Q&A: Continuing in Sin vs False piety

False Piety, Mere Professions, and True Repentance

Yes, it's a great question. So, the first one, dealing with the person who said that I prayed that prayer and so I'm saved because I said these words, and therefore I'm saved, is I would say, show me that in the Bible.

Show me anywhere. Show me any scripture, show me any instance where the apostles preached the gospel in that way, where they called like a group of people together and said, okay, every head bowed, every eye closed, and pray this magic prayer with me.

No, the apostles called people to repentance and faith, individually. They didn't necessarily come and, nothing wrong with necessarily giving someone the gospel and sort of like sitting with them as they pray to turn to Christ.

That's nothing wrong with that, but this whole idea of sort of like, it's a fairly recent thing in Christian history in terms of how they would do a lot of revival, tent revival, those sorts of things.

A lot of manipulation was being done in that and those sorts of things, but all that to say, I would say, show me in the Bible where any of that is taking place. Show me in the book of Acts, show me anywhere in the lives of the apostles, show me any of that in the Bible, that kind of methodology, that sort of a thing.

Faith Apart from Works in Romans

And then I would challenge them by showing them scripture actually specifically defines the gospel to the point of, yes, it's only through faith, but it's through true faith, not mere professed faith.

Matter of fact, the Bible has a lot to say about just mere professions of faith and not real faith. It's only real faith that saves, but it's interesting because I would say this to them. I'd say, just go read Romans 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Just go read those chapters, 3, 4, 5, and 6. That's it. Because when Paul actually talks about the gospel, that it's only through faith apart from works, it's just faith in Christ, God credits to you righteousness, he doesn't count your sins against you.

He then goes on to say there's Adam and then there's Jesus, you're in one or the other. If you're in Adam, there's death and condemnation. If you're in Christ, there's the gift of righteousness and eternal life.

And then he goes into Romans 6. In Romans 6, he specifically addresses this issue of what happens to a person now that they have gone from death to life and they're joined together with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

He says, shall we who died to sin continue to live in it? By no means. How should we who died to sin continue to live in it?

How are you going to do that?

He makes the whole argument, if you've died with Christ and raised again from the dead, how are you continuing to live in your sin? Perpetually. Like it's no big deal. And so Paul's whole argument after he says everybody's a sinner, no one has any hope outside of Jesus Christ, the law can't justify you, it's only through faith.

This is how God has always justified people all the way back to Abraham. If you're going to be a descendant of Abraham, you've got to have the faith of Abraham. You're either in Adam or you're in Jesus.

And then he says, Romans 6, sanctification.

Sanctification.

If you've died, you've been raised with Christ. And I would challenge the person with what challenged me. I would challenge the person with what challenged me when I know that I truly came to faith in Christ, that when Jesus calls people to come to Him in the Gospels, He calls them to come to Him in a way that is truly honest and has full integrity.

He doesn't manipulate people, and He won't allow people to come to Him with hypocrisy. He turns and says to people, if anyone comes to me and does not hate father, mother, sister, or any of the names of your favorite people, He says, and even his own life, you're not worthy to be my disciple.

You must take up the cross and come to die, or you're not worthy to be my disciple. I would say to the person who's the, you know, I just said this magic prayer, but nothing's happened, and I don't really think it's important.

I would say, do you think that that's the Gospel you heard? The one Jesus preached? Come die and rise again? Have you risen again from the dead? Are you still the old man? Because Jesus talks about the Gospel and coming to Him in such a way, He says, there's a death that occurs.

There's an old person that dies, and you rise again with Christ.

Have you died?

Because when you talk about Jesus to me, like, you know, I prayed that prayer, but I don't want to go to church. I don't want to read God's Word. I don't love His people. I don't really care about holiness.

You're not talking about Jesus in the way the Bible talks about Jesus in relationship with His people. The Bible says, if anyone's in Christ, he's a new creation. You don't look very new to me. You look like an old dead man, and you're still living in it.

You've got to look alive. Now, that's not to say that Christians are living in a state of perfection, that they're living in a state. I mean, Christians struggle with sin. Can I tell you something really funny?

My favorite part of being a pastor at the hospital, chaplain at the hospital, is these people knew they were broken. They're my kind of people.

I loved it.

No fakeness. It was just like, I'm broken. I'm a mess. And I'm like, ah, this is refreshing. No one's pretending here, right? But one of the things that was so refreshing and encouraging to me constantly as a pastor, it was so hard being at the hospital.

I heard the worst stories every day of my life. I went through a period of six months of depression when I first started being a chaplain at the hospital, because I heard the worst things every single day, all day.

And it just really, God had to work on my heart and my mind and just bring me to a place of peace about that. But the thing that used to really encourage me was when I saw these people that were completely broken, they would turn to Christ, and they were just like radical unbelievers the week before.

I mean, just doing whatever they wanted, however they wanted, anything. And they come to me, and they're in front of me now, and I'm preaching about Christ and repentance and faith. And all of a sudden, God opens their eyes.

They turn to Jesus. And then they're in my office two days later, and they're weeping over their sin. They're saying to me, Pastor Jeff, I know I turned to Christ. This is the most beautiful thing that's ever happened in my life.

I love Jesus now so much, and I never expected this. But Pastor Jeff, I can't believe I have these angry thoughts. And I'm like, why am I thinking that thought? And I'm still like, I've had a lustful thought today.

And I'm like, well, I don't want to do that anymore. And I'm just sitting there smiling.

And I'm like, do you know what?

This is the most wonderful thing ever.

And they're like, it doesn't feel wonderful.

And I'm like, do you see? Did you think like this last week? And they're like, no. I'm like, that's the spirit of God in you. Christians hate their sin. That's how God changes you, is what you could do before just with impunity.

Now, all of a sudden, you hate, and you war with, and you're on your knees, and you're crying. Why am I still bitter? Why am I still angry? Why am I this? Why am I that? And so that's the hope. That's what happens to Christians.

It's all of a sudden now there's this new life where God sanctifies them by living in them and causing them to hate the old life. And sanctification, praise God, God is gentle as a process. He doesn't do it all at once, right?

It's stages, and it's beautiful. But that gets to the next question in terms of the person that is just consumed with their own righteousness. And that's the religion of men, every religion, every single religion.

It doesn't even matter. Show me the religion, and I'll show you. In it is the inherent desire to present my own righteousness before God, right? Like, I'm good enough. I've done enough. I've cleaned up enough to get right before God.

And just go to the text in Scripture that just absolutely annihilate and condemn that idea as even a possibility. You either have the righteousness and perfection of Jesus Christ, or you're dead, or you're condemned.

We need His righteousness, a perfect righteousness. And so you can read Romans 3. The law is not going to justify you. Read the book of Galatians, the letter of Paul to Galatia. It's just five chapters.

Five? Five? Yeah, six. Six chapters. Six chapters. Won't take you long to read it. Very short, and Paul pulls no punches, right? He's got people over here that are trying to say, well, you've at least got to keep circumcision.

You've got to keep that part of the law. And Paul says, Christ has become of no benefit to you. Whosoever of you attempts to be justified by law, you've fallen from grace. By the way, Judaizers in Galatia, they were affirming, apparently, all essential Christian doctrine.

They affirmed that Jesus was Lord. There's nothing in there that says that they denied the deity of Christ, the resurrection of Christ. Nothing at all. All they said was, it's Christ plus. You've got to keep circumcision.

You've got to circumcise these Gentile guys. You've got to circumcise them. Paul says, if you do that, Christ is of no benefit to you. It's either all of Christ through faith, or you're going the route of law.

Pick or choose. And Paul pulls no punches to the degree that he says in Galatians 5, I'll summarize here. These people who are playing with knives in Galatia, they want to circumcise. He says, I hope they go the whole way and cut themselves off.

That's what he says. So much for the nice, sweet, kind Christian, right? He's like, go ahead and cut yourself off, fellas. That's how I feel about that. That's inspired apostle now, okay? So that's not dirty talk.

That's using a serrated edge, pun intended. So also you look at Philippians chapters, read chapters 2 and 3. You'll see Paul repudiating his own righteousness that was according to the law, saying he doesn't want that righteousness.

He wants the righteousness that comes from God through faith in Jesus Christ. He wants another righteousness. He wants Christ and not his own. He repudiates all of his works, all of his obedience, all of his pedigree.

He says, I don't want any of it. I consider it scubalon. Yes, I cussed in church.

Scubalon.

And he says, and I want Christ and his righteousness alone. But just in case, I don't want to miss a spot here. So I point him to that. It's Christ's righteousness or it's your own, which is unrighteousness.

Legalism, Piety, and God’s Commands

What I would assume also takes place, because this is the south, is you've got a lot of people who are legalists as well. And they think because they have this record of rules over here that they've set up that are not actually in the Bible, this record of rules over here that this is what actually makes me live a Christian life.

I would challenge people in these. I came from that background, by the way. When I first moved to Arizona, I went to an independent, fundamental, separated Baptist church. Independent, fundamental, separated Baptist church.

I know the culture. That was my first Bible college. And it was oppressive. And I got challenged because I started realizing there were things in Scripture that they were actually saying were sinful that God was commanding his people to do.

So I realized that they were becoming more pious than God. And their version of piety actually made God look like a sinner. Because when they were setting up these rules saying, you're not to touch this, you're not to do that, you're not to do this, you can read in Scripture where God is actually commanding his people to do those things.

Not to do them in excess, not to do them in a way that was sinful, but actually commanding them. So when they're setting up these rules saying this is holiness, you're seeing God violate their standards.

And so I challenged somebody at the SBC. He walked up to me, lovely fellow. He's walking up the street. He said, Pastor Jeff, I don't agree with everything you say. I'm not a Calvinist.

I said, that's okay.

He goes, but I've seen some of your stuff and I think it's wonderful, brother. And I rejoice over it.

I said, praise God.

I'm glad God's using it. He said, just got to talk to you about something. And I'm walking in, right? I'm like, you didn't know I had COVID. You didn't know I had COVID. So he says, I got to talk about something.

He goes, smoking cigars and the drinking. It's got to stop, brother. It's got to stop. And I said, do you know me? He said, well, you know, I just know all the smoking cigars and the drinking. And I said, brother, I couldn't tell you the last time.

I'd have to think about the last time I had a cigar. I don't know. Like, I think maybe the part of the video I did with the post-millennial conference, I did that as a form of celebration. But I honestly don't even really like cigars.

And so I'm like, you think I'm doing this all the time? Like, you're judging me from afar. But I'm not. He said, but you know, the drinking. I said, do you know where my church came from? So church people came out of drug and alcohol addiction.

Like, a drunkenness is a sin that will send you to hell. Do you know what I believe? He said, oh, okay. Just the drinking is a sin against God. I said, okay, here's the problem, brother. I'm going to just encourage you to look at some passages.

He said, okay. And I said, so not to fight with you. I said, I'll encourage you to look at a passage. In the law of God, God commands his people. He commands his people to come to this festival and to this worship event.

And he tells them that on their way to travel to it, as they're carrying stuff, if it's too much to carry, to carry the wine to the festival and the celebration. By the way, it couldn't have been grape juice.

It would have spoiled. They would have gotten sick from it. So if it's too much to carry the wine, he says, go ahead and sell your wine. Turn it into money. And when you get to the place of the festival, he says, buy whatever your heart desires, wine or strong drink for the party.

So I said to him, I said, if you're saying any alcohol consumption at all, drunkenness is a wicked sin. If you're saying any of it at all is a sin against God, then you're going to have to contend with God calling his people to the celebration and telling them as they celebrate at this feast, they can do these things in a way that's glorifying to him and not sinful.

But see, I said, when you have a level of piety that's higher than God's, you're making my God looking like he's sinning. I said, and that is a problem, brother. So don't allow yourself to have a version of piety that's higher than God's.