The Gospel of Sincere Obedience

Oh no, John and Justin talking about obedience. Yeah, we are. And it's an important subject because to be frank, Justin and I really do want every person who hears. Asked to obey sincerely. The question is, how is that accomplished? And that's what this episode is about. There is no good news for those who only emphasize obedience. We have to look to a power. And we're gonna talk about what that is.

Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word. It's called Pietism. Have 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 Christ has done for you. It's dread versus joy, really. That's pietism. Pietism causes Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope, not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing.

And we have a little book for you. It's free. We want you to download it and we're going to explain the difference between Pietism and what we call confessionalism. Reform theology, really, how it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ. And when Jesus says, Come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like? You can download it at our website, just go to theocast.org. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weird. to find their rest.

That's our prayer for you today. And we're gonna come at it if you're wondering well what bit do these guys have? You ever wonder about when someone says it's a Christian podcast? Well we're gonna come at it from a Calvinist, we are broken sinners who love confession.

We preach the rest of Christ, resting in Christ. So your host today Purdue Pastor. North Carolina, father of four. Been married for how many m how many years have you been married? It will be twelve later this year. Twelve. There you go. I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. I'm also a father of four. I actually have two in college, Justin. Been married twenty one years. So I know. I'm old. I'm not that much older than you though. To be frank. No. To be frank.

To be frank. Hey, now that the listener knows all of those things about us, John. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I don't know why. I I it's I don't either. That was interesting. Hey, keeping me on my toes, man. I appreciate it. You know? Sometimes people, you know, we keep getting we're gonna do this. People keep asking for our

Like how like our not our I guess our story. They want to know our story. So one of these days we're gonna give you our story, but not today. Hey man. Uh a couple of announcements. Uh Justin, we've got a we got a conference coming up, man. And people are already registering, which means it's gonna go quick.

And this episode is probably four or five weeks out from airing. So I don't even know how many seats will be left. But if you'd like to come and hear about the law and the gospel on April the tenth through the twelfth at Justin's Church in Asheville, North Carolina. We have about two hundred and fifty seats. Well less than that now. And when it sells out, we'll be sold out. So you're gonna wanna go there. We try to keep the pricing uh as cheap as possible.

Justin, we're gonna be having uh you and I are speaking along with we got four speakers gonna be there, Chad Byrd, for those of you who don't know from 1517, and Ken Jones. So pretty excited about that. And then uh formerly of white horse and now does a lot of stuff with Ligonier Kinsman. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Both both dear friends of ours. We're so thankful for them. Uh you've done some stuff with Chad in the past.

And the one other thing is uh if you are enjoying material, Justin and I have classes that we have provided, uh called Theokas Academy. you can go and download our app. Uh, just go to our website and you can have access to all of his sermons and mine and all of our previous episodes, other podcasts that we've done. A lot of good stuff in there. So

Justin, today uh is you know, sometimes we have fun with our titles to grab people's attentions. Today is one of those. Maybe give them a little bit of disclaimer and subtitle before we jump into this thing so they don't shut us off from the get go. Yeah, for real. The title of the episode is The Gospel of Sincere Obedience, which is a phrase I use a lot in conversation to describe a lot of the well-intentioned uh but maybe less than helpful emphases that are made in our day.

And we we were joking. Uh, the gospel of sincere obedience subtitle Looking unto effort rather than looking unto Jesus, looking unto our furniture of my faith at obedience. Now If you've already turned us off, this is too late. But if if you're still listening, please don't. Yeah. Don't throw anything at, you know, don't throw your phone across the room. Don't throw anything at the the radio dial to use an old school term.

Public service announcement here. We don't want to be misunderstood. This is our disclaimer. John and I are local church pastors, and there is nothing that we want more for our people than for them to know rest and peace and communion with God through Jesus Christ and for them to live holy lives. And to live obedient lives and for them to be fruitful and effective.

In loving and caring for one another and to be effective and fruitful in terms of laboring and striving for the sake of the kingdom of Christ. Nothing that we want more than that. We're going to talk about obedience. We're going to talk about being effective and fruitful. We're going to talk about living lives of holiness and all those kinds of things, at least indirectly today. But what we're really going to do is we're going to talk about how to get you there.

There is a better way than to look unto our effort at transformation. There's a better way than to preach a gospel effectively, a salvation by sincere obedience is not the way to do that. And we understand at a human level why people conclude that it is.

We're just here to offer uh a different way, John. And so I want to tee this up with a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of not a different way because we're trying to be clever. We're arguing it's the biblical way. I'll just say that now. Exactly. And there are many saints who have gone before us.

Who have said and seen the same things. And I want to tee this up historically because what we're experiencing in our day, even in the serious-minded evangelical church, is not new. So let me begin with this. We're we're gonna rewind the clock a couple of centuries here to the church in Scotland. So this is the first time. An apt comparison. This is a reformed church, Westminster standards, you know, Westminster Confession of Faith, the whole nine. A very prominent minister of that era.

had this to say about preaching. He said, keep close in view the great end for which a preacher mounts the pulpit. It's like, okay, that that's quite a statement. Tell us, why does the preacher mount the pulpit? What's the goal? He says to infuse good dispositions into his hearers, to persuade them to serve God, and to become better men. And then he says that if this is on the pastor's mind when he's writing his sermons, then his sermons will be esteemed and useful. Now One more quote.

a man named John Brown, of Whitburn, who later became a minister himself, sat under this kind of preaching where the emphasis was on, I want to infuse good dispositions into my hearers, persuade people to serve God, and to be better men and women. Here is what John Brown says that that preaching did to him. He says I thought that I was on the way to heaven, for my minister preached up to me obedience to the commands of God.

He explained them and pressed me with great earnestness to obey them. He told me of the evil of sin, and that I must forsake my sins in order to my obtaining pardon. That I, a poor sinner, must not so much as look up for mercy till I have attained such a degree of reformation, like in myself. I must have this to say to God before I can expect pardon from him.

He says, alas, my minister did not tell me, at least he did not inculcate it as the strain or the emphasis of his doctrine, that the soul must be changed by a work of sovereign grace before the life can be reformed. That the tree must be made good before it can bring forth good fruit. That one must be united to Christ by faith before he can perform one duty aright.

That the gospel call is to the worst of sinners to come to Christ immediately, without any previous qualifications, and to cry to him both for mercy, pardon, and sanctification. Indeed, I learned little from my minister of the use of Christ as to the point of his giving and maintaining spiritual life, little of the necessity of his imputed righteousness, and but very confused notions of the doctrine of faith in Christ and then the life of faith.

And here's the kicker. My leaning to my reformation and good deeds has ruined me. For though my minister did not expressly bid me to lean to thee. Yet the strain, the emphasis of his doctrine led me to that way of thinking. Alas, I have put them in the place of Christ. Pointed there. I mean, and one of the thoughts I have about this is that you don't have to be, I'm just gonna say this now and then we're gonna have a conversation. You don't have to be a false teacher.

in order to instill and inculcate a tendency or a a way of thinking in your people that they lean into their effort at transformation and lean into their pursuit of good works and put those effectively in the place of Jesus. And that that'll ruin a Christian, not meaning that they'll be lost or that Christ won't keep them, but it can make them ineffective. It can it causes them to not be as fruitful. And of course it robs of peace and joy and rest and freedom and all those good things.

So you don't have to say things that are just patently false, but what is the emphasis of doctrine is a real question. What's the emphasis of a preacher's Preaching is a real consideration in this. And so that's kind of the angle that I'm coming from. And I know, John, you're coming from a similar place. And we want to talk about better ways, not unique to us.

To see our people live holy lives and see the saints live lives of obedience and and to be effective and fruitful is all get out. But also having peace, rest, joy, hope. comfort in the Lord Jesus Christ in a sweet communion with the Lord as they do. Not just always living, like looking over their shoulder, not always living wondering if God is like low key frustrated.

You know, because I'm just not trying hard enough, I'm not doing well enough, all the things. We've talked about this before, but this is a useful conversation to have, maybe from a slightly different angle today. For sure. Yeah. I think the title is you know, I know I guess clever is what you can call it, but the good news of sincere obedience'cause The gospel is the good news of Jesus' sincere obedience.

That's right. Fulfilling the will of the Father to uh fulfill all righteousness and take on our shame and our guilt on the cross and pay for our sins. That's the gospel. Yeah. Uh, but it is it is interesting how um much preaching is em you know, we we say there's there's good news for those who obey. And um yeah. Justin and I would agree that obedience is a good thing. It's so good. Right. But it has to be for the right reasons and it it needs to come from the right perspective.

of the results. Like it can be soul crushing. It is soul crushing. It is life debilitating. And Justin, I think a lot, I'll just say this. We didn't have this conversation ahead of time, but I'll say it now. I think a lot of deconstructing comes from people who were from a from a church. Or a background that it was the the gospel of sincere obedience. Like the good news was if you obey at a certain level with a sincere heart, then this is the guarantee that you have

Coming for you. And that has so wrecked people in their souls, in their consciences, that they're they're just kind of like. Well, I'm hosed then because I'm not doing well enough. I know it. God knows it. And so maybe if this is Christianity, then it didn't take with me. And it it isn't maybe the problem isn't with God or with the Christian religion. Maybe the problem is with me and I'm out.

Yeah. Yeah. And what's interesting, um, you and I have dealt with this now for years and years. For me, I'm on like my ten to fifteenth year walking people through rethinking pietism. But they always say this, but don't you think obedience is important? But guys, guys, what about obedience? Exactly. Yeah. W to which I can't think of a sermon where I don't call the congregation to obey. I mean, we confess our sins for the ways so in our church.

We began by the call of worship to remind ourselves we're in the presence of a holy God. Oh yeah. And then we sing and praise him for that. Then the very next thing we do is read the law to remind ourselves of how we have failed him. We remind ourselves of our disobedience.

Well, why would we do that? Because we want to be reminded of the mercy that we meet are met with so that when we uh With joy and excitement, seek to obey again, we understand that it's a loving Father who forgives us of the ways in which we have failed him, not so we can go fail more, but to remind us of why we are motivated to try harder because of his mercy and his grace. Amen. Brief interjection. Our service is very similar. Call to worship, prayer of invocation.

And then we read the law and we will talk about not just the negative component. the the prohibition part of the law, but also the positive requirements. Like it's not just that you shouldn't steal. It's that you should actually help your neighbor better himself or herself in every area of his or her life.

And then we will acknowledge that we have failed to meet that standard, right? Even as those who have been united to Christ, because we are sinner saints, we have failed to meet this standard and we are humbled and and reminded of our need for mercy. And then we will also talk about, but man, do we not? Do we not want to live like this? And so what do we do with our sins?

Right. We we we don't hide it. We don't condone it. We certainly don't celebrate it. We acknowledge it. We confess it. We agree with God about it. We side with him against it. Let's do that now. And it's like that is the furthest thing I I don't even mean to sound defensive and you don't either, but it's like we care a lot about obedience and we are not antinomial, you know, when it comes to these things. Yeah. Yeah. So thinking through obedience, um

Yeah, I I think Justin, one of the things that you and I are trying to get at is that Sometimes people look at it as optional. Well, that's the option you guys chose. I'm choosing another option. And what we're trying to say is if you follow the logic of The diet. of Pietism or the diet of emphasizing what one must do only And you do not feed people Christ. I mean, I think it's so important and this is not a just a one off when Jesus looks at Peter and says, Feed my sheep. Yeah. Well

You can't feed them law because law isn't what sustains or saves you. Paul says the way that you come into the faith is the way that you are sustained in the faith. Therefore, we're not feeding people the law. But that doesn't mean we're ignoring the law. I think Justin and you and I, you know, we're trying to get better at this as we've become podcasters and pastors and communicators.

that sometimes people feel that they always create either ores, right? Yeah. Sure. Black and white. And the Bible isn't this way. The false dichotomies and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. So the Bible, in my opinion, always establishes the relationship first before it establishes the function of the relationship. And that's what we're trying to say is that we've reversed it. We are talking about the function of what one must do before they've ever even established the relationship there.

Um it's it's almost like You know, we do this in our own culture, but it's almost like people wanna And by relationship, do you mean our relationship to God, John? Yeah, that's what I mean. Exactly. Right. I just wanted to clarify that for you listeners out there. Yeah, I'll give you a great example. Um I'm ri I'm preaching through first Peter. I'm about to finish it. But Peter begins his letter with who they are in Christ. Like it's from the get-go, chosen before the foundations of the world.

by his divine power has granted you everything that's that you could ever possibly need and your inheritance which is held by God's power and divine. And then he constantly keeps referencing back to it, to the hope that we have, to the hope that we have, the hope because the hope is in the divine power.

that was been given to us at the beginning of our relationship that we didn't inaugurate. We didn't start the relationship. God started the relationship. So all of the the rest of the book of Peter is an intertanglement of how to suffer well for the sake of Sharing the gospel. But he he is always pointing back to the motivation being what we have already received. So therefore, if I'm going to motivate anyone to endure suffering.

To and it would and Peter talks a lot about suffering. He talks about circumstantial suffering. He talks about suffering for because of political powers. And then he talks about spiritual suffering, right?

Yeah. The only way you're gonna wanna endure that and not fight back, be violent, be angry and give up and be ready to give a hope of you know, and answer the hope that uh that lies within you is you gotta have to have a hope that's outside of your circumstances. So I'll say this last thing, Justin, I'll throw over. No, you're good.

What ends up happening is we believe that our obedience can dictate and change the circumstances that we live in. So the better I obey, the better my circumstances will be. And that's just not true. Uh actually, according to Peter, the more you live a godly life, the more complicated and harder it's gonna be. So you have to have a motivation beyond circumstantial relief.

You have to have a motivation beyond some kind of temporal blessing. You have to have something beyond this world. And the only thing that's beyond this world is Jesus. So if I don't get Jesus week in and week out, learning about his love for me, his care for me, his kindness and the hope that I have beyond the grave.

There's no way I'm gonna be able to endure suffering and I'm gonna be an anxious person, which we're gonna talk about soon in a couple coming episode. Uh, but Justin, there is a there is a there is a point where people get to Pursuing obedience to the Just makes people angry. And that's the experience that I have felt. Like if you have only have a diet of do do do, you become very exhausted by it and you become angry because you're not living for a person.

For what he has done for you. You're living for yourself for what you can do. And Jesus happens just to be the title that you kind of tag on it. Right.

I have a number of thoughts, but Just p piggybacking a little bit off of what you said, um Yeah, I think a lot of people struggle with this emphasis of everything they need to be doing all the time. Um, in part, Christians struggle with it because it is very, very much the way the world operates.

Because all of us, uh, we have to acknowledge that we have a a legal frame and a legal bend and and so to motivate people in the world with fear or dread or merit or escape of punishment or to prove oneself. You don't have to be a Christian to motivate people with that. And They're very effective motivators. I mean, in terms of life on this earth. I mean, you can

You can get people to tow the line and and get in gear and look a certain way and perform a certain way and talk a certain way. I mean, you can use fear and dread and uh the threat of punishment and the rewards, you know, because you've earned it. I mean, you can do that.

But it's not Christianity. It's not supernatural. Because like Walter Marshall, for example, in his wonderful book, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, I'm gonna paraphrase him here. I remember reading this years ago and being struck by it. He said, you know, there are so many people that Well mean I mean Christians, like well-meaning Christians and preachers who they believe that they are justified by a holiness that is wrought of God.

But then they functionally at least believe that they are sanctified by a holiness that is wrought of themselves. And that's what we're getting at here. is that we think there's something about us, even as Christians who have been brought from death to life. And we know God had to justify us. There's something about The way that we view the scriptures and the way that preachers emphasize things and the ways that we all kind of think and talk.

Where we do operate as though my sanctification is really contingent and is going to be accomplished by a holiness that I work out. When in reality, it is through our living union with the Lord Jesus Christ and the work of his spirit in and through us as we live life in the church and partake of the means of grace and live in the fellowship of the saints and all that. Where the Lord is just really faithful and good, man. Like he will sanctify us. Or for example.

Others have made this observation too. It's not unique to me. You know, when Jesus will say to his disciples, If you love me, you will obey me. All right. You've got two ways you can view that. You can either view that as a threat. Which is the common perspective like of what we're trying to highlight today as being less than helpful. Because the the well intentioned, serious minded preacher or the well intentioned, serious minded Christian reads that verse and the takeaway is you better

You better get towards the work of obedience. You better work and strive and sweat and do all the things to prove that you actually belong to Christ. You better do this or else dot dot dot. You know, you're you're just gonna prove yourself to be a fake. You don't really love Jesus. You just love your comfort. That's how it's often talked about. So you can either view those words, if you love me, you'll obey me, as a threat, like I just described, or you can view them as a promise.

Right? That if you love me. You will. Obey. Right? Which actually I think if we take all of the words of Christ and the words of the apostles and how they write, you mentioned this earlier. The apostles always establish the relationship between us and God. He's not a judge anymore. He's not our judge anymore. He's our father. You know, Jesus is the one who gave himself for us.

You know, who died and who was resurrected and who's now interceding for us at the right hand of God. We are safe and secure. You know, all these things. This is the relationship. We are loved, we're adopted, we're known, we're secure, we're safe. And now we talk about how we live.

That's the the pattern of the New Testament. And so I would contend that when Jesus says, If you love me, you'll obey me, rather than seeing that as this scary thing that should unsettle everybody and nobody can go to sleep tonight thinking that we have any kind of peace with God for sure. Uh rather it's like, nah, all of us who what like what is Peter? First Peter, right? It's like though you have not seen him, you love him.

Though you don't now see him, you believe in him, right? Like the saints love Jesus. And those who love Jesus will obey him imperfectly, but really, and the Lord will accomplish that in us. And that kind of emphasis, kind of circling back to where I began with this. The emphasis that that that emphasis, excuse me, in preaching, heralding Christ and heralding these wonderful things that the Lord will do in his people.

That is a better way to see holiness accomplished and wrought out in the lives of the saints. And

Hey guys, real quick, some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions. 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 Theocast community, and we're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like-minded believers, all of our resources there.

Education materials, articles, all of it's there, and you can share it and ask questions. You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. Yeah, so... Obedience comes from our affection for Christ. So the more I love Christ. And the more I will love, I will obey him. And how how would our affections for Jesus be stirred, John? That's the question. It's like is it is it through now the law has its uses.

And even for the Christian, it can cause us to be more grateful for Jesus. Amen. But is it not through Jesus being heralded and extolled? That our affections are stirred for him? Is it not him being held out to us? Not just the fact that like we have these benefits in him, but like his person. His affection, his love, his grace, his mercy, his power. You know? Like we hold that out as preachers. We hold that out as Christians to one another. And that is to exact you're exactly right.

Seeing him, beholding him, having my heart stirred, it's like, my goodness, he is wonderful. That is absolutely what will win the day and carry the day when it comes to our pursuit of obedience. That's right. Yeah. Well, and I I think this is what so we always people always are afraid of first John. And we've done episodes on First John, so you can go back and look at that. I've preached through it and you pre those sermons exist somewhere.

Yeah. That's right. First John is used as a billy club, but it it shouldn't be used as a billy club. Yeah. Right. It it should be used as a as a love letter to the to the believer. to saying here here's these people who are not true believers, this is what they are. But but he's right but he's writing to believers. He's not trying to he's not trying to weed out the unbeliever. He's trying to say smoke out the he's not trying to smoke out the fakers, right? That's right.

So and I think it's important that John, I mean, the way that John writes is like perfect love casts out fear. There's no condemnation for those who are under the love of God. Keep talking. I'm just gonna grab something real quick. And then what we will be, we're not yet. We're our eyes are focused on that. But everyone who thus hopes, right? Everyone who looks at Jesus and sees how beautiful and wonderful and amazing he is.

We look at it and say, well, I want to be like that. I want to be like him. I mean there's nothing more precious and gracious than my Jesus. So why why would I not want to be like him to everyone that I meet? Because look at what he's been to me. That's the difference. Like if you herald the law, the law beats you down and it makes you angry or defeated.

Well, when you look at Jesus, he draws you in and he's so wonderful. Yep. Your response is, well, I want other people to have the experience that I've had. And so I'm gonna love them like we love because he first loved us, right? There's the natural outflow of feeding on Jesus and feeding on the truth of Christ. And I mean in all of scripture, not just the gospels.

I'm in all of the Old and New Testament, we feed on him and we learn of him, we learn of his nature and his person and his work and the glory of his power, to think that an almighty God who holds and sustains the world at the same time holds and sustains my heart. It's unreal. Yeah. All right. So first John hadn't planned to do this. I I just I want to now because it is it and James.

Right, which you've preached James, I've preached First John. Yeah. Those two books as much as any other ones are used like your analogy is perfect. Used like Billy Clubs. Rather than Yeah, being used the way that they ought to be. So when I preached First John, I think I called it kind of a playoff of the hymn, uh, God rest you, Mary Gentleman. I did I called it a letter of comfort and joy. And uh that was the series title.

And uh so then in the first sermon of that series, what I did at the very end was I just kind of did this flyover of I tried to I'd been making the point, like, you know, how here's how the letter's often handled and blah blah blah blah. But then I just went through and read. verses where like you tell me, I mean, this is a flyover. There, these are like citations from every single chapter of First John. And you tell me what his emphasis is.

And you tell me, is he unsettling these dear people or is he writing to reassure them and comfort them because they've been abandoned by false professors and because they've been bombarded by false teaching? Right. I think it's the latter. Let me just do I'm gonna just read a few of these, John, and then we'll and then I'll be done for me. But just let this avalanche, first John avalanche of comfort, do that for your souls, dear listener. Here we go.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him.

Who is from the beginning? I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you fathers because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might become plain that they are all not of us, but you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.

I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us his spirit. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. We know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true, in his son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

So you tell me what the emphasis of that letter is. I mean, that is remarkable, man. Pastoral, gentle, comforting, reassuring. He is telling them over and over and over again what you said earlier, John. He is establishing their identity and their relationship to God. Because they've been through some stuff. So maybe that's helpful to somebody out there. It encouraged my heart reading. So

Yeah, well and even in James we forget I mean how many times she says, My brothers, my brothers, my brothers, my brothers. And I love this one. James, people forget James is the one who says, And he gives more grace. Amen. And he gives more grace. I mean it's interesting how we have been trained to read our Bibles from a legalistic, Pietistic perspective. And uh Justin, my heart rejoices when I get to serve my king. I love I love talking about Christ. I love doing things that glorify him.

I love proclaiming him. I love letting other people's experience. His love, it's all a joy. But I will tell you, I get depleted quickly and I run out of steam because I live in a flash a flesh bound body, right? It's just a bag of bones. I just I drag around. And so what animate this body to wanna glorify him. It has to be something beyond. And this is why the, you know, we pick the title and we'll reference it now to close it out. But

Hebrews twelve, like looking unto Jesus. Well, what are we doing before then? We're getting rid of the things that keep us from seeing him, laying aside the weight and the sin that easily bless us and looking unto Jesus, the one who started our faith. And so every day whether it's You know, and I don't care how you look unto him, you want to look unto him and remembering the sermon that you heard and and reading your scripture, a pastor, preach Jesus.

I guarantee you, no matter where you're at, you have disciples who were trained under Jesus. Their letters are about Jesus. Jesus says the Old Testament is about him. We should not have a problem finding a way to encourage people in the joy of Christ, no matter where we're at, because, well, that's the point of it. So don't get lost in the weeds and the points of di of obedience. Listen, I'm gonna say this now. We need to tell our people to obey.

Yeah. It is good for them to obey. It is honoring and God glorifying to obey. First John and James talk about that. But we are here to talk about why and how we obey. We obey because of what he is for us. Yep. And what we want others to experience. We are not obeying to gain, to maintain, or somehow not lose. And that that's a difference, right? When we emphasize obedience. And we do not feed on Christ, our obedience will always be wrong hearted and wrong motivated. So

Whole point of the podcast is it's not the gospel of sincere obedience. Yeah. But it's the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the duty of every godly minister, therefore To extol as much as possible the grace of Christ, that being satisfied with that we would look to nothing else. John Calvin said that on first John five thirteen. Amen. Yeah. Well, hopefully this has been encouraging. Keep looking under Christ. Uh I and Our conclusion is this does not lead you to a life of laziness.

or a life of licentiousness, but it should lead you to a life Of loving your savior in all that you do. And uh if you're not there yet, keep looking into him. Find a church that will keep you accountable, uphold you, give you Christ, encourage you and build each other up and carry each other's burdens. Yeah. Hey everyone before you Thank you, and if this has been encouraging to you in your life. Please feel free to share it. But we also need your support and it's

give that it really helps us financially reach more people. 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.