Living by Faith Isn't Easy | Theocast

Over the years, John and I have sought to defend the gospel, that we are saved by Jesus Christ through faith in him alone.

And a lot of times we get criticized for that. And people will raise the objection and they'll say, guys, surely it's not that easy.

It has to be about more than just faith in Jesus. And our response to that, one of our responses anyway, is who said faith is easy?

Walking by faith and not sight as human beings is a difficult thing. John and I are gonna talk about that today.

We're gonna refer to the scriptures. We're also gonna talk a little bit about some of the recent debates over justification and obedience and good works and all that stuff and how we so desperately want to be able to hold on to something or point to something that we are doing.

And so we struggle to think about these things well. We hope that you're encouraged in the Lord Jesus today and that you are convinced anew that he is enough to save even you.

Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word. It's called pietism. You ever felt like the

Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy? That you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna perform instead of thinking about what

Christ has done for you? It's dread versus joy, really. That's pietism. Pietism causes

Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope, not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing.

And we have a little book for you. It's free. We want you to download it. And we're gonna explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism,

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

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

Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast, Encouraging Weary Pilgrims to Trust in Christ.

We are gonna have some conversations about the Christian life, but from a biblical

Reformed perspective. We'll explain what that means here in a minute. One of the things that Justin and I continue to do over the last five years is we're trying to pull all the clutter off the gospel that easily gets put on there, even by us as pastors, is to keep refining the gospel.

Not that it needs to be refined, but we mess with it. And then talk about, well, then what do we do with this gospel in light of the kingdom?

So it's fun conversations. Your hosts are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

What's left of it. I'm John Moffitt. I'm pastor of, great, it's a bad joke. I'm pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

Justin, for this podcast, it'll be a few weeks for people, but for you, it's only been a week or two weeks since the disaster.

A little bit back to normal. We're back on the internet, but give people a 30 second update.

Is it been four weeks? Four weeks tomorrow is when it really hit.

And so, yeah, this is the first, just two days ago, I mean, we got internet back in our church office, for example.

So, I mean, it's been serious. A lot of people are in, I'm fortunate.

A lot of our church members are fortunate in terms of the areas that we live in. We have power. Sometimes the water isn't drinkable, but there's at least water that you can boil.

Yeah. You know, some folks are in a much more difficult place, and there are areas of the city that have been washed away that the rebuild's gonna take a while.

And as I was telling you, it's kind of hard to wrap your mind around that. And I think there's a lot of uncertainty for all of us that we're gonna be feeling for quite some time.

But between, yeah, hurricane and flood and everything, and then

I'm sick physically. So much for triumphalism and onward and upward, man.

And the power of positive confession, right? I mean, I heard a Christian comedian one time, and I'm not, some Christian comedians are funny, some aren't.

That's not the point. One time he was, or he's saying this to a large group of people. And he said, man, last time

I was in this city, I got so sick. And he said, of course, y 'all don't want me to say I got sick, because y 'all are into positive confession.

Y 'all want me to say that I was overcome by a multitude of symptoms. And it's like, it's so true. I mean, how silly we are.

Like, don't speak it. Don't speak it into existence. Don't manifest it, you know? And anyway, it ain't working for me.

Your boy is hurting over here in Western North Carolina. But Christ is good. He's on the throne, and we trust and rest in him, which is what we're gonna talk about today.

I'm happy for you to make any announcements you want, John, before I run away with tea in the sun. Well, it's important people understand that for those of you who purchased tickets to come to the

Law Gospel Conference in April, we're still planning, Lord willing, to do that. We still think that that's possible in the city and at the church that Justin's at.

So if you haven't signed up for that, we still have some tickets left. Myself, Ken Jones, Chad Byrd, and Justin, we're all gonna be podcasting together, lecturing, doing panels.

We're gonna have a hang night Thursday night, singing, fellowshipping. We're working on getting some books there and book distributors.

So we want it to be a refreshing time of fellowship where you get to meet really good people, have some time for food and drink.

So yes, we wanna lecture. Yes, we wanna gather and sing. But I mean, there's something about gathering in person, you know, and not just listening to Theocast and I know the community is growing.

We've got almost 2 ,000 people in the app and you guys, I've seen you talk, like, oh, I look forward to meeting you, look forward to giving you a hug.

And so it's just refreshing. These are what I would call little tastes of heaven that God gives us to remind us that as bad as this world is, there's something beyond this world to put our faith in.

And we don't get to see it in its fullness, we get to taste it and that taste allows our faith to stay focused on what is to come.

What does Paul say? To not get entangled with civilian pursuits, as he says. So just that, we've got the, if you wanna sign up for that, you can go to our website.

We've got the community continues to grow. It's a great way to support Justin and I. JP, I don't wanna waste any more time, but I wanna go ahead and jump into the subject.

This is one, we have a lot to say, so we're gonna do our best to try and get this into 40 minutes. But talk to us about today's subject.

It's what I would call a retro Theocast Convo, but a really important one.

So you and I have been doing this together for over five years, and it's kind of normal for human beings because our lives are not clean and linear.

We experience things, nothing happens in a vacuum, right? Like we talked about that even with respect to church history before.

So even the things that you and I go through, John, that our churches go through, that our friends go through, conversations resurface.

And the beauty of us doing this podcast for as long as we have is that there will be a number of things that maybe we talked more about three or four years ago than we have in the last year or two.

And it's not because we don't still believe those things, or it's not because we don't think they're important, it's just because there's a ton of stuff to talk about when it comes to the

Christian life and when it comes to Jesus for us and the plan of God from all of eternity and his word and everything else.

And so this is kind of like a retro episode. This is something that we used to say a good bit, and we're gonna say it again today and have a fresh convo about the fact that the life of faith is not easy.

So the way I wanna tee this up is I'll start with maybe the punchy and then I'll maybe try to bring it down to the experiential level for a lot of us.

The listener won't be shocked to know that we get accused of a lot of things. I mean, if you're on social media, if you're on YouTube, you see the comments.

Not everybody likes us, and that's fine. What else do you expect in a fallen world?

But one of the things that we used to get accused of a lot when people were charging us with things like antinomianism or whatever, they would say, well, guys, you're talking about the

Christian life is fundamentally a life of faith, and it's about trusting Christ, and we are saved by trusting, by Jesus, and we're saved by trusting in him and just casting ourselves upon him.

And you guys keep talking about faith and faith alone and all this kind of stuff, and surely, guys, it's not that easy.

Surely there has to be more to it than trusting in Jesus. Now, there are all kinds of things that can be said about implications of trusting in Jesus and the outflows of trusting in Jesus and the fruit and the evidence of trusting in Jesus.

Those are legitimate conversations to have, and we've had them. But what I would like to offer is when people make that charge, guys, surely it's not that easy.

It has to be about more than faith in Christ. My question is, who in the world said faith is easy?

Who in the world said that to simply trust in Christ is an easy thing to do in the midst of life in this world, under the sun, given all the things that we experience?

I mean, when you read the scriptures and when you think about your own life and the things that we go through, how often do we see the people of God in the word of God asking like,

Lord, where are you? Are you asleep at the wheel? What are you doing? Are you gonna help? You really for us? Do you really love us?

Because our experience says that you don't. God says all kinds of things in his word that he has adopted us, that he's chosen us, that he delights in us, that he rejoices over the fact that he has saved us, that we are his beloved children, that he is no longer our judge, right?

That he is near, that he is present, that he sees, that he knows. I mean, all of these things he says to us, that he is near to the brokenhearted, that he accomplishes all of his purposes.

We could go on and on, all of the promises and the strong statements that the Lord makes.

But then we think, we feel, and we experience, it's like, it's the opposite, feels the opposite to me.

Lord, you say that I'm your beloved child, I feel like I'm your enemy. Lord, you say that you're near,

I don't feel like that, you feel distant to me. You say that you work all things together for good, well,

I don't see any earthly good right now. You say that you're no longer my judge, you're my father, but all

I feel is like fear and dread when I think about being near you, because I know

I'm a sinner. This is what we experience. And you tell me that you've covered my shame and my guilt, but all

I can feel and all that's on the front of my mind right now is my shame and my guilt. Welcome to the life of faith.

And who said this is easy? So I hope that this isn't really a punchy podcast, it's meant to be more pastoral, but I do hope to open the eyes of those who would make that statement, that faith is somehow an easy thing.

First of all, it's supernatural, we don't believe in and of ourselves, it's not self -generated faith, the Lord has to give it to us by his supernatural power, one, and then two, it is not easy for us, because we are wired to live by sight, not faith.

And for us to have to walk by faith is not an easy task when we wanna just be able to see it, touch it, taste it, feel it.

So we're gonna talk about all that, and might quote from some people who have lived before us who have seen these things too, we might quote from the good book, we'll see, and hopefully encourage some people out there.

Yeah, speaking of quoting from the most powerful book on the planet, man,

Justin, it is important that at times people can hear us talking like, man, you guys are so doom and gloom.

And to be honest with you, I don't particularly like it when a doctor comes and lies to me about my situation because he doesn't think

I can handle the truth. And how dare you try and sugarcoat this thing?

In many ways, I have a really hard time trusting that doctor going forward, because why would you withhold this information from me?

Right. Because now I'm living blind and I'm having a blind hope and my reality has been skewed.

And when I do figure it out, which most people do figure out that the world is not what people tell them it is, it's harder to deal with because you had, it's like if you have low expectations, the fall is very small.

If you have high expectations, that fall can hurt. This is 2 Corinthians chapter five. Paul says this in verse one, for we know that if the tent, that is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

For in the tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. So he's telling us what we can expect, but here's reality, guys.

If indeed by putting it on, we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan.

Man, this is important. Go ahead. Really quick, man.

And none of these things, because this is Paul. None of these things mean that we've not been united to Christ.

None of these things mean that the Lord Jesus is not with us, that he's not at work in our lives, but yet this is so often our experience.

We groan. Or he said earlier in the letter that we encountered all these trials and this kind of suffering that caused us the despair of life itself.

That's right. That happens to us. Yeah, that's right. I mean, this morning, I hurt my back. I've been groaning all day, literally out loud.

You don't feel well. You and I were sharing some of the struggles of ministry, just caring for people's problems.

Or even just the trials of this year. 2024's been a tough year. Well, and look, I don't have a problem saying that I'm kind of groaning about the future, what's gonna happen with our country and this election.

There's a lot of scary stuff going on, right? So we think about, and he says, for a while we are still in this tent, and he doesn't tell us not to.

He just describes what's going on. We groan, being burdened. So this means

Paul, and what's interesting is Paul's gonna tell us what the solution is, but it's not what you think it is. Not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

So he's talking about an already not yet. It's like we're not there yet. Who has prepared us for the very thing is

God. Who has given us the Spirit as guarantee. Not now, not guarantee now.

It's what is to come. This is why the next verse is so important. So we are always of good courage.

So there's a groaning with encouragement. For we are always of good courage.

We know that while we are at home in the body, we're away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight.

Which means walking by faith leads to groaning and burden bearing.

When some of that sounds just like Ephesians one, where we have received the promised Holy Spirit as the guarantee of our eternal inheritance.

So, but it is this already not yet that you've described, and we will not turn the not yet into the consummated new heavens and the new earth, no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we apply ourselves.

We will not turn earth into heaven, so to speak. We are living by faith now, and our future is certain.

Our future is secure, and we live in light of that hope, which is why Paul prays the way that he does later in Ephesians one.

I pray that you would have the eyes of your heart enlightened so that you might know the hope to which you've been called.

So that you might know the riches of God's glorious inheritance in the saints, and you might know the greatness of the power that is at work within you, right?

Like all that is true, and yet we have not experienced it in full. And so we struggle and we groan.

Yeah, and I think that sometimes we, and this is another podcast that we'll do sometime,

Justin, but I'm just gonna allude to it now. I do this in all my counseling or shepherding with people, discipleship.

Sometimes we get so focused on the problems, like whatever it is that we're struggling with, that it actually ends up tripping us up.

Like for instance, you ride bikes, I ride motorcycles. When you're on the road and you need to avoid a problem, what do you have to do?

You have to look away from the problem because your body always goes towards what you're looking at. So I had to learn this when

I was first riding street bikes is that there's something in the road I gotta avoid, I gotta pick something else out and ride towards that.

And this is true about our faith in that Paul is acknowledging the problems.

What I think is funny is that we don't pay attention. He's like, now when he says walk by faith, this isn't a theory of like just have faith.

And I hate movies that do this and songs that do this. Just have faith. Faith in what? Like the universal power, faith in yourself?

He's talking about Jesus. He's talking about, yeah, faith is never divorced from its object.

That's right. In the Christian paradigm. And the object of our faith is only and always Christ.

Right, and as Peter says, blessed are you who do not see and yet believe.

Exactly, yeah. And well, Jesus says that in John 20. What a scene, he's so compassionate to Thomas and all those things.

That's another podcast for another day too. But then put your hands, go ahead and put your hands in the scars, put your hand in my side.

And Thomas says, my Lord and my God, right? And Jesus says, do you believe after seeing effectively?

Well, blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. And then Peter says that in 1 Peter 1, 8, that though you have not seen him, you believe in him.

Though you don't now see him, you love him, right? I mean, it's just like, that's right. This is the nature of our

Christian life. Go ahead. Yeah, just to finish my thought. So when we think about the trials, or if you just,

I mean, look, there's so much with the internet and news and social media that we just have access to more evil.

And man, it's just, it's so evil, right? There's so, and it's hard. You're scared for your kids, the influence of what's going on.

And you can get really depressed. You can get really concerned. And what

I love about Paul, so he's in chapter five, come back next week, because I'm gonna just kind of tip the hat to this.

But eventually he gets to chapter 10 and he starts talking about the weapons of our warfare, which is the gospel, right? So we're putting our faith, not in our faithfulness, which is often what we wanna talk, what we're gonna talk to today, of how do we wrestle and struggle with these things.

But we're putting our faith as we wrestle and we see the weakness, we see our frailty. We believe that it's not that if we do our best that we can reach the end, that we are putting our faith in a power that dwells within us, that feeds our souls, that uplift us.

And I just have to keep saying this. I mean, verse eight, yes, we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and home with the

Lord. This is our hope, but we're not discouraged. We have a reason to be encouraged in light of the burdens, in light of the struggle, because there's something more significant.

And what's the significance? That God is using our pain, our suffering, our circumstances and situations to be salt and light, to be means to encourage and draw people to himself.

So our suffering isn't without purpose, isn't just like God wants to test us to see if we can make it.

By the way, that is how a lot of people preach and it drives me nuts. The reason for the trials is because we're in a war.

It's like we're trying to help people who are blind see and blind people, what do they do, man? They flail about sinning and slapping you and it's hard at times.

Well, trials, it's not that the Lord is testing us to see who's gonna make it.

It's that he is using trials to test our faith, yes, but what that is doing is producing steadfastness in God's people.

Because we keep seeing that the faith comes from him, not us. Correct, exactly. Like he is refining us.

He is not sifting us like wheat so that we might be lost. Like that's not it at all. Can I give an illustration real quick?

Sure. When I was in summer camp out in the desert in California, they had this massive rock cliff and we would rappel down the rock.

And I remember the very first time I had to do it, my counselor was looking me right in the eye. He goes, listen, this is a great spiritual act for you, but you need to listen to me very carefully.

I have you, you will not fall, okay? I know exactly what

I'm doing, this harness and my capacities, you can do this. Well, all those words meant nothing until I had to lean back perpendicular with the rock and walk down.

And that's what trials are doing. It's like, dear child, I have you and I'm not gonna let you go.

And when the trial comes, that's where he's talking about steadfastness, where we go, oh, we're okay. In this trial, look,

I'm actually making it because he will hold me fast. I'm not holding him fast, he's holding me fast.

This is part of the walk by faith and not by sight that Paul is talking about. Yeah, Psalm 37, like when we fall, we will not be cast headlong because the

Lord holds our hand, right? So I wanna keep us in the scripture for a second and make an observation.

You know, it is the power of God, just saying. I'm gonna keep us in the scripture for a second and then I'm gonna quote Martin Luther. And then eventually

I do wanna move on to talk about the recent conversation on social media around Richard Baxter and justification and how that actually plays into this conversation.

All right, so you went to 2 Corinthians. I wanna look at Romans six for a second and just draw a few things to our attention.

Yeah, so I'm looking, excuse me.

So I'm gonna start in verse five. This is right after. They can just see how well planned out we are when we do these.

That's right, baby. This is pro podcasting and it's fine. That's pro at its level. Pro, dog.

Top level, pro. So this is right after the, we've been baptized into Jesus, we've been united to him thing.

And Paul says, for if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

And that's strong words. And then he, listen to the words that he uses, the verbs in particular. And then I wanna unpack this for a second.

I'll quote Luther. He says, we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin for one who has died has been justified from sin.

Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again.

Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

So the verbs that he keeps using here are, we know that the old man was put to death on the cross. He'll say that if we have died with Christ, we believe that we'll also live with him.

And he means now and forever. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again because death doesn't have power over him anymore.

And then you wanna talk about a confession. He says, so we also must reckon ourselves, confess, we're dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

So Martin Luther commenting in particular on verse eight, where it's like, now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

He draws this out, and I could not agree more. I know you'll also be with Luther on this too,

John, that like Paul is speaking for himself and all of the apostles when he says that we believe.

He's speaking for saints everywhere. And so it's important that we see that everything that Paul's writing about is a matter of faith, not experience, right?

The hope of bodily resurrection unto eternal life is a matter of faith, not present experience. Our spiritual life in Christ is also a matter of faith, not present experience.

And so Martin Luther wrote this. He said, our spiritual life is a matter not of experience, but of faith.

No one knows or experiences the fact that he lives spiritually or is justified, but he believes and hopes this.

And that's so good, because it's like, all right, yeah, I don't experience bodily resurrection now.

I don't always feel and experience the fact that I'm justified. I don't always feel and experience my union with the

Lord Jesus moment over moment, but I believe and I trust that this is so. I believe and I hope that this is so.

Or verse 11, I don't always feel and experience that it's like I'm dead to sin and alive to God, because there are times when the corrupt flesh that I still drag around with me, there's all kinds of stuff that wells up from there.

Paul writes about this in Romans 7, that there's all these times that I'm doing what I don't want to do, and I'm not doing the things that I know are good, and that comes from the corrupt flesh.

And so there's a lot of times that I don't experience the fact that I'm dead to sin and alive to God in Christ, but I believe and I hope and I trust that it's so.

The life of faith, it's what we're describing, and it's not easy, because our experience, our conscience, our flesh, the evil one, the world, preaches a very different word than the gospel, and preaches a very different word than the scriptures do.

So I want to talk about Richard Baxter, but I want you to be able to comment on any of that if you want to. No, for the sake of time, let's hop over there, because we have a lot to say, a lot to say here.

All right, so this will be a little dated, because John and I, as you guys know, record fairly well in advance, and so the dust -up, the kerfuffle that I'm referring to will have occurred.

It's a great word. I know, I love the word kerfuffle. Kerfuffle. It's like, another good word is cattywampus, but it doesn't fit in this context.

Yeah, anyway. Yeah, anyway, there that is. So this will have been weeks in the past by the point that you guys are listening to this, but some of you might remember it.

I think it was all occasioned by Justin Taylor of Crossway putting a poll on Twitter, and it was something pertaining to the relationship, the nature of the relationship between obedience, good works, faith, justification, salvation, all this stuff, and it brought to the fore a lot of disagreement and controversy over how different people in the broader quote -unquote reformed camp look at things, and so what ended up occurring was

Richard Baxter in particular became a kind of lightning rod, exhibit

A example, right, of the way that some in the broader reformed

Puritan world have written about some of these things, and for those who are unfamiliar with Richard Baxter, in short, he was not sound when it comes to justification, sanctification, and things relating to that.

He sounded much more Roman Catholic than he did Protestant in terms of how he would talk about obedience and repentance and good works and how they were instrumental in one sense in our justification and how in order to remain justified, those things needed to be present.

Again, that sounds like Trent, not the Reformation, and so there's that on Baxter, but I was having a conversation with one of our pastors here in the office yesterday, and we were talking about this whole thing, the controversy over Baxter and justification and obedience and all this.

I think there is a sense in which, John, we so desperately want to be able to turn faith into sight even when it comes to this question.

We so desperately want to be able to point to something that we are doing, something that we are contributing that's tangible, that we can quantify, that we can measure, that we can hold on to and say, because of this thing that I'm holding up in my hand,

I am legitimate. Because of this thing that I am holding in my hand, I know that I am

God's, rather than us hammering this truth and pounding the desk and saying, the only thing that matters when it comes to you being

God's is the fact that Jesus is for you and that you have been united to him by faith, that you, as a weary pilgrim, have seen the only one who can save you, the only one who can protect you, the only one who loves you, and you have cast yourself into his arms.

Like, that is it. And then there's a lot that flows out of that that we can talk about, but you can't hold onto it tangibly.

How do you know you're gonna make it? The answer is Jesus, period, right? How do you know you're

God's? Christ, period. And that makes us very uncomfortable because we want to be able to point to something and grab hold of something that we are contributing.

And I think we were, so McKenzie, our associate pastor, he and I were having this conversation yesterday.

It's like, underneath some of this is this issue that we struggle so much to just live a life of simple trust and reliance upon Christ.

And it makes us very nervous. Hey, guys, real quick, some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions.

So where do you go? How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources? We have started something called the

Theocast Community, and we're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like -minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there, and you can share it and ask questions.

You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. Multiple times in the

New Testament, Paul is dealing with churches who want to go back and hold on to something that gives them control.

We love to be in control, right? We wanna say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe in Jesus, but at the same time, it'd be nice to have like a backup plan here.

And then no one would order it that way, but that's what they want, right? So Galatians is a powerful book because Paul is helping them to see that, first of all, he's acknowledging that walking by faith is hard, and if anybody ever tells you that it's easy, they've never done it, period, because the flesh is powerful, the flesh is strong, and it often overtakes us, and we see the strength of our flesh, therefore, we wanna use the strength of our flesh.

We're gonna get into this next week about how much wisdom we think there is in using our flesh to control our flesh, but we're not gonna get into this week.

Paul comes in, and sometimes, he uses language where it's kind of like, I call it the snap of a father when children aren't paying attention, and the father goes, hey, kids, like, you never wanna snap at your kids, but you're like,

I need you to look at me right now. Right, or you use your voice to get their attention.

Hey, hey, hey, you know, you do that one of the things, my dad used to do that, hey, boys. Yeah. So he goes, oh, foolish

Galatians, right? Galatians 3 .1. Who has bewitched you? It was before your very eyes that Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified.

Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law, something you can do, or by hearing with faith?

Are you so foolish, having begun by the spirit, so he brought you to life by faith, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

I mean, it's a simple question. I don't think Paul is confusing here. I don't think there's hidden language.

I think it's a really good translation. There aren't texts, and there's other passages to confirm this, right?

So what he is saying is, you trusted the power of the spirit to bring you life, and now you've abandoned that.

You're not walking in faith in the power of the gospel by means of the spirit. You're now turning to the flesh, thinking

I can better my life, I can make my life better. I can control my sin, and I can do all that God demands of me by means of some kind of, now he's pointing to the law here, by some means of law.

This would be walking by, that's right, this would be walking by faithful obedience, faithfulness, that's what it would be.

Versus, and I would even call it, in a Roman spirit, I'm walking according to the flesh, not the spirit. I don't care if you're seeking to obey

God's law. If you're doing it in your own effort, it is walking according to the flesh. That's right. Because he was talking about, this entire section he's talking about being in God, in his acceptance, in full union with him.

Union with Christ cannot be achieved by flesh -based righteousness.

It can't be achieved. Go back to our episodes on the act of obedience of Christ. This is so vital.

So it is hard, Justin, to every day wake up and realize that I have to trust that the gospel is sufficient.

I love 1 and 2 Peter, because in both letters, he confirms the gospel to them.

He says, by God's divine power, it's been granted to you. To have a grant means that it's been given to you without your effort.

A grant, right? It's another definition of grace. It's been granted to you by his divine power.

It's been gifted. That's right. All that is for life and godliness, everything that you're gonna ever need is been granted to you by grace alone.

And that's what you're putting your faith in. You're putting your faith in the sufficiency of all of who

Christ is for all of life and eternity. And so Paul is rebuking them saying, you've embraced the first part.

We've done an episode on a half gospel, people who believe in half the gospel. And so Justin and I have to wake up every day and we use the means, we use fellowship, we use prayer, that our faith would remain strong and that we wouldn't be enticed by the flesh to think, oh, my discipline will get me to the end.

Or my whatever. Yeah, feeling like. Exactly right. Now listen, you and I live disciplined lives.

You and I live faithful lives, but we do so by faith, right? Our faith is what creates the discipline in us.

Our faith is what creates the faithfulness in us. But what happens is we want to look to the results and say, well, see, that's why

I'm significant. That's why I'm safe. We always have to look at the cause, not the results.

This is how I'm enough. That's right. And you, every day of your life, dear saint out there,

I mean, we all are faced with this question. As we wake up today, as we look at the day ahead, is

Jesus enough or is he not? Has he done everything or has he not?

And like, is he mighty and able to save even me or is he not? Will he fail me or will he keep me?

Right, I mean, you have to ask those questions every day. And you're exactly right. We're always wanting to be able to point, it's kind of what

I was saying earlier, point something, hold on to something that would demonstrate that I'm enough. And we often don't understand the relationship between Christ and faith in Christ and then faithfulness that flows out of it.

I think one of our struggles, man, well, a couple of things in my mind, I might pivot here. I don't wanna steal our thunder for next week's episode, but 2

Corinthians 13, five is so often brought up, you know, the examine yourselves. To see whether -

Maybe we should just take a few minutes, talk about that. We can do a whole episode on it. To see whether you're in the faith. Yeah.

The way that, again, we're not alone in this interpretation, just to be really clear.

The way that that is typically exposited, preached, whatever verb you wanna use, exegeted, you know, all those words, right?

The way that's typically handled in our day by serious -minded, like Calvinistic types is this is about fruit and this is about faithfulness and this is about obedience.

And so you need to assess yourself in terms of what you're doing to know whether or not you're legit.

You and I are of like mind that the thrust of 2 Corinthians is

Paul defending the legitimacy of his apostolic ministry, given the fact that he is weak.

Over and against these quote -unquote super apostles who, like theology of glory type stuff, are very impressive to the eye.

Paul is not. And so what Paul is saying effectively here is you need to examine yourselves in terms of what you believe.

You need to examine yourselves, like you've heard the gospel from me and you've heard the nature of the gospel from me and everything that you're enamored with is opposite of that.

That's right. It's theology of glory, it's strength and power and shininess in the world and it's about you and it's about the evidence and the fruit and all the stuff that we can see rather than, it's like, nah, when

I'm weak, he's strong. God's power is made perfect in our weakness. It's all about God's grace and ultimately it's all about Jesus for us.

Examine yourselves, therefore, to see if you're in the faith is a call to examine what do

I believe and am I trusting in Christ or am I trusting in myself? Am I trusting in Jesus that he's enough or am

I looking to something else as though I have to supply it or we have to supply it to be enough?

And so, gosh, it's important. Yeah, this is so good, Justin. Yeah. Just, yeah, I mean, just to go back to chapter 10, this is a little bit of an introduction to next week, a sermon

I just preached this last week. I did 2 Corinthians 10, one through six. Paul's talking about the position of the attitude and heart of the believer who walks by faith.

Listen to how he starts this. I, Paul, myself, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.

The reason he says this is that he's contrasting these wise, strong, boastful people who are pointing to their success.

And the church of Corinth, they're like, Paul, why aren't you like that? Like, we think you're weak and we actually think that you are scared and you're acting timid because we have these strong leaders and what they're doing is they're pulling them back into Judaism and their strength and their boasting is in, look, look how well we're doing.

Exactly. That's exactly, so he goes on and says, I beg you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against you.

Because why? Because you're walking according to the flesh. He's like, your confidence has nothing to do with your faith.

This is, and then he goes on and he says, for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war with the flesh.

We're not grabbing on to our flesh to be successful. And then I'll just jump down here.

When he talks about boasting, he says, if you're going to boast, we're gonna boast in the Lord. Dude, how many times is that written?

Right. I mean, that's Jeremiah, but then it's 1 Corinthians 1 too. I mean, Ephesians 2. I mean, it's everywhere.

So when we see our lives being transformed and changed or what you should say, sustained, at times,

God just sustains us. You know, I feel like, man, I haven't been progressing. I haven't been growing. It's like, yeah, but he's been sustaining you.

He's been keeping you safe. And then you can go, but how is he doing that? Well, I'm gonna boast in the Lord because I put my faith in the power that's outside of my flesh.

And this is what this is about. Dear Christian, if you're sitting here and you wake up every morning and you groan and you're like, man, this just seems hard.

That's because it's supposed to be. That's normal. What we wanna tell you is that suffering and trials and struggles and fighting your flesh and fighting temptations and looking unto

Christ, receiving the table, all of this stuff so that we can be refreshed and renewed is the normal experience of the

Christian life. This idea where, you know, we play the Lego music and that should be what we experience.

And what I love about the Lego movie is it's like the whole thing comes crashing down because everything isn't awesome.

Everything is fake. You know, the whole, even the TV show, Honey, Where's My Pants? The whole thing is fake.

And I love it because the whole Lego - I'm taking your word for it, John, because I've not seen any of these. Oh, you gotta go watch it. It's great. Because it's like everything is this awesome world until they realize it's fake.

It's not real. And this Christianity that you've been handed, this theology of glory, that's right.

It's exactly like the Truman Show. When you wake up and you go, this isn't reality. Some people crash and burn so hard they walk away from church.

We don't want that. We want you to go, listen, there's a hope beyond the Truman Show. There's a hope beyond the veil.

We should do an episode, just call it the Truman Show. That'd be fun. Let's do it. Dude, you hit on something that I was thinking as well.

Yeah, one last thought. And this can be my last thought too. The reason that we have to talk about this, about the life of faith and the fact that it's hard, two things, if I had to boil it down, why is it that you needed to hear this today?

Why is it that John and I, for our own souls, needed to talk about this today? It's because we suffer and we still sin, period.

Because we suffer and because we still sin, we question and we struggle and we doubt and we fear.

And so we have to be reminded yet again, like you said, that this is the normal experience of God's people in this life.

In this pilgrimage, we will experience these things. And it doesn't mean for one second that we're not

Christ's or that the Lord isn't with us, right? But it does mean that we have not arrived yet.

And so we continue to remind ourselves that Christ is enough today and every day and that, yeah, there are good things that the

Lord will produce in and through me because of the fact that I'm united to Christ, but the ground of my hope and my confidence, the object of my faith,

Jesus of Nazareth is the one who has saved me and he's the one who will keep me. And so we press on.

I know, I think you're gonna close it down. Yeah, this is Pro Podcasting again, Pro Podcasting 101. It's taken us five years to get to this level,

Joseph. Good night, I mean, people could only aspire, John, to be like, to be at this place. We do get asked all the time, guys, how did you get to where you are?

Well, we just tell them by a lot of work in the flesh. Yeah, a lot of work in the flesh.

Part of it is we have kind of switched back and forth on like who does the intros, who does the lead -ins, who does the podcasting.

Yeah, this is all behind the curtain, fourth wall stuff. There you go, faux pas. Go ahead, John, shut us down.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, next week, we're gonna get in, we're gonna pick up this conversation and have some other thoughts for you.

But yeah, my encouragement to you, if you're listening to this, this is why Paul says consider how to build one another up.

Be in a church that's not perfect, full of broken people who are also walking by faith. Sing gospel songs, hear the gospel read, hear the law read, have a shepherd that cares for you.

It's God's design to increase your faith in what he's doing as we are light and salt in our world.

For God's glory in his kingdom, we pray that you are encouraged. We'll see you next week. Hey, everyone, before you go,

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

But we also need your support. And it's when you give that it really helps us financially reach more people.

So the next time you 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.