How to Disagree as Christians | Theocast

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I don't know about you out there, dear listener, but every time I get on social media and I see what Christians post,

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I'm just absolutely encouraged. That was a joke. I find

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Christian social media to be a beat down. Today's podcast is not about the abject beat down of Christian social media, but it is kind of a window into the conversation that John and I wanna have about how we should disagree as Christians.

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We live in a day where we're prone to throw mud and be condescending and self -righteous and accusatory and we misrepresent people with whom we disagree.

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And it does not seem to square with what the scriptures say about being gentle and kind and patient and not being argumentative.

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So we're gonna talk about all that today. We're gonna talk about the hope that we have, the citizenship that is in heaven and a savior whose name is

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Jesus and how all of that should inform our posture in the ways that we interact. We hope this is helpful to you, particularly in this election cycle year.

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

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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

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

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

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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,

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Reformed 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.

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Encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ and trying to do so with charity and kindness and gentleness.

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Patience. I see what you did there. It's a little tease. This is in the industry, in the business.

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This is something. I don't even know what we call it. This is the end. And so we're trying to encourage weary pilgrims to rest in Christ here at Theocast.

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And by taking the clutter off of the gospel and trying to reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ.

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What is it that we're supposed to be about in the kingdom of Christ? That's generally what we talk about here from a confessional perspective that is reformed and we hope pastoral.

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Your hosts are John Moffitt, who is senior pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

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And I'm Justin Perdue, senior pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina. Speaking of Asheville, North Carolina, in the year of our

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Lord 2025, should he tarry in the month of April, we're gonna have a Theocast conference, John. Can you believe that?

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This is, we've done some small local -ish events before. This is still a relatively small event.

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I think we're capping registration at like 250. At the same time, this is kind of the longest runway that we've ever given ourselves for a conference.

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Chad Bird, who has been on our podcast before, as well as Ken Jones, who has also been on our podcast before.

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Those brothers are gonna be joining us to talk about the law and the gospel. And so there's gonna be a lot of time built in to hang out with one another.

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Asheville is a great place to come and eat and drink and smoke cigars and do all those fun things and just enjoy each other's company.

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And in addition to that law and gospel material, there's some panel discussions and good singing.

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I trust it's gonna be a great time. So the registration is certainly live now. If you're listening to this podcast, you can go to our website and register for the event.

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We'd love to meet some of you in person. I mean, Lord willing, it might have already been sold out. We apologize, but we're like four or five weeks ahead.

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That would be a unique problem, yeah. Anyway, so that's really the announcement. Obviously, there's the

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Theocast community that's growing. Our website's got a free ebook on it. There's lots of things.

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If you go to theocast .org, just spend some time over there and you can find things out about our ministry. Mugs. Yeah, buy some merch, whatever.

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Stickers. We leave all that to you. You're intelligent people who know how to navigate the internet. And so we are gonna turn our attention to our conversation today.

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And I will tee it up before John gives us the topic. I'm just gonna tee it up this way. I don't know about you, dear listener out there, but pretty much every time that I get on social media and I read things that Christians post, pretty much every time

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I get on social media, I leave just absolutely encouraged. And of course,

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John is laughing because he knows I'm sarcastic. You know it's a sin to lie, man. That's so true. I forget, I do, I repent.

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Sackcloth and ashes and all those things. Stop doing that. So, sincerely though,

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Christian social media is an abject beat down. It is insane how you get online and you look at the things that Christians post about each other.

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And that's just a kind of segue. Or even the world, who cares about each other? Sure, but yeah, they say about the world, they say about the nation, but they say about each other, man.

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It is wild. I'm sure I'll say more about that in the course of today's episode. But John, before I say too much, we're not talking about social media today.

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We're talking about something bigger than that and more important, and it's a biblical thing that we're talking about. Tell everybody.

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Well, I even try and stay away from social media and I can't. I have friends and other pastors who send me stuff. I'm about to quit.

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It's like, stop sending me stuff. I don't want to know. I don't want to see it anymore. Yeah, no, sometimes we see it just in our own ministry or the way that people have treated us and the things that we've said.

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It's really sad. Now, I wanted to talk about, Justin, you and I were in a podcast recently, the

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Sean DeMars podcast. Oh, help me with the title of the podcast. Room for Nuance.

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Room for Room Nuance, thank you. I had the word nuance. I couldn't remember what came before it. Sorry, Sean.

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Love you, buddy. But in that conversation, we started to talk about kind of how there's this ethos that's starting to center around if you're a part of Christian nationalism or theonomy or any type of cultural transformation, conservative,

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I would even just say conservative Christianity. Justin, this is such a strong way of saying it, but I don't know how else to say it, but there's a really self -righteous attitude that is starting to come out that is harsh in tone.

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It's very exacting. And I just - It's harsh and it's condescending. It's very condescending to the point where,

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I'm gonna say this, it's sinful. It's sinful the way in which I can see how people are calling names, using phrases, writing articles, sometimes just doing videos.

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People are ridiculing the world and they're mocking other believers. That's right.

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And somehow we've convinced ourselves that this is what faithfulness to Jesus looks like. Right. So I wanna state something for those.

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I know this is gonna get passed around. We get shot at any time that we mention the word theonomy. So Justin and I think that homosexuality is wrong, that abortion, we wanna fight against it.

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That marriage is between a man and a woman. We think that we should promote holiness in our congregations and that all of this should be for the honor and glory of Christ and that we should not back off on it for any reason.

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We are not woke. We're not trying to go that direction. So that's typically what ends up happening is that you guys are woke, you're sensitive, you're weak.

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And I think that - You're just squishy about things. You don't wanna say stuff that will offend anybody, but yet you're not willing to stand on the wall and promote human flourishing or certainly godliness.

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And that is not where we are. That's right. And if we aren't willing to stand up for truth and speak out against it, then evil will take over.

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And I understand the sentiment that people have there where it's like, if we don't do anything, if we don't say anything, then evil will prevail.

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And I don't want that. Justin doesn't want that. But at times, we're not always necessarily in control of that.

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This is why, Paul, we're gonna get into this. Paul and Peter both tell the church that you're gonna have to suffer for your faith because there are times when this is where culture is, right?

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And this is what God is using. So I wanna just point out a couple of things where I'm starting to see the fruit of people's ministries and the fruit of what they're doing.

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And there are some of you who have not made your decision on what side you wanna play on, right?

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What side of the fence do you wanna be on here? You feel like you're being criticized for, oh, I don't wanna be weak, and I wanna be the person that's like, oh, well,

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I'm not gonna do anything. But at the same time, I don't know if I wanna be calling people names and using vulgarities and using harsh language to try and draw people's attention to something as well.

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And Justin, what's being justified is when they look at things that Paul has said or Christ has said, and they use that as an example, which is a very, very small example in all of Scripture.

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And I think we'd even at some point even look at those as examples. But they use that as a means to be able to speak to each other in confrontation, whether it's a believer or talk to the world.

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You know, we're just on the heels of the Olympics right now. And the things that I saw people say, all

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I wanted to just, and I did put this out, such were some of you. Such were some of you.

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We were once dead. We did not cause ourselves to become alive. And how is it we take this self -righteous position of somehow, and these are sometimes,

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Justin, these are reformed people. That's the thing that shocks my mind. They should know better that they have no right to be angry towards the unbeliever because they once were just as dead as the unbeliever is.

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Jesus in multiple places during his, I mean, in the Gospels, right?

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During his life on earth. But then the apostles as well. It's very clear that it is an honor for us to suffer for the sake of Christ's name.

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That's one thing. Jesus is also very clear that there will be people who will blaspheme him, right?

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And that in no way does he exhort us to use the power of the sword to stop that.

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But he exhorts us to all kinds of things. The apostles exhort us to all kinds of things, but never is it this whole like, well, you just need to use all the power that you have, earthly power, to stop people from saying bad things about Jesus or to stop people from saying bad things about Christians or Christianity.

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We can't stop that. Anyway, it's just - It's been granted to you to suffer for my sake. Right, I mean, we will suffer in unrighteous ways and people will mock the

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Lord Jesus until he returns, and at which point, every knee will bow. The Lord is gonna handle this.

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Yeah, judgment day is coming, it's not here yet. It's gonna be okay. And between now and then, we preach Jesus.

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We hold Christ out to the worst of sinners because there aren't any other kind, man.

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So the Bible has called pastors to be setting examples in their congregations. And I think it's fair to say that pastors should also be setting examples in culture in general, as those who are the followers of Christ, who've been discipled by Christ, who know his word and teach it.

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So I just wanna turn to a passage. I wanna start by talking to Christians, between Christians, and then we can talk about the

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Christian to the unbeliever, lastly. But this is 2 Timothy 2, verse 24. And I think this is good.

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If you're a pastor, you need to listen to this. But I think it could apply to the, since pastors are examples to the congregants, congregate,

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I think this can apply to you. And then I can find other passages where it would apply. But I'm gonna stick with this one just for the sake of time.

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2 Timothy 2, verse 24. It says, and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, we should explain what that word means, but kind to everyone.

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Now, is it fair to say this is potentially in the church? Yeah, I think it could also mean it's outside the church.

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The context does lead, later on, to realize that he is talking about the church, able to teach patiently enduring evil, enduring it, which is fascinating,

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Justin. He didn't say fighting it, trying to remove it. He says we're enduring it, why?

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Because we have a mission that is different than any other person's mission. Correcting his opponent with gentleness.

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Oh, whoa. That is not a verse I hear a lot of people who are on the internet using.

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Or I would say obeying. Applying. Yes, so enduring evil, and I'm assuming the evil

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I'm being enduring is from my opponent, and as I correct my opponent, I'm gonna do it with gentleness, continuing to read verse 25.

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God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil.

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So this is, when he's looking about the evil in which they're enduring and the opponent to them, he is saying this is by, listen to this, after being captured by him to do his will.

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So my gentle, kind response with truth is praying upon God, God, please use this to draw them out from underneath doing the will of God.

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The opposite of being mocking and being exacting or using vulgarity.

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It's amazing to me what Christians are saying to each other that, well, honestly, Justin, I can't tell you how many scriptures they're violating, yet they think they're standing for the truth, and yet they're violating the truth.

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They're covering it up with their mouth. Yeah, okay, I'm gonna make one comment that's a little bit more lighthearted, and then

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I'm gonna, and it's anecdotal, and then I wanna make one that is more serious, that I'm gonna stand by, and John, you can agree or disagree.

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So when we were starting to do Theocast together, this has been about five years ago, we were joking, rule number one of Theocast is don't be a jerk.

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Rule number two, see rule number one, right? We decided, and this is not to commend us or pat ourselves on the back, but we decided years ago that we're gonna talk about things, we're gonna say things with clarity, and we hope precision, and there are gonna be times where we're gonna publicly disagree with other people who have influential ministries and platforms, but we're gonna try to do that charitably, and we're gonna try to do that with gentleness and humility, and we're gonna assume well.

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We're not gonna impugn motivations. We're gonna try to represent those who disagree with us. We're gonna try to represent them well.

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Like that was a commitment we made, man, and I know we've done the best that we can, and may the

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Lord forgive us for ways we've been blind to not doing that. So that's important to us because from my vantage point,

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I know you agree, bro, to be gentle and patient is winsome.

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I question this is not that important. I mean, this is more just practically an observation.

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How do you think it's gonna go when you are mocking and ridiculing people who disagree with you?

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Like do you really think that's gonna be winsome? Do you really think that's even gonna work from a level of just pragmat, like pragmatically speaking, do you think it's gonna work?

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I don't think it's gonna work, let alone the things that we're commanded to do in the Bible. All right, so let me say this.

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There are, because people will, and we could talk about, you alluded to this, maybe some of the strong language that Paul uses, for example.

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Didn't you allude to that earlier? Like how he uses really strong, and Jesus does too. But I'm just thinking, let's take

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Paul. This is great. Let's tee this up because I think this is illustrative of what we're trying to point out here.

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Take the letter to the Galatians. I would argue that Paul in that letter throws sharper elbows than about anything else you read in the

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New Testament. I mean, Paul goes hard in the paint, man. I mean, he's merciless in how he speaks, even about his opponents at points in that letter.

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Now, what is it over? This is the big thing. What is it over? It is over the sufficiency of Jesus Christ to save sinners.

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That's what he is throwing hard, I mean, throwing bows over. He is going hard over the sufficiency of Christ as a savior, over the clarity of the good news that it is apart from any work that we could ever do.

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It is Jesus only. And he's like, if it's Jesus plus, you've got no gospel. If it is

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Jesus plus, there is no hope. You better keep the whole daggum law if that's you, right?

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I mean, that's effectively what he says. It's all or nothing. And so he is very, very harsh, you might even say, with his defense of the sufficiency of Christ.

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Okay, so that's one thing. It is one thing to throw bows and go hard in the paint over the sufficiency of Jesus and the clarity of the gospel and the fact that we can't do this

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Jesus plus stuff. That's right. But notice what everybody is jumping off the rooftops about on social media.

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What is it? It's politics. That's right. It's culture. Or what happened at the Olympics, the culture, yeah.

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It's the, you know, it's drag queen story hour. That's right. It's, yeah, the opening ceremonies of the

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Olympics. It's the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. It's Trump. It's Kamala Harris.

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It's this, it's that. And it's insane how strong, like people think that they are honoring

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God by mocking and ridiculing other believers and by mocking and ridiculing other people that are made in God's image over politics.

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Yeah, and I'll jump in here and say, there's nothing wrong with stating disagreement. Yeah, I don't agree with this.

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I don't think this is biblical. Of course not. That's not wrong at all. And we are to stand for the truth, but there's a difference in standing for the truth and how you stand for it.

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Sorry, go ahead. No, brother, you're piling on here. I agree wholeheartedly.

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Like we are not, so don't hear what we're not saying. I am not saying that Christians should not speak to the issues in the public square.

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I'm not saying that Christians should not engage in politics. I'm not saying that Christians should not engage in things that affect the society.

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I'm not saying that Christians shouldn't speak out against things that harm other people. Of course we should, but we don't need to be cruel and jerkish, and we don't need to be self -righteous and condescending and mock and ridicule people in order to speak.

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We should speak with clarity, with kindness, gentleness, meekness, humility. And we struggle to do this as humans.

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I mean, you and I included, man. But it just seems, I know every election cycle this happens. Whenever there's a world event like the

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Olympics, this happens. It's just, it just seems to be fodder. And it's like, we just can't help ourselves.

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We're like gnats drawn to the flame. We just got to start throwing mud at everybody who disagrees with us.

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I guess, how do you, like maybe when I read this next verse, Justin, is this only apply in the context of the church?

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Some might say this, but it says Philippians 2, 3, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but humility, others more significant than yourselves.

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Look, let each one of you look not at his own interests, but the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is also in Christ Jesus, who, what did he do?

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Though he was in the form of God, he came and died for our benefit. So there is an essence where, if we're looking to Christ and what

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Christ has done for us, as we are interacting with other Christians and the unbeliever, we're going to consider that person to be more significant than ourselves because this is what

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Christ did for us. And this is, I think, the thing that I'm struggling with is that I am not saying don't engage.

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I am not saying put your phone down or be silent. That is not what we're saying.

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It is how we conduct ourselves, which is important. It's, listen, the way in which we conduct ourselves is a reflection of our faith, to be honest with you.

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It's a reflection of our Savior. I mean, whether we, particularly to the watching world. Exactly, I'll give an example.

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So we'll go ahead and just kind of combine like this. I'm going to go ahead and just jump over to 1 Peter. 1 Peter is writing to the church and he goes through and he starts with their hope of the gospel.

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And then he kind of turns and says, look, I know, I mean, in chapter one of the chapter, he's like, it's your, you have been called to suffer.

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Like this is part of what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ? Jesus says this, if they hated me, they're going to hate you as well.

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And so he's explaining to them how the hope of Christ, which, you know, set your hope fully on the grace that is to come, not now, but that is to come.

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So this is how you're going to act in your job. This is going to how you're acting in the government.

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This is how you're going to act with a spouse that might be with an unbelieving husband, right? And then he gets down to it and he says, now, as you endure the suffering, be ready to answer the hope that lies within you, right?

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Anyone who asks you, what's interesting about that - Be ready to give a reason for the hope.

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That's right, of the reason of the hope. And it's interesting, Justin, in the middle of that context, it's the way in which

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Peter's wording it, the people who are persecuting them are the ones who go, okay, so I keep hurting you and you keep having hope that's outside the circumstance.

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You're going to need to tell me about this. This, I think, goes back to Timothy, where he says, the ones who are doing evil to you, you oppose them with gentleness.

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So there's this idea where, well, let's see. Jesus says, the world will know you're my disciples by the love that you have for one another.

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There is an essence that the world is watching what we're doing and how we're doing it, and we're reflecting our

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King. But there are times, I'm just going to be frank, I see, even in the Reform world, the way there's this tribalism that's happening, and we're just, you know, it's overwhelming, just seems like, what are we doing?

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This is, the world doesn't look at what we're doing and go, wow, you're a follower of Jesus. They're not asking about the hope that lies within us.

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And I just, you know, I think it's healthy to stop and have this conversation and saying, we're defending one part of Scripture without completely ignoring another.

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We have to do both. I think we defend what is right and true and speak the truth, but we always do it with the proper attitude.

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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?

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

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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.

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You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. You mentioned tribalism, even in the

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Reformed world, which we understand ourselves to be a part of, broadly speaking. I don't know, we get shot at for saying all kinds of things.

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One of the things that has been, and basically what I'm saying is, maybe we'll get shot at for saying this, but I think it needs to be said.

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I think in the last six months even, I'll just use that timeframe, I have been somewhat discouraged by the kind of tribalism and the kind of like separatism that I see within the confessional

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Reformed world, broadly. I'm talking Baptists, Presbyterians, Reformed church, you name it.

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There is something about us, man. Like, and brother, I think everybody that listens to this show knows, and everybody who knows us personally knows, you and I care a lot about doctrine.

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I mean, we care a lot about sound doctrine and good theology. I mean, we've been talking about it for five years on the air now, and we engage in this.

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I mean, we've given our lives to this. So we care a lot about doctrine and theology and church history and all these things.

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We care about orthodoxy. And at the same time, there is this spirit that I see.

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We all, first of all, we all have a legal frame that's using old language that people have used for centuries.

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We have a legal frame. There's a kind of legal wiring to us, and that's its own thing in terms of how we relate to God and each other.

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But then I have seen in all of us, we all have this kind of inner fundamentalist going on.

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There's like, you know what I mean? Like where we just cannot help ourselves. We're fundamentalists at heart, and I don't mean that in a good way.

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I mean that in like we can't calm down about anything, and we don't do theological triage very well.

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Like we don't know what's a primary matter. Everything's a 10 all the time. We have two speeds. It seems like we have two speeds.

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If I'm in a fellowship with you, I got two gears in my gearbox, essential or irrelevant. And it's like, and so we better agree on everything, or we can't fellowship.

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It's how it comes across. Or if I think that you have been unwise in this decision that you made,

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I mean like our friend Chris Gordon, I'll say it. I mean our friend Chris Gordon who did an interview with Doug Wilson.

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Chris is getting absolutely crucified by many within the

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Reformed world for the fact that he even had a conversation with Doug. That is insane to me,

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John. Like we're gonna have a conversation with somebody, and we're gonna write a man off who's had a faithful ministry for years because he was willing to sit down and engage with somebody with whom he disagrees.

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Like what are we doing? And it isn't encouraging to me.

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And I'm all for like, again, I love church history. I mean Martin Lloyd -Jones and Jim Packer, John Stott, Billy Graham, the whole ecumenism movement of the 20th century.

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I'm all with it, man. Like unity for unity's sake is meaningless. I completely agree. Doctrine does matter.

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We've gotta have doctrinal agreement. Amen to all that. But my goodness, we need to have an ecumenical spirit at the same time where we are willing to lock arms and do things together and encourage one another and promote gospel preaching, gospel heralding ministries rather than just burning everybody down who doesn't agree with us.

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I just don't understand. Anyway, rant over. Yeah, I mean, even going back to the article, or I mean the event with Chris Gordon, I wrote an article on that because of what was happening in the comment sections.

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It was, I mean, it was so bad, Doug Wilson had to write his own article saying, guys, please stop.

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And if you wrote something, please delete it. And this is when, and unfortunately there's within certain crowds, there's a history of just harshness and just vulgarity over the top.

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And which is why I titled it, the fruit of Doug Wilson's pen. This is the kind of stuff that it ends up producing. And I don't wanna just single him out.

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This is not a podcast about. No, it's not about Doug. No, it's not about Doug Wilson. So I wanna state this now.

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And I did appreciate how Doug handled himself with Chris. And I thought it was a meaningful conversation.

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So I'm just gonna go ahead and state that now. But Justin, we are, we are so, we are,

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I'll just put it this way. We are fighting such a powerful enemy. I mean, go back to Timothy.

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He is saying people who are opposing us are doing the will of the devil. That is an unreal thought to think about, right?

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Like we're trying to win people back from being stared by the devil and we're shooting at each other.

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And we're presenting ourselves to the world in such a way that it's not going to draw their attention to Christ.

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They're like, well, you're acting like just everyone else that is in the world. Why would I wanna pay attention to what you're saying?

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And Justin, you and I both know, believe that the preaching of the law is 100 % necessary. We have to preach the law at its full weight.

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Well, that would go under law, would go under truth, right? This is what is true about the holiness of God and your condemnation under it.

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That means you have to speak it with love and affection and patience that God would open their eyes.

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So even when we preach the law, we don't preach it with anger. We preach it understanding that we were saved from the law and this person too can be saved from the law.

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And the way in which we act and the way in which we react, I think is important. Again, I'm gonna say this,

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I'm gonna encourage this. We need to be involved in our culture. We need to be involved in the conversation.

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We need to be voting. These should be meaningful conversations. I am not saying being silent.

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Nowhere did Peter say be silent. He was saying continue to be involved in the government, continue to be doing your job.

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Yeah, love and serve your neighbor through your vocation. I was gonna say, I mean, we have meaningful posts in society just through our vocations.

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And I mean, that can be inside or outside the home for that matter. I mean, it's all meaningful and we should give ourselves to it, continue.

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No, that was just my thought. And I'm getting kind of riled up, but I don't have a lot more to say.

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I just wanna encourage, I've only used two, maybe three passages of scripture. But Christ is the one who says when we speak the truth, we're supposed to speak it in love.

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And there is an essence where Justin, when I say this, I can promise you,

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I can promise you somebody in the comments is going to put this in the comments that when I speak truth, people don't necessarily always feel love.

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That's not what Jesus said. He didn't say so that they would feel loved.

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He said, speak it in love. It is our attitude and affection. We love them as an image bearer of God.

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We are called to be priests, that's what Peter says. We're a kingdom of priests. We represent

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God as ambassadors to these people. And so we give them truth. We love others because of the love that comes to us.

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They may hate us. They might even kill us. They might even do evil things to us. You can't justify your anger response to them because of what they've done.

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You're the one with the truth. They're the one that's blind. And I think it's important that we remember that. Yeah, so we have a citizenship that's in heaven.

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That's important to remember. And this isn't a podcast about two kingdoms. I know that we get dismissed all the time. It was just being R2K, radical two kingdoms guys or whatever.

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But it's undeniable. We have a citizenship in heaven and we are citizens of the common kingdom of the world. Both are true.

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But I think we would do well to think more on that citizenship in heaven piece in terms of how we relate to other believers.

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And then even when we think about the fact that we're citizens of heaven, how in the world did that come about in the first place?

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Matthew 6 .33, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, right? That kingdom is given, man.

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Fear not little flock, right? It is the father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, Luke 12 .32. That righteousness that we seek, that's a given righteousness too.

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I mean, that's what the letter of Romans is about, bro, is that the righteousness of God given to sinners by faith in Christ, there is no other way.

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I mean, so even that should, man, it should make us humble and gentle and charitable people, shouldn't it? To think about that, that we've been given a kingdom that cannot be shaken, that we have not come to Mount Sinai, but we've come to Mount Zion and to the blood of Christ that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, you know?

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I mean, this is what God has done for us. And we are now citizens of heaven. We are adopted sons and daughters of the

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Most High. And that should give us a perspective on everything that's going on in the world.

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Not that what's going on in the world doesn't matter, but that we would not act like what's going on in the world is ultimate.

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I mean, one, but we should be all the more eager and willing to love and serve and lay down our lives if necessary for the good of our neighbor, rather than getting online and absolutely mowing everybody down in Jesus' name.

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Like, we should avoid doing that. I got one last verse.

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I just have to quote it in Peter. 1 Peter 2, 21. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, as the sinner, leaving you at his example that you might follow in his steps.

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He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

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When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

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And that's the thing we need to remember. We're not the judge or the jury. We are here to entrust ourselves to Christ, entrust him as the judge, and we are to speak on his behalf the gospel of good news.

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And I think it's important for us to not lose sight of that when we get into these debates. So exercise your civic duty, love your neighbor, serve your neighbor through your vocation.

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Just be useful in your community. Be a part of a healthy church. Love the saints there.

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Do all of these things. You will impact a bunch of people's lives. And then I know that the context of this is more in the church, but I do think that like even

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Romans 12 categories of do not avenge yourselves. You were just talking about unjust suffering.

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Like do not avenge yourselves, but leave it to God. Like if we exercise our duties that we've been given, if we're responsible and we steward well the things that God has given to us, we can't control every outcome.

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We need to be, as we've said, kind, gentle, patient, winsome, all that. But even when things go badly, which they will in a

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Genesis three world, we do not need to avenge ourselves. The Lord sees, the

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Lord knows. The Lord will not be mocked. He will administer perfect justice when this is all over.

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And we can trust him with that. And that too should give us perspective and help us to pump the brakes a little bit and not feel the need to be the ones who are just gonna change the world and right every wrong.

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The Lord will do that. He will right every wrong. He will wipe every tear from all of the eyes of his people.

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And so let's allow that to inform our posture, I guess, is a final word.

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Amen. That's how you disagree with Christians. We're gonna land the plane and try not to buzz the tower 14 times as preachers are prone to do.

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All right, well, anyway, if there's anything that we've said today that is untrue or unhelpful, we hope that you'll forget it as soon as you turn this podcast off.

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If things that we have said today are helpful, may the Lord use them. We're grateful that you've listened to us today.

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And we hope that you give your life to loving and serving your brothers and sisters and loving and serving your neighbor, and that you will be charitable and kind and gentle with people with whom you disagree.

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And may the Lord Jesus - And if you wanna be in a community that practices this as well, join the Theocast community. There you go, a little plug.

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You could do that. There you go. Until next time, grace and peace. Grace and peace. Hey, everyone, before you go,

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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.

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

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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.