The Cutting Room Floor Ep 6 - "What are the Means of Grace?"

Redeemer Bible Fellowship

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November 7, 2022

00:00: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you're listening to this. I am Kofi Adawan. I'm here with Eddie Casillas, and this is episode six, six?
00:10: Yeah, I think you said it was six. Yes. Okay. Episode six of the Cutting Room Floor podcast, a podcast where we dig in a little deeper into the sermons preached at the
00:21: Redeemer Bible Fellowship in Bedford, Oregon, and just have some great discussion. Eddie, how are you doing? So far, so good, man.
00:27: Thanks for having me back. Always good, always good to be back. This week, we are talking about...
00:34: We're actually behind, which is probably a good place to start. We are officially now...
00:40: We'll probably be two weeks behind by the time we get time to record the rest, which is good.
00:45: Hopefully, some more mature thought based on this. Yeah, yeah. I've had my post -sermon nightmare where I thought about all the stuff
00:53: I should have said. But in this sermon, we are a little behind, but we're going to talk about the sermon that was preached a couple of weeks ago on what are the means of grace, a topic that we don't often talk about in evangelical circles, mostly because most evangelicals don't really know what the means of grace are.
01:11: But we'll hopefully talk about that and have a good discussion. So I'll turn it over to Eddie, and we'll kick off from there.
01:18: Yeah, I think one of the things that you learn from growing up in these evangelical circles, at least from my experience, that these new terms are so different, especially the means of grace.
01:32: And you think about that. And I mean, before, I had no idea what it was.
01:37: I didn't even have a category for it. I just knew, go to church, sing a song, and then hear the word a little bit, go home.
01:46: That was pretty much what I knew. And so coming into a new understanding of the means of grace and knowing that they're very particular things that we do in the body of Christ is massive.
02:00: And so one of the questions I had, Kofi, you know, what are the major differences between something you mentioned in the sermon?
02:12: So like this, there was the seven sacraments versus the means of grace. Um, you know, honestly,
02:19: I don't know too much about that. I know I've heard of that in Rome, but I don't know if they view it in that way.
02:25: And so could you just expand on that a little bit more? Sure. So let me,
02:31: I think I have this resource. Let me double check because this might make our job a little bit easier in answering that question.
02:45: So I don't have it. Okay. I thought I did. Um, so when we talk about this idea of the, um, the sacraments versus the means of grace, first of all, as historic
03:00: Protestants, we would say that actually we believe in the sacraments. We just don't believe in seven of them.
03:07: That's where the debate is. How many are there? We would say that there are two primarily.
03:12: There are some who would argue that there are more ordinances than that. Um, even in Protestant circles, but I think the historic reformed understanding of the two sacraments being, uh, baptism and the
03:25: Lord's table, uh, those are the ones we see clearly prescribed to us in the Bible in that sort of way.
03:32: Well, you have those Rome says that there are seven and I was trying to pull up what the actual list of,
03:37: I always get one wrong. So I'm going to use trusty Google and then
03:43: Google will help me out here. So seven, seven sacraments of the Catholic church. That was nice and easy. So I guess this is from a
03:52: Catholic church. Yes, it is. Okay. So for the benefit of those of you who are watching at home,
03:58: I am going to pull up a slide here. That's the one.
04:05: Okay. Um, introduction to the seven sacraments.
04:11: Also shout out to my fantasy football team. Um, but for now we're not talking fantasy football.
04:17: We're talking about fantasy sacraments. Anyway, Rome says, this is one
04:22: Roman Catholic church, St. Anthony of Padua, apparently in Revere, Massachusetts.
04:28: Okay. Sacraments are efficacious signs of Christ instituted by signs of grace, excuse me, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the church through which divine life is given.
04:38: There are seven sacraments. So, so far, if you, that first sentence, not too much difference from the reformation understanding of the means of grace,
04:47: I would quibble about maybe what their definition of divine life is.
04:54: Um, but we would generally say, yes, they instituted by Christ. They entrusted to the church and they do do something.
05:00: They're efficacious in that way. Let's read on. There are seven sacraments.
05:07: Now, this is where we start to, if the road was kind of together at this point, this is where we go into a fork.
05:14: Rome says there are seven baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, reconciliation, anointing of the sick, also known as holy unction, um, or last rights matrimony and holy orders.
05:33: Sacraments are classified as Christian initiation, baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist sacraments of healing, reconciliation, anointing the sick and sacraments of commitments, uh, matrimony and holy orders.
05:48: And so Rome says that there are seven of these things. And I imagine this article, okay, it doesn't quite tell you what all seven of them are, but essentially you've got baptism.
05:56: That's a straightforward, uh, confirmation. That's a slightly more complicated one. Um, the
06:03: Eucharist Lord's table, as we would understand as Protestants, uh, reconciliation.
06:09: Oh, it's meant to do that. There we go. The anointing of the sick has it's called, or some traditions call it unction or last rights.
06:16: So that's when someone is dying, you, um, you know, annoyed them in the way of kind of letting them know the end is coming, um, matrimony, which is marriage, which is interesting.
06:25: Rome says that marriage is a sacrament. And then holy orders. Holy orders is, um, somebody committing to one of the religious orders of the church, essentially.
06:37: So those who are monks or nuns are typically partaking of the sacrament of holy orders.
06:43: Those who are priests, uh, those sorts of things. Um, and obviously they would say in the
06:49: Catholic system that the Eucharist occupies a unique place as the sacrament of sacraments and all the other sacraments are ordered to it as to their end.
07:00: Um, so that's the Rome's understanding. We can get rid of that. Now, as performed
07:06: Christians, we would say, well, yes, there are sacraments, but the Bible is very clear what the sacraments are baptism in the
07:13: Lord's supper. And there are means of grace, but we won't call, we don't confuse it and call them sacraments.
07:21: So yes, we would agree. And this one, I know I do have in Logos. If I can open this up.
07:27: So the Westminster. Attic ism talks about this confession.
07:35: Here we go. So in the Westminster, here's a language that's used, uh, for the
07:42: Lords. Well, for the means of grace, not just the Lord's table. So once again, for the benefit of those of you at home, you can see this, those of you listening in audio, um, area.
07:59: So question one 54 in the Westminster larger catechism says, what are the outward means whereby by which
08:06: Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation. So you can already see a little, some significant, a little, but the significant differences of language here.
08:18: So first of all, what are the outward means? So these are physical things that we can see.
08:25: This isn't something that happens internally. Like I said in the sermon on Sunday, I'm sure we'll get back to it. We're not talking about the grace of God that we experienced in salvation or the grace of God is shown in Jesus.
08:35: That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the ministration of God in the soul. Well, what is the outward means by which
08:41: Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation.
08:47: In other words, this is how I started the sermon. If I remember right. Jesus loves the church.
08:53: He loves every individual Christian. The church is on earth. He is in heaven. How is it that we enjoy the benefits of his ascension and session in heaven down here on earth?
09:04: Well, it means he's given is these means of grace. So here's how our fathers in the faith answered it.
09:11: The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to his church. The benefits of his mediation are all his ordinances, especially the word sacraments and prayer, which are made effectual to the elect for their salvation.
09:26: Now, we've got to be very careful that we read that word salvation properly. Thank you logos for being more helpful than I asked.
09:32: There we are. When we use that term salvation, it's not referring to justification.
09:40: Oftentimes we will equate the two in the Bible. Salvation is actually an umbrella term. It deals with yes justification.
09:46: Also those of our sanctification and deals with our future glorification. The way this often, the way that this is often described is we have been saved.
09:55: We are being saved. We will be saved. And so when it talks about being made effectual to the elect for their scientific salvation,
10:03: I would argue in some authors do that. Primarily what's being spoken of here is sanctification, our ongoing growth in godliness, where we're being made more like Jesus.
10:14: Well, the means that God gives to make that happen is his word. The sacraments and prayer.
10:20: And so when we talk about the means of grace, that's very different to Rome's understanding where you've got these seven sacraments and the seven sacraments are to varying degrees.
10:33: Um, you know, that's a varying degrees, actual containers, if you will, for divine life.
10:39: Now we're seeing though the believer already knows the grace of God, but now we're talking the subjective application of that.
10:45: Well, he gives us his word. He gives us the water and the table and he gives us prayer. So that, that would be the difference between our understanding and Rome's understanding.
10:55: Kind of a long answer. I'll try and keep my future answers shorter, but that's a good question. Yeah, that's a good question because people will get confused on that and will often mix up the two, which can get very dangerous.
11:08: Well, that was very helpful. So thanks for that, Kofi. It's interesting that, you know, the means of grace is kind of what, or in particular with like preaching, that particularly is what nourishes our soul, right?
11:25: And so what effect do the other means of grace have on us as people in the body of Christ?
11:32: Well, I would say all of them nourish our soul, not just preaching. Um, so as though in baptism, we are reminded of the promises of God, that we have
11:44: Romans chapter six. We have died with Christ. We have been buried with him.
11:50: We have been raised with him to newness of life. That's when we baptize somebody, we are saying, yes, you are being united to Christ.
11:59: The act of baptism doesn't unite them to Christ, but there's such a close relationship between the picture and what the picture represents.
12:07: What our fathers in the faith said, the sign and the thing that is signified. There's such a close relationship there.
12:14: That's why we don't take baptism as a joke. It's a serious thing because we are communicating to this person.
12:19: You are part of God's family. You have been saved by the grace of God. And that, as that word is spoken over them, remember all of these sacraments are nourishing as they're connected to the word of God.
12:35: And so as the promises of God are spoken over, this person is about to be baptized. That nourishes their soul because they're reminded once again of what
12:42: God has done. It's nourishing for all of us who watch it because we are being reminded of what the word of God says.
12:50: And the same thing is true of the Lord's table. I personally take Calvin's view of the Lord's table that Christ is really present in the table.
13:01: Well, at the table, I should say, as he partakes spiritually with his people, the bread and the cup doesn't become his literal body and blood, but he is present with his people in a special way at that moment.
13:13: And so, of course, that is nourishing to their faith as they are reminded once again of the fact that there is sitting in glory, a man who has been resurrected, who lived for them and died for them and rose for them.
13:28: And so it nourishes their faith that way, as we are reminded in a very physical way, as we eat bread and we drink a cup, we're reminded of what has been done for us.
13:38: And the same thing is true of prayer. In the scriptures, God speaks to us as his people in prayer, we speak back to God.
13:47: And the thing is, even in prayer, we're still speaking God's word back to him. So as we're speaking
13:52: God's word back to him, his people are being strengthened, they're being encouraged, they're being equipped to glorify him.
14:00: So it's not just the word of God and the preaching of the word of God that nourishes our souls. All of these means of grace nourish our souls because they are all in one way or another connected to the word of God.
14:11: That's what makes the difference. Amen. How is the gospel connected with each means of grace?
14:20: Oh, that's a great question. No, you're on fire tonight. I like it. I like it. I like it. Well, all of them are connected.
14:26: So it's through the word of God and the preaching of the word of God that we hear the gospel. In baptism, we are seeing a visual reminder of the death, the burial and the resurrection of our
14:37: Lord Jesus, which is itself the heart of the gospel, the Lord's table. We are reminded once again that a body was broken for us and the blood was shed for us, which enables us to be partakers of the new covenant, enables us to be part of the family of God.
14:52: I think we mentioned on Sunday where Jesus said, I will not eat this again until I don't drink this again, excuse me, until I'm with you in the kingdom of my father.
15:01: And so there is a wonderful relationship. All these sacraments have prayers, the same thing in prayer.
15:07: We know because of what Jesus has done. Hebrews chapter four, we now have access to the throne of grace, where we're able to find grace to help us.
15:14: That's why our fathers in the faith said prayers and means of grace. Can you say, well, prayer is how we find grace to help. We find mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
15:22: So all four of the sacraments, or excuse not sacraments, means of grace, all four of the means of grace are connected to the gospel in some way, shape or form.
15:32: And it's important for us to note that when we talk about these means of grace, just doing the means of grace doesn't avail you anything.
15:43: This is the difference between the reformed view of the means of grace and the Catholic view of the sacraments.
15:49: The sacraments operate on a principle to use the Latin phrase ex operae operatum, the operation of the thing that is operating or the working of the thing that is worked.
16:00: In other words, just by doing the act, the sacraments are said to have power.
16:08: We would say no, just partaking of the Lord's table. Paul makes it clear in first Corinthians 11, there were people who were partaking of the
16:15: Lord's table and they ate it to their damnation. Why? Because they were doing so in a manner that demonstrated a lack of faith.
16:25: Same thing with the preaching of God's word, Hebrews chapter four. It says that the word of God didn't profit them since it was not united with faith in those who heard it.
16:35: So these means of grace cannot be disconnected from faith. If there is not active faith in the promise of God in these means, the means will not profit you.
16:45: And so when we think about the gospel and the connections of the means of grace, ultimately, this is a faith life, not the company that makes logos like actual faith life.
16:56: This is the life of faith for God's people. As you partake of these things, we are demonstrating the faith that we have in the promise of God.
17:07: Amen. Man, the implication of the implications of having faith in Christ are just so massive for our lives and what the
17:15: Holy Spirit does. Absolutely. Man, that's awesome. So, you know, let's switch it up a little bit on that Sunday.
17:26: You were talking about a little bit about God's attributes, but in particular, his perfections.
17:31: And one of the things you said was that grace was a perfection. Can you tell me a little more about what you meant by that?
17:40: Sure. So when we talk about the attributes, I don't like the same attributes. So I prefer perfections, the attributes or perfections of God.
17:47: We're talking about those elements of the divine essence that make God who he is.
17:54: So if we say that there is a divine essence, well, what is this divine essence? I want to be careful in my language here.
18:01: There aren't parts to God or like God is like a big vat of water that we pour things into and mix it up.
18:07: That's not what I'm saying. But in the very being of God, from our perspective as human creatures, we see love, joy, holiness, peace, those sorts of things.
18:18: And we would say that the grace of God is one such aspect of what we see on a creaturely level in this one being of God.
18:28: And in particular, the grace of God is his unmerited favor towards those that don't deserve his favor.
18:37: So in the grace of God, we are saying that God shows kindness to undeserving sinners, not because of anything the sinners have done, but because that's just who he is.
18:51: And so when we talk about the grace of God as one of his perfections, that's what we mean. That it is a part of the being of God that he shows undeserved favor to sinners, not because of anything in them, but entirely because of everything in him.
19:07: Awesome. That's really helpful as well. And so would you say that God is his attributes all the time?
19:23: I think that's a fair way of putting it. I think the way I've described it is that God is all of his attributes all of the time. Okay. So you can't say, well,
19:30: God is being holy right now, but he's not being loving and just, and all you can't just, it's not a pie that you split up into little bits and say, right now, this part of the quadrant is active versus this part.
19:46: Ultimately, the distinctions that we see as creatures, we see because we're creatures. And so as limited as we are, we can only see one or two things at a time, but God is all of those things all of the time.
19:59: The technical term for this in theology is simplicity, that God is not made up of parts, but there was just one unbounded, glorious essence that makes
20:09: God who he is. Awesome. So is grace a substance?
20:20: No. And I think that's important. It's an important question to ask because one of the objections that some people have to this language of the means of grace is this.
20:30: It sounds too close to Rome and Rome basically makes grace into a substance. It's a tangible thing that can be dispensed in these containers called the sacraments.
20:40: We're not saying that. Again, in the sermon, we talked about the three ways the
20:45: Bible talks about the grace of God. There is grace as the attribute or perfection of God.
20:52: There is grace as shown in Jesus Christ. Titus 2 says the grace of God has appeared, and that's clearly referring to Christ.
21:01: And then there is grace as I think I put it in the sermon, the subjective working of God in our soul.
21:10: So how God deals with us in that immaterial part of us made up of our mind, our will, and our emotions.
21:16: But when we talk about the means of grace, it's not so much that the means of grace is a dispenser for this substance.
21:22: This isn't like the word of faith, where they teach that faith is a substance and words are the container. We're not saying that at all.
21:28: What we're saying is that this is the means by which God works on the level of our soul to bring about an experience and an awareness of his grace that's being poured out in Christ.
21:45: Yeah. Yeah. One of the highlights that one of the things you said that was a highlight was that grace is not a product, but it's a person.
21:57: Right. And when I think of grace, I think of an undeserved gift, you know, and that was
22:06: Christ. We didn't necessarily deserve it. Right. We're far from it.
22:12: So could you just expand on that a little bit, that the fact that grace is a person and not why it's not a product?
22:18: Absolutely. So text, I will take someone to if they had that question is John chapter one and verse 14, where John says that the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
22:31: That if you want a visible representation of what the grace of God looks like, it's the fact that God gave undeserving sinners his best, his only son.
22:39: Yeah. And so when you look at it from that perspective, what we're simply saying is that ultimately
22:45: God's grace isn't just a plan that he puts in place, but it's a plan that centers around a person, his son.
22:52: And so you really cannot understand the grace of God without understanding who Jesus is. Amen.
23:00: Kofi, can you talk a little bit about why the means of grace are ordinary? I mean, that kind of sounds like boring, you know, why aren't they like supernatural means of grace with power, power, power or whatever, you know?
23:14: I mean, they do have power. You know, I mean, they do have power. We want to be careful not to downplay what they are.
23:20: They are incredibly powerful. But when we use that language of ordinary means of grace, we're talking about just the usual means that God uses.
23:30: So can God use, can God use extraordinary means to bring about his purpose?
23:37: Yeah, he can. And he does. You see that all throughout salvation history. You know, he uses supernatural and irregular means to bring about his purpose.
23:47: He's God. He can do anything he wants. But when we talk about ordinary means of grace, we mean just the regular means by which
23:54: God operates. And so it's not to say that if you hear ordinary, you hear that to mean only.
24:02: That's not what we're saying. The way I often describe it is God may bless other things.
24:08: But he has promised to use these. So there are other things that God may use.
24:16: So if I can get controversial, it's become popular in our circle.
24:22: Well, not in ourselves, but even evangelical circles to talk about spiritual disciplines. Some of my friends reject that language entirely.
24:33: I'm not quite there, if I'm honest. But I do think at times the way that the language of spiritual disciplines is used is almost as though this is a substitute for the means of grace.
24:46: So if you think about now, some of the quote unquote spiritual disciplines aren't bad things like Bible intake, prayer, memorizing scripture, those aren't bad things.
24:55: Now, there are some things that the Bible doesn't explicitly say. It doesn't make them necessarily wrong. So, for example, one example would be...
25:04: Shoot, it just escaped me. Journaling! Some of my friends are very derogatory about that.
25:10: I think it's useful, personally. But it's useful. But is it commanded for me to do that?
25:16: No. If you don't journal, and actually I don't at this stage of my life, I have in the past.
25:22: If I don't, am I spiritually unhealthy or lacking the grace of Christ if I don't? The answer is no.
25:29: So we separate between what is commanded and what you can do. And that's why we use this language of the ordinary means of grace.
25:38: These are the things that we are commanded to do. These are the things that God has said he will bless.
25:45: So it's not that you can't do other things. You just have to be very careful that one, they're not contravening what scripture says.
25:52: And two, that they're not taking us away from the means of grace.
25:58: And if you wanted to chase a good rabbit, we can ask the question, what kinds of things have we put together in evangelical circles that take people away from the means of grace, but they think are more important than the means of grace?
26:10: But we're not doing that tonight. So unless you want to. Yeah, I was kind of heading there.
26:18: Okay, then. Yeah, because the point was that there are certain things that God has appointed.
26:25: Right. And so there's other things that are under -appointed that distract us from the means of grace.
26:31: And so we don't necessarily have to spend a whole lot on it. But I mean, there's just a few examples. I mean, there's a lot.
26:36: But the point is that God appointed them. Right. And, you know, since we're here, let's have a conversation for a second.
26:48: The things that we do that aren't necessarily wrong things, but they're not commanded things.
26:55: Unfortunately, if you think about it, these are things that people tend to get the most emotional about. So I'll give you an example.
27:02: Let's use one that a lot of people won't be happy with, but you won't get in trouble. I will. So it's fine.
27:09: Small groups. Does the
27:14: Bible explicitly command us to have small groups? The answer is no, if we're honest.
27:24: Are they a bad thing? Well, no, I mean, we have them.
27:30: If we thought they were bad, we wouldn't have them. But think about this in most evangelical churches.
27:38: And I know this is to be the case because I've encountered this firsthand. How many people will tell you that are my my my local church isn't my, you know, my local church is not my, uh, how do
27:52: I put this? The local church isn't where I'm most ministered to. So when we gather on the Lord's day or we gather if some churches do, some churches don't.
28:00: But if we had a midweek service, if we gather for that, that's not where I minister to. The real ministry happens in my small group.
28:10: I want to say. Let's pump the brake a little bit.
28:17: Let's pump the brake a little bit. Does the Bible actually say that? Or does the
28:22: Bible say that it's the means of grace is how we're built up? When do we most experience those means of grace in our corporate gathered worship?
28:30: On the Lord's day, right? On the Lord's day. So not wrong to have growth groups.
28:37: Our church has growth groups. We have two of them. You're looking at the two leaders of the growth groups, so we're not opposed to them.
28:44: But if it ever became a thing where that was where people say, that's my real church. I know
28:50: I can say this as a pastor. I'm sure Eddie, you would agree. We would have a conversation about, okay, that's a problem. What do we do?
28:58: Because that's not commanded. That's a supplemental thing we're doing because we think it's helpful.
29:06: Let me be a little more controversial. Here's another one. You've heard people say that it's important to have accountability partners when we're struggling with sin.
29:19: Now, is that a bad thing? No. In the multitudes of counsel, there's safety.
29:25: I think there's wisdom in that. But is your accountability group where the
29:33: Bible says we deal with sin? No.
29:40: Matthew chapter 18, Galatians chapter 6, Romans 12 that we looked at. When sin arises, it's the local churches where we deal with that.
29:49: And so I want to say, I'm not saying we throw these things out.
29:55: I'm simply saying, let's put them in their proper perspective and their proper proximity to the means of grace.
30:05: The means of grace are primary. If you have the option between doing this thing and the means of grace, do the means of grace and leave this thing alone.
30:13: It'll be fine. Absolutely. Controversial in some sectors, really controversial.
30:21: But I think in the long run, we end up having healthier churches and more committed members in those churches when we keep that distinction very, very crisp.
30:31: Yeah. So here's a question in regards to the guy who says, you know,
30:38: I feel like I get fed more during my midweek Bible studies than I do on the Lord's day.
30:43: This guy also says that every day is the Lord's day and that the means of grace are the same thing.
30:53: They're every day in his own opinion. How would you answer that person? So first of all, I'm not a
30:58: Sabbatarian. So yeah, I don't think every day is a
31:03: Sabbath. I think every day is the Lord's day and every day is a Sabbath in the sense of every day is resting Christ. So yeah, but I was thinking about this just the other day.
31:12: I'm like, I was thinking to myself, I said, Kofi, you're not a Sabbatarian, but you're as close to a
31:19: Sabbatarian as you can be without being a Sabbatarian. Real quick, what's a Sabbatarian, Kofi? So a Sabbatarian is somebody who says that Sunday is the
31:26: Christian Sabbath and we should treat it like the Sabbath under the old covenant. That's a broad summary, but basically that.
31:35: I'm not convinced of that position. I think there's some questions that you need to ask.
31:43: In fact, if you want someone who makes a very fascinating perspective on this, John Calvin, if you read his institutes and his exposition of the 10 commandments,
31:50: I'm trying to get my microphone in place here. There we go. So Calvin in his institutes, actually, when he deals with the fourth commandment, he takes a very different view from where the
32:04: Westminster and London Baptist confessions go with it. I would be much more in agreement with Calvin's view than I would with the
32:12: Westminster and the London Baptist at that point. But that's what Sabbatarian means. Someone who says that Sunday is the
32:18: Christian Sabbath and should be treated like the Sabbath under the old covenant, more or less.
32:24: So I'm not that. And so in that sense, yeah, I do think every day is a Sabbath. That being said,
32:31: I do read in the Bible, and this will be next week's episode, Hebrew chapter 10 verses 24 and 25, that we are to bear in mind, we are to consider, we're to think about how we will provoke one another to love and good works, not neglecting the gathering together of ourselves as is the manner of some, but encouraging one another and doing so all the more as you see the day of Christ approaching.
32:57: So that implies that, okay, there is a specific time when we get together for that purpose. I would also add
33:04: Revelation chapter one in verse 10 uses this language of, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day. Some people will take that.
33:10: I used to take that as I was talking about the day of the Lord, as in this period of judgment that's shown in Revelation.
33:16: That's not historic Christian usage by and large. When that day is mentioned in Revelation one time, we all know that's talking about the first day of the week.
33:24: We see a pattern in the new Testament of believers gathering first day of the week for worship and for encouragement.
33:31: Acts chapter 20 verse seven, first Corinthians 16 verse one. So let's start there.
33:37: There is something different about our gathering together on the Lord's day from every other gathering we do.
33:44: Now to the person who says, well, and I've had people say this close to me, even that, I struggle with that language of means of grace because you're saying that there are other things that aren't.
33:54: Well, I refer you and for the benefit of those at home, I'm pulling up this definition again, so we can all have clarity.
34:05: I refer you to what the Westminster says again, the outward and ordinary means.
34:15: Outward and ordinary. We are not talking about the benefit you get, for instance, from your quiet time or from, your meditation on scripture.
34:23: We're not talking about that. Those things are good in their place. We are talking about what happens when the people of God gather together and the ordinary, the usual, the regular.
34:35: If I like to use that term, regular means of grace versus ordinary. I think most people get what regular means.
34:41: Everyday normal use. So to the person who says, well, I do get more out of that.
34:48: First of all, if you really feel that way, you need to find a church where you don't feel like that. First of all, let's just call it.
34:54: I mean, granted, there are some churches. Unfortunately, I've been part of one where I did get more out of home groups than I did out of Sunday because the preaching of the
35:02: Lord was so anemic and pointless. Yeah, I was honestly being more fed in the small group.
35:09: That's bad. That's not the norm. What happens in the small group or in a one -on -one should be supplemental.
35:17: It should be, man, I'm already full and now God is being good and he's giving me a little extra on the top. That's very different to that's where I get fed.
35:26: And I'll tell you to the person who says, well, I do get fed more there. Maybe you want to ask some questions about where you are.
35:33: And I mean, not you personally, just the church you're in. And if that's the case, go find a church where you can actually be the most fed.
35:42: Absolutely. So the means of grace are ordinary. I don't know if you necessarily went into talked about this in your sermon, but it has to do with the means of grace.
35:54: So there's the ordinary means of grace, but there's also the private means of grace. Can you tell us the difference?
36:02: You know, what does that have to do with the subject matter?
36:08: Well, again, private means of grace is things we do in private that might be beneficial to us. So like having a quiet time, if I can sound like a heretic to some evangelicals, no one in the
36:18: Bible will be commanded to have a quiet time. You ever thought about that? Yeah. It's a good thing to do.
36:25: I have one content. I don't have mine in the morning. I have mine at night. Most people know it's kind of a running joker.
36:32: Redeemer, I'm not a morning person. So for me, the best time of the day is for me to have them at night.
36:41: Because basically for like the first hour, hour and a half, I'll wake up. I'm not functional. So me reading about,
36:46: I would just be going through the motions and there's no, there's no power in that. But Baba doesn't call me to have a quiet time.
36:52: Now, if you have a quiet time every day, great, wonderful. And you're going to be blessed by that because you're exposing yourself to God's word.
36:58: You're exposing yourself to prayer. Not always good things. But that's what you do in private.
37:07: I'm a big proponent of family worship, as you know, Eddie. And even your family worship, your family worship in the church is a means to an end.
37:17: It's not the end. Hmm. It's okay. Here is the overflow of our worship together as God's people, as part of his church.
37:24: And now that worship is continuing on in our homes. And so never should it be a thing that, you know, our private, you know, devotional lives, as it were, are trumping our life in the church.
37:39: It's balance. You know, it's not one is more. Let me be careful how
37:46: I work this. It's not that what you do in private is more important than what you do in public. They just serve very different purposes.
37:53: Yeah. So can you talk a little bit more about the fact that the means of grace are powerless without the word?
38:09: So really, John Calvin is massively helpful in this. His concept or some have called the sacramental word.
38:16: That really the word is the power behind the means of grace, behind the things that we do.
38:24: And so as we hear the preaching of the word of God, this prayer of God uses that to transform us more and more and more and more into the likeness of Jesus.
38:35: The sacraments are powerful because as they are, excuse me, as they are used by the
38:41: Holy Ghost and by the blessing of Christ to quote the catechism, I think it's 161, that those things are used to build us up in our faith.
38:53: Prayer is powerful only because we are praying to go back to God, the promises of his word, and trusting that he will honor the promises of his word.
39:01: So in that sense, you cannot have these visible out. This is where Rome got it wrong.
39:07: Rome basically said, just do the things and they work because God said, do them.
39:13: And the reformers spearheaded by Calvin said, no, don't just do the things, do them in conjunction with the word.
39:25: And through the instrumentality of the spirit, he will take that word and cause it to come alive through the use of these means.
39:33: So you can hear sermon after sermon, after sermon. And if the spirit of God is not work through the word of God won't go anywhere.
39:42: As my dad would have said, my dad would say he's still alive. My dad would say like, it's not gonna bounce off the ceiling.
39:50: Let alone go anywhere. You know, again, we talked about first Corinthians chapter 11, people were taking the
39:56: Lord's supper. They were doing it. And Paul says, no, you're eating to your own damnation. That's why some of you are sick. Some of you are weak and some of you are dead.
40:04: Like God was killing some of them off because of their blatant disregard, their lack of faith in relation to the
40:12: Lord's supper. And so when we talk about the word being, the means of getting powerless without the word, the word, the word of God, especially the gospel, that's what gives these means they're effective.
40:26: That's why they're effectual as we read in the catechism to the salvation of God's people.
40:34: Yeah, that's really helpful. Well, you know what
40:40: I love about the means of grace and church life is that this is a lot of stuff that we were doing together, you know, as people saved by faith and as a family of faith.
40:51: And so can you talk a little bit about the corporate nature of the means of grace versus the individual sort of side of thing?
41:03: Absolutely. This is something I had to grow in like for a very long time. I struggled with the concept of the means of grace because it just seemed very non -personal.
41:16: And the other shoe finally dropped for me when I realized that, oh, wait a minute,
41:22: I'm viewing this from the wrong vantage point. It's not okay, this happens in the church, therefore it doesn't affect me as a person.
41:29: No, I'm a person who is part of the body of Christ. So actually these means as I partake of them with my brothers and sisters, yeah, they do help me because I'm doing them with my brothers and sisters.
41:40: You know, and that's where like the light bulb started to come like, oh, okay, this makes a lot more sense now because I'm not doing this separated from my brothers and sisters.
41:53: I'm doing this with them. Like I don't want to quote the high school musical song, but I can't think of another phrase.
42:00: So I apologize, folks. But we are really, it is really a case of we're all in this together.
42:07: Like this is all happening together. So far from it being, okay, well, it's corporate, so it doesn't affect me.
42:13: It's like, no, flip the vantage point. Actually, because it's happening corporately, of course it's going to affect me because I'm one of these people.
42:20: I'm one of those that Christ died for. I'm one of those who are brothers and sisters with my brothers and sisters. Yeah. Yeah, the importance of that, you know, believe it or not, there's a lot of people out in the world who are isolated and lonely and don't have a community.
42:41: And it's through the gospel that they get a lot of those things fulfilled. And so, yeah, it's just an amazing thing to think about.
42:52: Maybe we take it for granted sometimes, but we have a family of faith and that's just amazing.
43:00: Absolutely. And one more thing real quick, that sense of disconnectedness, that sense of isolation that people feel, like this is one of the reasons there are two doctrines
43:12: I think are so important here. Yes, the means of grace, but also union with Christ. Yeah. Because actually in our union with Christ, we become united to one another.
43:21: This is Paul's point in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, that many members were now part of one body.
43:28: And so the world yearns for that sort of connection and for that sort of invitedness, for lack of a better term.
43:35: But here's the thing, that would never happen. That's never going to happen if you're disconnected from Christ and you're disconnected from his body.
43:45: And so far from encouraging people to be kind of isolationist in their view of their spiritual lives, we want to encourage people to become part of the body of Christ because that's where you truly belong.
43:57: That's where you're truly part of the family, which again is vital. Yeah, absolutely.
44:05: I think that's probably one of my most favorite things in particular, like the relationship between my line of work and then the local church.
44:18: We do the same thing, even though we're not a church where I work. We bring people in, we get to see who they are, what are they good at, not what can they do, but what do they like to do and what can they bring to the table.
44:32: And so as members of a local church, we see people's giftings, we see what has God created you to do and to be in this local body.
44:41: And so the members matter. You know? Absolutely. Absolutely. Every single one.
44:47: Yeah, and that's part of the body working together. You know, that's beautiful.
44:55: Last question, Kofi. One of your points was churches should stick to this and not much else.
45:02: And the statement is stick to the ordinary means that he has given and don't do weird stuff.
45:11: Shout out to Nine Marks. That's an article, right?
45:18: Or is it a book? It was one of their e -journals, which are really great. Highly recommend it.
45:23: One of their e -journals was about the ordinary means of grace and the subsites. It was the ordinary means of grace or don't do weird stuff.
45:32: Which I was like, simply put, can't argue with that. Um, great, great journal.
45:40: But yeah, I mean, Eddie, you've been in church a long time. I grew up in church.
45:46: I'm a pastor's kid. We've all seen churches do ridiculous things. We're just like, oh, seriously, bro. Seriously, what are you thinking?
45:54: You know, of course, now with social media, you see all of it when it happens. I mean, we've all seen the video of a certain guy out in Oklahoma trying to talk about crazy faith and he decided to spit into his hand and wipe it in a guy's face.
46:09: Oh, yeah, I remember that. Oh, yeah. Who can forget? One of those things, once you've seen it, you can't unsee it.
46:19: Um, like we've seen stuff like that. You know, you've seen the videos of like the pastor jumping into, you know, coming into a service on a zipline.
46:27: Yeah, funny enough, I grew up watching that pastor, Rod Parsley. He was way more conservative.
46:34: I don't know what happened to him, but they are all the guy who was preaching a sermon and pretended to basically be raptured.
46:43: So he's like pulled up on wires and stuff. And just like, yeah, exactly.
46:49: That's what I just cringe. I'm just like, oh, me. Sometimes the world hates us because we're believers.
46:57: And sometimes they hate us because we do stupid stuff like that. But that's not ordinary. That is not ordinary means of grace ministry.
47:05: Like, but my point in the sermon was saying that was like, if we stuck to doing just those things, like if we didn't decide to get creative, like I've said it before and I've got in trouble for saying it in some circles.
47:21: Um, I've discovered, for example, you don't tell musicians this. I learned the hard way, but God doesn't care about your creativity.
47:29: Yeah, he really doesn't. I can say that to you as one of our musicians, because you guys have a very biblical philosophy of ministry related to that.
47:39: But God doesn't care about your creativity. Do what he told you. Like, it's very much like saying, do your job, just do your job.
47:50: Stop trying to be creative. Stop trying to show us how smart you are. Just do your job. Like Mark Dever says, he's been really influential to me in thinking about this.
47:58: Read the word, pray the word, sing the word, show the word and live the word. The end.
48:04: Yeah, simple. You know, and if we do that in church life, it means at times we won't prioritize certain things that people want.
48:15: If they get in the way of the things that we're supposed to do. Yeah. And, you know, as a pastor,
48:21: I have to think about that sometimes because like, Ooh, that can get controversial. I mean, right now our church is small and for the most part, you know, we don't really have a lot of resistance to a lot of this stuff.
48:29: But if the Lord was in the church starts to grow, you're inevitably going to kind of have people come up and just turn up and they're just like,
48:41: Don't like that. Why don't we do this? I just like, because the Bible doesn't tell us to. Yeah, well, I think we should do this.
48:47: Show me in the Bible. If you can't, we're not going to do it.
48:54: Sorry. That's not us being mean. And that's not saying like, we don't value you. It's just we want to do what the
49:01: Bible says and not do weird stuff. Be faithful. Absolutely. Exactly.
49:11: Well, I think that's all the questions I've had so far, Kofi. Sweet. I mean,
49:17: I'll close out with this as we kind of land the plane here. You know, understanding this concept of the means of grace ultimately should, and this is why
49:28: I ended the sermon, if I remember correctly. I mean, it's been a couple of weeks now, but I think I remember the end of the sermon by saying these are gifts that Christ gives to the bride that he loves for her building up and for, you know, some of the older writers talk about for her beautification.
49:47: This is how the church gets made to look more beautiful. And if that's the case, why would we not want to do these things?
49:53: Yeah, we participate in them. Like, that's awesome. Yeah, like Christ could have just said, you know what?
49:59: Leave it to me. I'll take care of that. You'll be fine. But no, he's like, here are these practical things. Partake of these things, receive them.
50:07: They're grace gifts from him. And when you think of it like that, you know, the means of good, like I said,
50:13: I've had to go through a personal evolution on some of this in the last, really the last two years, if I'm honest.
50:23: And part of this has been great for me just in terms of like my love for the church has deepened.
50:29: My love for the Lord's table has deepened. I'm so glad we have it every week now. Yeah. You know,
50:34: I love that, you know, we make it a point in our services, not just to hear the preaching of God's word.
50:39: We have an assurance of pardon every week because again, that's still God's word. Yeah. And that through that reading of God's word and through the explanation of the pardon we have in Jesus, God's people come away assured.
50:51: And you know, all of these things, again, they look so simple, but they're powerful.
50:57: And when we recognize that they're powerful and we avail ourselves of the power that's being made available,
51:03: I really do think it's a game changer. Oh yeah. And I feel sorry for the churches that don't do it and want to do everything else and want to get creative.
51:10: Because like you're doing all of this stuff, but you're not receiving anything out of it. Because you're doing a bunch of stuff that God didn't tell you to do and God hasn't necessarily promised to bless.
51:20: Yeah. All right.
51:27: But we'll land the plane there. I mean, I'm sure there's more we could say, but for now you've been listening to the
51:33: Cutting Room Floor podcast. If you have any questions on any of the sermons that are preached at Redeemer, you can email us at CuttingRoomFloor at RedeemerMedford .org.
51:44: That's CuttingRoomFloor at RedeemerMedford .org. And until next time, may God richly bless you.