The Forgotten Part of the Gosp... | Theocast

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Hi, this is John, and today on Theocastle, I'm going to ask you this question. What is the gospel? Most would say it's his life, death, and resurrection, and we're super thankful for the cleansing of our sins and the righteousness that we've received.

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But is that the entire gospel? Well, Justin and I are going to argue that it's not. There's been a very important part that's been left off, and it does affect our encouragement and our daily assurance.

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Stay tuned. A simple and easy way for you to help support Theocast each month is by shopping at Amazon through the

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Amazon Smile program. When you make a purchase through Amazon Smile, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to our ministry.

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To learn how to sign up, just go to theocast .org slash give. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

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Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed and pastoral perspective. Today your hosts are

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Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina, and I am

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John Moffitt. I am the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, which is also beautiful just south of Nashville, Tennessee.

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Justin, my friend, one of my favorite points of my week is to talk to you about Christ.

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We've already had a wonderful time just sipping coffee and thinking about the future and encouraging one another, but we have a pretty epic book giveaway today, and I want you to tell the people what we're giving away.

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We're giving away another book by our friend and friend of Theocast, Michael Horton.

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He needs to sponsor Theocast. I'm just saying that right now. I mean, I think we gave one of his books away literally last week, and he's a professor at Westminster Seminary in California.

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Can I interject one more time and just say that if he doesn't start writing more books, we're going to give away, we're going to run out of books to give away.

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So another book by our brother Michael Horton this week, and this week's title is

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The Gospel -Driven Life by Horton. And so, public service announcement for all the listeners out there, the much beloved and much ballyhooed

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Wheel of Names is no longer a thing. I just learned a new word, ballyhooed.

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It's an expression. That's awesome. Yeah, now I'm distracted.

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But anyway, ballyhooed. Yes. So the Wheel of Names is no more because we have too many names to try to put into it now.

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So I think we broke the Wheel of Names. And so what we're doing now is randomizing all the members so that it's not an alphabetical order.

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And then I pick a random number between one and whatever. So by the sovereign selection of Justin is what we say now instead of the

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Wheel of Names. I guess I'm the secondary agent. And God, as always, is the primary actor.

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That's right. And this week's winner of The Gospel -Driven Life by Michael Horton is none other than Jonathan Pierce.

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None other than Jonathan Pierce. What's the subtitle, Jon? I've got it over here in my stack. Subtitle in the book? Being good news people in a bad news world.

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There you have it. So in case Jon talked over the announcement, Jonathan Pierce is the winner. And so Jonathan, if you don't get a message from us, shoot us one man and we'll be happy to get this book to you.

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If you're listening to the podcast, today is a Wednesday. When this releases, you can go to any of our social media accounts.

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That would be Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, and you'll find instructions on how you could win a copy of The Gospel -Driven

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Life by Michael Horton. Tomorrow we would announce that winner, which would be on Thursday. And so I trust that'll be clear enough if you go to any of our socials today.

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And maybe you'll win the book tomorrow and we'll get it shipped to you. Anyway, we hope these giveaways are of an encouragement to you guys.

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We just like to get good resources in your hands. Good books are great ways to spread helpful ideas and biblical truth.

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And so there that is, Jon. What are we going to talk about today, brother? Well, before we do that, literally, to show you how random this is,

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Jonathan Pierce is a, I'm sure he wouldn't mind this, but he's a pastor in Virginia who is actually driving here

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Friday to spend the weekend, or at least Friday night and Saturday with me. And so when we pulled up his name,

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I thought that was quite ironic that he was the one. Providential, you might say. Yes, providential.

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Yes. Well, as the title of the podcast is probably very interesting, and we probably allude to it already in the topic,

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Justin and I want to talk about a portion of the gospel that is often overlooked, if not ignored in most,

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I would say sermons today and churches and theology and people's lives. And it's very sad that it's overlooked because in my opinion, this is the part of the gospel that encapsulates and seals it.

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It's what makes it relevant for every single day life. And it is the thing that gives us sustainability in a world of bad news is why we picked this book,

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The Gospel Driven Life. You can't really be driven by the gospel if you leave this part of the gospel out.

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So, Justin, when we normally say gospel to people right off the bat, what's kind of like the bullet point that they normally run through and then they leave one thing out?

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But what's the points that they tended to point out if they were just going to give us a bullet point of the gospel?

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So, I'm going to stick my foot in the trap and answer the question, and then we'll go. So, I think rightly,

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I mean, we're talking about in pretty healthy situations here, people will articulate the gospel as the finished work of Christ in the place of sinners.

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And what's typically articulated then is his passive obedience or his suffering, where he dies the death we deserve and bears our punishment and our penalty.

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So, he fulfills the penalty of the law. And in his sacrifice, we are forgiven of our sin and absolved of our guilt.

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So, that's one piece. And then another piece that people, certainly in our circles, John, are very faithful to present as well is

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Christ's active obedience to the law, where he fulfills it in terms of his obedience to it and his life of perfect righteousness that he lives in our place.

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And that righteousness of Christ is counted to sinners through faith as well, so that by faith in Jesus, we're forgiven and absolved and we are counted righteous.

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We're justified. And that is, praise be to God, glorious news.

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And John and I both would die for that message and those things that I've just said.

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But then there is a piece of the gospel, a part of it, that is,

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I think I'm going to give a lot of benefit to doubt here. I think it's just assumed and understood, kind of almost like, well, we don't need to state it explicitly all the time because we all understand that this has occurred and that Christ is still doing things for us.

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But what we want to do today is take that assumed part, perhaps neglected part, perhaps forgotten part on the part of some, and talk explicitly about it.

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So we talk a ton about Christ's death for us. We talk a ton about Christ's righteousness for us.

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But today we're going to talk about another aspect of the work of Jesus for us on our behalf that is also mega encouraging.

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The gospel is not the starting point. We've been saying this for years. It's not the ticket into the train of God's family.

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It's just not the onboarding certificate for adoption. We, in a very crude sense, would often believe that God kind of wipes the slate clean with His blood.

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And then at that point, He went home, His job was done, and now He says, OK, I'll come back later, but while I'm waiting and you're evangelizing, don't mess your life up.

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Or as I like to say it, a lot of times we tell people, yeah, Jesus is forgiven, you've been forgiven, and you've got a clean slate.

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Now, you know, God kind of pats us on the backside and says, now go out there and don't disappoint me. And Christ leaves, and He becomes like this judge where He's got

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His arms crossed and He's watching. He's waiting. Like, are you going to mess up my plan here that I have for you?

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Are you going to do well enough? Yeah. Am I going to be able to say, well done, thou good and faithful servant, at the end of your life?

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Or am I going to say, no, depart from me, I never knew you? And we live in that limbo.

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We don't see Jesus. We see Jesus on the cross, and that draws us to Him affectionate, but Jesus in the right hand of the

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Father doesn't feel affectionate. So today, Justin and I want to talk about the absolute importance of the ascension.

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And if Jesus did not ascend and accomplished what He accomplished in His ascension, and is accomplishing what

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He's accomplishing right now, as far as caring for us, then we would have absolutely no reason to be doing this podcast or to be pastors.

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Just to kind of launch this off of why it's kind of back in our minds, I'm preaching in John, and John famously records this interaction between Jesus and Mary, and tells

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Mary to let me go. Like, don't hold on to me, because, you know, just so you understand the context from her perspective, she thought

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Jesus was dead. She didn't understand His sayings about the temple being rebuilt and Him ascending to the

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Father. Of course, none of the disciples understood that. Otherwise, they would all have been sitting by on the tomb, kind of waiting for the whole thing to roll away.

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Like, it's going to happen. Where's the popcorn? This is going to be awesome. They didn't get it. So when she finds her

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Savior, and by the way, Mary's the one who had the demons cast out of her. She finds her Savior walking.

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She just goes and just like, I'm not letting Him go. He's not going anywhere now. And Jesus has to say, hey, let go and go tell the disciples

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I'm about to leave to your God, to my, He literally says, my Father and your

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Father. It's just a beautiful statement. And if you don't understand the eminence and the importance that Jesus has set throughout all of His ministry, this is what we're going to talk about now, is that Jesus has pointed out multiple times in His ministry, and then the apostles and the

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New Testament epistles picked up and further gave us an explanation. Justin, I'll say this one thing, and then

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I'll hand it over to you. When we read passages of scriptures, for instance,

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John 20, verse 17 and 18, where he says, Mary, don't touch me.

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When he says, I'm about to ascend, there's so much that's there. So we have to use what I would say, theological lenses that reference everything we know about the ascension.

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And we're all saying, yes, Jesus, you need to get out of here because as soon as you do, so much is going to happen that is beneficial for us.

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So Justin, I think we've set it up. Now probably it's about time to talk about it. Justin Perdue To be super clear, when we talk about the ascension of Christ, it's recorded in Acts chapter one, where Christ ascends to the heavens to the right hand of the

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Father. So God the Son, in that sense, returns to the place from which He came.

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And He obviously took on human flesh and came to dwell on earth for over 30 years. And then ascends to the heavens to sit at the right hand of His Father.

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And there's a number of things that are going on as a result of His ascension that He is doing on our behalf, and also that the

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Holy Spirit is sent to do because Christ has ascended to heaven. And so we're going to unpack some of those today, and I think it's really going to be an encouraging conversation for the listener.

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So I'll kick us off, John, and just give us the header, and then you and I can chop it up, and then we'll move on to the next piece.

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So our first, really our one heading for our first two major points here.

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So the first thing that we would say about the ascension of Christ and why it matters for us is that Jesus is our high priest.

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He is our mediator. And so when He ascended to heaven and sits at the right hand of His Father, He takes up the role of being our intercessor and our advocate.

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And so we're just going to talk about both those things. And yeah, let's roll, John. Yeah, I'll start with Hebrews.

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And I'm just going to interject here. There are a couple of things in scripture that just might bring me to tears almost every time we talk about it, and it's when

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I think about what Christ is doing for us right now, and I'm already tearing up, so here we go.

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Hebrews 10, 11, and every priest stands daily at His service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

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But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until His enemies should be made a footstool for His feet.

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For by a single offering, He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

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So it's a beautiful picture of the sacrificial system for years could not accomplish taking away sins, and Jesus is the sacrifice, is the high priest.

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When He ascends to heaven, He finishes the work that He was sent there to do, and He sits down saying, no one needs to do anything more because I did it all.

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So I'm going to read a couple of passages, and then we can riff on these. So the first one is also in the book of Hebrews, but chapter seven.

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So it's along these same lines, beginning in verse 23. The former priests, so the writer is talking about the priests of Israel, the

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Levitical priests, the former priests were many in number, and there were a bunch of them because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but He, Jesus, holds

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His priesthood permanently because He continues forever. Consequently, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them,

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Romans chapter eight. I'm just going to begin with verse 31 and read down through verse 34.

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What then shall we say to these things? Paul has made these wonderful promises about the eternal hope that we have in Christ.

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If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will

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He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Of course, He will. Verse 33, who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

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It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

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So we get these wonderful pictures of Christ at the right hand of God. He lives forever, so He can hold this office of our high priest and mediator in perpetuity for eternity because He doesn't die like the other priests died.

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He's greater than them. And so He sits at God's right hand and intercedes on our behalf so that we will be finally saved.

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He is able to save us to the uttermost, and we therefore have no reason to be afraid because the one who is going to be the judge of all men at the end of history is the one who intercedes on our behalf all the time right now in the heavens.

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And what a wonderful thought, John. That as we struggle through life and we wrestle and our lives are up and down and all over the place and our hearts break and we battle sin and we fail,

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Christ always remains the same and He always is pleading our case and effectively praying for us, and we know that the

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Father always hears the intercession and the prayers of the Son. Even when we fail to see our sin or fail to repent,

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He intercedes on our behalf, which means the Father always says yes to the

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Son, and we will never be underneath His condemnation. Even in Hebrews, when it says He disciplines us,

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He does not do so out of anger, but out of love, because what does it say? Because of love.

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Just a very brief interjection on that discipline in Hebrews, brother. People just need to realize it's God as a loving

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Father exercising formative discipline, not punitive. That's right. It's so important, man.

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All right, so why don't we, while we're continuing to think about this high priest and mediator piece, the second aspect, we already talked about Jesus as intercessor.

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Now we're going to talk about something else that's similar but different, and it's His role as advocate.

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And this is really sweet too, because I'll just explain this.

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I'm going to read 1 John, and then we'll just talk about it. So 1 John 2, verses one and two. My little children,

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John says, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the

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Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

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And so if Christ's intercessory role is sweet in thinking about the fact that all the time

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Jesus effectively prays and pleads for us, and like we sing so often that our names are graven on His hands, and He ever lives and pleads for me.

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This advocacy role is at least as sweet, because a lot of times we think this way, when we're doing pretty well, it's like, well, yes,

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Christ is our advocate. Amen. But when we sin and just absolutely blow it again for the thousandth time, and we are so disappointed and grieved about our own condition that we don't even know what to say in defense of ourselves, we don't have to worry about defending ourselves because Jesus does that for us.

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He pleads our case when we sin. Like that is, it sounds scandalous to say, we don't need to do penance to regain

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God's favor. We don't need to work. We can't work ourselves up into a sufficient enough emotional frenzy and grief over our sin.

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Jesus pleads for us when we sin, not once we get over it. Not once we're doing better.

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And that, brother, I think, shout out to Dane Ortlund and his wonderful book,

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Gentle and Lowly. He writes some wonderful stuff on Jesus as advocate in that book. I would commend people reading that chapter.

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It's just mega encouraging because I think we always are prone to think that Jesus feels differently about us when we're sinning and it's like, no, his heart is moved towards us when we fall and that's when his love and grace and power and mercy are most evidently on display because it's in that moment that he has us and pleads for us and defends us.

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We don't need to do that for ourselves. If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called

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Faith vs. Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And if you struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a

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Reformed confessional perspective. You can get your free copy at theocast .org

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slash primer. Going back to John, when he says,

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I'm not going to lie. I teared up while Justin was talking. I was like, keep talking, brother.

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I can't come in right now. John says, my little children. Yeah, it's a term of endearment.

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Let's just start right there. I write these things that you may not sin. Amen. Sin is destructive.

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It's just, it destroys. Sin is terrible. It destroys people. It destroys the glory of God. It's horrendous.

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And I agree. And John does give ways in which he encourages the believer by looking to the glory of Christ.

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He tells us that to look to the love of God for us. We love because he first loved us.

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I mean, he gives us so many reasons not to sin. But John also knows, we are both saint and sinner at the same time, which means he even tells you, if you think you're not going to sin, you're a liar.

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And he says, no, look, I don't want you to sin. But listen to how tender he is right now.

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He says, my children, I don't want you to sin. But when you do, he doesn't threaten them.

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He doesn't get angry. He pulls a total prodigal son moment here. And he says, listen, you have an advocate with the father.

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You need to understand this is like a defense lawyer. You have one, someone who is pleading your case.

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Let me read you this paragraph. Um, I found helpful by Chris. His name is

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Chris Halshoff. And he says this. It's Jesus Christ who pleads our case when

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Satan attempts to prosecute us before God for the sins we've committed. Christ, our advocate, mediator, and high priest pleads our case before God.

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The case he presents his father doesn't rest on our successes or fall apart because of our failures.

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Instead, the case Christ presents is based on his perfect life and his shed blood.

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Christ, our advocate has never lost a case. Amen to that.

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Bro, it's like, it's exactly right. They're the accusations of the devil. And it's not like Satan doesn't have material to work with.

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I mean, we're, we're wretched, right? I mean, and our consciences condemn us, right? I mean, John writes about that in first John.

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When our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts. Praise God. But then there's also the reality of the justice of God and the standard of his law that crushes us, and we know that we don't need it, right?

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So there's all kinds of reasons why we can condemn ourselves and we can be accused by the enemy and really be in a position where we're despairing of any hope before God.

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And that's when exactly, like, as you said, Jesus, like a defense lawyer, stands in our stead and defends us and says, it's about me.

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So I'm going to reference a tweet that I know got a lot of traction this week, bro. I watched it twice, and you were talking,

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I was very emotionally moved by this. I showed my wife. Man, so Alistair Begg, there's a clip of Alistair Begg that was circulating around on Twitter about just the nature of the gospel.

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And two things from this two minute and four second long clip that I would recommend everybody go watch.

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The first thing he begins with is when we stand, as it were, before the judgment seat, and we were asked why it is that we should be allowed into heaven effectively.

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He said, the only way that you can answer that question is in the third person. If you begin with the first person,

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I have believed, I have persevered, I have done, A, B, or C, you're wrong.

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It must be in the third person. He is the one who did all of these things in my place and for me, and he is the reason why that I would ever be counted righteous and would ever be a part of God's holy heaven.

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But then in the end, he uses the illustration of the thief on the cross. And he says, I would love to be able to ask that man how that all went down.

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And this thief on the cross is standing before the angel, as it were, and the angel asked him, okay, so tell me about the doctrine of justification by faith.

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And the man's like, I've never heard of it in my life. You know, the thief is. And then, all right, well, how about the doctrine of scripture then?

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And the thief on the cross just stands there silent. You know, so finally the angels and, you know, almost quasi frustrated.

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It's like, well, why are you here? You know, and, and the simple answer, brother, this is one of the most incredible things

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I've ever heard in my life. The thief on the cross, as it were, looks and says, well, because the man on the middle cross said

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I could come. And it's like, thank God for that. That is the only hope for sinners, dude.

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I mean, like we don't understand everything, but it's like that the man on the middle cross said

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I could come. He has done this for me. And he has said that I can be with him forever because of what he's done in my place.

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Such is the good news. And this is what the gospel is. And so Christ is intercessor,

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Christ is advocate. It's all about him and not only what he's already done, but what he is doing now in an ongoing way to continue to apply that work, you know, that he's already accomplished to us, man.

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I mean, this goes back to the advocate and intercessor. It's like you, child, you belong here.

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It's like, Justin, you belong here because you can come. You can come because he said you can come.

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That's right. Like you belong here because he said you could be here. Not because you did something.

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Not because you agreed to something. Not because you performed something. It's like, no, you can be here because he said you can be here.

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Well, brother. And I don't know, man, like when I hear that, just personal comment. For years now, for 25 years, probably, those kinds of statements are the only thing, first of all, they emotionally moved me and that's fine, but that's the only thing that has ever given me.

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It's okay if you get emotionally moved by that. Right. But it's the only thing that I have ever heard that gives me comfort because, yeah,

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I just, I don't have any looking to myself, you know, because I don't know.

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I guess I'm aware, as I know many of us are, on just the mixed nature of my actions and that I've never really obeyed

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God's law and I'm not talking about, I mean, please don't misunderstand us. Right. I mean, we're not talking about hard -hearted, unrepentant sin here.

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I mean, we're just talking about the battle that Christians fight, you know, where we constantly are falling and failing, even though we want to obey and we want to obey

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God's law, but we look at our actions and our deeds and our thoughts and we're just like, oh my gosh, like I've, I fall so far short.

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I've never done this. I mean, and I'm a pastor for crying out loud, you know, and I'm thinking about, you know, how often, you know, even in my pastoral work, there are mixed feelings and motivations in what

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I'm doing and yeah, Jesus really is it, man. Well, this leads us to really our next question because some people are going to ask, well,

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John and Justin, how do I know I'm the thief on the cross? Like, how do

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I know that? Like, how do I know when I get to heaven, I can say, well, because he said

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I could be here. Do I just go off of that or do I have any comfort or consolation?

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And the answer to that is Jesus says, yes, I'm going to give you comfort and consolation, which is why he said multiple times,

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I'm leaving, man. And it's good for you that I do. It's good. That's right. So let me just read a longer portion from John and just listen to, and then we'll talk about this, but John 16, verse five, he says this, but now

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I'm going to him who sent me and none of you ask me where am I going? Because I have said these things to you, your sorrow and has filled your heart.

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Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I go, do not, for if I do not go away, the helper, the

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Heraclite there, the translation, the helper will not come to you, but if I go,

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I will send him to you and when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment concerning sin, because they do not believe in me concerning righteousness, because I go to the father and you will see me no longer concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

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I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. Oh, this is so good.

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When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into the truth where he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will declare to you the things that come to you.

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He will glorify me for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All the father has is mine.

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Therefore, I say that he will take what is mine and declare it to you a little while and you will see me no longer.

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And again, a little while and you will see me. Let me re kind of connect this to Paul.

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He says no one can believe the gospel, the words of Jesus, unless the spirit comes and opens their eyes to it.

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And this is what Jesus is describing, that if you can hear Jesus's words of the good news of his forgiveness, his being your advocate, you trust that his blood is sufficient and you trust that he can and will keep his word, then you know that you are one of those ones that said, yeah, you can come.

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Like you're here, you're in. His point is the spirit confirms within us our faith.

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So if you say you believe the gospel, you trust it, then you can have that confidence as the thief on the cross that I can go, like you cannot believe that unless it has been granted to you to believe.

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How many times did Jesus have to say this? John three, John six, John 10, right? Yeah, so Jesus sends the

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Holy Spirit when he ascends and we see that again recorded in the early chapters of Acts because Jesus ascends to the father and the

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Holy Spirit comes down at Pentecost and what an epic event that is.

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And I just recently preached Genesis 11 and I think Pentecost is a reversal of Babel and I'm not alone in seeing it that way when you view it through the lens of redemptive history.

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But anyway, so that occurs historically and Jesus says it's better for us, which again, even as I sit here and listen to it,

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I'm always just like, man, like that's quite a statement that it's better for Jesus to not be physically with us and for the

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Holy Spirit to come down and indwell us. And I think this just speaks to the power and the work of the

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Holy Spirit in the lives of individual Christians, but also just in building the church because it's very clear that's what the work of the

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Spirit is, you know? Well, and compare it to his role too, what he's doing, like it's better the Spirit comes down and lives within you and I go back and I'm your advocate, like you want this, you want me gone there.

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You want me to advocate and intercede for you. You need the Spirit, the helper to come alongside you and actually indwell you so that you will be conformed into my image and so that the church will be built in all of these things and you will be convicted of sin and you will be transformed from one degree of glory to another.

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I mean, as we often will talk about, you will be changed by the Spirit's work in you, so sanctification is the work of the

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Spirit and that's a thing. And we're going to be glorified by the power of the Spirit. The same power that raised

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Jesus from the dead is the same power that will raise us from the dead as well. And I think we don't have to get off on this whole thing for now,

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John. Just real quick, that is Romans. I mean, it's such a great passage in Romans. Let me just read it quick. It says,

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You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. This is Romans 8. Right, Romans 8, 9.

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If in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

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But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

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The Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his

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Spirit who dwells in you. It's like, what a statement from Paul. And it's by the Spirit that we call

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God Father. That's right. And like we said, it's by the Spirit we're conformed in the image of Christ, which is later on in Romans 8.

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It's by the Spirit that we know that we're going to be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

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We've been sealed with him. That's the language of Ephesians 1. So yeah, it's really good that Jesus would ascend to his

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Father so that the Spirit would come and do the work that only the Spirit of God can do in and through us.

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Amen. So this will lead us to an interesting place where I think as Christians, we often wrestle with, okay, yes, it's obvious that we can see

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God's handiwork in our lives, and we see the hope of a restoration of all things, but between now and that restoration of all things,

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Justin, it feels like everything is out of control and chaos, and let's just be frank.

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People say God's in control, but it doesn't feel like he's in control. And this is where while Christ went back into heaven, there's a very important role that he plays that Peter tells us.

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So I'll read this to us real quick, and then we'll definitely talk about it. But this is Christ who now rules over all things.

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When he writes 1 Peter 3 .22, now that he has gone into heaven, he is at God's right hand with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.

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And we look at the leaders of this world, we look at the authorities and even demons, all that's going on, and what

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Peter is saying is as Jesus sits at the right hand of God, they sit under his feet.

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They sit under his rule. They are, in other words, servants to Christ, and we don't understand the mind of God nor the will of God in its full detail.

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But what we can glean from Peter is that one of the roles that should give us comfort of why he said this is that nothing happens because Jesus went, oops, didn't see that coming.

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Or, yeah, I can't really stop that, guys. I'm sorry. It's kind of out of my jurisdiction. Peter is saying, no, everything is underneath God's jurisdiction through Christ, even though we may not understand it, we need to take comfort in that.

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Nothing happens outside of the control of Christ. Well, I mean, even Hebrews 1 has this kind of language too,

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John, where talking about the Son being the exact imprint of God's nature and the radiance of the glory of God through whom everything was made, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power, and after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, and then angels are subjected to him and all these things because he's so much greater than they are.

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It's that same language of Jesus ruling and reigning, even now. His triumphant resurrection, he's crushed death, he's crushed

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Satan, all of these things, he's conquered sin, and now he reigns in power at the right hand of God, and he is so in control of all things, and his redemptive work is so over that he's seated.

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He's not running around because things are out of control, and that's, I think, a wonderful picture for us. I do think you alluded to this already.

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I'll make a couple of comments on this before we transition maybe to our last talking point for the regular episode. We don't understand everything.

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It's kind of an end -of -Job type reality where God, as it were, descends to us and says, child, you don't understand everything, and so we look around in the world that we live in, and we say,

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I don't get why the world looks the way that it does. I don't know why my life is the way that it is.

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I don't understand death and suffering and pain and sorrow. Why is it that people's lives are wrecked and ruined and all of this?

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That's where we have to, in humility, acknowledge that we can't answer those questions because we do not know the mind of God.

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The secret things do belong to the Lord, but the things that have been revealed to us belong to us and our children.

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So we encourage one another with the things that God has told us, and we look to the ultimate restoration of all things, which is a result of Christ's imminent return, which is where we're going to go next.

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I think we're not going to have time to do this now. We're going to do this in the Separate from Remanda podcast. I'll explain that in a minute, but I do want to spend a little bit more time here because there's two things that I think we can draw, which will lead into the last point we'll say for a minute.

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There's two points we can draw very clearly that God is holding back evil. It is not at its full capacity.

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We were told this in multiple passages that you see a general grace among humanity where you don't see the full power of what sin can do.

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Well, even the fact that the gospel has gone to the nations in ways that it never did before the ascension of Christ is a big deal, and we're not trying to get into eschatological texts and Revelation 20 and all that.

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But from our understanding, Satan is bound, and it's because God is saving a people and in that sense is restraining human corruption and wickedness.

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It's not as bad as it could be. The other thing is, some people say, well, why does

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God allow this, do this, or do that? I don't have the mind of God, and I definitely don't know his plan.

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Other than this, I can make these observations, and I feel very strongly about these observations in that God wants us to anticipate the restoration of fellowship in his presence.

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So, it is foolish to think that you cannot have, according to his own words, you cannot have the presence of God on this earth unless sin is eradicated.

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I mean, the presence of God came within the temple, and it was a scary thing because sinners could not get too close to his presence.

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But what we are told is that we're going to be within his presence, and he's going to wipe away our tears.

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So, the way I look at it is, we should not take hope.

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We should not find comfort in this world. As it relates to the destructive nature of what's going on, and I think that my wife probably says this every day.

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She's like, I'm just ready to go home, and I know what she means. She just wants to be with God in a world that is not painful.

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The pain is too much. I think that's the right spirit. Paul says,

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I would rather be with God than with you, but for the sake of what God's having me do, I'm going to stay.

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I think every day we wake up, and this sounds so melancholy, but I know,

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Justin, you agree with me. It's like, I don't think you should get excited that much about life. There's just not a lot here that isn't going to disappoint you.

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I mean, you're going to die. Everybody around you is going to die. It's not going to be pretty. There's just so much suffering, like constant, and we try to hide it and medicate it and pretend like everything is awesome, and it's not awesome.

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It's not. Let's just embrace that. Yeah, I mean, there are good things in the world because God made it good.

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That's true, and the only way that we can really enjoy those for even a second, if we're actually aware of what in the world is going on, is because we have been promised a hope that's eternal.

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Because this is where, for me, as a human living life in this world, I don't know any other way to frame it other than anxiety and depression are understandable.

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That's right. I mean, I actually think you have not assessed things accurately if you look around in the world and think about life on this earth as it stands, and you think, oh, this is as it should be.

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I mean, we live in a world where we bury our children for crying out loud. That's right. Only a crazy person could look around at this situation and say that this is good.

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Yeah. And there is residual good because God made the creation good, and He is gracious, and it's not as bad as it could be.

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It's a reflection of what will be, but not in whole. Exactly. But yeah, anybody who is honest and doesn't, like you said, deny it and cover it up and all these kinds of things has to acknowledge the suffering and the pain and the heartache that characterizes this life under the sun.

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Read Ecclesiastes, right? I mean, the world has to hide it because this is their only shot, and I look at it and go,

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I don't want anything to do with this world. I'm done with it. The only reason I stay around is

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I want to love people, and I want to make sure they die with hope and dignity while I'm here. That's why you and I are in ministry.

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Let's help the saints of God. Let's help as many people know Christ as possible, and then let's help the saints of God die with dignity, trusting

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Christ. And then ultimately, we're going to have our deliverance. Which is the last part of Christ's ascension, and I would say the last part of the good news of the gospel is

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His imminent return. We are going to talk about that from the book of Revelation, and I may throw some other things about the return of Christ that most people are afraid of Jesus coming back, that they are going to be left behind, all kinds of things.

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But I am here to tell you that you should be excited about His return. You should.

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We'll talk about it in another podcast that's coming up. So we have a whole separate ministry that we have started, and we love it, and it's been wonderful.

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This Theocast is kind of the introductory conversation that we started several years ago, and then we had people that wanted to get together and have deeper conversations and actually meet with each other to discuss this online and in person, so we have a ministry called

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Semper Reformanda, which means always reforming, and there's two ways you can connect with us. One is through our private podcast, which we're about to record here in just a minute, and then we get together and we discuss the podcast, and we have a group online groups and local groups throughout the country, and we are just a few weeks in, you can go and download our app.

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So if you want to learn more about that, you want to be a part of that, go to theocast .org, you can learn all about this ministry and try it out.

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It's pretty exciting. We're enjoying the ride. We had no idea that when we started this podcast that all of a sudden we would have an app and people would be gathering together and talking and churches would be starting and all kinds of fun stuff.

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So anyways, Justin, that is where we're going to be heading over to, and if you don't have anything else, my friend, let's go over there and get started.

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Now, I'm excited for it. I mean, even this last thing, I think a lot of times Christians are not quite sure as far as who actually sits on the judgment seat at the end of time, and that confusion, it really does matter what the answer is, so I'm sure that'll be a part of what we discuss.

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What throne and is there a temple? What throne and who's on it? That's right. We'll see you guys next week.