Why Doctrine Can Feel Cold | Theocast

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Do you ever feel like you know a lot about Jesus, but you can't remember the last time that you felt loved by Him?

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Do you ever feel like doctrine is cold, or maybe doctrine is disconnected from your experience of the

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Christian life, your experience of being known and loved by the Father? If you've ever wrestled with any of these things, if any of these questions or doubts plague your soul, then today's podcast is for you.

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We hope you're encouraged by the love of Christ for you. Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word.

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It's called pietism. You ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy, that you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna perform instead of thinking about what

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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, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the

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Christian life from a confessional, Reformed, and pastoral perspective. Here at Theocast, we are aiming to clarify the gospel, take the clutter off of it.

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We don't ever want Jesus to be obscured. And we are aiming to reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ. And we hope and pray that these conversations are used in the

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Lord. We thank you for listening. Your hosts today are John Moffat, who is pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

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And I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina. John and I are coming to you today.

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This is, for us, the first recording of the new year. Oh, I didn't think about that. Yeah, it is. Happy new year, new you, all that good stuff.

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Happy 2024. And if you are listening to this podcast, I trust this is gonna come out sometime in February -ish.

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And the conference, the one -day conference that we're doing in Eskimo, California, will be,

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Lord willing, in the rear -view mirror. Yeah, this is always very confusing to try to talk about this. And so, if you are interested in listening to any of the messages or the panel discussions or any of those things from that one -day conference that we're doing with Chris Gordon of Abound in Grace Radio and Dr.

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Robert Godfrey, who's involved with Westminster Seminary California and Ligonier. If you're interested in hearing any of that content, you can go over to the

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Theocast community and you can find it there. So we leave that with you. John, it's good to be with you today, man.

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And I'm excited about our conversation today. And the Lord and his providence is really good.

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And I think you're gonna explain a little bit more of what I mean in saying that. And then we'll be off and running.

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Yeah, man, I'm not exactly sure what the title of the podcast is gonna be, but something about cold orthodoxy or dead orthodoxy, whatever, something.

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Or why doctrine can feel cold. Or feel cold, something like that. Justin and I, as we do, we try hard to spend time talking with each other, encouraging, building each other up, talking about the future.

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Because our relationship, let's just say this. I mean, our relationship is a piece of what this podcast is. Absolutely.

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Our friendship, yeah, all that. We often just have conversations about things we are enjoying or that's been helpful and beneficial to us.

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Or that we're learning or whatever. Yeah. So I started a conversation recently between the two of us about preaching.

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And more in line of just kind of the theological ethos. And by recently, you mean this morning.

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Yeah. The theological ethos of kind of just the

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Reformed faith, specifically in kind of the Baptist world that we live in. But I would even say in general.

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Sure. And it's amazing, I said this to you, how the

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Holy Spirit can be convicting and guiding you in areas in the same way that he's convicting and guiding me as well.

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And there's just like this supernatural encouragement to that. So I was explaining to you just about some shifting in the way

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I think about scripture, about my preaching. Yeah, about my preaching. And to be real clear, we're not talking about like macro evolution here.

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No. We're talking about incremental, like ways we're learning and growing. Go ahead. Exactly. Yeah, and one of the things, you know, we are called to feed the sheep.

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And, you know, in many ways we are what's called, you know, scriptural chefs. Our job is to prepare the wonderful truth of Christ and present it to the people so that they can, as a means of grace, feed on the word and sacrament.

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And that's our job, right? And so we want our people to be healthy and we want them to see

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Christ, which means we're always thinking about how to be better at what we do. Learn more of Christ and be better at proclaiming

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Christ. Not with the words of the wisdom of the men, like Paul says, but the effectiveness of,

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I love this, we persuade men, right? So the more, the better we can be at persuading people of Christ, the more beneficial it is to them.

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And the statement I made, Justin, was that sometimes I just feel like preaching's academic. Too academic.

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Too academic. Yeah. It feels more like lecturing and teaching, which is a necessary part of our diet.

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Of course. And less proclaiming the wonder of Christ. Less heralding. So this podcast is gonna be a little bit about how if you disconnect the person, who he is, and the story of how he has come to us and has redeemed us, you disconnect that from doctrine.

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Because it's not either or, it's not one or the other, but you disconnect it from doctrine. Doctrine does become cold.

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And I would say you lose the benefit of the relationship, as you said earlier this morning, the experience of Christ in your life.

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I'm gonna just piggyback, dovetail, double down, all those good things on what you're saying really quickly before we get into the meat of it.

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But this is an important kind of teeing up of the conversation. So John and I are just like you guys out there.

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We're always learning. We're always growing. We're always reforming the ways that we think. And we trust that the Lord is guiding us in that.

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And so he and I are both preachers. John, you preach regularly there in Nashville, and I do here in Asheville.

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And just because we've been doing this for a number of years at this point doesn't mean that we don't grow as preachers. And that's what's going on here for us as we're assessing things and as we're living life with other

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Christians in our churches and all these kinds of things. This stuff is happening and is becoming more clear.

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And so I agree, let's go ahead and say a few things. We never want to pit doctrine and experience against each other.

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That's foolish, you already said that. So it's actually sound doctrine undergirds and drives and informs our experience of Christ and how we know him and how we even feel and think that he feels about us.

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I mean, we get that from doctrine. So that's key. That said, the pitfall, one of the major pitfalls anyway of confessionalism is dead orthodoxy.

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It is maybe an overblown emphasis on sound doctrine, orthodoxy, without the right emphasis or the right execution of this kind of vital union with Christ and a relationship with him, knowing him, loving him, being known and loved by him.

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That's always a danger to where people can have the experience of like, yeah, we have really sound doctrine, but it's just, it's cold.

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It doesn't have life in it. And of course, none of us ever want that. And again, we're not pitting the two against each other, but I think you and I both as preachers in different yet similar ways have been slightly tweaking the ways that we approach the pulpit and the ways that we think about holding

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Christ out to our people, ways that we are aiming to pull us all up into the great story of redemption that God is accomplishing and in effectively helping our people see and behold

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Christ and to know him and love him and feel the fact that he knows and loves them too.

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And we trust that this is what's going to stir and affect and carry the day for our own souls and for the souls of our people long -term.

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So this is not, I want to be really clear, your last comment is this is not a podcast about preaching. So don't misunderstand us.

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This is, we're not just talking to preachers out there. We're going to be trying to do a little bit of what we're discussing and just consider

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Christ together and the story of redemption together on the pod today. Yeah, so speaking biographically for me, one of the things that I've been encouraged.

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This is what people are here for, John, to hear your biographical thoughts. We did have someone request multiple times, just had people request kind of talking about our history and how we've come to where we are today.

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Maybe one of these days we'll do that, but not today. Not today. Not today. And I know you want to hear that because you resonate with it, the journey.

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You resonate with the journey that we've gone on, that you've run on. Part of this journey for me,

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Justin, I've gone through several theological shifts and they've all been wonderful. God's been just so kind.

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Yeah, likewise. One of the biggest ones for me was the sovereignty of God in salvation. That was really refreshing for me because it made a lot of sense from the

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Bible. Of course. The second biggest one would have been confessionalism. It was kind of like, man, I just feel like we're all over the place theologically.

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How do we find some bearings? Covenant theology. Law and gospel distinction is another one for me. Covenant theology brought the

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Bible together for me. So like covenanism made God big and powerful.

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And then covenant theology made the story make sense. Like this big, powerful God is actually doing something.

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And then law gospel was kind of like the clarity with inside covenant theology of like, well, there's stuff going on within these covenants, law and grace, right?

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Covenant of works, covenant of grace. There's been, for me, all of those are really healthy and beautiful, what

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I would call like cornerstones to the wonderful relationship that I have with my

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God and King. One of the areas that's really been helping me lately is just kind of thinking about the story in its entirety, not spending so much time in the new that I forget how the old is the foundation for the new.

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What are the New Testament writers, including Jesus, often do? They just make constant references to the old story.

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For sure. Which then that part of it has been really impactful for me, thinking about how the

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Bible is actually, it's a story. I mean, that's what it is. And often,

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Justin, when we read it, we can read it like Narnia, right?

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Where it's a story about these people and this thing happened to them, but we don't actually believe we're in Narnia.

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We don't believe we're in the story. We don't put ourselves there. No, or we don't think it impacts us.

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The end of the story doesn't impact us other than the entertainment that what it brought. That's not how the

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Bible is presented. The Bible is presented of, this is not only a story, it's your history of how

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God sees you before and after Christ and how he will continue to see you going forward.

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I love this from John. I mentioned this to you earlier. John, in his gospel, towards the end of it, chapter 20, verse 31, he says, but these are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the

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Christ. He didn't go through and list theological statements and facts about what

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Jesus is. This is who he is, which is interesting. He didn't go through and state the relationship between God and the

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Father, the relationship of how his humanity worked and God's love for us in Christ and Christ demonstrating that by laying down his life.

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He actually brought us the reality of Jesus to us by story, by the continuation of Genesis through the flow of this

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Messiah who shows up. What's interesting is we actually learn doctrine through story.

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The reason I say that, Justin, and I can't wait for you to get into some of your examples you got into earlier, because I was totally tearing up when you were talking about it.

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We were on the phone, so you didn't see it. I think you know what I'm talking about. We learn. I'm looking forward to it.

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We smell, we taste, we touch, we experience, we see the beauty of Jesus in his theological form, but it becomes personal to us.

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It's not just a truth about fact, but it's facts that affect the way in which we live our life now and for eternity.

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Yeah, I mean, just off the cuff here, thinking about what you're saying, all of scripture is a story.

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It's the story of redemption that God's accomplishing, and he's doing that through Jesus. And so that's a true statement.

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Another true statement is that the Bible is ultimately about Christ. I mean, we've said that many, many times here. And so, yeah, when we come to the

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New Testament, we're thinking along those lines and tracking along with that story throughout and seeing

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Christ as the pinnacle of it on our way to the great conclusion and the consummation of redemption in the new heavens and the new earth.

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And we trace that arc and we preach every sermon in light of that. You know, John's gospel, you talked about it.

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I mean, yeah, there's some statement in chapter one right at the beginning about who the word is, but you're right, in the gospels, generally speaking, there's a little bit of discourse here and there when

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Jesus teaches, but by and large, what is it that the evangelists do? They hold

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Christ out as the fulfillment of everything that came before, right? And they're doing that through these accounts of what he said and what he did.

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And yeah, so we do ourselves a disservice if we are not putting ourselves there with him and being brought up into like, no, this is not just you're learning about a man named

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Jesus, who is the God man. It's not just that you're accumulating facts about him, who he said he was and what he said he did and all that.

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I mean, those things are great, but ultimately you are seeing him, you're beholding him, you're coming to know him.

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And I'm gonna use this in a personal way. Our faith is always personal, it's just never private. So I think we need to think in terms of the corporate nature of the

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Christian life. We've said it so many times, I'm being saved into a people. And in one sense, this great story of scripture is about God saving a people of whom

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I'm a part. So I'm not trying to individualize this, but I as a Christian, and then

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I, when I gather with other saints on the Lord's day and we listen to preaching, right?

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What is perhaps the best thing that could ever happen for our souls other than to see

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Christ, behold Christ, to have him held out to us in such a way where it's like he knows you and he loves you.

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And this is who he is for you. This is how God the

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Father, Son and Holy Spirit have worked to save you. And this is how even God the Father himself loves you and how the

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Lord rejoices over you. Those are the things that sustain the souls of God's people in the midst of the fight against sin and in the midst of suffering and trial.

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Now that's all grounded in doctrine, but I'll just put it this way.

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I've put it, I've said it like this in our church context to not in the pulpit, but just in conversation lately.

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You know, I love the whole Christ. I love the mayoral controversy. I love all those things. And one of the things that Sinclair Ferguson in that book,

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I think beautifully draws out from Thomas Boston is how we never want to separate Jesus from his benefits.

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And I think what often happens in the pulpit in reformed circles where we are all about right doctrine is we can fall into a trap of effectively preaching justification as the gospel, right?

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And that justification is wonderful, but I mean, we all agree Jesus is the good news and he is the embodiment of it.

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And he is the one who accomplished it. And it is through our union with him by faith that we then receive all his benefits.

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And so justification, sanctification, eternal life, security, all those things come to us through the person and work of Jesus.

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And it's him that we must know. It's him that we love. Though we haven't seen him, we love him.

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Though you don't now see him, you believe in him, right? It's that piece. And we just need to have that flame stoked and fanned as much as possible when we gather on the

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Lord's day and when we have conversations with other saints. So that's a lot of where I'm coming from on this.

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And I think that my eyes have been open to that in fresh ways. And I could talk biographically to John about my own life and how this kind of thing that we're describing right now

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I think is what I always have gone back to if I'm ever gonna feel any sense of peace and security and being loved and known.

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It's like, this is where I gotta live. And I think I've just been encouraged in my own mind. I've been encouraged by my fellow elders here to lean into this more in the pulpit and let it rip.

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And it's been a sweet thing. Yeah, it's almost like putting the humanity back in Jesus.

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What's so hard is that we say we love a man that changed the entire calendar of history.

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We go from BC to AD because of him. I mean, let's be frank. Why it happened, right?

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And there are times - Objectively speaking, the most significant figure in history. That's right. And he loves you.

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I don't care if you're a believer or not. That's just objectively true. And he loves you. That's the thing about it, right?

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And he's not a subjective ghostly being that's just distant. Like he is in heaven in bodily form.

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You will embrace him. Your face will touch his. You know what I mean?

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It's like those kinds of things are really hard for us because, you know, Justin, I'm about to see you.

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This is like gonna get super corny. I don't care, but I'm about to see you in a few days. And you know what I really look forward to is that first hug

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I get from you. Yeah, man. There's something about being in the same presence with you and I'm just gonna hug you.

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And it means something to me. And the Bible talks about the preciousness. Like I love this passage when he says he's gonna wipe away your tears.

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Because what is that? That's an affectionate, tender thing that a parent or a loving person does to another person.

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It's like, hey, I see the pain and I'm gonna touch it away. And actually I'm gonna touch it away and it's okay.

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Yeah. Like you're safe all as well. Hey guys, real quick. Some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions.

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

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Theocast Community. 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. Can you, if you don't mind, I'm gonna throw this in.

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Can you just tell that story about the woman who comes? Yeah, bro. Just do it, man.

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It was so good this morning. I mean, I may go on a few of these. Yeah. I'll interact, just go.

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You just do it. Just stop. All right, so this is something that, you know, and John and I just talking this morning,

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I said, you know, here's something that I've been doing more lately. Can I set it up for a second? Please. Yeah, because I'll probably talk for a few minutes.

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So Bob, you can say something. Yeah, so I like to set it up. I was talking about in my preaching how I'm trying to bring people, you know,

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I asked Justin, like, what's the most like impactful movie you've ever seen? He names a movie and I've had several.

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Well, you just kind of walk away and literally you just go, wow. We're not gonna name them so as not to upset anybody. But it's like, wow, like that was just, wow, man.

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Like you remember every detail of the movie because you were just drawn in to the story and the character and what it was about.

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And I think the Bible presents itself this way. It draws you into this drama where you walk away and you're just like, this person is unlike anyone else.

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There's no one like him. This is unreal. So this is kind of where when you read the gospels, that's what they're trying to do.

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For sure, man. I mean, in a tip of the cap to Mike Horton, who's used that language of being drawn into God's drama for years.

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You know, so this is not something unique to the, like new to the reform tradition that we're trying to add in.

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It's like, no, reform people have agreed on this through history. It's just, we're all prone to errors. So anyway, yeah, John was talking to me about that and we were going back and forth on just, you know, how we're thinking about preaching these days.

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And I said, well, here's something that I've been doing. I might not think exactly in the same terms you do, John, but I think I'm trying to do the same thing.

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Right. And so in trying to help my people see

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Christ, put on Christ, know him and feel his love for them, just giving examples, considering pulling us into the story, you know, pulling us into the accounts of Jesus's life and ministry.

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And one that I mentioned to John this morning is, you know, the woman who'd been bleeding for 12 years in Mark chapter five.

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It's like, put yourself there. And she's not been well for 12 years.

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She's tried everything. I mean, you know what it's like, just objectively speaking, you don't feel well. There's something wrong with your body and you just can't do anything to make it get better.

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It's like that in and of itself would beat you down. I was sick for a few months, or for a couple of months in the fall.

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And I mean, it took a toll on me just emotionally, mentally. So she's dealing with that. Then you have on top of it in the

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Jewish community, she is ceremonially unclean. And so she's an outcast.

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She's marginalized and is utterly just at the end of herself as to what to do.

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I mean, put yourself, like live a dozen years in that predicament. And she's heard clearly, she's heard about Jesus.

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There's a lot of fanfare about him. And she's thinking to herself, man, if I can just, if I can get near him and if I can just touch him, maybe

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I'll be well. That's remarkable in and of itself. So you know the account, like there's this, I mean, basically a moving parade as Jesus is on the way to Jairus' house, right?

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Because his daughter's dying. And she touches the hem of his garment and Jesus feels that power left him.

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And he asked the question, he said, who touched me? And the disciples were like, the disciples react like we would.

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Jesus, what are you talking about? Like, look at all these people. What do you mean he touched you? Observation, Jesus is truly human and he is also

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God. That's right. All right, he asks, it's not that he doesn't know.

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Why does he ask the question? Because he wants to have the interchange with her.

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And then the way it's depicted is gripping, man. It says that she came to him trembling.

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I mean, put yourself there. She comes to him trembling and she told him everything.

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Man, like trembling comes to him. She looks at him and she tells him everything about her life and her plight and her predicament.

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And then what does he say to her? He says, daughter, like your faith has made you well.

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Go in peace and be healed of your disease, right? Like, this is Jesus.

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It's just like, it's very similar to how he interacted with the woman of the city in Luke 7. You know, how he, the whole bit with Simon the

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Pharisee, we know the story and he tells the parable about those who have been forgiven much, loved much.

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And he looks at the woman who is a great sinner whose lifestyle is not commendable, who knows she has nothing.

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And he says, your sins are forgiven you. You know, like your faith has saved you.

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Go in peace. John 9, the man born blind, right? Just took it out of my mouth, that's right, yeah.

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Bro, you know, so think about, again, this man's experience. I mean, I cannot conceive of it, John, being blind from birth, never having been able to see anything in this beautiful world that God has made with my own eyes, right?

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And of course the disciples asked the question that we all would ask because this is just how we are wired in our jerkishness and we take some of the things that God has revealed in his word and we misapply them.

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And we say, Jesus, whose sin? Was it this man or was it his parents that resulted in him being born blind?

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And Jesus says, well, it's neither, actually. It's so that the glory of God might be displayed through him. Of course, Jesus heals this man and gives him his sight.

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Well, two different times, this formerly blind man is called before the religious authorities of the day, right?

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And they're interrogating him as to what's going on. And the first time, he doesn't know much. He just says, look, all

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I know is that a man named Jesus healed me. And what do you think, you know, they ask, well, what do you think about him? It's like, well, you know, clearly he's a prophet or something.

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And then they even bring the man's parents before them and they kind of, you know, dip out on their son and just kind of throw him to the wolves because they're concerned for their own sakes.

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Because to be thrown out of the synagogue is about the worst thing that could happen to a Jew, right? And so we get it.

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Like, this is bad. Even this own man's parents have disowned him. They call him before them again. And then he asks basically,

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I mean, talk about having some courage here. It's like, do you want to be his disciples too? He says to the

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Pharisees and they get really angry with him and throw him out of the synagogue. Well, the best part is yet to come.

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At the end of the chapter, the text says that Jesus, having heard that he was thrown out of the synagogue, went and found him, right?

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So he got thrown out of the synagogue. Jesus goes to find the blind man who can now see.

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And he says to him, do you believe in the son of man? Now, he didn't put, so we hear this and we're like, oh, he's putting him to the test.

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No, he's not. He has sought him. He's already given him his sight and he's gone to seek him.

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And he's going to ask the question that matters. Do you believe in the son of man? The response, who is he, sir?

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So that I might. The one who's talking to you is him. And he says, Lord, I believe.

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And he worshiped him. It's like, this is Jesus, man. And it's like how he loves us, how tender he is.

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One more, and then you go. John 11, man. Come on, bro. A familiar account, right?

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Lazarus is dead and Jesus hears about it. We know all the things, right? How he waited two days.

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You know, he's gonna demonstrate the glory of God in raising Lazarus from the dead. We know that part. That's epic.

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That's great. But don't miss these pieces in the middle where he gets to Bethany and he's talking to Martha who runs out to see him.

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And she is, again, put yourself in the situation. A person you've loved dearly is dead.

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There's a finality to it. It's dark. It's heavy.

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This person that, you know, putting it in our vernacular, the person that used to, you know, to sit around and open gifts on Christmas morning with us or sit around the table at Thanksgiving is no longer there.

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And she's grieved and Jesus looks at her and asks her a question. And he says, in the midst of this heartbreak and all the things that are going on, he says, do you believe that your brother will rise again?

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And she says, yes, Lord, I believe on the last day that he will. To which Christ looks at her in the midst of heartbreak and grief and he says,

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I am the resurrection and the life. And anybody who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

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You know, and it's like, listen to what he's saying to her, how he's ministering to her. And he's like, look, like I am your hope.

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I'm your brother's hope. I'm the hope of every human being. That like, if you are in me and you trust me and you believe in me, like know that I love you and I've got you and I will raise you up on the last day, which is what he had said in chapter six.

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It's like, but don't, like, we tend to just miss this. And what I've encouraged, like I've thought in these terms in my sane moments,

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John, over the last 15 or 20 years, it's like, this is where my peace, if I have any, it's where it comes from. It's like, I'm gonna put myself there and it's like, he's talking to me and he's talking to you.

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And it's like, as I've talked with our, as I'm preaching to our people, it's like, see him and put yourself there. And he is speaking to you, blessed one, beloved one of the

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Lord. He knows you and he loves you. And it's like, all really is well.

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We really are secure because we're known and loved by him and feel that. That's right. I mean, this is where I'm gonna jump in and say, with those stories, without those stories, what

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I'm about to say makes no sense. There's nothing for you to grasp on and say, you know, that's true.

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For instance, when it says he's a sympathetic high priest, cast all your burdens on him for he cares for, run with boldness into his presence when you need forgiveness and strength.

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None of those make sense. But when you go, hey, all of these stories about these people, do you know that they apply to you?

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Like that's how he treated them. And here's the doctrine. He also will treat you the same way.

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Amen. And has already treated you this way. You just don't know it. So when you hear about this woman who comes to him with, she's just like,

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I just got to touch to him. He says, yeah, you can do that. You can come with boldness without fear. And I will give you the strength that you need.

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And when you, the woman who was caught in adultery or the prostitute, right? He's like, hey, you know what?

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Waiting for you is the sympathetic high priest who goes, listen, I will be your representative to the father.

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I see your sins. Because that's what a priest is, right? He's the one who goes between you and the father. I see your sins, daughter.

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You got to have him. I see your sins, daughter. And I will be the representation between you and the father.

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And when you feel the weight of your sin and you feel the weight of the world and you have fear and you have anxiety, he wants to,

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Justin, that story about he heard her. He's like, hey, come tell me about the burden you've been casted on me.

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Trimbling and tells him everything. Tell me your burden. He has already healed her.

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And he says, tell me your burden. He heals us, Justin. He heals us, Justin.

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And then he goes, hey guys, come to me and tell me your burdens. I want to hear them. He bids us to come to him all the time.

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Not an ethereal spirit, a person. A real person who you can talk to in this weird, supernatural way.

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He goes, tell me what's going on with your heart today. I'm like, Justin, that's what I want to hear about on a

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Sunday. Amen, brother. I mean, that's what we need. We've been beat to death. We've been beat to death all week by our flesh and the accusations of the enemy and just life in a fallen world.

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And we need to come and hear of him and to be pulled up into his love for us and to be reminded that on account of Christ, the

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Father himself loves us. It's not just that he loves us because of Jesus, but in Christ, he himself loves us.

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I mean, it's what we need to be reminded of. I mean, even you mentioned the woman caught in adultery. I mean, and we don't need to get into textual criticism debates.

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I don't give a like a rip about that right now. I about said something I shouldn't. So I don't care about that right now, but it's like, that's a beautiful depiction.

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Think of how Satan is depicted as the great accuser of the brethren or think of judgment day, right?

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Like when there's all, like if we are going to stand in our own merits, so like in all the accusations and the condemnation that could come our way, that whole account, you've got this woman who is ashamed.

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You know, she is being, she's on the ground. I mean, she's going to be stoned and put to death. And what does he, after having like just cut off at the knees, everybody else's righteousness, his word to that woman is, woman who condemns you?

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No one, Lord. Well, then neither do I condemn you. And he says, go in peace and sin no more.

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And it's like, yeah, like what else would we do? Because again, go and sin no more, you know, so that you'll remain in my good graces.

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No, it's like, go now and don't sin. And we're like, amen, may it be, you know?

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And, but like how he stands there to protect his own from all of the accusations that are hurled at them, you know, is a beautiful depiction or, or, you know, like one of my favorite passages,

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John is, John chapter 14 in those early verses, like put yourself in that situation with those dudes.

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I mean, this is Christ last night on earth. They've just taken of the Passover. He's washed their feet. He's, he's talking about going away, you know?

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And it's like, this is the guy, like we've left everything and we've followed him and we've been with him for three years and he's leaving us.

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And there've been some wild, they don't fully understand everything yet, but I mean, Peter's confessed him to be the Christ. I mean, they've seen some incredible stuff and he's going away.

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That's right. And he says, don't let your hearts be troubled. Don't be afraid. Believe in God. Believe also in me.

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That's right. And then he says that I've going, in my father's house are many rooms and I'm going to prepare a place for you.

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And I would not tell you this if it weren't true. Amen. And I'm going to come back and get you, you know?

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And he's saying that to us. It's amen. It's the work of the evil one and those who are around him who separates.

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I don't know if I've ever actually said this before, but they separate the work of Christ from the person of Christ.

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Well, that's again, yeah. Don't separate those. What he did is not disconnected from who he is, right?

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I love this, Justin. He goes, because I love you, that's the person I lay down my life.

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That's the work. They are connected, right? They're so connected. And Justin, sometimes we get so focused on getting right the laying down the life part that we forget why he did it, which is based in his love.

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Or even when we talk about his person, we talk rightly about the hypostatic union and Nicene orthodoxy and all those.

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And praise the Lord for that stuff. I'm all about it. I'm geeked up for it. But we must never miss the love of God as most definitively revealed and demonstrated to us through Jesus for us.

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And what you just said about Satan, I mean, you're tracking, you're channeling your inner

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John Owen. I mean, he says that in communion with the triune God, or communion with God is the old title.

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But where he says, I mean, one thing he says is the greatest offense we could ever commit against the father is to question his love for us.

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That's a thought. But then he talks about how it is natural for us in our flesh to have hard thoughts of God, meaning we tend to think of him as harsh and exacting and threatening and severe and scary.

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And he says that though, to have such thoughts of God as a

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Christian, as a beloved adopted child in Christ, to have such thoughts of God is the tactic and the work and the strategy of the evil one.

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It is what Satan would have us think. So whenever we think that God is severe and harsh and we question, like, does he really love me?

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That is what the enemy would have us think. It is not what the Lord would have us think. And this is why with every fiber of my being, and I know you agree, this salvation by sincere obedience that is preached in final justification and lordship salvation at points and federal vision and new perspectives on Paul and pietism all over the, this is why with every fiber of my being,

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I hate it because this is the tactic of the evil one to cause the beloved children of God who are known and loved and cherished by Jesus Christ to question whether God really loves them.

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And they should know that he loves them because of who he is. Amen. Right, which is backed up by what he did.

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You know, it's interesting, like, if you read a biography of someone who basically read about this person that had decided to write a biography around him versus reading the biography of someone who lived with that person, you know, like you could get enough information about my dad that you could write a history about his, but if you talk to me, it's a whole another ball of wax, man,

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I'm gonna tell you things and I'm gonna explain them in ways that is just different, like, because he loved me.

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You know, I was the beneficiary of his love, right? And that's what

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I love about these disciples. That's who's writing to us, Justin, are his men who's like, yeah, he loved me.

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You know, this is what he did for me. And oh, by the way, I know you, this is 1 Peter, I'm preaching to 1

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Peter, and I love he goes, hey, blessed are you who haven't seen him, but yet you believe. Chapter one and verse eight, man.

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Yeah, blessed are you. Yeah, yeah, and though you don't see him, you love him, though you don't see him, you believe in him.

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And then what I think is fascinating is that Peter, who has experienced the person of Jesus in many different ways, he warns us, he goes, hey, you know, you're gonna have to be careful because the world's gonna wanna come in and replace this person that you believe in with something else.

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You know, verse 13, he's like, hey, be ready to take action to protect the mind against this and be sober.

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Don't let the world come in and intoxicate that. And then I love this. He doesn't say, no, go to work.

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He says, no, put your hope fully on the grace, which is connected to the person.

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Put your hope fully on the grace that it was just to come at the revelation of Jesus Christ, your great high king who loves you, who you are talking to now, who lives with this weird thing where he lives inside you.

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Justin, this is where I'm just hoping with Theocast that people tune in every week and they walk away going, wow,

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I just didn't think about Jesus in that way. That's how the Christian life should be. Brothers and sisters in Christ going, have you thought about Jesus in this way?

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Who he is, what he's done, who he is for you, how the spirit interacts and the good news of this story and the connection of it.

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This is what it means to build one another up. Not in theological stupidness.

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This is true. We need this. But if you disconnect the theology from the person, you have no hope.

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And it's why a lot of people have a lot of doctrine, Justin, and have no hope. And there's despair.

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Yeah, you mentioned earlier, and I'll conclude it with this thought, that even the testimonies that we read in the scriptures are people that are able to say, he loved me.

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And I can, so I knew him in that regard. And I'm writing to you of him.

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In one sense, that's what we're doing as preachers, right? Like that just kind of struck me as you said that, that when I stand in the pulpit, you stand in the pulpit or anybody for that matter.

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I mean, effectively, you're saying the same thing. It's like, I can tell you, it's like Paul in 1 Timothy 1. I can tell you that these things are true and I can tell you that he loves you and that he's patient and he's merciful because that's how he's been with me.

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And I'm a sinner like you are. And that's how we should just talk to each other all the time as believers, as brothers and sisters in the

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Lord. It's like, man, I know you're going through it right now, but Jesus loves you. God the

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Father loves you. I know that's true because he's loved me and here's what he said and here's what he did.

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And here's how he demonstrated that love and live there. Abide there. Think on that, bask in the rays of his love for you and may that be the tone and the tenor of our conversations in the church.

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So man, this was encouraging for my soul to think through this stuff today. And I hope that those of you out there who've tuned in for this episode have been encouraged to consider

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Jesus for you. Go ahead, John. I was gonna say, yeah, jump into the community. We always post episodes in there, interact with us, tell us additional thoughts, things that you thought about as the episode was coming along.

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We'd love to read those. Yeah, so anyway, we hope you've been encouraged in thinking of Christ for you and how much he loves you and putting yourself there with him and thinking maybe more pointedly that the words that he speaks of comfort and hope and peace, he's saying them to you and live in that today.

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Until next time, we trust if the Lord tarries that we'll be coming to you again next week, perhaps our

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Lord will return and we'll be with him and we'll see him face to face and he will wipe those tears from our eyes. May it be.

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Until then, grace and peace. Hey everyone, before you go, Justin and I first wanted to say thank you. And if this has been encouraging to you in any way, please feel free to share it.

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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.