

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What else could there be? Keeping myself in. Sure. We naturally operate on a law economy, like I need to do certain things in order that I might receive certain things.

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We're working against all of that stuff. I think that's why it takes a long time, and that's why pietism dies a slow and painful death.

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Jimmy Buehler For those of you listening, if you are in the United States, here's what we need to remember. We've said this before and we've written about it before.

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That American evangelical Christianity is pietistic.

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I think it's fair that we say that. Justin Perdue At its core. Jimmy Buehler At its core, it is inherently pietistic.

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Justin Perdue They would be just evangelical enough to say that you're in by faith, but pietism then says you're kept in by works.

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You're perfected by your own works. Jimmy Buehler You're justified by faith, but then in one sense you almost keep yourself there through what you're doing or how you're feeling.

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Justin Perdue Because it sounds just right enough. Of course, we're saved by faith alone. Jimmy Buehler Or what's worse, if you're not doing enough or you're not feeling the right things, then you're maybe just not legit.

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So if we're going to use some terminology here, talking about justification, being declared righteous in God's sight, not based off of your own works or merits, but solely based off of the works and merits of Christ, applied to you by grace through faith, sanctification, the process by which

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God employs in our lives to conform us further into the image of Christ. What happens in pietism is there is an intense focus on the latter.

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That justification is what gets you in, but the manner by which you are sanctified or how far you are sanctified is how you stay in the game.

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And so sanctification, another term here, becomes synergistic. God does his part and I do my part.

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This is a pietistic approach to the Christian life. Exactly right. God gives me grace and I need to cooperate with said grace in order to maintain my righteous status before God.

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What sorts of things does that mindset do to the average everyday Christian? You begin to look at requirements that are achievable, and we can do that through what we refrain from and what we can find ourselves disciplined in.

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I'm going to refrain from particular actions that are clearly wrong, but we miss the whole letter of the law, which is why we go after pietism all the time.

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Jesus doesn't come in and say, don't steal. He says, don't envy. He doesn't say, don't kill. He says, don't hate.

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He doesn't say, don't have relationships outside of your marriage. He says, don't lust. So you're guilty, period.

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How measurable is that? And then we think greater effort will produce greater righteousness.

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Then when you're told that doesn't work, which a lot of you have felt this, my status in Christ is done when it's in Christ.

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What I like to call this stage of leaving pietism, and Jimmy has been using the slow and painful death, is that you have what's called phantom fear.

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Where you are walking away from pietism, but then all of a sudden you have that midnight fear that you wake up and your heart is pounding and thinking, wait a minute.

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What if I didn't do enough yesterday? What if I really did prove that I'm not

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God's child because of whatever list that you put in there? That's a phantom fear because the gospel comes in and says

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Christ is enough. Pietism comes in and says, no, there's still some left for you. And pietism will say, not only is there still something left for you, pietism might even say, yeah,

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Christ is enough, but you must do these things in order to prove that you're in him. Or you must do these things in order to prove that you actually believe that.

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Right. Or that you actually love him or that you actually know him or whatever it may be. There's this constant project of having to prove oneself in pietism.

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That's why we'll refer to it often as bondage and slavery and not freedom and not rest. It's not restful.

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How could a person ever rest under that kind of a schema and framework? One thing that I think is confusing for many, the language of the

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New Testament, we'll see things like this. We have been saved. We are being saved.

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We will be saved. We have been justified. We are being sanctified. We will be glorified.

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But what we do with our human brains because of how we think, and this is normal because we're finite and we live in time and space and everything like that.

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We think that something that is in the future must mean that there is some either level of doubt or uncertainty about it because it hasn't happened yet.

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So how could it be certain? Or we assume because it's in the future, there must be something left to do.

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So I think it blows our brains up because it's like, how could something in the future already be accomplished and already be over and already be done?

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I must have to do something to assure myself of that future reality.

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And then the preaching, the teaching, the writing that we're all exposed to only reinforces those assumptions.

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Yeah, it's a prove yourself theology. We just got done doing an introductory series on covenant theology.

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The reason why this theology is so important is that the covenant of grace is what we call an unconditional promise.

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It's an unconditional covenant, meaning that God is the one who does all of the work, and those who are the elect who receive it by grace receive it unconditionally.

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So if you are a child of God, there is no condition by which you must receive that or maintain it.

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And that is very hard to hear because we hear verses like, prove yourself, examine yourself if you're of the faith.

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It's fruit language, so it's like you better be producing fruit. We hear this without context and without explaining what's going on in the context.

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That's where you can feel that, wait a minute, the reason why I'm not with God in heaven right now is that He has left me here to prove that God truly has saved me.

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I need to prove to God that I'm saved, which is to think that God doesn't know

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His own. That's right, make sure it counts. So a couple of things I want to say. Pietism, I believe, and I think we would all agree, within the realm of the

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Christian life, constantly moves the goalposts. It constantly moves the goal that as soon as you are in this sermon series and the application is greater this or better that or more affections around this, you move on to the next series and it's a new thing.

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It's Linus and Lucy in the football in Charlie Brown. It really is. It is. You run up with all your gumption, you go to kick it, and the ball is moved.

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And then boom, I'm on my backside. You're almost depressed. I'd say you often are discouraged.

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Another thing I would say, I think the reason why pietism dies a slow and painful death is essentially like this.

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I think we have some listeners in the UK. Our dear brethren over there drive on the other side of the road.

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Imagine moving to the UK if you're in the States or vice versa. You have to completely switch everything that you are used to.

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Right turns are now treated like left turns, and left turns are now treated like right turns. What side is the passenger?

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I would imagine for those of you who are listening who have had this experience, as you approach your new vehicle in your new country, you got to the wrong side every time.

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Pietism is like that. When you are coming out of it, you have a very clear set pattern, roles, behaviors.

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It's almost like a reward system. You have trained your brain that if I do this spiritual activity to this level,

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I will receive this kind of reward. If I have my quiet time devotionals to this degree and have these sorts of feelings, today will go well for me.

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If I do not, God will be punitive towards me, or God is backing away from me, backing out of His commitment.

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We often think that it's like a mirror image with God. As I back away from God, He backs away from me.

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That is what a pietistic brain teaches. Again, to reemphasize, the reason why it's a slow and painful death is because you are relearning how to drive a vehicle that you've been in before, which is the

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Christian life. But it's completely on a different side. Justin Perdue Well, to use that analogy, people email us all the time and they're like, okay, wait,

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I've always thought this button was for the headlights. You're telling me it's the gas? I've always thought this was to turn on the radio.

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You're saying it's the heat? It feels that absurd to them when they hear this. A good example of this is the armor of God.

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People think, oh, see, if I don't put on God's armor, I'm now vulnerable. And they assume the armor is action, whether it's prayer, whether it's devotion, whether it's meditation.

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If you'll pay attention to the armor of God, they are all centered around Christ, the work of Christ, and our one thing that we are told to do is to put faith in Christ.

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And in doing so, what Paul is saying in the armor of God, he's saying, that is what becomes our protection.

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Our faith in Christ, Christ becomes our protection. Pietism tells you your performance becomes your protection.

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We're excited to announce that we have a new free e -book available at our website called Faith vs.

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Faithfulness, a Primer on Rest. And we, the hosts, put this together to explain the difference between emphasizing one's faith in Christ versus emphasizing one's faithfulness to Christ, and how one leads to rest and how the other often to a lack of assurance.

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And you can get this at theocast .org slash Primer. And if you've been encouraged by what you've been hearing at Theocast, we'd ask you to help partner with us.

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You can do that by joining our Total Access membership. That's our monthly membership that gives you access to all of our material that we've produced over the last four years, or simply by donating to our ministry.

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You can do that by going to our website, theocast .org. We hope that you enjoy the rest of the conversation.

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Right. I mean, even thinking more about Ephesians chapter six and the armor of God, the emphasis, like if you ever hear a sermon preached on Ephesians six or sermons preached, the emphasis is on us.

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So this is a great sort of expose on pietistic thinking.

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Ephesians chapter six, verses 10 to 20. Because the sermons preached about the armor of God are all about us and how we are going about the putting on of the armor.

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That is the complete emphasis. Whereas, what is the emphasis of Paul in describing the armor itself?

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Like you said, it's the belt of truth. Well, what is that? I mean, it's clearly God's truth and Christ's truth for us.

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Having put on the breastplate of righteousness, the breastplate guards us from mortal injury. Breastplate of what righteousness and whose righteousness?

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Yours? No. No, it's the righteousness of Christ. It's not about your holiness. It's about Christ's righteousness for you.

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Having shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by what? The gospel of peace.

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So it's like what we're standing on is our performance? No, what we're standing on is the gospel.

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It's the good news of Christ. We could go on and on and on. Finally, the shield of faith. Not the shield of obedience or the shield of works.

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It's the shield of faith. Trust in Christ. Justin Perdue That's right. If you have never heard that, most likely you've grown up in a pietistic context.

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We just told you that your blinker is the gas pedal. Justin Perdue Lastly, the helmet of salvation, not that you will accomplish, but that's been accomplished for you, and the sword of the

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Spirit, which is the Word of God. It's bananas that we would go to that text and make it about us.

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What are the first three chapters of Ephesians about? Justin Perdue God's work toward his people throughout redemptive history.

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Justin Perdue Chosen before the foundation of the world in Christ, sealed by the Holy Spirit, redeemed by Jesus, by grace you've been saved through faith.

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Justin Perdue Now he's going to turn it on his head and say it's all about you. Justin Perdue Because what pietism wants to do is say, see this work that God has begun before the ages began, you need to accomplish this.

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Justin Perdue We're not saying don't look at Ephesians six and think, well, that has nothing to say to me.

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No, but look at Ephesians six and say, because I have been chosen by God, because I've been redeemed by Christ, because I've been sealed with the

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Holy Spirit, because God has made me alive with Jesus, now this is my protection.

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This is my surety. This is my safety. This is my rock. This is what will protect me from the enemy, and this is what will protect me from doubts and fears and attacks of all kinds.

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Justin Perdue We're here in Nashville. We stayed with one of John's dearest church members.

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Curtis, shout out. Thank you for your hospitality. Justin Perdue Thank you for the conversation this morning. Justin Perdue We were having a conversation this morning.

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I've seen it on Twitter and I've seen it in some blogs where people want to come at us and say, these guys hate the

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Bible. These guys hate that people read their Bible. They don't want Christians to read their Bible. That, one, is a straw man.

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Two, it's ridiculous. Three, this is the conversation we were having with Curtis this morning.

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It's not that we don't tell people, hey, read your Bible. I mean, certainly. How blessed we are in this day.

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Read your Bible. Enjoy it. But what we say and what we mean is we do not read the

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Scriptures in a personal sense to generate God's affections for us, but rather we read the

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Scriptures because it helps us to create an awareness of God's pre -existing affections for us, and as Curtis so wonderfully said this morning, it benefits those that we live life with in the context of the local church.

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Justin Perdue Right. In one sense, you're reading your Bible for the good of your neighbor. The good of your brother and sister. You're going to Scripture and reading it not because it's a part of a personal improvement plan.

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You are going to Scripture to see something else. To be reminded anew of God and his faithfulness to you.

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Be reminded of God and what he has done for you. To be reminded of Christ and his sufficiency for you.

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To be reminded that Jesus will never lose you. We've just done this series on covenant theology, as has been mentioned multiple times at this point.

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To go to Scripture and see the certainty of your salvation.

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That's how we go to be edified. We go to be edified in particular in Christ as we look to the

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Word. Justin Perdue Pietism highly individualizes everything. Everything is about you and God.

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It's as if you're an only child. It's you and God. Actually, the New Testament, when it comes down to the interaction between you and Scripture, there are two commands given to the local church over and over and over again.

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These are the two ones. Faithfully preach the Word in season and out. This is to the preachers and teachers of God's Word.

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You know what the receivers of God's Word has to do with that? Consider how to build one another on love and good works.

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You know what they did in Acts? As soon as they would receive God's Word, they went into the homes and they talked about the teachings of the apostles, and they encouraged it.

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What we do with Scripture is, this is me and God time. What the Bible does is say, take this holy

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Word and use it to build each other up, not yourself. As a matter of fact, let's just stay in Ephesians.

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He says in Ephesians 4, when the body functions the way it's designed to function by the Holy Spirit, then it builds itself up in love.

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Nowhere in Scripture does it say your personal Bible reading is a guarantee to build you up in love.

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I'm just sorry it doesn't say that. Think about all those early Christians with their own personal parchments.

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They didn't exist. Yeah, exactly. Going home and having personal parchment time. It's not a thing.

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But as we said, we are unbelievably blessed in our day and age to have the Bible in reliable translations, beautifully made and crafted with fine leathers and paper and ribbons and whatnot.

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By all means, we encourage people to read

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Scripture. You are free to read your Bible. Yes, go for it. But what we're saying is, we read it with a different mindset.

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Remove the chains. It is a gift that cannot produce guilt.

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Why? Because it is the gift that keeps giving you the joy of realizing that what

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God has done for you in redemptive history through Christ is secure. As you read that and become more acquainted with God's grace that you look to in faith, that benefits those around you.

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And I will tell you that Scripture always promises the church is the means by which you grow through the public preaching of God's Word, the sacrament, and prayer.

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What we do is we flip that and we prioritize our personal Bible readings. I will tell you that many feel guilty because they've gone five days and it's been crazy.

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I've had this emergency and that, and I haven't spent any time in the Word. I'll stop them and say, but are you going to receive the means this week?

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If you are, take heart. You shall be encouraged. Two thoughts to pick up on what you guys have been saying.

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I've said it before and it needs to be repeated. In pietism, and that just means in evangelicalism, we think that the real stuff of the

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Christian life happens when we're by ourselves. Because again, we think this is an individual pursuit. It's a project of personal improvement.

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The real stuff happens when I'm by myself. I'm alone with the Holy Spirit and Jesus in the

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Bible and in my prayer closet or whatever it may be. Those things are all good. They're fine, rightly understood.

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But looking at the New Testament, it's impossible to deny that the real stuff of the

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Christian life happens when we're together, when we're gathered, when we're assembled. You alluded to this,

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Jimmy, about parchment time and things. Christians did not have their own Bibles for 1600 years of the church's existence.

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Clearly, even when the New Testament talks about the ministry of the Word, it is talking about a corporate context and a corporate reality where we sit under the

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Word and we read the Word and we understand the Word and grow together as a result of the ministry of the

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Word to us. Those poor fools for 1600 years, how did they do it? How did they grow?

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They grew through the ordinary means and they grew, I trust, through the fellowship of the saints even during the week.

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If we're going to talk about our life Monday to Saturday, the corporate reality of the

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Lord's day drives that. We scatter from the corporate gathering and then we go about loving our families and being good employees and all these things.

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But then even in our interaction with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, we're reminding one another of what the

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Word of God has revealed, namely that Christ is our salvation. We're a little punchy right now, but frankly sometimes pietism sounds really nice.

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It can sound very gracious. It's the ego. I mean, pietism can sound very nice because it could be the 10 steps to become a better husband.

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Well, who doesn't want to do that? Exactly. Or the 10 steps to become a better parent. Well, who doesn't want to do that? But frankly, many times that stuff continually falls short.

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Yeah, pietism makes a lot of promises it cannot fulfill. This is why when

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Paul says in Philippians that it's not only been granted to you to believe but also to suffer for His sake,

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Christianity is not about the improvement of your life. It's actually about the death of your life.

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The only way that you can find true joy and be sustained while we await our final hope is to be reminded of the hope that is in Christ.

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We've had people in our congregation recently that have lost loved ones through cancer. I mean, am

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I going to go up and offer them and just say, well, read your Bible more and all will be well? No. This is why

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Paul says we weep with those who are weeping, and we long for the day of Christ's return because then all will be made right.

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But now we look to Christ as our hope. We cannot look to anything that would cause us to be morally better or improve our circumstances because there's a long history, and I think

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Scripture is pretty clear. Going back to Jimmy's analogy of the slow death, it is really hard to be peeling back these layers.

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It's like habits. Let's just put it a different way. The habits of pietism. It's really hard to get rid of those habits.

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I'm just going to throw this in here. I think a great theme song for pietism is a theme hymn,

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I Come to the Garden Alone. I mentioned this this morning when we were talking with Curtis.

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I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses, and the voice I hear falling on my ear the

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Son of God discloses, and then we get this. He walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me

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I am his own, and the joy we share as we tarry there none other has ever known.

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None other has ever had a relationship with Christ like you do. But think about how we speak in evangelicalism.

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It's all about this utterly unique relationship that you by yourself have with Christ. Christ died personally for every one of his sheep, no doubt.

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He saves you individually, and he saves you to a people. He saved us.

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He died for us, and we are his. We do have a very personal relationship to him, but it is not private like this.

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It's so unhelpful to talk in these terms because this makes it seem that what really matters is when

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I'm in the garden by myself, and it's just me and Jesus, and I'm meditating, and I'm listening for his still small voice.

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It's like, no, brother or sister, what you need is to gather with the other sheep, with the other saints, and sit under the preached word and come to the table to have that preached to you.

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Here's what Christ has done for you, and sing and pray together. This is how

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Christ ministers to his people. Most pointedly, it's promised in the New Testament. How many times have we stood in a corporate worship gathering and the worship leader says, this time is just between you and the

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Lord? Really, what does that mean? Why am

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I here? Why can't I just listen to these tunes in my car? Frankly, I would save some gas money and some time.

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I think what we're told in the New Testament is to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another so that we might be built up.

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You know, an email we ever get here at Theocast is, oh, you guys are my church, because you can't listen to me. We won't allow that.

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You can't listen to Theocast and not feel like, oh, yeah, I think I'm... You guys are my pastors. Well, if you're members of our respective churches, we are.

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And that's not meant to be a slight to anybody. No, but it's just to help us understand that God has designed his covenant people to be with each other in the community.

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Another thought here. Give it to us. We've alluded to this already. Where we lose our senses in evangelicalism is when it comes to the question of sanctification.

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Why does pietism die a slow and painful death? Well, a lot of it really comes down to this issue of sanctification and how we think about it.

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We are so prone to think that not only is our sanctification uncertain, which is not biblical.

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We're promised that it will happen. We'll be conformed to Christ's image. All those whom have been justified will be sanctified.

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Christ has perfected for all time all those who are being sanctified. We could cite many passages, but we think that sanctification has everything to do with our effort, how we are processing things, what we plan for ourselves, and then what we go about doing for ourselves.

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We've been talking about the living room conversation last night, and we were talking about this the other night at dinner.

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How are we sanctified in the faith, and what is real sanctification? A lot of it is we are shown more and more the depth of our weakness and the depth of our inadequacy and insufficiency, but we are driven over and over again to the sufficiency and the strength, the power, the mercy, and the grace of Christ, and we are depending upon him more and more.

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That's part of it. How does it even happen often? It happens through trial and suffering and calamity that we never plan and that we would never ask for, nor do we sign up for.

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It happens to us. The marvel and the miracle of that is that we are actually grown through suffering.

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We don't punt the faith. We don't leave Christ. We stay, we trust him, and we grow.

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That's because God is doing it. You know, the way we talk about sanctification, it just doesn't square with Scripture, and it makes no sense that I've got to do this.

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No, God does it. It's right. Paul says, when I am weak, then I am strong. But we don't think that way. That's right.

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Yeah, Philippians says, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

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But let me re -translate that in Pietism. I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you, if you do your best, will come to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

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If you are faithful enough. If you do your part. That's right, do your part. Which he then goes on to say, it is right for me to feel this way about you, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense of the confirmation of the gospel.

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Punchy, and I'm sorry, but I'm not. He will bring a good work to completion in you as long as you don't prove yourself to be an unbeliever.

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That's right. Unfaithful. Again, I think we falsely create discipline.

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Self -discipline and sanctification are the same thing. We see them as basically one -to -one.

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Those who are called of God are called to discipline, and those who are called of God are called to sanctify. When he says sanctify yourselves, what he means by that is that we confuse the theological term with the action.

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Sanctification means a setting apart. The attitude of the world and the actions of the world, he says, you're of God, separate yourself from that.

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But sanctification under glorification is not the same thing. When we think of self -discipline or self -control, often in a pietistic sense, what we mean is we have a rigorous schedule and a rigorous personal holiness life.

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When in reality, I think the New Testament talks about how self -control benefits those around you.

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I'm not talking about personal holiness life. What I'm talking about is treat one another, love one another in a self -controlled manner.

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Look at one another with grace and with patience. Don't become frustrated with the fellow sinners around you.

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Honestly, it's all language of, here's who Christ is, here's what he's done for us, here's who we are in him, now here's how we live together.

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That's the tone and posture of the New Testament. We just do what the redeemed do. We're just going to live like the redeemed live, because that's who we are.

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To illustrate the slow and painful death that pietism dies, you know how you say things to people sometimes and they look at you like, bro, you have lost your ever -loving life?

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Justin Perdue That's right. Justin Perdue They cock their heads like, come again?

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One of the things that I've said to a number of people at CBC when they come, or maybe they're newer with us, and in particular when

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I see that these individuals are really geeked up about discipleship or are really geeked up about doing things for God, I will say to them in basically these words, your primary ministry in this church and your primary ministry even before God is to just show up here.

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Just keep coming on Sunday. Show up. People are like, homie, brother, there has to be more to it than that.

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Are you kidding me that I just mainly need to concern myself with showing up on Sunday? I say yes, because that corporate reality on Sunday morning will drive everything else in our

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Christian life. It will propel us forward. It drives the private, that corporate reality.

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It drives your private life and your family life and your work life, etc.

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Yes, just keep coming, because this is how you're going to be edified. This is how you're going to learn and grow, and this is how you're going to be pointed to Christ over and over and over again.

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This is how you're going to experience the fellowship of the saints, and it will drive everything else. So yes, just come.

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Jon Moffitt Galatians, when he says, bear ye one another burdens, you can't have your burden carried if you don't come.

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So we come together so that those struggles and those trials and those burdens, we carry them together.

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Then when we're entrapped in Galatians 6, we have the loving, kind, gracious brothers who come and sisters who pull us out because we're not capable.

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I think this is what saddens my heart about pietism. People assume they have the capacity to pull themselves out of sin, they just need to try hard enough.

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Why would Paul tell someone if they're trapped, enslaved into it, to go free them from it?

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Therefore, no, this Christian life is not designed to be lived alone. So as we head into the members podcast,

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I'm going to throw this on the table. Jon Moffitt As always. As always. So we're talking at the individual level, how pietism dies a slow and painful death.

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Let me just ask you guys this question, then Jon, I think you can close this out. What I want to talk about, or the question

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I'm going to throw out to you is this. How does pietism destroy a local church?

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Jon Moffitt We need a whole episode for that. I can't do that. Just one.

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Wow. Okay. We're going there. Meet us there. Well, thank you for listening.

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We got a little excited here, and I think mostly because we ourselves feel the pain of pietism dying daily in us.

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Jon Moffitt Yeah, exactly. It's a real thing where we are putting off the flesh. We're putting off pride.

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We're putting off arrogancy, where we think God is approval of our lives. God has never approved one of our sermons, meaning that it's acceptable in His eyes.

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God has never approved one of our righteous acts in and of themselves, and I know that's mind -blowing for people. The only reason we could ever be accepted in the eyes of God is because of Christ and Christ alone, on our behalf.

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Justin Perdue It's good for the listener to understand that we have not arrived. What's that? What is arrival?

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It's called glorification. We could talk about the arrival fallacy, but we have not arrived. We are still men who are learning what it is to rest in Christ, and we are men who are still battling against our own pietism.

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One of the reasons we get excited is because we're talking to each other, and we're reminding one another of what's true and of what

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Christ has done. If you hear passion or emotion or excitement in our voices, it's because this stuff is landing on us too.

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We deal with it every day. We deal with it in our own churches, in our own lives, and even through Theocast.

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Well, thank you for listening. If this is your first time listening, we want to encourage you to come over and participate with us in the

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Members Podcast. This is really the easiest way for me to say this. These are our supporters. These are the people who join in and help

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Theocast continue through all the different books and media and educational material that we put out.

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So thank you for that. You can go to our website, theocast .org, to join us there. We'll see you in the