Giveaway: "Spurgeon's Sorrows" by Zack Eswine
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Scripture references:
Romans 15:1-4
Galatians 6:1-2
1 Thessalonians 5:14
Ephesians 4:1-3
Hebrews 3:15
John 13:34
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https://youtu.be/_5iVIY3T8Lg
Semper Reformanda Transcripts
Jon Moffitt: Welcome to Semper Reformanda.
Justin Perdue: I'm going to launch us into this by giving a little anecdote from my past with respect to a buddy of mine. It would have been almost 15 years ago that I had this conversation with a friend and he was going here, there, and everywhere doing itinerant ministry with a youth organization. He was speaking regularly. His motivations, I trust, were good and all those things. I remember having a conversation with him where I encouraged him that he would be profited by doing a little bit less of that traveling and speaking stuff, and joining a local church where he can be anchored and rooted, where he can have depth of relationship, where he can encourage others and they can encourage him, and he can just be present. I thought it was going to be better for his Christian life long-term. His response to me —and again, very sincere, and I assume his motivations are good—was basically, "I'm out doing all this really good ministry and I'm out doing all this good stuff. If I tether myself to a local church, all that's really going to do is slow me down." And I looked at him and said, "But brother, even if that's true, even if you joining a local church slowed you down, as you put it, have you ever considered that in God's plan and in God's economy, maybe he has set it up in such a way that he would use you to help other people?" We've been so conditioned to think that being strong or being mature is all about our own personal strength, our own personal growth, our own personal fruitfulness—however in the world, we define that—rather than looking to the New Testament to see that really what defines success and maturity and strength are these things that are corporate. They have everything to do with how we're loving our brothers and sisters, how we're bearing burdens, and how we're being gentle and compassionate and seeking to restore those who have fallen. You just can't do that when you're living life in isolation and you're in the itinerant speaking circuit and you're not in a church. How do you do these things?
Jon Moffitt: Even Paul was an itinerant speaker, in a way, and he himself was cared for and was underneath the leadership of elders, was sent out by them, and had multiple men around him that were caring for him and that he was caring for.
Ravi Zacharias is another great example of a man who, I think, for many, many years openly has not been a part of a church underneath the church leadership and cared for. There's so much that has been said out there and I don't want to get into that. The one thing I want to say is I think if he was a part of a good local church that was caring for him, that maybe some of these sins and struggles would have been exposed as Galatians 6:1 says, much earlier than this longevity. I know a lot of people questioned his salvation and all that kind of stuff, and that's not what this is about, but a man who was doing the work of Christ in isolation is just not the design.
Justin Perdue: Yeah, it's not the design. For people that give their lives to parachurch ministries that are not also in a local church, that's not good for them. I agree with that completely. Also, what I think is sadly, parachurch ministries have really served to do so often is just distract Christians from what really matters. Because people get really, really excited about parachurch ministries, events, and missions efforts and things like this, to the point that they are unexcited about living life in their own local church with their own pastor and the Christians that they actually are around all the time. That becomes less attractive and less appealing because it doesn't have the shine that this parachurch thing has, and I think that has been very detrimental to the church in our context and it has borne really bad fruit.
Jon Moffitt: Building wells in different countries, helping the hungry—you see children who are dying of thirst and you have the ability to help them. It just sounds so good and it is good. What also is good is to care for that person next to you who is spiritually thirsty. They're both good but somehow, one gets a higher priority than the other. I've had people who didn't stay at my church because my emphasis is not on these things that sound amazing.
I'm going to make this argument. Paul literally says to care for the body as the priority and then work your way out, but I think the local New Testament church becomes the primary focus of the believer and then they do work themselves out.
Justin Perdue: Brother, even when it comes to, you mentioned, caring for the poor, I would hope in the church that that would mean that we at least begin by caring for the poor among us. I know that in my local church, we have established and take very seriously benevolence ministry, but that is primarily, not exclusively, but primarily for our people who are in need. We are caring for the poor in our own midst. We're paying bills for people. We're acquiring vehicles for people. We're helping people meet practical needs. So don't misunderstand anything that Jon and I are saying as if we only preach the gospel and we don't care about people holistically. That's not true. But we do it, first and foremost, amongst the household of God. And then as we scatter into our communities, I trust, we're all seeking to love our neighbor and pursue justice for all people.
Jon Moffitt: This is radical versus ordinary, and we would say the ordinary Christian life is caring for each other. We didn't even list all of the verses we could have listed. How do we show that we're a disciple? By the love that we have for one another. Love is not, "I love you, brother, and I'll pray for you." Love requires sacrifice because that's what John gives in John 15 when he uses that illustration where Jesus laid his life down for his sheep as the example of what love looks like. This is love: that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Justin Perdue: Yeah. You lay down your life in a lot of ways too. Loving people is just being consistently there, and you're patient, and you bear with them—which requires a laying down of your own preferences and all that kind of stuff.
Jon Moffitt: The joy that our church is experiencing by actually obeying Scripture the way it was designed to be obeyed. People are finding there is no hope—they destroyed their life, their marriage is a wreck, they're 55 years old and realizing that nothing turned out the way it is—and then they hear me talk and they go, "Oh, wait. My life has purpose now." You have purpose until you die. And you will die with dignity and hope because your righteousness comes from Jesus—that's where your dignity is—and your hope comes from his final restoration. Go give other people hope and dignity in Christ by being patient and longsuffering and bearing with their burdens.
Justin Perdue: Bear with their burdens in such a way that you continue to encourage them to trust Christ.
Jon Moffitt: In these SR groups, you guys have the opportunity to do this as well. You can care for one another, learn how to do this, and take it back to your church and start reforming churches.
You know how you reform a church? You don't go after the head dog with theology, start showing it. Start showing that there's something different, and it's called being patient, merciful, kind, uplifting, and caring in these ways. How is sin covered? By love. Love covers a multitude of sins. That's what he says.
Justin Perdue: Yeah, love does. Kindness, gentleness, patience, all those things.
Jon Moffitt: I think there needs to be a Reformation. Justin and I are putting in every blood, sweat, and tear we know how to in our own local churches and through Theocast, and it's going to take more than two guys to do this. It's going to take all of us. I honestly think we will see a Reformation within the local church. We've already seen more churches planted. Justin and I are working with multiple pastors to help them transition their church in this direction. It is going to work, it's just we have to trust in God's means to do it— and I do. I believe there are going to be more and more churches.
Here's what I think is success: one more person who finds rest in Christ. One more person was cared for. That is success.
Where you see in local churches, it becomes more common for people to love one another in the ways that we're describing—that is growth, that's health, that's maturation, that's fruitful. Numbers and all those kinds of things are really up to the Lord, but we can concern ourselves with loving one another these ways.
Justin Perdue: I had a thought pop into my mind as you were talking. A lot of times Theocast gets shot for emphasizing too much Christ and the gospel. They say we need to talk more about how we should live and I'm like, "Have you listened to us talk?" First of all, have you ever listened to a sermon that Jon has preached or a sermon that I've preached? Have you ever interacted with our people in our congregations? Because I think if you did that, you would see.
But even in a conversation like we had today, we do talk about how we are to live. We just don't say the things that everybody wants us to say, we don't pound the desk and jump up on the soap box about disciplines and the like. We actually are trying to take our cue from the New Testament, from the apostles, and say these are the things that we need to emphasize and seek to do for each other—and they just aren't the things that people are accustomed to hearing. It's almost like it just doesn't register for folks. When you tell people to love each other, people go, "Okay, fine. But tell me the real stuff that I need to do." It's almost like they're waiting for you to rebuke everyone who is not as disciplined as them and then you will have actually told them something that's practical.
I don't know. That's just my impression of it, Jon. I think we actually say a lot more about how we're supposed to live than the average person would think we do. It's just that you have to have ears to hear it.
Jon Moffitt: Amen. You don't want to read a quote real quick that someone sent me that I thought was really helpful, and maybe I'll let you speak to it after that. It was in reference to preaching and how one sees their congregation.
So this is in reference to preaching. "Do hearers get the impression that the minister is for them (eager to see the richly blessed by a gracious God), or against them (eager to put them in their place, scold them, reprimand them, or punish them)? Is it his desire to see them reconciled and blessed by a pardoning God? Does the sermon press the hearer to consider the hopelessness of his condition apart from Christ and the utter competence of Christ to rescue the penitent sinner?" This is from a book called Why Johnny Can't Preach.
We'll read you one more section here. Flavel's Fountain of Life consists of 43 sermons—six on the person of Christ and 37 on the work of Christ. If it were to compare contemporary preaching to this standard, we would honestly be able to call it only a dribble of life.
"Preach Christ, and you will have morality. Fill the sails of the hearers' souls with the wind of the confidence in the Redeemer, and they will trust in him as their Sanctifier, and long to see his fruit in their lives. Fill their minds and imagination with a vision of the loveliness and perfection of Christ in his person and the flock will long to be like him. Impress upon their weak and wavering hearts the utter competence of the meditation of the One who ever lives to make intercession for them, and they will long to serve and comfort others, even as Christ has served and comforted them." Dear church, that is what Theocast is trying to do as a parachurch organization: it is to fill the sails of the hearers with the sufficiency of Christ so that you have the energy to go out and care for the souls of others.
If we are not accomplishing that, if we aren't emphasizing that, then we have failed in our mission statement, which is to lead weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. And those who are resting will have the energy and the endurance to care for those who are weak.
Justin Perdue: To go in love.
Jon Moffitt: Amen. We'll end with that.
Justin Perdue: If I were to put it in my own terms, how do we help the saints and encourage the saints to love one another and to give their lives away? We make it our job, in as much as it depends on us, to extol the mercy, the grace, the power, the love, and the sufficiency of Christ, and it will work itself out because this is the way the Lord has set it up.
Jon Moffitt: You are part of a Reformation where there are churches that are being designed to function this way, and pastors who want to preach this way. What we're doing, dear parachurch family, matters. It really does. It's making a change that matters. More people are finding this. So if you're willing to put in the time, we're willing to put in the time as well.
We'll see you next week. Peace.
