REPLAY： Waging Quiet Resistance Through Bold Obedience
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Summary
In this episode, I talk about my view of what the end times will look like according to scripture, and why it's okay that we disagree on these things. I also talk about how Christians can live in a way that honors God and His authority in the reign of Christ.
Transcript
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We on Instagram talked a little bit about eschatology.
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And I've talked about that several times on my podcast before.
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You can go back to an episode over a year ago now.
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I think it was summer of 2019 that it came out where I talked about my view of what is
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going to happen in the end times according to scripture.
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This is not a gospel or salvation issue in that there are lots of sincere Christians
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who disagree on what the end times will actually look like.
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We are all believing in the sufficiency and inerrancy of scripture.
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Um, but because these are complex and difficult subjects to analyze and to approach, there
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are disagreements between faithful Christians on these things.
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And we kind of all understand that, um, it's okay that we disagree.
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So I am a post-tribulation, a pre-millennialist.
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And so I do not believe that believers will be raptured before the tribulation, but that
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we will, if we're alive at that time, endure the tribulation and then, uh, Jesus will come
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Um, but I actually posted the timeline of what people like me, which is just classic traditional
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And then you've got someone like John MacArthur who believes in pre-tribulation, uh, pre-millennialist.
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And so he actually believes that believers who are alive at the beginning of the tribulation
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will be raptured up, that they won't have to endure the tribulation.
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And you've got post-millennialism, you've got a millennialism.
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And I had Jeff Durbin, a post-millennialist on my podcast, do a two-part series with me
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And we kind of went back and forth, mostly him just talking, but a little bit back and
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forth, uh, about the biblical support for pre-millennialism versus post-millennialism.
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Votie Bauckham, who I've had on this podcast, who is an amazing teacher that I very much
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And if you're curious about what all of this is, you can go back and you can listen to my
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Uh, you can also go to gotquestions.org gives a lot of great resources on this.
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My big systematic theology book by Wayne Grudem.
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That is just a staple, I think, in learning biblical theology.
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It gives a great explanation and depictions of what that means, but
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so all of that said, all of that said, we have disagreements, obviously on eschatology
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But, uh, the point is, is that we all believe that one day Christ will rule in perfect peace.
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Like we already believe that he is the King of Kings, that he is the ruler of all, that
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Uh, but that one day he will, he will destroy his enemies forever, that there will be no war,
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There will be no factions, uh, that there will be no, uh, there will be no dissonance.
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There will be, uh, no dissent from the, the King of Kings that he will rule in totality
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And we are all working to live in such a way, um, that speaks to that hope that looks
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forward to that hope that looks forward to that assurance.
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Now we disagree on, uh, what that means as far as political involvement, as far as culture
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and cultural involvement, obviously, I believe that we should care about culture and politics.
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Uh, like I said, but the point, uh, of all of our lives, those of us who hope in Christ
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is to glorify God and to make him known and to make his will done on earth as it is in
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heaven, as the Lord's prayer tells us to, it tells us to do.
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So no matter how involved you are in politics, no matter how much that you are going to make
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yourself care about the threat of China, for example, the question is, how do we, in light
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of whatever our eschatological views are down to the details, but in light of the, the,
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the forever reign of Christ and the full authority of Christ, how do we live our lives in a way
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We are told in the Bible to, uh, cling to what is good and to, uh, resist evil with everything
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A lot of people ask me, like, how do I, how do I push back against liberal indoctrination?
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How do I push back against the things that I know aren't good for my kids, aren't good
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for my family, aren't good for my community and neighborhood.
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Talking to your representatives, your city council, your school board, and making sure that your
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kids are protected as much as possible from secular ideology and raising them up in the
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Discipling them closely, being intimately involved in the details of your kids' lives and making
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sure they know who made them, uh, why they were made, what they were for, who has the
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All of these things, um, are, are ways to push back against what we think are, are, uh, harmful
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policies and what we think are, uh, harmful and anti-God ideologies, uh, in our life.
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But I want to comfort you in the fact that it's not always in the form of a political
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Like you do not have to be the person who is constantly posting on social media.
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You don't have to write a book in order to have influence and in order to push back against
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evil because you living, uh, as though, you know, you know exactly who is the ruler over
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all, who you ultimately submit to, who is the King of Kings.
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You living in a way, uh, that you are subscribing to, uh, the, the tenants of Christianity, the commands
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of the Bible and the, the dictates of scripture, uh, over any earthly authority is a form of
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And I am, as you guys know, who have been listening to this podcast, uh, a reformed Protestant,
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uh, the reformation, the reason why we were called Protestants is because we were protesting
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against what was at the time corruption and unbiblical doctrines within the Catholic church
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and Protestants have continued to push back against what we feel is corruption and what
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we feel is bad leadership and what we feel like is anti-God that has not always been in
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the form of us overthrowing Kings or resisting, you know, for example, within the Catholic
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It means that we abide by the word of God, even when it's unpopular, even when we're, uh,
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castigated for it, even when we're chastised, even when we're persecuted.
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And I think we, in America, uh, we see resistance only as being able to, you know, speak out about
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things or protest or like take on some movement, which is all great.
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Obviously I have a podcast because I think these things matter, but throughout the world,
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the way that people are resisting like dictatorships in different countries that don't allow religious
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liberty is by worshiping together, like by, uh, sharing the gospel, by reading their Bible.
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Like these are acts of resistance that are powerful in the kingdom of God.
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Like, don't you think that Satan is also afraid?
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Like when, uh, the person in a country that does not have religious liberty is, is reading
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his Bible or is sharing the gospel or is worshiping with fellow believers.
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So I am encouraging you that if you ever feel like you are helpless or hopeless, like you
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Like, how do you make everyone aware of this particular issue?
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He might be calling you to lead some kind of movement or to start some kind of organization
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Or he could be calling you to be radical in your daily obedience.
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He could be calling you to take advantage of the liberties that you have by, uh, also
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reading your Bible, by caring for your neighbor, by being hospitable in a time that we're told
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that we can't be hospitable by being generous in a time that we're being told to hoard everything
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that we have, uh, by sharing the gospel in a time that we are being told that imposing
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your values on another person is actually hateful and it's bigotry, uh, standing for
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When it comes to controversial issues like marriage and, and gender and sexuality and
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defense of life and inside the womb, even just in conversations with your friends and teaching
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your kids the truth about God's word, the truth about who created the heavens and the
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earth, and therefore who has the authority over all of it.
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Like maybe that's how you make the biggest changes by being, um, by being, uh, a faithful
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godly wife, by being, uh, a good and a, uh, a loving and a caring mother, by being a loyal
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friend in an era that tells you that you have to cut off people that are not serving your
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That's that there's actually nothing virtuous about being a faithful friend.
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There's nothing virtuous about standing up, uh, for the things that you know are true.
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Basically we're encouraged to be these morally relativistic, selfish noodles of people.
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Whereas the Bible is telling us to absolutely stand firm.
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And so maybe you being radical is standing on the word of God and submitting to Christ and
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all that you think, say, and do, and not borrowing the language from the culture, even a little
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bit, not borrowing ideas from the culture, even a little bit, not going along on the mainstream
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from culture, even a little bit, ignoring the bullies who tell you that, uh, you have
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to think a certain way, talk a certain way, act a certain way, parent a certain way, um,
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live a certain way in order to fit in with the cultural powers that be like, maybe, maybe
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And I think it looks differently for, for everyone.
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It does like God uses our particular talents as the Bible tells us in different ways to
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Um, and I think we just have to make sure that we are a sensitive to the Holy spirit, that
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we're praying for sensitivity to the Holy spirit to convict us and where to go and what
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So take a deep breath and realize that you might not be called to start a movement or to even
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You don't have to be an influencer to have influence, not in the kingdom of God.
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Uh, one of my favorite passages is first Corinthians one, and I'm just going to pull that up.
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So I don't botch it, but I just love the counterintuitive nature of God in his kingdom.
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Um, so this is God through Paul speaking in first Corinthians one, starting in, uh, verse
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Starting in verse 18 for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to
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us who are being saved, it is the power of God for it is written.
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I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning.
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Where's the debater of this age has not God made foolish.
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The wisdom of the world for since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through
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wisdom and pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who
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believe for Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a
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stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.
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But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom
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of God for the foolishness of God is wiser than men.
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I know this is a long passage and I didn't realize how long it was going to be when I started
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reading, but I got to keep going because the, the, the meat of it is still coming, uh, for
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According to worldly standards, not many of you were powerful.
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Not many of you were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame
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God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
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God chose what is low and despised in the world.
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Even things that are not to bring to nothing, things that are so that no human being might
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And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness
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So that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.
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So God does not need your ability to gain an audience.
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He doesn't need your ability to articulate ideas well.
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He doesn't need, uh, your particular, uh, he doesn't need your particular talents.
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He doesn't need whatever we believe that, uh, we are good at.
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Even the gifts that he gave us, he is going to use people as he sees fit.
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And yes, he does very often use our talents and our gifts to advance his will and to bring
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But God is not looking throughout the world and trying to pick the most powerful people,
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the most influential people, the most beautiful people, uh, the people that are in the most,
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He is, uh, he has chosen us before the foundation of the world.
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As Ephesians 1, 5 says, uh, in love that he might do in us the work that he wants to do.
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Uh, and so, and this passage says the reason that he does this, like he picks the people
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He picks the people that the world does not regard as important so that he can shame the
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people who fancy themselves important so that this passage says no one might boast.
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No one might boast before the Lord that we don't have our own things, our own qualifications,
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our own competence, uh, to boast in, but we get to boast in God.
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I just feel that a lot of us feel a lot of pressure to be something, to make something
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And I know I'm saying this as someone, uh, with, with a podcast, who knows how long this
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Like, I don't know how long the season of my life is going to last.
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I'm probably not going to be called to do a podcast or have a platform forever.
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There's going to be a time where other people have a platform and I don't, and I'm behind
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But the fact of the matter is, is that the pressure is off of us.
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All we are called to do is to submit to God who is going to do with us, what he wants
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to do with us, no matter what the world says, and no matter how the world defines success
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And the quiet revolution of submission to Christ is exactly what God is calling his humble
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This is all just like kind of coming into my head.
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If you haven't noticed, I actually kind of had a different plan for this episode today.
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Um, but I also want to read you part of Ephesians two, which if you've listened to this podcast,
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you know how often I cite this passage, which is one of my favorite passages in the Bible
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because Ephesians is really, it's my, it's one of my favorite books of the Bible.
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Ephesians and Genesis are two of my favorite books of the Bible.
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And I'm not talking about, uh, like fairytale storytelling, just the narrative of how God
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created the world and then his people in the early days.
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Like Genesis, there are moments that make me laugh.
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There are moments that I'm like, I can't believe that happened.
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I love the book of Genesis and I love the book of Ephesians because I think it speaks
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Like it explains so well in Ephesians two, who we were before Christ and then what Christ
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And then what is the result of that salvation that we did not, uh, that we did not earn.
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So talking about in first Corinthians one, and I actually didn't even mean to make this
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And first Corinthians one saying, Hey, look, God chose you.
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He chose what is insignificant and unwise to the world.
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And he is going to shame the self-importance and the self-righteousness and the self-empowerment
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And he is going to show his power through what the world considers weak vessels so that no
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one can boast and everyone has to glorify God for the things that he has done through
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Uh, this idea that he chose us is reiterated also in Ephesians and also the result of that,
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what that means is glorifying God in us obeying him.
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So Ephesians two, eight through 10 for by grace, you have been saved through faith.
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It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship
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created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in
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And I just want to do an aside I wasn't going to do, I wasn't going to do this, uh, faith
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versus works, uh, argument right here, but I just love to emphasize in this particular
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passage, how, how much, how many pains are taken in these few verses to explain that it
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is God who saves us, that our works cannot save us, that our words cannot save us, that
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We didn't, the only thing that we contribute to our salvation is the sin that makes it necessary
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It is God as Ephesians one, five says, who chose us.
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And people say, well, faith without works is dead.
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But this Ephesians two 10 actually answers exactly what that means for we are his workmanship
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created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk
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And so even the good works that we do that are not, um, they are products of our faith.
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Like they do not create our salvation, but they are results of our salvation.
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Even those, uh, are, are God's workmanship, which he prepared beforehand.
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Uh, and the works that he prepared beforehand for us to do are the ones that we are going
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So again, I'm just trying to reiterate one that it's faith by grace through faith that
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It's not your own doing, but really the larger point that I've been trying to make is that
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Like the pressure is off of you to, uh, to try to come up with your own significance,
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to try to be what the world says is important or influential, even in the realm of Christianity.
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Obviously there's nothing wrong with doing what seems like big things, but doing the good
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works that God prepared for us beforehand, that we should walk in them is exactly the quiet
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resistance and the quiet revolution that changes nations.
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It has an effect then on your community has an effect on your church.
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And then it has an effect on your country and the world.
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And that doesn't mean that necessarily the world is going to start grunting towards the
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cross right now, but it does mean that that's ultimately, uh, that every knee will bow and
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every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
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And that God has chosen by his sovereign will to use our obedience and our good works that
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he prepared beforehand as the channel through which his kingdom is advancing here on earth.
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So if you ever feel mom, if you ever feel student, if you ever feel employee, like you're
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not doing enough by being a Christian, like you just gotta, you gotta do something else.
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You gotta start a movement, start an organization.
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He has given you the specific opportunity, the connections, the leadership abilities to be
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able to, to do that, to start a podcast, to start a movement, to start an organization.
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Um, all of those things are great and wonderful things.
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And if he has calling you to those things, he will equip you to do those things.
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But if you are a mom, for example, who feels like you're, uh, the mundane moments throughout
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your day are not doing anything, that the changing of the diapers is not doing anything.
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That the, uh, washing the dishes, that the cleaning of the house, that the making the dinner,
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that the getting together with your friends, that it's not doing enough.
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Maybe, maybe, and I would say the probably definitely, although I can't tell you what
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the Holy Spirit is doing in your heart and mind.
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Like this is the radical revolution that God is calling you to by carrying out the good
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and excellent works that he prepared for us beforehand.
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And maybe you'll have a season of your life where things will look different, where you
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will be called to something, you know, some kind of thing in, in, in addition, maybe so,
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but let's not take for granted the season in which God has placed us.
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To, to be radical, um, and to be different because we're being told that we have to be
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isolated and that we can't, that we're not allowed to worship together in some places,
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that we're not allowed to be hospitable in some ways, um, that we should be scared of
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our neighbor, that we should be distrusting of our neighbor and that, uh, we should be angry
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There are a lot of ways to push back against that.
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And I'm not advocating for recklessness with the coronavirus guys.
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I've said that a hundred million times, but people still need love right now.
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Like the good works that God has prepared for us to do haven't been suspended.
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The timeline, the grand timeline of redemption, um, hasn't been suspended.
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Like we're not taking like some, some pause in the span of eternity, just because we have
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Like Jesus is still coming back at the time that the father has planned that he is going
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And so our obedience is not less important now.
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Like we are not, uh, we are not, um, excused for lack of a better term because we are in,
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you know, a public health crisis and, uh, an economic and a government crisis right now.
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And that's another piece of encouragement that I want to get, uh, that I want to give
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So the reality is, is that these times are actually when the church thrives.
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I heard a pastor, uh, a few years ago that unfortunately, uh, I no longer align with in,
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in, in some ways, but he has a lot of good stuff.
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And, and something that he said was that the church thrives on the margins.
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And so while I obviously think the fight for things like religious liberty are so important,
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um, and I want this to be a country where Christians and people of all faiths can worship
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freely and can speak freely, uh, can gather freely.
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I, uh, also realize that when the church is pushed to the margins of society, when we're
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no longer mainstream, when it's no longer popular or safe or lucrative, uh, to be a
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Christian, that is, it's not where the church is destroyed.
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That is where the, the church, uh, steps up to the plate, the true church.
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There are people who have lived their lives as cultural Christians, as comfortable Christians,
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This is too costly for me, uh, but those who left us were never with us as, as scripture
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says, and those people may have been Christians while it was comfortable, but you know, they
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were like the seed thrown on the, the bad soil.
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And once things became difficult, once things became thorny, they said, you know, I'm out,
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I think that we've probably seen that a lot recently.
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Um, and so as the church is pushed to the margins, yes, their numbers may get fewer because
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And people who have not counted the cost is Jesus tells us to, to count, uh, to count it
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before we become his disciples are going to decide, yeah, it's just way too costly.
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And so there will be people who decide that they're going to walk away from Christianity
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There are going to be people who try to maintain some semblance of Christianity while mimicking
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the world's talking points on every single issue.
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And obviously those people, unfortunately, haven't submitted to the authority of Christ.
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And I'm not just talking about people who, oh, they disagree with me on politics or they
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So that means they're not really Christians.
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The people really on the right and the left side of the political aisle who say, who used
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Jesus as a mascot for, uh, their views that have nothing to do with scripture.
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So those people might try to maintain some kind of semblance of Christianity, even as
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Christianity gets pushed to the margins of society.
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Um, but those people will even be few because again, it won't be popular or even necessary to
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say that you have any kind of spirituality or allegiance, uh, to Christianity.
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And so the true Christians will be on the margins of society, um, in America at, at some point
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right now, we have a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny taste of what persecution, uh, looks like,
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And for most of history, as we've talked about before, Christians have been very severely
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And so we don't, thankfully in America, we have had, you know, a few century long respites
00:27:03.640
Um, while really in the West, there has been a reprieve from heavy persecution, that kind
00:27:12.840
Um, and in particular, since we're talking from a Christian perspective of Christians, uh,
00:27:17.200
because of the Western rule of law and this idea of, uh, of individual liberty and individual
00:27:25.440
rights, but we don't know how much longer that's going to last.
00:27:29.280
And yes, I think it's okay to be fearful in some sense.
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We don't want our kids to grow up in a world to where they can't speak freely of Jesus.
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We don't want them to be punished, uh, for saying that they're Christians.
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Of course, no parent wants that, but we can also look throughout history and see that the
00:27:46.360
church has not just survived through those eras and they have been eras, but that they
00:27:50.900
have thrived in those eras, that the church has never once been destroyed by that persecution,
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that the church is not destroyed, uh, by fire, but it's refined by fire.
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Um, and, uh, I don't want to say sadly, but I guess fearfully in some ways, uh, that is,
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uh, a way that is employed to refine the church.
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Um, and to separate the, and to separate the true believers from those who were nominal
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believers, trials and tribulations and persecution are used in that way.
00:28:28.180
So even if that is what we face in America, which I, I don't know, um, the political tides
00:28:34.460
change very quickly, but even if that is what Christians face in America in 10 years, in 20
00:28:40.700
years, uh, in 50 or a hundred years, yes, I think that we can do everything possible to
00:28:48.160
exercise our constitutional rights, to ensure that people are free to worship how they're
00:28:54.320
able to worship, but it's going to come at some point.
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Like that try, those trials and tribulation are going to come in some point.
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I don't think American Christians are exempt from that, nor should we expect, or even necessarily
00:29:05.500
want to be exempt from that forever, because again, the church thrives on the margins.
00:29:10.760
When we are pushed against the wall, when we are pressured, uh, when, uh, you know, our
00:29:16.920
rights are being threatened, that is when the church, um, shines the brightest when it is
00:29:25.740
There's actually some encouragement and yes, even joy knowing that the gospel, uh, is not
00:29:33.820
going to die when the first amendment dies, like Christians and the church are not going
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to be destroyed when our second amendment rights are taken away.
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Like the, the, the word of God, the kingdom of God is not predicated on the first and second
00:29:52.440
These are wonderful gifts that I think that we should fight for, that we should vote for
00:29:58.500
But the Lord doesn't actually need those things in order to do his will, in order to maintain
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The Bible says that the word is not going to return void.
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He is not going to allow anything according to Job 42, to, uh, to thwart his will.
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And I do think it's important to explain the difference between sovereign will and moral will.
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Nothing happens outside of God's sovereign will.
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Absolutely nothing happens outside of God's sovereign will.
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Jesus says that not even a sparrow falls from the sky outside of the will of the father.
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And a sparrow is sold for, for too many or for two pennies.
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Um, and so if we know that he has that under his sovereign will, then we can trust that he
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has everything else under his sovereign will too.
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But a lot of things do happen against his moral will.
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And so we can read in scripture what God calls evil and what God calls good.
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Things happen every millisecond against his, uh, against his moral will.
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He's not just apathetic or complacent, um, about evil.
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That is where our hope and our assurance and even yes, our joy is as we are looking to the
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future of the country who is so bogged down in moral confusion and emptiness and hollowness
00:31:32.800
and these contradictory trains of thought that represent the most grotesque, cognitive and
00:31:40.360
moral dissonance that we could ever have imagined.
00:31:45.020
Um, and we can still trust in the fact that nothing happens outside of God's sovereign will,
00:31:50.120
that he has got his church, that he cares about his church and his believers more than we do,
00:31:55.600
that he has not suspended his plan of redemption, that the timeline hasn't been thrown off,
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that he is not off his throne, that he is not worried about what's to come, that his plan
00:32:07.760
has not been changed, has not been thwarted just a little bit, that God hasn't been shut
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down, that he hasn't been locked down, that he is not under the jurisdiction of the American
00:32:17.680
government or Governor Cuomo or Mayor Lightfoot or any of the tiny tyrants that we have or any
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of the totalitarian regimes that we have throughout the world.
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He is not subject to them and he is not subject to their edicts or their regulations.
00:32:32.080
Thankfully, the word of God and God himself and the kingdom of God are unbound and he is
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That is why, as I've said so many times, Christians have been a thorn in the side of tyrants
00:32:47.620
since our beginning, because we are beholden to the king of kings, even when we are pushed,
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especially when we are pushed to the margins of society.
00:32:57.780
And so we have hope when we look towards that, like we have hope when we look towards the
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promises of God that have never gone unfulfilled and will never go unfulfilled.
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We have hope when we look to the faithfulness of God, which promises to never fail and the
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new mercies that he promises to give us every morning.
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And so we continue to lead this quiet revolution with our lives, which is nothing more than
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submission to Christ and submission to his word that we don't suspend just because of
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Yes, as Romans 13 says, we do everything that we can to submit to our earthly authorities as
00:33:37.840
But we still have to abide by the word of God, and we still have to submit to Christ.
00:33:42.620
That is the quiet resistance and the quiet revolution that many of us are called to.
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Some of you, like I've said, are called to having a public voice.
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But do not think the things that you are doing at home, the things that you are doing as a
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hard worker in your work, working with excellence and integrity, being a good student that is
00:34:03.640
taking advantage of the wonderful opportunity that you have to learn and to glorify Christ
00:34:08.580
with the knowledge that he has allowed you to have.
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Do not think that you, that your work as a mom, that you're changing of diapers with joy,
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that you're disciplining your children with joy, that you're cleaning the kitchen with joy
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These are the good works that God has prepared for us beforehand.
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Don't think that the kindness that you showed to your neighbor, that no one may never know about
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All of this is preparing for us, the trials that we're going through, the struggles that
00:34:39.680
we're going through, the scripture says is preparing for us a far greater glory that is
00:34:48.180
Being a Christian who submits to Christ as if there were any other kind of Christian, but
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nowadays people think that there is, is the most radical thing that you can do.
00:34:57.920
So take comfort in that, that, uh, if you are a believer who is abiding in Christ, that
00:35:07.620
There will be a day where there are no corrupt politicians.
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There's no, um, secret plan going on that we need to know about.
00:35:18.600
Uh, there's no divisive ideologies that are infecting, uh, universities that are infecting
00:35:26.260
There is, uh, no, there's no persecution anymore in that kingdom.
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And we have every reason to be confident now to pursue Christ with our whole hearts and
00:35:40.300
And this self-empowerment, self-sufficiency culture in which we, in which we live, that
00:35:45.820
is actually devoid of any power and any sufficiency at all.
00:35:49.720
And the most radical thing that we can do is to depend on Christ for our purpose and for
00:35:54.120
our strength and for the assurance that the radical revolution, the quiet radical revolution
00:35:59.300
that we are living with our lives by submitting to him and everything we think, say, or do
00:36:04.180
that, uh, that is actually what real empowerment really looks like.
00:36:08.680
That's what real change-making really looks like.
00:36:11.000
That's what really pursuing your, your dreams really looks like is submission to Christ.
00:36:16.500
So take comfort in that and take comfort in the fact that God is in control, even when
00:36:20.060
things are chaotic, even when things are crazy.