The guys talk about pietistic, emotionally-based preaching, as well as the armor of God and the Lord's Table.
Regular Episode
MEMBERS Podcast Transcripts
Jon Moffitt: Welcome to the members' podcast. Justin, you gave us a couple of things. Before I get into mine, what were you going after? What were you going to tap into in this very important segment of our podcast?
Justin Perdue: Two things that I wanted to do. I might start off with a little bit of a gem from our boy Horatius Bonar's God's Way of Peace. I'm holding the book up right now for those who are watching the video. Jon, because you love me, and because I think it will edify the people, I'm literally going to read a paragraph.
This is related very much to the things that we're talking about in terms of chasing after a kind of feeling before God, even if that feeling before the Lord is one of peace. Listen to what he writes. It's beautiful. "I knew an awakened soul who, in the bitterness of his spirit, thus set himself to work and pray, in order to get peace. He doubled the amount of his devotions," and that sounds familiar, "saying to himself, 'Surely God will give me peace.' But the peace did not come. He set up family worship, saying, 'This will give me peace.' But the peace came not. At last he thought himself of having a prayer meeting in his house, as a certain remedy; he fixed the night, called his neighbors, and prepared himself for conducting the meeting by writing a prayer and learning it by heart. As he finished the operation of learning it, preparatory to the meeting, he threw it down on the table saying, 'Surely that will do; God will give me peace now.' In that moment, a still small voice seemed to speak in his ear, saying, 'No, that will not do; but Christ will do.' Straightway the scales fell from his eyes, and the burden from his shoulders. Peace poured in like a river. 'Christ will do,' was his watchword for life."
It's a good anecdote. It sounds just like us. It was written 150 years ago and I'm like, "Holy smokes. He's reading my mail." Doubling the amount of his devotions, setting up family worship. “I'm going to run a prayer meeting in my house, and I'm going to write this great prayer and memorize it by heart. Amen. Surely that's going to give me the feeling that I'm after. It's going to give me peace and assurance and comfort. It's going to give me whatever feeling it is that I want.”
That voice—Bonar describes it as still, small voice, as it were, that spoke to this man. “No, none of that's going to do the job. None of that will do, but Christ will; Christ will do.” That's what we're getting at here; your efforts and your pursuit of something is not what gets this done. It's not what carries the day. It is always something outside of you, namely Christ. I know we say it literally every week, but it's kind of like in our churches. Luther is famous for saying, "I preach the gospel every time we get together, because we forget it every week." We need to be reminded of this all the time, that our efforts and our chasing after spiritual highs are regardless of how we feel at any given moment. It's not what does it.
Jon Moffitt: One of the things I want to do for our listeners is to be able to put some armor on you to protect you from really bad theology. When Paul says put on the whole armor of God, we always see that as an action: prayer, Bible reading, spiritual disciplines. No, he's saying, pick up Christ so that the darts of Satan will not land. I want to put on some, what I would say, armor of rest, the armor of Christ, so that when pietism darts start coming your way, they're going to bounce off you and the bad sermons that you hear. I have people send me sermons all the time from different preachers and my stomach just sinks. It's not going to land on me. It is not going to affect me. But there are people who are just riddled with darts, and it's just sucking the joy out of them and just putting poison in their heart. They walk away from a sermon that should have been about Christ and the significance of Christ, and all they heard was their significance of what they're doing for Christ. It's faith versus faithfulness all over again.
Justin Perdue: The Ephesians 6:10-20 armor of God. Paul is exhorting them to put these things on, but he's describing stuff that has nothing to do with them that will protect them. We leave a sermon on the armor of God and all we've really been experiencing, or all we've heard, is being rebuked and coached as to how to put the armor on the right way. Listen to the things that he describes in that passage, and I don't know if this is actually what we were talking about or not, but it's edifying. He says to fasten on the belt of truth. What is that? It's not your truth. It's God's. "Having put on the breastplate of righteousness." Whose righteousness is that? I promise you it's not yours; it's Christ's. Then the shoes for your feet; what's that? It's the gospel of peace. Then in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, not the shield of works, but the shield of faith, and then the helmet of salvation—as in it's been done for you. Then the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Yet we leave that passage somehow thinking about ourselves, not about Christ, who is our righteousness and the salvation that has been accomplished for us, and the gospel that is about our peace before the Lord, etc. We think that we just need to go out there somehow and resist the flaming darts of the enemy by applying these means well enough. It's insanity.
Jon Moffitt: I want to give an illustration here. All the guys at Theocast put out different tweets, and the guy who's in charge of our marketing grabs them and puts them out. I put a quote out yesterday, and it's been getting some interesting interactions, that says, "God doesn't punish you because of your sins against Him. He punished His Son instead. God isn't waiting to catch you in the act. He sees the deepest parts of your heart and loves you unconditionally. Walk by faith, trusting in your Father's love for you. Christ is your hope!" Who is my audience in that tweet?
Justin Perdue: I assume that you're trying to help the weary Christian, and the Christian has always been living in fear, motivated by dread and everything else.
Jon Moffitt: Am I going after the lost? Is that who that tweet is for?
Justin Perdue: No, because if you were going after the lost, you would preach the Law to them and then offer Christ.
Jon Moffitt: Exactly. I'm not preaching the Law here; I'm preaching the gospel. This is why Law-gospel is so important, because when you mix the Law and the gospel, then you get this emotion with the gospel: unless you surrender all, unless you sacrifice everything, unless you sell it, unless you're emotionally 100% all of the time on the goosebump high, then you're not truly saved.
I have people putting these comments in here, and they're questioning basically as if I'm talking to the unbeliever. No, I'm talking to the weary saint who is weighed down by their sin and the need to be lifted up by grace.
Justin Perdue: We could have a lengthy conversation right now about the right application of Law and gospel. The confusion there—it's rampant and it's damaging.
We don't have that long left. I just want to make a few comments about the Lord's Table. I know we've touched on this at various points over the years now, but I don't know if there is a listener out there, maybe newer to the membership, that's never heard us say something like this.
I know for me, for the longest time, perhaps the most anxiety-producing moment that I ever experienced as a Christian was the Lord's Table. It was an absolutely terrifying experience for me because I was made to feel that unless I was flat out brokenhearted—to the point of tears—about my sin, that I was somehow unworthy to come to the Table. If I am not contrite enough, if I am not remorseful enough, if I am not grieved enough, if I'm not motivated properly enough to live for God, then I'm just going to come to the table and eat and drink judgment upon myself.
That kind of thinking is so unhelpful because, as many have said through history, including John Calvin, the Table is not for the perfect; it's for the weak. If we need to have our emotions spot on right, if we need to be remorseful enough, sorry enough, contrite enough, repentant enough and everything else, then nobody should come to the table if that's the case.
But the Table is actually there as a comfort to you, that as surely as you put the bread and the cup in your mouth, Christ died for you, and that this table is a means of God's grace to you to actually sustain and nourish you so that you might be given things that you lack, by the grace of God. We need to be repentant sinners in that we're not just living in high-handed, hardhearted sin, happily doing it, but this idea that we need to be in this emotional place and work ourselves up into this emotional frenzy in order to come to the Table is slavery. It is not biblical. What it does is it robs Christians of a legitimate means of grace that is intended for their good. And it works me up.
I know in our church, and I know in yours too, we aim to be very thoughtful in how we bring people to the Table. We help them understand that if they know that they've blown it this week, and they're trusting in Christ, who is their righteousness and forgiveness for their sins, then the Table is exactly where they need to be.
Jon Moffitt: That's right. If I have someone in my church who is in unrepentant sin, that's a problem. They're going to know that we started with confessing our sins, and if you didn't legitimately confess your sin, then you shouldn't take the Table because you're misunderstanding the Table.
But if you are a sinner who is struggling, and your heart feels dry, come running to the Table to receive the grace of God; to encourage you, to keep fighting, to keep trusting, to keep believing.
Justin Perdue: This sounds subjective, but I'll stand by the statement. If you're sitting there and you are mindful of your sin, and you're grieved by it, and you're questioning whether you're worthy to come, you are exactly the person who should come. Nobody but those who have been united to Jesus would ever be grieved at the thought of offending him. If you're sitting there thinking, "I'm a mess. I'm a wretch. I need Christ," then run to the Table and cast yourself upon his mercy and grace. Don't hesitate.
Jon Moffitt: It's hard when there are churches that don't do the Table every week. They aren't faced with these realities. What I love about the Table every week is it keeps a short lease on sin, and it also keeps a constant reminder of grace. If you miss the grace in the sermon, you're going to get it in the Table.
Amazing conversations as always. This is something I texted to Justin yesterday. I was like, "We should do a podcast on this." We were excited about doing that. We have some good ones coming up. I think we should do one on the armor of God. We did one years and years and years ago, and I have some new thoughts on that.
We have some podcasts coming. I'll just let the members know. We've got some on prayer that I want to do, we have some on suffering, a misinterpretation on sections of Matthew. I think we should do the armor of God, which should be fun.
Anyways, stay tuned for all of those. You guys send us amazing recommendations that we often use, so hop on the website and send us your recommendations of stuff that you would like for us to do. We only have 52 episodes or 50 episodes a year, so we can't do them all, but...
Justin Perdue: Sometimes, there'll be an article that gains traction in the Facebook group, and we'll see that and think we should speak to that. The things that you guys put up and discuss, we see it and we're aware, and we aim to try to speak to things that are on your minds and hearts.
Jon Moffitt: If you have not listened to our series on covenant theology, and you're a member, you need to go do that. You can now share it though for free. It's on our website and on YouTube. As a ministry, we're trying to get people to understand that if you want to know the theological foundation that drives Justin and I, a covenant relationship we have with our savior, Jesus Christ, is where it's at. We're going to be speaking and adding more to that, Lord willing, this year. We're going to start writing more. If we can get this new website up and running, and we can see the income go up, that gives us more resources to write more. Stay tuned.
Thank you for your support. We'll talk to you next week.
