How to Feel Christ's Love? | Theocast

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The hardest part about Christianity at times can be the one we say we love the most, we've never seen.

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We've never touched them, never had a conversation with them, and that can be hard. We want to have this significant connection to our

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God and King Christ. We believe, Justin and I, that Scripture can do that for us and that there are times that through the stories and illustrations and the epistles that we can experience the intimate and emotional side of Christ.

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Dare we say there's an experienced side of the Christian faith. Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word.

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It's called pietism. Have you ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy?

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That you wake up worrying about how well you're going to perform instead of thinking about what Christ has done for you?

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It's dread versus joy, really. That's pietism. Pietism causes Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope, not in what

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Christ has done, but what they're doing. We have a little book for you. It's free. We want you to download it, and we're going to explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism.

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Reform theology, really. How it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ, and when

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Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like? You can download it on our website.

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Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging worried pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the

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Christian life from a reformed pastoral and covenantal confessional. Lots of things.

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Guys who are broken who love to talk about Jesus kind of way. Guys who love the law and the gospel and different things.

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Your hosts today are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, who by God's grace is sitting right across the table from me today.

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He's normally sitting across the web verse through webcams. I'm Jon Moffitt.

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I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Justin, we're in San Diego, my friend.

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Tell them why. Why are we in San Diego? We're in California together. I enjoy California, first of all.

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Sure. It's been great. It's one of my favorite places to visit. I am, for those watching on the YouTube, I'm wearing a suit right now.

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That might really throw some off because I am not usually dressed like this. Occasionally, I'm wearing flat bill hats, and I'm getting roasted for those.

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I like to dress up. I like to wear suits, but I'm wearing a suit because we have been here for the last few days.

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We went to at least a portion of the Westminster Seminary California Conference. The day before that conference, we did a one -day event,

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Teocast, you and me, with our friend Chris Gordon from Abounding Grace Radio. We had a one -day conference at Chris's church on suffering and the hope of Christ's return.

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It was really good. It was a sweet day. We were encouraged by it. Shout out to a number of you that we got to see in person, meet for the first time, or see again.

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Always encouraged by you. You guys are so kind. It was a better turnout than we thought it was going to be. Yeah, it was great. It was a good event.

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We're thankful to the Lord for that. We went to church this morning at Escondido URC. We heard a wonderful sermon by John Payne, who pastors

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Christ Church Presbyterian in Charleston, South Carolina. Good to meet him. He's a friend of Chris's, and we hope maybe a friend of ours.

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Yeah, we might be able to get one. So that's why we're here. We're sitting, not either one of us, in the normal studios where we are.

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We're sitting together in a house in Escondido, California. We get to talk about Jesus today. I can go ahead and pivot that direction,

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John, if you want me to. Yeah, well, just for those of you that are like, hey, I want to know more about that conference.

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Well, they can go to the community. Yeah, all of that will be posted in the community. Probably first is where we post everything, then eventually go to our website.

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Then the recordings of the podcast will come out later in a few weeks. And if somebody's listening and they're like,

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John, how would I get into the Theocast community? I've never heard of this. That's great. Well, it is a community. It's like Facebook, but there are no other advertisements.

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There's nothing else going on other than conversations about the faith. Yeah, over a thousand people in there.

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So it's the Circle app. Yeah, just go to theocastcommunity .org, and you will only be engaging in content about Reformed theology and the gospel and prayer requests.

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It's wonderful. So our talks from the conference will be there. They will be there. The panels from the conference will be there so people can listen in on those.

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And then the podcast, we recorded a podcast in the morning with Dr. Chris Gordon. That will come out later. Yeah, the morning after.

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No, the morning of. Well, yeah, the live podcast. The live podcast. And then we did another podcast. Which will come out on the regular feed.

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Yeah, that was a sweet conversation. That's what's wonderful about these trips is it just allows us to meet you, create more content, be able to partner with Dr.

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Bob Godfrey as well. Yeah, the opportunity to meet others. Brief comment on this. I think we live in a day where, this is not the purpose of our show today, but I think it was bouncing around my brain a minute ago when we were talking about things.

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The word catholicity is thrown around a lot. And catholicity for those out there who are like, bro, what in the world do you mean?

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It means a willingness to participate with other brothers and sisters that might not be in your same tradition. So catholic meaning universal.

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So a willingness to engage, more universally speaking, with the universal church. So in our case, we're confessional

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Baptists, but we're able to partner with Chris Gordon and get to know him and build into the friendship we have with him, though he is a minister in the

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United Reformed Church of North America. And John Payne is a minister in the Presbyterian Church of America, etc.

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But for us to build relationships with guys outside of our tradition and partner with them in gospel work is something that you and I value quite a bit.

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And so we're unashamedly confessional Baptists, but we really appreciate brothers and sisters in different traditions and are happy to work together.

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So I think it's a good thing to continue to do, and these trips are valuable for that reason too. Justin Perdue I'll throw out one prayer request.

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We are actively hard working on another spring conference in another state. All of that to stay tuned.

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Some of you have asked about that. So we're working on it. As soon as it is available, we're going to get out to you. It might even be a year in advance.

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Who knows? Well, true. Spring of 2025, God willing, we've got some plans in the works. Justin, this one we're about to do.

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I'm going to apologize ahead of time if I become a blubbering, slobbering idiot because this subject is so important to my heart and I know it is to you.

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And when you start talking about Jesus, I just lose it. So I apologize ahead of time. Here we go. There we go.

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So the conversation we're going to have today, I'm going to front load it in the way that I can do, the way

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I tend to do. And then you can say what you want, John. It'll be off and running. So I said to you a minute ago, it's a good thing that we live in a day where classical theism is on the minds of people.

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And if you don't know what that means or what that debate is around, it's just doctrine of God stuff. There's been a lot of manipulation of the doctrine of the

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Trinity, we would say, in the last twenty, thirty years in the interest of social and political concerns, gender roles and the like.

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And it's a good thing that people are recovering Nicene orthodoxy in terms of the Nicene Creed.

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It's good that people are thinking well about God's simplicity, his immutability, all of these kinds of things.

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We rejoice in that and we agree with all of our brothers and sisters who are laboring hard to that end. The doctrine of God and even the deity of God the

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Son and what that means, that he's the only begotten of the Father and how he is not eternally subordinate.

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So we're all 100 percent there. At the same time, you and I agree that there is a tendency also for the humanity of Jesus to be lost sometimes in a way that makes him feel less approachable, makes him feel further away, makes

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God holistically... We're going to get into this in a minute... harder for me to comprehend, harder for me to relate to, harder for me maybe in a sense to feel his love for me.

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Justin Perdue We're going to expose our hearts fictitious at times. I don't know if I really feel like he's real.

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He's just kind of... Justin Perdue He's ethereal and he's remote and things of that nature. I'll go ahead and say it this way.

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We've touched on some of these things in previous podcasts and forgive us for that. We're just going to trust the Lord and his providence that this is a really good conversation to have.

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In John 14, it's a familiar passage for many people. This is right after Jesus has said the sweet words that we're probably going to quote later about how in his

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Father's house there's many rooms and we shouldn't be afraid. He's going to come and get us. Incredible things.

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The disciples, Philip in particular, asks him, will you show us the Father? He says, if you've been with me this long and you don't yet know, you don't yet understand.

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This is my paraphrase of these verses. He says, if you have seen me, you have seen the

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Father. I've made this comment before. You're agreeing with me, so I know that at least the two guys sitting around this table agree on this.

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I trust many out there will too. It's hard for me to comprehend him.

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It's hard for me to be like, I know what he's like. Though he reveals himself to us using human language.

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Praise the Lord. He's merciful and gracious, and he's long -suffering. He abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness.

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Praise the Lord. I can understand these attributes to a point, but in terms of what's it like to be with him, because that matters.

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The Bible in one sense, John, is the story of how God is re -presencing himself with his people after the fall.

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What's it like to be with him? Jesus is that revelation. He is the greatest and final and most definitive revelation of God.

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He is God's final and greatest word. To consider Jesus, I think my love for the

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Gospels has grown immensely over the years as I've thought in these terms.

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I want to read the Gospels as a regular part of my time in Scripture because I'm able to see

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Jesus. He's having conversations with me. He is tender toward the weak, so I know he's going to be like that toward me.

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He speaks words of comfort, and he speaks those to me. I'm able to better understand who

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God is and what he's like. That's so helpful for my soul in those times when

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I feel like I want the intimacy with him. I want the communion with him, and yet it feels difficult because of my flesh and my sin and because of the curse.

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We live by faith, not sight and all the things. It's helpful to think about Christ's humanity, his tenderness, his gentleness, his compassion, particularly toward people who know they need him.

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His wisdom, his brilliance, the way he spoke. No one ever spoke like this man. Things like that grip my heart, and I know they do for you.

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I remember preaching to John. That was my first gospel I ever preached. The first thing

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I ever preached was as a church planter and pastor. It's a pretty good one. It was great.

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I miss it. John 20 says, I wrote all this down for you guys that you might believe, and in believing you have eternal life.

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When you go back and read what John wrote, he wrote about Jesus touching people, holding them, healing them, speaking compassionately to them, traveling with them.

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You just see a side of the Savior. John is like, I want you to realize that the man who died for you was a man.

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We saw the compassion and love and patience of the Father. He says, like you see in me, you've seen the

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Father. In my lecture this week, I was talking about how there are parts of the

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Bible that are really hard for us to understand. I know so little, but just about dimensions.

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First dimension is just one little line that goes horizontal. It's easy to see.

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It's for the most part. When you go to that third dimension, your brain starts having a harder time understanding, but it does give you depth.

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The parts of Scripture we tend to just keep super simple, but because we simplify it, we lose the depth and the color.

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Really, I would say the realisticness. We don't live in a two -dimensional world. We live in a three -dimensional world.

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There's more dimensions than that. That's why old -school video games weren't as cool as the ones now in terms of the graphics.

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Is it legitimate to play video games, brothers? That's another podcast for another time. It also depends on who you ask if the 2D versus 3D.

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Are you playing it with your children or not anyway? That's right. Monster Moto X is something my son and I love racing.

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Anyways, one of the things that's happened to you and I in our ministries is that it's fun to sit there and really dive down in deep into the person of Christ in his humanity, because we're going to live with Jesus in his humanity.

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As a human, he's sitting at the right hand of God. If you were to travel right now, for whatever reason, the

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Lord took you to his kingdom there and you were to see Jesus.

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You'd see him as a man. That's how you'd see him. When he comes back, he comes back as a man. Why that's significant is that we are humans.

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God has come to relate to us as a man. It's unreal. Justin Perdue It is unreal to me.

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It's a mind blow that God made humanity knowing that God the Son would become one.

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That's part of what it means to be made in God's image in my mind. It's a big deal. I've been using this illustration lately because it just works for me and it helps me.

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Maybe it'll help one or two of you. If you ever have had to put something together, I've had to put together some things recently like a bike rack for my kids and a pull -up bar.

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I'm looking at this bike rack and I'm like, how hard can it be? It's so hard.

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I'm reading the instructions, but the instructions in my brain aren't clicking. I said, where's that box at?

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I flip the box over and I see the picture. Immediately, I understand. What's interesting is the

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New Testament doesn't say Jesus loves you. It shows you. That's what's nuts.

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It shows you how he loves you. Justin Perdue It does tell us that from the pens of the apostles. Jesus himself tells his disciples he loves them.

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But then it shows no greater love than this. Let me illustrate. Here's the picture. Snapshot the cross.

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It's glorious. Your father loves you and he's going to heal you.

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Snapshot. See all the miracles. Your father loves you. He's going to make all things new.

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Well, you watch him raise Lazarus from the dead. You get to a point where I am the resurrection and the life.

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For me, my brain has been stuck in this evidential stage because I am one of these people where you make a claim.

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I want to know how I know I can trust that. I've been fooled too many times. I've had promises made and I go there and they're not there.

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Then when my father says, there is no one greater than me. There's nobody that can separate you from my love.

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There's nothing more powerful than me. They're not unvalidated claims. So when

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Jesus says that I love you, there is an intimacy there because when you look at how he loves the woman caught in adultery and the woman at his feet, we're talking about the woman who had the issue of blood.

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Look how he loves Peter. I mean, Peter, do you love me?

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All of those stories, we should read them and this giddy anticipation going, okay, they wrote that because he turns it and says, that's the same love he has for you.

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We don't need to go through because we did this on a podcast a few weeks ago. I also did some of this in my conference message the other day.

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Trying to hold Jesus out for us by describing some of these interactions, I find that helpful.

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Our church has found that impactful. You and I have had sweet conversations over it too.

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We don't need to rehash all those things. In 1 Timothy 1, 15, and 16,

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Paul talks about how the saying is trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance that Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom

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I'm the foremost. Then he says that effectively Christ has been this patient and this merciful with him as the chief of sinners so that the saints will know that he'll be patient and merciful with them.

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I bring that up because that's how I think about Jesus interacting with these people that you were just naming.

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If Jesus went to Zacchaeus, sought Zacchaeus out who was a sinner, stops a moving parade, looks up into the tree, and with exclamation calls out to him,

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Zacchaeus, you need to hurry and come down because I'm going to stay at your house today. I'm going to be with you today. If he says that to Zacchaeus, he says that to you.

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He says that to me. With the woman bleeding, the most gripping part to me is after she's touched the hem of his garment and Jesus stops the proceedings.

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I imagine there's a lot of gravity to this whole thing, and she's afraid. She comes to him trembling and tells him everything.

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He doesn't stop her, but he calls her daughter. It's like, all right, if she could come to him trembling because of her plight, her condition, and afraid she's done something wrong, whatever, and she's shaking, and she can tell him everything, and he's going to call her daughter.

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I can tell him everything too. He's not going to stop me either. He's going to say, I love you.

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If there's a man, the man born blind that gets thrown out of the synagogue, Jesus has already given him sight, but that's not all he wants to do.

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He goes and finds him, seeks him out. Do you believe in the Son of Man? He's going to do that for you,

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John, and for me. He's going to come after us, and he's going to ask us questions in our spirit, in our mind, in our inner being.

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He's going to ask us questions that are going to actually affirm and confirm us in the faith. You're mine.

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You believe in me. We're like, yes, I do. I'm yours, and I'm worshiping you. I'm so glad to know you.

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Those are the ways that we think. If he's like that with these people, he's like that with us.

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It's interesting when Paul says, cast all your anxiety on him, because if you don't, you're in trouble.

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Cast all your cares on him, because he cares for you.

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It's interesting. You and I have a relationship where we share often when we're just not doing well or just kind of discouraged or whatever.

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The reason why I always love sharing those things with you, because I'm like, dude, besides my wife and my elders, there are very few people who really care.

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That is not impugning my church at all. There's an essence where I'm like, even when it's a little thing that most people might think is petty, you never make me feel like it's petty.

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My wife never makes me feel like it's petty. There are times when I'm like, yeah, I don't think I'm going to share that with anybody.

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Jesus goes, but I care about it. Hey, buddy, what's on your mind? That's hard.

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One of your pastors at your church, Mackenzie Dinkins, he's just been kind of sharing some stuff.

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I'm going to give him credit for this. Love you, Dink. When Dink talks about this,

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I just love it. He always uses this as a buddy. Hey, buddy. The Lord says to us, hey, buddy,

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I care about you. I'm happy to be with you. What is it you want to tell me?

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You know, those are the moments I want to plop down in my chair and go, okay, well,

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I got some things on my mind. I don't like that I don't really understand who you are, and it feels like you're far away, and I want you here now.

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You want to ask me about my anxiety, and my anxiety is - That's exactly right, dude. I love everything you're saying right now.

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It's like, man, I wish I knew you better. Those are how I feel. I don't like that I struggle with lust.

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I don't like that I struggle with anger. No kidding, dude. You're talking about what makes me anxious. These are the things that make me anxious.

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These are the things that plague my soul. The response is, I care. It's overwhelming.

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It's overwhelming. Maybe this is something that the more godly people that listen to the show, people who are godlier than me, maybe this won't be revelatory for them, but I think for you and me, as we've had these conversations over the course of time, you are re -reminded of the fact it's like, guys, let's not forget that we can just talk to him.

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There does not, of course, we approach him with reverence and awe, and hallowed be your name.

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I respect him in ways I can't even describe. I'm fearful of him. But there is, biblically speaking, we boldly approach the throne of grace.

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You just quoted, we cast our burdens and anxieties upon him because he cares for us. When Jesus loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

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And it's like, okay. Sympathetic to our weakness. Sympathetic high priest, right, exactly.

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All that stuff. So we're able to talk to him. He knows our hearts. He knows every thought.

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As crazy as this is, he's listening to this conversation. He knows everything that's in the inner recesses of my soul that I've never shared with anyone.

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He knows. So we can just talk to him. I love the way that you articulated what you did just now, because I find myself sometimes similarly.

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It's just like, well, I'm just like, Father, here's where I'm at. I mean, I'm using this. Here's where I am. Here's where I'm at.

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Here's what's hard for me right now. Here's how I feel. I don't want to feel this way. These things are bothering me, and I don't even know what to ask for.

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I just need help. It's good to do that and to remind yourself that he's never irritated by those things and wants you to come and is delighted to hear from you.

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Dude, James 1 .5, without reproach. Yeah. Meaning he's not going to scold you.

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Because I think we all, I mean, we've talked about pietism. We've talked about revivalism. We've talked about all these things over the course of years.

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So much of what those things do is rather than fostering this kind of love and intimacy and safety and security with our

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Heavenly Father, with the triune God who loves us, it actually fosters fear, distance, causes me to question everything.

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I don't know if I should go to him or if I do. It's like, man, I've got to do some kind of metaphorical spiritual penance and clean myself up or demonstrate that I'm sorry enough for my sins or that I feel badly enough about whatever's going on.

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I'm lamenting my weakness enough or something so that it's appropriate for me to go to him so that I'm not a hypocrite.

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It's like, man, go to him. He loves us and he invites us to come.

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He wants to hear from us. He's with us in it all. Well, it creates that employee -employer performance -based.

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We're like, well, I'm at work. I've got to be on. He can't know that I don't do my laundry at home.

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My boss can't know. And so we think that we're in this constant performance. How many passages of Scripture have we already mentioned where it's like, he already knows you're weak.

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So if I can say this, we did an episode a little while ago with Chad Bird, a personal relationship with Jesus question mark.

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What we were aiming to get at there was the good news that this kind of hyper -individualized revivalistic thing is not true, and that there is a real beautiful comforting sense in which just naming things.

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We have been brought from death to life and united to Christ, and now we are part of Christ's body, the church.

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My brothers and sisters minister to me when we gather as churches.

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We sit under the ministry of the word. We receive the sacraments. Those are very corporate, experiential, visible, tangible.

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God is with us times where we are pointedly and powerfully reminded that he loves us so, and that Christ is all.

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Right? So we were pointing to these realities of comfort. It's not this hyper -individualized thing that you effectively are driving.

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It's an us and Jesus reality where, as Chad so beautifully put it, even when

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I can't sing because my heart's breaking, my brothers and sisters are singing for me. It's that.

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I am literally carried. I'm carried to the throne of God, as it were, by the singing of the saints, even when

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I can't muster it up. Those things are beautiful. Nothing that we're saying today is contradictory to that in any regard, but it's maybe just putting more flesh on the bone of our relationship with Jesus.

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It is very personal, and it's intimate, and it's one of love and safety and security.

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We need not be afraid the ways that we so often are afraid. We don't need to accomplish all the things that we think we need to accomplish in order to be in his presence and for him to be delighted to be with us.

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We forget that Jesus is with us. How do we most tangibly experience his presence this side of the resurrection?

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It is when we gather. I might talk more in a minute about how some of the notions you have as a child are really helpful.

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Faith like a child, right? I'll just say it right now because it'd be stupid to try to come back to it because a lot of times you lose the flow.

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I don't know when I was united to Christ in faith, like born again, but I can remember being...

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We can settle that right now. We can write down in your Bible. Would you like to say the prayer?

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Sorry about that. Just put your hand on my shoulder. This is the amount of pressure. I'm sorry, man. Soul winning made easy, man. Put your hand on their shoulder.

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Put this much pressure on them and wait this long. I'm so sorry. Keep going.

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That's neither here nor there. I was baptized at fourteen, but sorry to all our pedobaptistic friends out there.

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My church upbringing was not one where I was in a sound church as a young person. Long and short, what

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I meant to say is this. I can remember having... Because we read the Bible in my house and I would go to church and occasionally would go to a good church with some friends and things.

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As a grade school kid, I would think... I've always been a perfectionist.

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I've always had this kind of I've got to achieve. I can be an anxious soul.

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I felt everything heavy as a kid. Going into school, depending on what was going on that day, I would often have a sense of anxiety until I walked in the doors and saw people and settled in.

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I would remember thinking as a kid, man, everything's okay because Jesus is with me.

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In my little childlike brain, I could visualize in one sense that my

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Savior is holding my hand, walking me into school, and I'm going to be okay. I don't know exactly where down the road.

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Some of those kinds of thoughts, you just don't think in those ways anymore. In recent months and through conversations that we've been having, even thinking through the preaching of Christ and things,

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I lean into stuff like that just to remind myself of those notions I had as a child were not wrong.

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He's with me. He's with you. He's with us. He's like, my boys,

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I love you. I'm for you. I'm happy to be with you.

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My Spirit's going to continue to work in and through you. When this is all over, we're going to eat and drink, and it's going to be great.

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When you're talking about this, I've had experiences in my life where I found comfort in Right Doctrine.

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A lot of it was just pride, learning proper theology and Calvinism.

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Then there was almost the affirmation of man, being able to communicate well.

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I really achieved after that, and I thrived off of it. Then after a while, that gets old. Now, what do you go to?

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You just realize that there's a lot of times that you can use

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Jesus for your own benefit, but you don't actually are receiving the benefit of Jesus.

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No matter who you lose or what goes on in your life, you have a reason to wake up tomorrow because He works all things good, and He loves me.

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That's Right Doctrine. Whether anybody ever hears me say that or not again for the rest of my life, and I'm stuck in a prison, it doesn't matter.

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I can wake up and say He sees everything. He sees how my temperature is up and down.

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He sees whether I'm hungry or not. He knows when I'm struggling with sin. He knows when

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I'm happy and when I'm sad. He knows all that. He knows all of that. None of those things will ever take you from Him or change the way

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He feels about you. This is where doctrine and the things we're talking about beautifully are interwoven together.

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How do we know that He loves us so? Doctrine. Then as we talk like this,

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I'm not afraid to use this word, we experience the love of Christ for us. You and I have worked a lot in our own personal ministries.

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I'm not going to say what kind of influence we have because I have zero understanding if we've ever influenced anything.

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In my life and your life, we've recovered some of the wonderful parts of Reformed theology.

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I think we have also called out the Reformed faith on things. This is one of them,

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Justin. The Reformed faith is afraid of smiling.

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I'll just say it this way. Chris Gordon was just saying how much he appreciates how vocal and engaged we are with his sermons.

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It was just fun. I'm happy to be the amen section. I've even bristled at times against we'll pick on our charismatic brothers who only talk about experience all the time.

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Then there are times I realize that Satan and his world, those who have rebelled against the king, has used that to rob us.

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You mean to tell me that that woman with the issue of blood didn't experience something? You mean the woman at his feet in tears?

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She wasn't experiencing anything? Come on, man. When Paul's talking about how

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God's grace is sufficient for him in his weakness, do you think he's not feeling something at that moment?

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Justin Perdue Amen. I think what I'm wanting to do and what you're wanting to do as pastors in our own churches, what we want to do with Theocast is to continue to work at being able to better marry doctrine and experience because they are not in any way against one another.

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Doctrine drives experience because the experience needs to be grounded in truth. We ought never to pull the two apart as though you want one and not the other or could have one and not the other, or that doctrine ought not lead to this.

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That's part of, I think for me even, as I've thought more about preaching. It's the way that I mean to apply.

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The Scripture has a lot more to do with this component and helping pull people into this exercise that you and I have behind these microphones at points in recent weeks and months.

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I have a comment that I want to make to people based on something that we heard this week, but that can wait a moment.

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Justin Perdue A lot of times people don't understand what doctrine is. Doctrine is truth, but truth applied.

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I'll give you an example. It's true that my wife loves me. When she sent me a text earlier this week when we were gone, she sent it at the right time in a very special way to us and me.

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It did something from my heart, man. I experienced my wife's love in ways that if you told me you love me,

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I appreciate that, and I do love you. When she tells me that, I'm like, man, it gives me goosebumps.

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It's special to me because that's her love for me. I'm not trying to chase that down.

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I'm not trying to chase down one experience to the next. Justin Perdue We're not chasing goosebumps. We've talked about this before, but this is not that.

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Justin Perdue That's right, but when I'm at church on Sunday and the congregation is singing

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How Deep the Father's Love, I was like, man, his love loves me, and I need to hear that.

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I'm not looking for that experience, but when you apply the doctrine to it, it's like your heart goes,

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I've had the week of weeks, and it's so good to hear the applied through the congregation, through the voices to me saying, hey,

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John, this is a message from your God. He loves you, friend. He loves you. Justin Perdue Or we're singing of his love for me, or it's just like, here's what

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Jesus did. Here's how Jesus loves us, and we're all collectively like, man, you're right. It's why we're here, and praise be to his name.

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Justin Perdue I don't mean emotional music. I mean the truth coming to me. I don't need lights and emotions.

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Justin Perdue I've said this a lot lately. I was going to continue saying it, because it's on my mind and heart, and I'm just going to trust the Lord in it.

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This was not the comment that I was going to make. I've got one other one, and then I know we'll shut it down. Everybody knows, probably.

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Everybody in here knew. Everybody that listens to this podcast or has for any period of time knows that I have a lot of affinity for the

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Mero controversy, and for the Mero men, and for Thomas Boston, and that's fine, but I've been affected a lot over the years, and a lot in recent months, and thinking about how

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Boston said, and Sinclair Ferguson writes in The Whole Christ, we should never separate

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Christ from his benefits. Preaching the gospel is not just preaching the benefits of Jesus.

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It's not just preaching justification, or even sanctification, or glorification, or whatever, or even bodily resurrection.

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It's not just preaching that stuff. It's actually holding him out to sinners and saying, hey, for everybody who thirsts, come and drink.

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Come to the waters and drink. If you've got no money, come and buy wine and milk without money and without price.

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If you're weary and heavy laden, come to him. That's preaching the gospel, and that's been affecting for me.

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The goal, in one sense, of my preaching in these days is, I want the tincture, to use the old word that was used of Thomas Boston's preaching.

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I want the tincture of my preaching to be Jesus. What is it? I know you would say the same.

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If you're going to go to Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, or Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and hear a sermon, what's going to be the tincture?

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What's going to be the thing that colors and flavors the entire message and the entire service? I want it to be

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Jesus. I think we've always thought in these ways. We've always said this, and I think maybe by God's grace we're just having our eyes opened to how we can do that better.

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My last word here is maybe a word of caution and maybe a word of rebuke for some, and that's okay.

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This came up this week in our conference. If we are the kind of people who are just kind of geeked up to learn new things, to just learn stuff, and that's what really drives and motivates.

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I go to church. I go to service to grow in my discipleship.

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Amen. But the ways that I think that occurs is I want to learn something so that I just know more, or I want you to tell me things that I need to do better.

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Give me wisdom so that I can live better. If those are the things that you're going for, not saying you shouldn't go for those things at all, but if those are the things that you're like,

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I'm locked in with you, pastor. Preacher, I'm with you, baby. You're giving me wisdom.

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You're giving me exhortation. You're giving me instruction. You're telling me, oh, that's very interesting. That's a new fact.

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I'm going to plug that away in the database, and I know that now. I'm with you. But then when you get to the part or the parts in your message where you're just holding

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Jesus out to us, just holding Jesus out, and I'm just kind of like, yeah, okay.

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Yeah, that's good. But make sure you do that other stuff because we don't need too much of this, or I know this part.

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Or I'm just kind of like, okay, yeah, he's going to hold Jesus out again. I'm just going to tune out because I'm not getting wisdom. I'm not getting instruction.

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I'm not going to learn something new. If that's our posture in going to church, that's concerning.

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We should think not that you're not a Christian, but just let this be a correcting word to you that maybe something is spiritually awry.

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Something in your soul, something in your perspective is amiss. It's wrong in that I'm thinking that something other than Jesus being held out to me is what

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I need to lock in on and is what I'm geeked up about. This does not sound self -righteous, but for me,

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I'm like, man, if I'm going to some other church or if I'm sitting under the preaching in my own church,

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I ain't here for your wisdom. If there's exhortation, ask some thought -provoking questions.

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By all means, do some heart work. Expose me. Cause me to think better about my life. Amen to all that. But bro,

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I am here for you to hold the Savior out to me because he's the only hope I've got, and I know that in my soul.

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Please give him to me. That's how we need to be, I think. Yeah. I think you're talking the difference about seeing oneself as a historian or archaeologist versus as a desperate sinner who wants to know his

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Savior. Because I hear that. Sometimes I sit down and I'm like, well, that was historical data.

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That's all that was. That was biblical data. Based on the Bible. You told me about Jesus, but...

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Did you hold him out to me? People may not know what you mean by that. What you mean by hold him out to you,

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I think this goes back to when you think about your

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Christ, your Messiah, your King. This is an illustration.

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This is the last one I'll have and we'll end it down. Like, I can tell you a lot about my dad, how high he was, what he looked like, what he wore, what he drove.

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I've done that a lot this week. I've been telling you guys funny stories about him. In many ways, you've learned about my dad and you have somewhat of an affection for him because of me.

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Certainly. But you do not have what I have. No. Right. I have this connection that is personal.

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It's on a level where when his name is mentioned or when concepts about him are brought to me.

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One of the things I told you guys was driving around California, I just have memories of my father that just pop up everywhere.

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They're wonderfully refreshing because they remind me of the time

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I had with him. I was going to say it reminds you of when you were with him. That's right. That's what scripture is.

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You're talking about holding Christ out to you. Remember what he did and who that is for you and how that affects you.

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It affects you in every area of your life. It's Christ for you, the benefits of his works on your behalf versus this is important data.

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It's so hard to explain that if you haven't been underneath it. Like holding

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Jesus out to us is effectively to say, here, he is with us.

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He is for us. He is for us. He loves you. He is saying this to you.

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His posture toward you is like this. That's what I mean. Amen.

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All of the things of his is not divorced from doctor. He obeyed the law perfectly.

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He died in our place. He rose from the grave. He ascended to the right hand of the father.

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He's coming back. Amen. It's never divorced from any of that, but it is also in him doing all of those things for you.

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That's real. He's doing that for you. Here is how he loves you. Here's his word to you.

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You're afraid. Here's what he's got. Here, dear saint, hear this. He's speaking to you.

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You are lacking assurance. You're not sure you're going to make it. Hear him.

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Look at him. He's with you. This is his word of peace to you. That's holding

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Christ out. That's right. Cast yourself on him. Trust in him alone. That is the invitation of the gospel.

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Amen. I would say this is, in my opinion, talking about this about 5 .5 and the way here and providence of God in our own sin and failing.

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I believe the confessions really help present that to the believer that here is what's right and true about the scriptures and why it matters because it's

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Christ for you. Everything that Theocast is about, which is covenant theology, law, gospel distinction, saint, sinner, all of that, if it doesn't lead you down to Christ for you, how personally

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Christ loves you, has affection on you, then all that doctrine is of no value.

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It must result in the faith and trust in Christ. That faith and trust, and this is the last thing

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I'll say, the faith and trust is he loves you so much he died for you.

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That's what your faith and trust is in. Nothing else matters because if you're not underneath his love, underneath his grace and mercy, you're underneath his wrath.

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That's not where we want to be. All right. Great combo. I feel like we could keep going.

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We're so thankful many of you are able to support us monthly and have donated throughout the years.

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That allows us to do conferences. It allows us to travel and produce this content.

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We have an amazing team who put all of it together and put it out. We just want to say thank you for that.

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We're thankful for many of you that have reached out and encouraged us. Hopefully this was encouraging to you.

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We have some more coming this year, some stuff we're working on. We're not ready to put it out yet.

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Covenant theology and baptism as an example of a couple of things we're working on. Justin's got a book that he's finishing up.

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I know we keep referencing it. It takes a lot of work. We're not a big publishing process. It just takes a lot of work.

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Stay patient with us. We love you guys. Lord willing, I'll be dancing around the throne with you.

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If that doesn't happen, I guess we'll be here next Wednesday. Hey everyone, before you go,

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Justin and I first wanted to say thank you. If this has been encouraging to you in any way, please feel free to share it.

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We also need your support. It's when you give that it really helps us financially reach more people.

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The next time consider giving to a ministry, we hope that you would pray about Theocast and partner with us as we share the gospel around the world.