Semper Reformanda: The guys discuss parachurch ministries and how they have often contributed to the confusion about what characterizes a strong Christian. Then, we talk more about the necessity of ordinary faithfulness in loving the weak in the church.
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/zLoJL9uT9Ks
Podcast Transcript
Jon Moffitt: Hi, this is Jon. Let me ask you this one question: what is a strong Christian? Is it one who is disciplined? Is it one who has read a thousand books on Christianity? How would you describe a strong Christian according to the Bible? That's what Justin and I are going to talk about today on Theocast. We might have a little bit of a twist to the question. We're going to look at it from Romans 15. We hope you enjoy. Stay tuned.
What are the marks of a strong Christian? Often, things that can cripple us and drag us down are things like depression and the dark night of the soul. This conversation is birthed out of a conversation we had at a men's Bible study and a sermon that I preached recently. We'll put the sermon in the notes as well.
The conversation we want to have today are the marks of a strong Christian and those marks, if we were to do a survey, it would probably have been fun to do and see what people would have come up with. I'll throw a couple out, Justin. I'll let you throw a couple out. Ones that we've heard that normally, when we think of someone who is strong, this is someone who for 20 years has been faithfully on their knees for 30 minutes in the morning, an hour in the word, and really just hasn't missed unless they've been sick. The mark of a dedicated, faithful, disciplined Christian—that right there is a strong Christian.
Justin Perdue: For me, whenever I've heard people talk about being a strong Christian, the first word that pops into my mind is discipline. It's a person who is disciplined in their life—and that may be with respect to prayer, Bible reading, but it could be any number of things. It's a regimented, ordered kind of life. I think a lot of times we think of Christians as being strong when they don't struggle with particular kinds of sins—the more taboo, public, obvious kinds of sins—they don't deal with those in the same way that others do, and so therefore they're strong.
Jon Moffitt: One of the guys described it as there are no extremes—you don't see an extreme high, you don't see an extreme low, they're just steady. Steady Eddie, the guy with the gray hair who just always is: he's always there and he's always faithful. That's the strong Christian. Some of these things are true.
Justin Perdue: Some of these things are good. To be really clear, we're not saying that discipline, steadiness, and not struggling with certain kinds of obvious sins are bad—all of those things are good.
I'll just go ahead and say this, Jon, that if you were to take a survey of the top five things that should characterize a Christian, I am relatively confident that most of us would not answer that and would not fill that out the way the apostles would have. As we're getting to the number one thing that should mark us, it's pretty obvious in the New Testament and it's not what we would put first.
Jon Moffitt: No, it is not.
We're going to look at several passages, but we're going to look at Romans 15 as our starting point and. Our desire is that everyone would be a strong Christian—that they would find their firm foundation and effectiveness. As we have mentioned in the past, 2 Peter 1 talks about an effective Christian, and we would agree that Christians should be effective, but effective in what? What should they be effective in? When we think about strength, we think about the characteristics of strength, we need to allow Scripture to characterize those.
I think often we have allowed businessmen, leadership skills, and I would even say self-made isolation tactics to determine what Christians are.
Justin Perdue: When you hear us use the language of a strong Christian, you could also insert the word "mature". We're talking about what makes a strong Christian, what characterizes a strong or mature Christian according to the New Testament.
Jon Moffitt: Right. Out of the gates, Paul uses a different way of describing it, but he's saying, "Those of you who are strong, this is what you should be doing." In other words, you should have the capacity to do this, or the ability to do this.
Let me just read you the first verse of Romans 15. He says, "We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up." And then he uses our motivation and example, "For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, 'The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.'" We'll start there before I read verse four. Immediately, Paul is assuming strength with something that seems very contrary to modern day explanations of strength. He is saying strength is tied to the capacity and the ability to care for not yourself and your own sins, but to the ability to care for the sins and the failing of the strength of others.
Justin Perdue: Verse one is just pretty epic. If you are strong, then you have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak. Your strength is actually meant to be used and poured out for the good of the weak in your midst. It's gripping.
Jon Moffitt: Verse four—this is becoming one of my favorite verses more and more as I read it—"For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."
What I love about it is he says not only must you deal with the failings and the weakness, but here's your motivation, here's your encouragement and endurance: it comes from looking at the hope of Christ in the Old Testament. (Of course, Paul is writing the New Testament at the moment. He was one of the writers.) He's always pointing us to Christ as one, example, and two, as hope. So we gain our encouragement and our endurance by looking at Christ; not our stability, not our long track record, not our discipline.
Some people say, "I've been doing this for 20 years." They gain stability over the discipline or the longevity of whatever it is that they have accomplished, and Paul says, "No, your endurance and your encouragement come from what you're not doing; it's coming from what's been done."
Justin Perdue: I love it. Consider Christ. He is the epitome of the one who is strong, giving himself away for the sake of the weak. Right. Consider him, seek to imitate him, strive to be like him, but he doesn't stop there. He gives us the ground underneath it all. And the thing that's actually going to drive, sustain, and propel us in that seeking to imitate Christ is to remember, recall, know, trust in the hope that you have in Christ, because this is what God has been revealing from the beginning. That's wonderful.
Another passage that is great with respect to this conversation we're having today: Galatians 6. Just the first couple of verses of that chapter. I'm gonna go and read the verses and then we'll comment on these a little bit.
Paul writes, "Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." Another mark of a strong Christian is shown by Paul right here. If anybody is caught in sin, if anybody is mired in sin and transgression, you who are spiritual—you who are mature, you who are strong—should restore that person in a spirit of gentleness. And keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted, lest you too fall.
Marks of a strong Christian from Galatians 6 are gentleness toward people who are caught in sin and humility with respect to your own frame. Realize that were it not for the grace of God, there go you. And so what we ought to be doing—those of us who are mature, those of us who are strong by God's grace—we ought to be seeking to restore those who have fallen and to restore those who are struggling, who are trapped and caught in sin. We ought not be proud, we ought not be haughty, we ought not be condescending, we ought not be harsh, we ought not bludgeon people and just drop hammers and bombs all the time. We should gently seek the restoration of the weak.
And then verse two, "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." We ought to seek to bear the burdens of our brothers and sisters. If the Lord has given you strength, if the Lord has given you some level of maturity, then use it to bear the burdens of your brothers and sisters in the church.
Jon Moffitt: That's right. It's so powerful to think about the difference between how we see a strong Christian and how the New Testament describes a strong Christian. If someone who is underneath the weight of their sin, who is so immature that they are so introspective, looking at themselves all the time, only worried about themselves, Paul says the spiritual people—the strong people—are the ones who have the ability to look and carry other people. It's not isolationism; it's the exact opposite.
Justin Perdue: It's charity. It's humility. It's compassion.
Jon Moffitt: One other passage from Paul... just a quick couple of verses. 1 Thessalonians 5, he again uses the gospel as our motivation: "For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you were doing."
And then later on, he continues the admonishment. He says in verse 14, "And we urge you, brothers, to admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all." Can you follow the transition here? He's going to do this again in Ephesians. The glory of Christ, we're not destined for wrath, live in that hope; and then he says to take the motivation that you get from that hope and admonish each other, encourage each other, and then be patient with all. The one thing I am trying to teach my congregation is the power of patience. I think I say it in every marital counseling issues that we're dealing with, people who have their families trapped in some weird religion, or weird church organization, or the unbeliever, or they've got an unbelieving spouse, the thing that the gospel can provide and should provide is patience because we are waiting for Christ's return and we're waiting for God to do His work here on earth. Even 2 Peter 1 describes this. The capacity for patience and godliness and longsuffering are the acts of the fruits of the Spirit that we are to add to our faith. And then it says if these are missing or lacking, you have forgotten that you've been cleansed from your former sins. So a strong grasp of the gospel leads to a strong capacity in meekness, gentleness, and patience.
Justin Perdue: When you say that, I can't help but think about 1 Timothy 1:15 and 16 where Paul talks about how patient Jesus has been with him. So then his word to the saints is to consider how patient He will be with you as well.
And I agree, brother, that the gospel should help us all be patient with one another because we consider how patient the Lord has been with us, and now we're going to be patient with each other; we're going to play the long game and we're going to be longsuffering when it comes to our dealings with others.
Jon Moffitt: In Romans 14:1, Paul says, "As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but do not quarrel over opinions." This is why you will not see us in the Facebook group often jump into dumb stuff. The longer they listen and the stronger their faith will get, these quarrelsome things will go away.
Justin Perdue: True. Ephesians 4:1 and following. Many will know that the first three chapters of Ephesians are all about the grace of God and the mystery that's been hidden for ages in God, that is the plan of redemption that Jesus has accomplished—and it's just absolute soaring, glorious stuff of what God has done for us, what Christ has accomplished for us, the security that we have in Jesus and the inheritance that we are awaiting, and the fact that we've been promised this wonderful kingdom that the Lord is just delighted to give us. That's the first three chapters of Ephesians.
And then Paul transitions in the last three chapters, as it's divided in our modern translations, to exhort and encourage the church. In light of all that, here's how we live together. How does he start? I remember when I preached through Ephesians and I got to this section, I set up the first sermon in Ephesians 4 with this question, and I think it's relevant for now: if you were to write a letter to a church about how they're to live together in light of everything that you've ever read, everything that you've ever heard, everything that you've ever been taught, how would you start that letter? How would you begin it? Here's how you're to live with each other. Let that sit in your mind and then consider how Paul begins. "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called." Walk in a way that is commensurate with the gospel. And he goes on to describe it: "With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
What does Paul say to a church? How do you live together? What's the most important stuff that would mean that we're walking in a way that's commensurate with the gospel? We're walking in a way that makes sense in light of what Jesus has done for us: with humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, pursuit of unity. There we have it.
Those things should mark mature, strong Christians. If we're talking in those terms, if you're going to be one of those, then these things—humility and gentleness toward your brothers and sisters, patience with your brothers and sisters, bearing with one another in love (which is just another way to say be longsuffering), be patient, love each other even when it's hard because people are going to fail and people are gonna be stupid and all those kinds of things. Pursue unity; don't be dividing over everything, don't bicker, don't bite and devour each other, but pursue unity. That's what the strong and mature among us need to be about doing.
Jon Moffitt: He goes on to explain that and the rest of the chapter—which we have probably mentioned on every episode ever in the history of the podcast because I've been in love with Ephesians for my entire ministry—but Ephesians 4, he goes on to describe that maturity built up into Christ is not an individual effort, but it's a corporate effort. Not only is a strong Christian one who cares for the needs of others, but the way in which one becomes a strong Christian, to do that is by others.
Justin Perdue: It's through the corporate ministry of the church, which is going to include pastors and teachers that the Lord has given to teach sound doctrine which gives us stability and keeps us from being knocked around. And it is through every member of the body playing his or her part, so that we together, when the body is functioning properly, as the text says, we build ourselves up in love.
Jon Moffitt: Now this is probably mind-bending from many people who are listening and it's probably very complicated. Justin, one of the things that you and I are facing is the longer we describe biblical Christianity, which is not me and Jesus, but it's Jesus and his body—that is biblical Christianity -people are struggling because the church has just failed. Let's just be frank here. The church has failed. I was on the phone with a pastor yesterday. Everybody in California is moving to Tennessee for whatever reason. I am not kidding—it is a weird sensation. You cannot rent a house or buy a house because there are none available; all the Californians took them up. I'm glad they're here because they're all in my church. We had nine families from California visit in one day at our church.
The struggle has been people hear what we're saying, and they want to experience that, but the churches that they're in, they're not experiencing what we're describing. Not even on a simple level. The emphasis of the church is not on the corporate gathering or the corporate caring for each other; the emphasis is a pietistic, individualistic, go-home-and-try-harder emphasis. I get how that's a struggle when you hear what we're saying and you want to go apply it. In many ways, it's really hard to do that because of the context that you're finding yourself in—you can't. We understand that struggle.
But there comes a moment where you, if you believe this strongly enough, if you're convicted by this, something's got to change. You either try and change the context that you're in or you change the context, meaning you got to go to a different one.
Justin Perdue: I think that one of the ways that the church has failed—and I think this is been evident in the things that we've been saying today—is that the church has given us the impression, at least, there's at least an implicit message of this, if not an explicit one often, that what the Christian life is about is our own individual strength and growth. That, I would say, is a very American perspective. That's a very modern, obsessed-with-self kind of perspective, that what really matters is my own growth and my own arrival. We have absolutely lost the biblical emphasis of, like you said a minute ago, this is not about me and Jesus—this is about us and Jesus.
I was having a conversation with a brother who I love dearly in our church and he's going through some hard times. This has just popped into my brain and I feel like it's applicable here and encouraging. He was talking about any number of things, we were talking about any number of things sitting on the tailgate of my truck. At one point, he is lamenting this: "I feel like right now, my faith would not exist if it were not propped up by other people around me." And he was saying that as though that was a really bad thing. And I said, basically, "Amen, brother." I said, "Do you hear what you're saying? Do you hear yourself talk?" Because he and I have had some conversations recently about why we need the church. I said, "Why do we need the church?" He said, "Brother, it's almost like that's how the Lord set it up. It's almost like God meant for it to be that way." There are going to be times in all of our lives where if it were not for the brothers and sisters around me, more pointedly who are carrying me and I am propped up on them, I don't know that I would even have faith. That's how the church is designed to function. We need each other far more than we realize. And that's not to say that we don't need Christ and the Holy Spirit; of course we do. But Christ and his Spirit minister to us through the church. We will know Jesus most tangibly in this world through the church, and through our brothers and sisters in the local church that we're a part of.
We just don't think in those terms. We often tend to think that there's something wrong with me if I need other people so desperately. No, you actually are starting to understand it. We are all clinging to each other as we all cling to Jesus.
Jon Moffitt: Let me just read to you the exact words from Hebrews, "But exhort one another every day, as long as it's called "today," that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confessing firm to the end." So he's saying we encourage each other to share in Christ, and we hold on to that to the very end because that's what's going to save us. So a strong Christian is one who has concern for others, but also a strong Christian, as Justin just said, is one who knows his strength does not come by his individualism, but his strength comes in numbers. It's the gathered body that finds our strength as we share in Christ.
Justin Perdue: Amen. And obviously it comes from God through the means of the saints. That's why we'll say things that sound flat out insane to people. For example—I believe this with all my heart and I know you do too, John—that assurance of salvation is a community project. That sounds bananas to people. Maybe this is even more scandalous to say: sanctification is a community project. Growth in the faith. I'm not saying that the Lord doesn't do anything in us when we're alone or in our private time. Don't hear me say that. But I am absolutely confident, on the basis of the New Testament, that the primary way that we are grown, sustained, and assured is in the corporate context of the church, like you just read from Hebrews, as we encourage and exhort and admonish one another, we all cling to our confession and we all claim to our hope that we have been given in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we point one another to him.
Jon Moffitt: It is a scary concept to think that I have to trust in something outside of myself in order to accomplish the thing that God has given me. We don't want to hear that. And I get it. I love my church and Justin loves his church; I told Justin that if I ever get out of ministry, I'll move to Asheville to be a part of his church. Our churches are so full of problems and all kinds of messes, but the one thing we get right is we get the gospel right. We are starting to understand community and sharing in Christ. Our church is starting to see this.
Justin Perdue: Exactly. It takes time. I'm over five years in, you're over three years in—this doesn't happen overnight. You can't microwave this.
Jon Moffitt: No, because we had to change people's perspectives of churches that they've come from. We do have new converts in our context, but we're also in the Bible belt so we're also dealing with a lot of people who grew up in Christianity. We have to reprogram people to not trust themselves. You are going to be deceived by sin and it will entangle you.
I think it's so interesting when someone comes into the counseling with us and we start unraveling the problem—they confess their sin, we start talking about how it was caused, and the solutions we hand them are not isolated steps. The end goal is to allow the church to now carry this with you to the end, and it terrifies people to think other people are going to know about this. How else do you think you're going to get help? I don't have the ability to carry this by myself as the pastor.
As a matter of fact, Paul doesn't say in Galatians 6 that pastors need to carry the burdens of the church. He says "you who are strong," not pastors. Paul is writing to the congregation saying the congregation is to do that.
Justin Perdue: And then tells them to bear one another's burdens. It's very clear that that's an encouragement and an exhortation to everybody.
Jon Moffitt: Yeah. To go back to Ephesians 4, he says the pastors and teachers are designed to equip the church for the work of ministry.
Justin Perdue: Equip the saints for the work of ministry so that the body will grow and mature and build itself up in love.
Jon Moffitt: Part of the Reformation that has to take place is not only theology, which Justin and I are heralding rest in Christ, but the transformation and reformation that must happen is we've got to get back to the biblical perspective of the church so that people can find rest again—and they can truly.
Justin Perdue: And the gospel that we herald and the doctrine that we teach and confess in our respective churches drive that kind of culture in the church.
Jon Moffitt: That's right. There's a massive drive for social justice on all levels right now in almost every brand of Christianity that is out there. Everybody's throwing out the virtue signaling for racism and for everything that's going on. The church now is focusing outward, but it's leaving all of its members behind and they're being exhausted by all of this. I think it's easier to be involved in social justice movements because it's at a distance, and you can see immediate movement towards a change.
Justin Perdue: It's easier to be involved in movements of social justice than it is to just love people in the church.
Jon Moffitt: Right. Because some people's weaknesses and failures... there is no improvement.
Justin Perdue: There's not a fix. This is a limp that they're going to walk with for the rest of their lives, and they need to be loved.
Jon Moffitt: Right. The burden of people in my church is their spouse left them or their child died or they were abused; that's a burden that cannot be fixed but can only be carried. Those are the things that don't sell. You don't do conferences on those. Our first conference should be on how to carry the burdens of other people.
Justin Perdue: We may get into this more in the SR podcast, but things like conferences and short-term mission trips and stuff like that, it's easy to get excited about those things. It's easy to get people fired up and geeked up about them. They're just sparkle and fade type of things. The difficulty and the real marrow of the Christian life is what we are talking about today; it's locking arms with other fallen human beings and loving one another as we so often limp our way by the Holy Spirit's power toward the Celestial City. We're just trying to love each other in such a way that we help one another to trust Christ and die with dignity—and that's just not a sexy message for many people.
Jon Moffitt: Christianity really is moving from one Super Bowl to the next—we're just looking for that one high.
Justin Perdue: If you're saying American Christianity, then I agree with you completely.
Even the movement thing that you're talking about, Jon. There's a reason why every 18 to 24 months, there's something new.
Jon Moffitt: It's like we have to find motivation for what we're doing.
Justin Perdue: If you read the Christian blogosphere and you just go back over the last 15 years, I promise you that you'll find five to eight big issues. Every four years you've got politics—the election cycle. But then there's been a number of other things sprinkled in from various issues of social justice, whether that's having to do with gender stuff or race stuff. There was a big emphasis on sex trafficking years ago.
Again, we should pursue justice. Amen. But there's always gotta be a new thing, it seems, that people can pay attention to.
Jon Moffitt: The reason why there's always a new thing is that modern Christianity is just one epic failure after the next because we aren't paying attention to Scripture. There has been no success. You can't even call numbers success because then Joel Osteen is the most successful strong Christian on the planet because he's got one of the biggest churches in the world. Numbers are not success. When Paul describes a successful Christian or church, he is not describing these things that are changing culture or overcoming. We're always going to have social issues. We're always going to have problems. But when he describes a successful strong Christian, he describes something that is just not talked about today.
I want to speak to the pastor out there and the Christian worker who's been faithfully serving in their ministries year in and year out: success has nothing to do with the books you write, the podcasts you make, and the number of people in your church. That is not what success is. A successful pastor or a successful Christian is one who gets down and carries and cares for, and is patiently longsuffering with people day in and day out. No matter how many people those are—if it's one, two, or 5,000, it does not matter. But you can go to bed at night and say, "You know what? According to 2 Peter 1, I was an effective Christian today because I cared for people. I cared for them and that's what my job is." I'm a good Christian not because of the sins I conquered—I'm not saying you can live in sin—not because of all of the things I did spiritually. No, we cared for the failings and the weak and those who are suffering and we carried burdens. I can die as a man going, "You know what? I did what God asked me to do, which is to care for the people around me in my church. That's what I've been called to do. I'm a successful pastor."
Justin Perdue: And God has given me Christ's very own righteousness and has dealt with my sin so that I am set free to do that work without fear of condemnation and judgment.
A couple of thoughts for me to close—and I realize it's not exactly related to what you just said, but I hope this makes sense.
Two big ones: number one, back to that whole idea of a survey. If you were going to fill one out, what should mark a Christian? If we don't put love for the brethren, then we are flat wrong when it comes to what the Bible reveals. Jesus himself says in John 13: how is the world going to know that we're Christ's? It's by the way we love each other. And then John picks that up in his first epistle, in chapter two, verses seven and following, where his exhortation is to love each other. This is the commandment and this is what the redeemed do. So we need to talk in those terms.
The second thing is related. If we're going to really love one another and get down low and bear each other's burdens, it requires a lot of things that we've been talking about today: humility, patience, gentleness, and the like. If that's going to characterize us in the church, we've got to get rid of self-righteousness because self-righteousness and humility, gentleness, patience, compassion don't go together. They're like oil and water.
I said this in a conversation this week, and this is kind of where I'm going to conclude my thoughts on this people think in the church: people think in the church today that the epidemic that's plaguing us is nominalism, that the problem is that there are too many false converts or there are too many Christians in name only. That's the issue for them. I think that's a pretty myopic and short-sighted perspective. The problem that has always existed in the church from the jump, regarding the New Testament, is self-righteousness—people trusting in their own works, trusting in their own righteousness, going back to the law. It manifests itself in a number of ways, but that's the issue.
I said this to a guy this week: my main objective in terms of what I want to see in all of our lives is I want to make it my mission to destroy self-righteousness at CBC, and I want us to trust in Christ's righteousness alone and despair of our own. If that actually starts to happen for us, guess what's going to be produced? This stuff: love, compassion, patience, gentleness, and charity toward the weak and toward the struggler, rather than this kind of posture that we all contend to have where we look at the weak and the struggler and we say, "You should be better by now. You shouldn't be doing that."
Jon Moffitt: Amen. We're gonna end this podcast and we're going to move over to our next one, which is called Semper Reformanda. This is a new ministry that we started for the purposes of those who want to join in what we're doing. If you want to be a part of the Reformation, you want to see change happen, then we'd encourage you to join us. It's two parts: we do a podcast and then we also have a ministry where you can gather with other listeners and talk about the podcast each week. We have an app for it, so you can join. Once you join, you can download our private podcast feed and then join a local group. We already have 20 groups we've started around the country and we're working on doing more. We have several online groups and while you're waiting for your local group, you can join in. We have a great time discussing the podcast.
Today, Justin and I are going to head over there and we are going to talk about parachurch failures as it relates to the marks of a strong Christian. It's going to be a fun conversation. We'll see over there.
For those of you that won't make it with us, we'll see you next week.
