The NXR Podcast - April 02, 2023


SUNDAY SERMON - Can Anything Good Come From The Gospel Coalition？ ｜ “All Truth Is God’s Truth”


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 1 minute

Words per minute

124.7678

Word count

7,657

Sentence count

394

Harmful content

Misogyny

7

sentences flagged

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

24

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 All right, listen, guys, I get it.
00:00:01.900 Many of you are unable to financially support this ministry because you're spending your
00:00:05.900 cash and your lives on raising young children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
00:00:10.740 Praise God for you and that endeavor.
00:00:13.840 However, algorithms are a thing.
00:00:16.380 Shadow banning, sadly, is a thing.
00:00:19.000 And one major way that you can help to expand the reach and effectiveness of this ministry
00:00:24.160 that doesn't cost you a dime is by spending just a few moments leaving us a five-star
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00:00:36.560 We hope you'll take the time to do so. Thank you so much. God bless.
00:00:40.760 All right, we are going to begin a sermon series in the book of Joshua two weeks from today,
00:00:46.800 Lord willing. For this morning, we're going to be looking at a multitude of biblical texts
00:00:53.460 as we seek to better understand the incredible, majestic depths of the gospel,
00:01:02.260 of free grace, of the life, death, and resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ
00:01:07.640 as a substitute for sinners, to be received by grace alone, through faith alone, in him alone.
00:01:15.340 Learning to better understand the gospel, learning to believe and even preach the gospel to ourselves,
00:01:23.460 next week lord willing easter sunday will focus primarily on the resurrection of jesus and then
00:01:33.720 as i've already said two weeks from today lord willing we'll begin our bread and butter the
00:01:41.000 primary preaching diet for covenant bible church which is expositional preaching through whole
00:01:48.160 books of the Bible. Okay, let's begin. First, learning to preach the gospel to yourself. If
00:01:58.980 you have your notes, I've written the following. The word gospel literally means good news. The
00:02:04.980 good news of the gospel is that God himself has come to rescue and renew all of creation in and
00:02:11.760 through the work of Jesus Christ, for the good of his people, and to the praise of his glorious
00:02:17.920 grace, per Ephesians chapter 1. So why does all creation, this is the question that that begs,
00:02:26.240 including you and I, need rescuing? The answer is sin. In order to properly understand the good
00:02:34.240 news, we must first understand the bad news. Before sin is an action, it is a condition.
00:02:43.620 Psalm 51 verse 5 says this, behold, David speaking, I was brought forth in iniquity,
00:02:51.380 and in sin did my mother conceive me. Let's pause. In order to understand the good news
00:03:00.000 of God's gracious reconciliation, restoration, salvation, glorification for all of creation,
00:03:08.980 which includes you and I, through the person and work of Jesus Christ, His Son, by grace alone,
00:03:15.260 through faith alone, that is the gospel, in order to understand the brilliance of the diamond,
00:03:21.760 the good news of the gospel, we must properly place it in its context, that is on the backdrop
00:03:28.880 of the black velvet of sin. We must understand the bad news in order to properly understand the
00:03:38.220 good news. And again, I want to pause here for a moment because many Christians misunderstand
00:03:43.580 this point. The bad news is sin. Let me say that again. And here I'll give a parenthetical
00:03:53.780 disclaimer. In addition, the bad news is sin, not the law. The beauty of the gospel of free grace
00:04:07.120 does not shine as good news because of the backdrop of the bad, nasty, mean-spirited law of God.
00:04:17.260 no you read this book and it's a pretty easy story to figure out it's not complicated
00:04:29.140 if you want to get the headline of the story of the overarching story and narrative of the bible
00:04:38.280 and you want to figure out who the protagonist is who the enemy is what's the good news what's the
00:04:46.920 bad news? What's the hope? What's the problem? With a plain reading of Scripture, you will find
00:04:56.080 undoubtedly that the problem is not the holiness of God. The problem is the sinfulness of man.
00:05:08.460 And yet, many evangelicals treat the law of God as though that were the enemy.
00:05:16.920 rather than our sin. That is the equivalency of treating an MRI as something that gives you a
00:05:26.800 sickness rather than revealing the sickness that's already there. Now that said, I don't trust pretty
00:05:33.920 much 99% of medicine anymore. Thanks to all the experts discrediting themselves. So an MRI in
00:05:42.040 objective terms might actually give you sicknesses at this point. You know what I mean? There's no
00:05:46.800 conspiracy too far, right? I've run out of conspiracies because in three to six months,
00:05:51.700 they all come true, right? So I don't know, but just, you know, suspended disbelief for a moment.
00:05:57.780 For those of you who are thinking MRI is not a good analogy, Joel, right? I went down the Reddit
00:06:04.240 hole on this one. Just, okay, just humor my ignorance for a moment. Let's just assume that,
00:06:10.280 you know, that Dr. Fauci is not involved and all that kind of stuff and assume, you know, what the
00:06:15.580 basic individual thought about MRIs, you know, 20 years ago before everybody, you know, became
00:06:21.840 a mad evil scientist, you know, gathering, you know, in Switzerland with George Soros trying
00:06:27.920 to figure out how to, you know, lower the human population, right? That's, you know, that's going 0.74
00:06:32.600 on, sadly. So let's pretend, you know, without that in our minds that MRIs are good. I don't
00:06:39.460 know. I don't know. Let's just assume for the point of argument. The point is that I'm making
00:06:45.480 the device or procedure or method or person or expert or whatever that reveals a problem
00:06:53.820 is not the problem itself. That's the point that I'm making.
00:06:59.640 In fact, the person or device or method or procedure that reveals the problem is actually
00:07:08.360 a help. That person or method or invention is a blessing to you. And that is the law of God.
00:07:23.060 The law of God does not impute sin. The law of God reveals sin.
00:07:31.960 the problem is not that we have a thrice holy god the problem is not that he demands
00:07:41.420 that we live in such a way that would garnish our own joy and his glory
00:07:48.540 that's not the problem the problem with humanity is not that there is a god in heaven
00:07:57.580 who has rules. The problem for humanity is our own defiance towards that God in heaven.
00:08:07.240 The fact that we hate his rules when left to ourselves.
00:08:13.820 So the problem, the bad news, which is the proper backdrop, the proper context for rightly being
00:08:22.260 able to compare and contrast and appreciate the good news, the bad news is not the law.
00:08:30.460 The bad news is that we are transgressors of the law. The bad news is not God's holiness.
00:08:39.380 The bad news is man's sinfulness. And this sinfulness is not just something that we do,
00:08:48.660 but it is a condition that precedes any action.
00:08:54.540 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity
00:08:57.820 and in sin did my mother conceive me. 0.57
00:09:02.820 Not just give birth to me
00:09:04.780 but from conception
00:09:06.540 and the Christian biblical view of conception
00:09:11.300 is fertilization, not implantation
00:09:15.640 but fertilization from the moment that the seed of the father connects with the egg of the woman,
00:09:26.160 that is a person in the sight of God with equal dignity, equal value, equal sanctity of life,
00:09:36.540 which is why, therefore, Christians must hold to the position that if we truly believe the unborn child
00:09:43.780 is fully human and carries, therefore, the same degree of sanctity of life,
00:09:51.260 then they deserve the same measure of protection for those who have been born.
00:09:57.320 And if we are to authentically say that we are going to have the same protections
00:10:03.380 for the born human being as for the unborn human being,
00:10:09.680 then we must have equal the same penalties.
00:10:15.860 One of the chief protections for a born person
00:10:19.900 to protect them from anyone who would have the intent of doing them harm.
00:10:26.940 One of the chief protections is that the one who might seek to do them harm,
00:10:32.380 that person knows that if they go through with their malice and evil intent,
00:10:39.680 there will be swift and severe consequences.
00:10:45.720 Wherever we say this crime
00:10:48.500 doesn't really garnish consequences,
00:10:53.540 what we are saying, therefore,
00:10:55.920 to all the evil people of the world
00:10:58.980 is that it's open season on this person,
00:11:02.620 that this person is up for grabs,
00:11:06.080 that this person is an unprotected class of people.
00:11:12.080 It's like purge season.
00:11:16.680 You can go out one night a year
00:11:19.420 and commit homicide with no repercussions.
00:11:25.380 And in America, you can go out 365 days a year
00:11:30.940 and you cannot commit homicide on anyone.
00:11:34.660 But there is one oppressed class, truly, objectively, according to God's immutable standard oppressed class,
00:11:44.000 that you can harm and kill with impunity. 0.70
00:11:49.360 And that's children, particularly in the womb.
00:11:54.420 And how is it that you could do something so heinous as murder an unborn child
00:12:00.800 and be absolved of any penalties?
00:12:04.660 One of the chief ways that you can do this with absolution 1.00
00:12:08.700 is because the primary people who do this are women. 1.00
00:12:15.580 And women, as we know in our culture today, are sinless. 1.00
00:12:22.960 The reason why abortion still stands 0.99
00:12:25.660 is because there are two positions a culture can take. 0.61
00:12:30.580 But you cannot take them simultaneously.
00:12:33.300 The worship of women or the saving of babies.
00:12:39.460 A culture can either worship women or save babies. 0.99
00:12:44.960 You cannot do both. 1.00
00:12:47.760 Our culture currently has chosen to worship women. 0.97
00:12:52.600 We even are beginning within the pro-life side of things
00:12:56.760 to entertain penalties for the abortion doctor. 1.00
00:13:03.300 but never the woman 0.86
00:13:05.500 because she's the second victim.
00:13:09.080 There are two victims, you see. 0.53
00:13:12.420 One victim is a murderer.
00:13:16.000 The other is removed with a vacuum cleaner.
00:13:22.100 Tomato, tomato.
00:13:24.440 Both victims, of course.
00:13:27.480 And then we wonder when we see the rhetoric
00:13:29.660 of seven victims in Nashville.
00:13:33.300 Rather than six.
00:13:35.660 Seven victims.
00:13:37.500 Rather than six.
00:13:39.360 Brothers and sisters.
00:13:40.740 We cannot be naive.
00:13:43.440 Let me connect the dots for you.
00:13:46.160 Seven victims in Nashville.
00:13:48.240 Rather than six.
00:13:50.860 That's a straight line from that dot.
00:13:53.100 To the ERLC.
00:13:57.520 Bart Barber.
00:13:59.820 The SBC.
00:14:01.160 the pro-life industry that's the same rhetoric it is the same narrative well the real victim here
00:14:12.420 is the person who murdered it should come as no surprise to us when we quickly see
00:14:22.600 from the white house in our nation our hearts go out quoting right now our hearts go out
00:14:31.040 to the transgender community who is under attack.
00:14:38.840 Days, I think two days, maybe even just one day,
00:14:43.560 after a member of the trans community, not all of them, 0.80
00:14:47.940 but a member literally attacked Christians. 0.56
00:14:53.420 But who's the group under attack?
00:14:56.020 i mean that that is that is a level of gaslighting that would make orwell blush he wouldn't even
00:15:04.960 write it into one of his fictional stories because it's so unbelievable you say that i mean come on
00:15:10.360 you've got to have a little bit more artistic creativity if you're going to sell a book if
00:15:15.480 you're going to have a believable plot line right you can't write a narrative where the white house
00:15:22.060 comes out within hours
00:15:24.280 and says that the real victim is the murderer
00:15:27.220 and that the group that was killed in cold blood
00:15:31.020 is the oppressive group
00:15:33.360 and this other group that literally killed
00:15:35.720 is the oppressed.
00:15:40.000 That won't sell.
00:15:41.120 It's not even believable within a sci-fi fantasy genre.
00:15:46.240 And that's now the evening news.
00:15:52.060 it's crazy
00:15:54.860 in sin did my mother conceive me
00:16:00.120 in iniquity I was brought forth
00:16:03.420 the problem of sin
00:16:05.740 again the law of God is not the problem
00:16:08.340 the problem is sin
00:16:10.620 and the problem of sin
00:16:12.840 hear me I'll say it as plainly as possible
00:16:15.420 many of you already know this
00:16:16.800 but for some of you
00:16:17.960 you may learn this for the first time
00:16:19.840 you are not a sinner because you sinned you sin because you're a sinner
00:16:27.340 i'll say it again you are not a sinner you did not become a sinner in terms of identity
00:16:35.780 because you once sinned it is not as though you were conceived in innocence in a state of
00:16:44.200 integrity, would be the theological terminology, as God created Adam and Eve in the garden before
00:16:51.380 sin entered the world. They were created in a state of integrity, a state of innocence, able to fall,
00:16:59.220 able to not fall. Both options at their disposal. But ever since sin entered the world through our
00:17:09.720 first father, Adam, by virtue of his federal headship, all his posterity sense has been
00:17:18.200 conceived in sin. You are not a sinner because you sinned. You sin because you are a sinner.
00:17:30.460 And for all those who would reel and rock and object to the concept of federal headship,
00:17:38.540 The idea of having someone else represent you.
00:17:44.240 Let me be clear that apart from representation, there is no salvation.
00:17:51.980 Because remember, brothers and sisters, the only reason why we are redeemed
00:17:57.420 is because there is one who represented us perfectly.
00:18:03.560 And by his work, not ours, he has garnished for us the very righteousness of God.
00:18:13.680 If you object at being represented by Adam, then you have no logical and consistent basis for being represented by Christ.
00:18:27.680 And Adam, for the record, did not misrepresent you.
00:18:33.040 Adam was the best of us.
00:18:38.060 Adam was the best of us.
00:18:41.980 God did not sabotage the human race
00:18:45.480 by picking the worst of its members
00:18:49.440 and subjecting all the others to be represented by him.
00:18:57.340 God picked for us a champion
00:19:00.800 And the champion fell.
00:19:06.880 But to the praise of his glorious grace, forever and ever, there was a greater champion.
00:19:15.580 Compare with me for a moment, Adam and the last Adam, Christ.
00:19:21.900 The first Adam, in seeing the providence and mercy of God.
00:19:27.260 The first Adam, who was appointed as our federal head to represent all mankind,
00:19:35.020 he did not begin his life as a babe, or a toddler, or a teenager.
00:19:45.440 God did not expect a three-year-old to resist the temptations of the serpent.
00:19:52.760 Adam began his life as a full-grown man.
00:19:57.260 able to rationalize as a man with all the powers of logic and discernment of a man.
00:20:08.920 And he was not placed in a pit of vipers, in a wilderness or a desert without provision.
00:20:18.680 He was placed in the garden. The scripture says that Adam was actually formed from the dust of
00:20:26.300 the world in a wilderness type place. But he was quickly transitioned by God and placed in
00:20:34.120 a protective environment, a place of plenty, a place of provision. And Adam was not set in the
00:20:43.680 garden with one tree that would be morally right and proper to eat from, but all the others off
00:20:52.400 limits. It was the reverse. There was only one no in the Garden of Eden. Everything else was yes.
00:21:03.300 So a full-grown man without the sin nature created in a state of integrity and placed
00:21:10.460 in a protected and provided context with only one no. God did not sabotage us.
00:21:22.400 he gave us the very best circumstances
00:21:26.920 and the very best representative.
00:21:33.000 And yet, we all sinned in Adam,
00:21:37.580 is what the scripture says.
00:21:40.140 You sinned in Adam.
00:21:43.060 And you might say, I wasn't there.
00:21:46.220 I didn't do it.
00:21:48.500 Adam is the one who sinned 0.92
00:21:50.680 In the same way that elsewhere the scripture says that Abraham paid tithes and Levi with the Levitical priesthood, the head of the priesthood, paid tithes in a sense to Melchizedek as the higher priest, the forever priest, because he was there in Abraham's loins. 0.84
00:22:15.540 he had not yet been born but by virtue of his father his lineage Abraham doing one thing
00:22:22.220 it is as though in biblical terms that Levi did it also in the same way although you and I were
00:22:29.860 not there you and I send in Adam and for any who would still object at this principle of federal
00:22:37.840 headship not only do you therefore have to reject the gospel and being represented by christ
00:22:46.100 but one of the greatest proofs that you send in adam is your own sin again you are not a sinner 0.70
00:22:56.380 because you send you send because you are a sinner and you send in adam our covenant head
00:23:05.120 established in a covenant of life which was also a covenant of works in the garden and he failed
00:23:13.620 and each time you and i in our lives sin against god's holy law we are ratifying the covenant
00:23:22.760 your sin in real time in the objective and literal sense each of your sins is you taking your pen
00:23:33.980 to the covenant of works that was broken by your father Adam and you giving your consent
00:23:42.240 I stand with Adam. I ratify the covenant. I re-amend the covenant to say once again 0.53
00:23:52.600 to give my consent that we are covenant breakers. You did sin in Adam and there is only forgiveness
00:24:03.960 in Jesus. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
00:24:14.980 Before sin is an action, it begins as a condition. Our behaviors are determined by our emotions.
00:24:23.520 Our emotions are determined by our thoughts, and our thoughts are determined even deeper by desire.
00:24:31.780 you do sinful things because you feel sinful in sinful ways you feel in sinful ways because you
00:24:42.720 think in sinful ways and you think in sinful ways because your desires at the bare bottom
00:24:52.080 of the barrel your desires are polluted this is what scripture teaches what is the source
00:25:00.240 of sin. If we were to get down to the bottom of it, James chapter 1 verse 13 through 15 says,
00:25:07.020 let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with
00:25:13.440 evil and he himself tempts no one. So God is not the source of our sin and transgression.
00:25:21.640 what is the primary source then? Verse 14. But each person is tempted when he is enticed by
00:25:30.760 his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully
00:25:39.600 grown, brings death. In your notes, I've written this. People usually try to blame their sin
00:25:48.320 on their circumstances. They might say, I got angry because someone cut me off in traffic.
00:25:55.200 I started to worry because I lost my job and my finances are low. I yelled at my roommate because
00:26:01.160 they weren't listening to me. However, the reality is that our circumstances are not the cause of our
00:26:09.240 sin, but merely serve to illuminate what is already in our hearts. Everything we say and do
00:26:17.220 is rooted in our desires and how we go about fulfilling our desires is shaped by what we
00:26:25.360 believe. So the process is like this. Action. Behaviors. The sin that you do. It stems from
00:26:40.340 emotions, feelings, sin at the level of emotions, which stem from thoughts, sinful thinking,
00:26:51.460 which ultimately stems from desire. Now here we must distinguish. There are desires that in
00:27:01.340 themselves are inherently sinful, but in many cases there are desires that are inherently good,
00:27:09.660 but the way in which we go about seeking the fulfillment of that said desire is sinful.
00:27:18.680 Take care, brothers, Hebrews 3 verse 12 says,
00:27:23.360 lest there be found in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart,
00:27:28.420 leading you to fall away from the living God.
00:27:33.060 Notice these words.
00:27:34.900 Take care, brothers.
00:27:36.540 this is the apostle speaking not merely to brothers according to the flesh because they are
00:27:44.160 Hebrews but also brothers in the spiritual sense he is speaking to the church and even in that
00:27:52.440 context speaking to the church he says a stark warning be careful church be careful brothers
00:28:02.260 Lest there be found, even in you, an evil, unbelieving heart that would lead you to fall away from the living God.
00:28:11.600 What is it that causes us to fall away from the living God?
00:28:15.300 That is, to apostatize, to shipwreck our faith?
00:28:20.840 What is it that causes us to go apostate?
00:28:24.760 It is an evil, unbelieving heart.
00:28:28.080 Now notice here, those two descriptives.
00:28:31.320 evil unbelieving heart these are not two kinds of hearts that are both negative but one in the same
00:28:40.180 an evil heart is an unbelieving heart and an unbelieving heart is in fact an evil heart
00:28:49.100 all sin ultimately stems from unbelief so sin at the level of action it stems from emotion
00:29:00.120 Sinful feelings stem from sinful thoughts.
00:29:04.080 Sinful thoughts stem from sinful desires.
00:29:07.520 And where these inherently sinful desires spring from,
00:29:12.100 or even inherently good desires, although pursued in sinful ways,
00:29:17.700 in both cases, that stems from the deepest part, which is belief.
00:29:23.660 What you believe about God, what you believe about man, what you believe about the world in which we live, and what you believe about yourself, that will ultimately shape and guide and even as strong as dictate every desire you have and every method you utilize for fulfilling certain desires,
00:29:52.540 which will shape the way you think, which will shape the way you feel,
00:29:57.140 which will shape the way you speak and live.
00:30:01.620 Sin is rooted in desire.
00:30:05.420 And perverse desires, or even good desires pursued in perverse ways,
00:30:10.940 all of that is shaped by theology.
00:30:15.240 What do you believe?
00:30:17.680 And when it comes to the belief of a person,
00:30:21.320 It is what you trust as well as what you treasure.
00:30:27.980 When the scripture speaks of faith and implicit personal trust in Jesus,
00:30:36.360 it is to trust in the sense of believing it is true, objectively and factually true.
00:30:45.580 But it is not only faith in that sense, trusting in the truth of the matter,
00:30:52.320 but it is also faith in the sense of personal adoration, of affection, of love,
00:31:02.520 to trust and treasure, to trust and treasure.
00:31:09.560 Be careful, brothers, lest there be found in any of you an evil heart
00:31:15.240 which is an unbelieving heart and an unbelieving heart which is an evil heart. Sin is never truly
00:31:25.060 conquered by simply changing our outward behaviors. It is never merely conquered by
00:31:31.680 solar bootstrapion, gritting your teeth and pulling yourself up. Sin is only mortified,
00:31:42.900 not merely managed, but killed when sin is hated. And sin will only be hated
00:31:51.180 when Christ and His covenants and His promises are cherished.
00:31:59.080 We kill sin when we hate sin.
00:32:02.220 We hate sin when we love Jesus.
00:32:05.060 And we love Jesus when we come by grace to see His love for us.
00:32:11.200 1 John 4, 19, we love because He first loved us.
00:32:16.720 So He first loves us in Christ.
00:32:19.980 we then love him and if we love him we will obey him seeking to do that which is right
00:32:29.580 and seeking to mortify all that which is an offense to god namely our sin sin is never
00:32:37.840 truly conquered by simply changing our outward behaviors what really needs to change is what we
00:32:44.560 are believing in our hearts. All sin is a heart issue and the gospel is the only message that
00:32:51.080 has the power to change the human heart. All of this is true. And to be honest, I don't often
00:33:00.860 preach messages like this anymore. Because this message has been preached for the last 15 to 20
00:33:07.780 years by the Gospel Coalition, and Acts 29, and the SBC, and every gospel-centered, centered
00:33:16.340 gospel organization in the world. And so I often assume that everyone knows these things.
00:33:25.460 But I realize, pastorally, that not everyone does. That many of you, like me, have a similar
00:33:32.780 journey. You were part of a gospel-centered network, denomination, movement, theology,
00:33:40.480 whatever. But when you began to see their hypocrisy and compromise, then you moved on
00:33:48.760 and you began to embrace a biblical and historic and confessional view of not only the gospel,
00:33:56.060 but also the law.
00:33:58.840 But I recognize that some of you
00:34:01.120 who have joined this community here
00:34:03.820 at Covenant Bible Church,
00:34:06.180 you actually are coming to Christ
00:34:08.200 for the first time.
00:34:10.040 And you found our church
00:34:11.620 because you appreciate the stance that we took
00:34:14.800 and our defiance towards Caesar
00:34:18.180 when it comes to the branch Covidians
00:34:22.780 and Covid tyranny. 0.90
00:34:24.040 Or you appreciate the stance that we've taken by God's grace in regards to social justice and critical race theory and LGBTQ, LMNOP.
00:34:39.180 But you're not coming with the background of 15 years of being a church planter with some gospel-centered organization.
00:34:48.600 And the reason I'm preaching this message is a refresher and reminder for all of us, but especially for you.
00:34:58.500 Some of you have never heard these things.
00:35:01.840 And I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
00:35:07.960 We want to have a historic, reformed, confessional, biblical theology.
00:35:18.600 But all truth is God's truth.
00:35:21.460 In the same way that we can plunder Egypt,
00:35:24.580 we can also plunder the Gospel Coalition.
00:35:28.740 Now, I think we might have to have more discernment 1.00
00:35:33.000 when plundering those poisonous archives 0.98
00:35:35.980 than the archives of Egypt.
00:35:40.260 Tim Keller can be much more sneaky than Don Lemon.
00:35:43.940 however there are some treasures there
00:35:48.740 the way to mortify sin is not merely behavioral modification but it is at the root first and
00:35:59.700 foremost heart transformation and the heart is changed by the power of the gospel believing
00:36:08.280 in the promises and covenants of Christ.
00:36:12.000 Coming to trust Him
00:36:14.040 and coming to treasure Him
00:36:16.980 above all else.
00:36:19.800 And that leads to a change in our actions,
00:36:23.300 our speech, our thoughts, our feelings,
00:36:26.560 our very lives.
00:36:31.680 Believing the gospel demands
00:36:34.360 a change in our outward behavior.
00:36:37.920 It demands it.
00:36:39.680 In fact, the scripture goes so far to say that faith without works is dead.
00:36:47.380 But it starts with faith.
00:36:50.400 And as we seek to critique the compromises of the gospel-centered, evangelical, shallow, watered-down world,
00:37:02.700 we cannot abandon sola fide.
00:37:07.120 It does begin with faith.
00:37:09.860 When the heart believes the truth of the gospel
00:37:13.340 and we begin to trust and treasure Christ,
00:37:17.360 that ultimately shapes our desires,
00:37:20.820 shapes the means by which we go about seeking to attain our desires,
00:37:25.440 which shapes the way we think, shapes the way we feel,
00:37:29.480 and shapes the way we live.
00:37:32.560 All of these things are true,
00:37:34.560 and therefore we cannot abandon them.
00:37:38.920 So what are, in closing now,
00:37:41.260 four particular truths about God?
00:37:46.080 His nature, His character, His covenants, His promises.
00:37:50.420 Four particular eternal truths about God
00:37:53.480 revealed in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.
00:37:59.980 Four truths about God as seen in the gospel.
00:38:03.260 Number one, God is great. Number two, God is glorious. Number three, God is good. And number
00:38:11.700 four, God is gracious. I'll say it again. God is great, glorious, good, and gracious. Again,
00:38:22.220 this concept comes from some of the gospel-centered guys, which includes some guys I still like,
00:38:30.920 like Tim Chester and some guys that I'm ashamed from the pulpit to even say their name
00:38:37.000 like Paul David Tripp. But all truth is God's truth. And the heretic does not have
00:38:46.420 rights to the intellectual property of God's eternal truth. 0.94
00:38:52.440 And so it must be preached from time to time. What do we mean by God is great? In this instance,
00:39:00.420 we're speaking of the omnipotence and power and specifically the sovereignty of God.
00:39:08.720 God is great in the sense that He sovereignly controls every molecule in the universe.
00:39:17.740 How do you, brother and sister, keep from your heart surrendering to utter despair
00:39:26.860 after witnessing the tragedy of this past week?
00:39:30.420 How do you protect yourself from spiraling into constant, incessant worry and fear?
00:39:39.200 In part, you protect yourself from fear by being vigilant, wise, shrewd, and strategic.
00:39:47.640 But you also protect yourself from fear by believing that God is sovereign over all things, including suffering and sin.
00:40:00.420 God is in control, which frees us up from having to be in control.
00:40:08.400 For the one who does not believe in the absolute sovereignty of God,
00:40:12.360 that he is controlling all things, and not merely controlling all things
00:40:17.600 as some kind of irrational, angry, paganistic God,
00:40:24.100 but controlling all things in a benevolent way,
00:40:27.080 not only for his glory but for the good of those who love him and are called according to his
00:40:32.380 purposes as we see in Romans 8 verse 29 for the one who does not believe that who does not believe
00:40:42.420 God is sovereign over all and he is working not just salvaging God is not just salvaging and
00:40:48.760 fixing things on the back end but God is working that is orchestrating designing decreeing all
00:40:56.600 things from the beginning, even suffering, even sin for his glory and your good. For the one who
00:41:04.480 rejects that, that person must be in control. If God is not in control and the one who is sovereign
00:41:14.020 and in control of all things is not also loving and benevolent and controlling and working all
00:41:20.300 things for you and your eternal good, then that person will be given to fear. That will be an
00:41:29.680 emotional, fretting, anxious person. It only makes logical sense. But for the person who believes
00:41:40.500 that God doesn't just salvage bad things, but he controls and dictates all things.
00:41:50.300 If you don't believe in the sovereignty of God, how do you sleep at night?
00:41:56.520 You may attempt to console yourself by saying, well, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
00:42:03.240 What about your drunk neighbor who doesn't serve the Lord, who gets behind the wheel of the car? 0.98
00:42:10.280 And as you're both entering the neighborhood, he's choosing to be a fool and threatening the lives of your family by his negligence. 0.94
00:42:24.220 Brothers and sisters, it's not enough to say, well, I have chosen to submit myself to God's sovereignty. 0.96
00:42:33.840 No, it must be true sovereignty.
00:42:36.240 If sovereignty is something that you must submit to in order for it to exist, it's not the biblical
00:42:42.860 sovereignty that we see spoken of of God. God is controlling all things. We see even in the
00:42:51.320 narrative of Joseph in Genesis, he says to his brothers when they finally repent for selling
00:42:57.440 him into slavery in Egypt, he says, brothers, you meant it for evil, but God took your lemons and
00:43:04.440 turned it into lemonade. You meant it for evil, but God changed it and salvaged it on the back end
00:43:09.520 and made it good, as good as possible, of a situation out of a very bad scenario. Said the
00:43:16.020 Bible, never. No, it's the same word. You meant it in intent. You planned it before it was even done.
00:43:27.960 It was your plan, your motive, your intent, your design to do me evil.
00:43:34.180 And God, same word, meant it for good.
00:43:39.300 He designed it.
00:43:41.460 You designed it and you bear moral culpability for your sin.
00:43:45.840 And yet standing above and beyond you is an infinitely wise and powerful God
00:43:52.620 who works through the creature to orchestrate that which is good and pleasing in his sight.
00:44:00.220 It's not only that God salvaged the situation that you intended for evil,
00:44:06.300 but God planned it for good. You meant it for evil. God meant it for good. And he goes on to say
00:44:14.200 that a very many people might be saved. Had Joseph not gone to Egypt and risen through the ranks,
00:44:22.620 and become the second-in-command viceroy under no one but Pharaoh himself,
00:44:28.640 interpreting Pharaoh's prophetic dreams and with wisdom and discernment coming up
00:44:33.480 with a strategy and plan to prepare for the famine of seven years.
00:44:38.240 Had it not been for that, everyone would have died.
00:44:41.500 And Joseph, like David, is a type of Christ.
00:44:46.100 Thrown into the pit as Christ was thrown into the grave. 0.95
00:44:49.440 risen from the pit but sold and betrayed by his brothers for silver just as judas betrayed jesus 0.80
00:44:57.680 he then rose though he ascended to the right hand of pharaoh as christ has ascended to the right
00:45:05.760 hand of god and through joseph and his wisdom many did not perish but were saved just as christ by
00:45:14.440 his life, death, and resurrection has saved eternally many souls. All of this was not salvaged
00:45:22.340 by God, but planned and decreed by God. So how do you resist the feelings of worry and anxiety
00:45:34.280 and fear that give way to actions and speech that come out of anxiety and worry and fear
00:45:41.860 and thoughts incessantly bent on anxiety and worry and fear?
00:45:47.780 Belief. Belief.
00:45:51.380 That's how you do it.
00:45:53.900 You believe.
00:45:55.720 You believe that we live in a world that's tarnished by sin and evil.
00:46:02.060 But that there is a God who is not only powerful, but also good.
00:46:08.280 And He doesn't just salvage things.
00:46:10.660 if he if he makes lemonade it's not because man gave him lemons and it's all he had to work with
00:46:17.540 if he makes lemonade it's because he gave man those lemons because god wanted lemonade because
00:46:23.580 it's delicious god made the decision god is in charge second god is glorious in this instance
00:46:32.380 what we're speaking of is that God is waiting.
00:46:37.260 The glory word that we find in Scripture,
00:46:40.480 especially in the Old Testament,
00:46:42.180 it signifies gravitas, weight, significance, seriousness.
00:46:51.340 So the belief that God is glorious would fend off what temptation?
00:46:57.280 The approval of man.
00:46:58.660 see there have been times where i've had and i'm not exaggerating and i'm not playing the world's
00:47:07.580 smallest violin because it doesn't bother me because i believe god's glorious by his grace
00:47:11.320 praise god okay so don't feel bad for me that's that's not my intent but there have been times
00:47:15.320 where i've had a thousand people in one week in one week say really horrible things and and and
00:47:23.300 i'll leave the email i'll leave the comment all this unless it's vulgar and has cursing in it
00:47:27.560 That's about it in terms of my standard of editing.
00:47:31.420 And then there may be one of you, my beloved flock.
00:47:36.160 God bless you forever.
00:47:38.020 They come to me and say, Pastor, man, I loved that sermon.
00:47:43.020 Or I loved that podcast.
00:47:44.540 And I saw you getting a lot of flack online, but I loved it.
00:47:48.120 That means the world to me.
00:47:49.660 It does.
00:47:51.160 So please keep doing that.
00:47:53.120 The takeaway from this sermon is not, let's stop encouraging the pastor.
00:47:57.160 Please do not have that takeaway.
00:48:00.740 However, that is not ultimately significant enough to sustain me.
00:48:08.500 Because it's not a matter of kind words versus mean-spirited words.
00:48:14.060 It's also a matter of the source.
00:48:17.260 Not just the message, but who is it coming from?
00:48:20.100 The messenger.
00:48:20.760 if a thousand people hate me and one of you loves me it's not enough to tip the scale
00:48:27.480 see it's not just a matter of having a gracious a gracious thing to say but it's also the weight
00:48:35.700 and significance from the one who's saying it so what is the antidote to the fear of man
00:48:42.960 the fear of god do not fear man who can kill the body but after having done so can do no more to
00:48:52.200 you but rather love god fear god who can both destroy the body and after having done so can
00:49:01.860 cast the soul into hell's fire god is weightier see some of you here's the deal you have to believe
00:49:10.960 all four of these. God is great, glorious, good, and gracious. Some of you, here's your problem.
00:49:17.600 You believe that God's gracious. You believe that what God believes, what he thinks, how he feels
00:49:22.960 about you is positive because, nothing in you, but because for the sake of his son, Jesus Christ,
00:49:29.680 and because Christ is your federal head, your representative, because you have union with Christ
00:49:34.000 by the Spirit, through faith, by grace alone, so that no one can boast because of these theological
00:49:40.820 objective truths, you know and believe that God's sentiment towards you is nothing but yes and
00:49:48.580 amen. And yet you still fear man. Do you know why? Because you believe that God, that God,
00:49:57.220 as it were, feels positively towards you, but that God is not also weighty enough to outweigh
00:50:05.100 all the peanut gallery. See, you know God loves you, but the love of God is falling on deaf ears
00:50:12.760 because the love of God, not because it's not good news enough, it's not weighty news enough.
00:50:21.720 It would be like a small child. Everyone's mocking you and laughing at you, but a small child comes
00:50:27.860 up and says, I love you. Again, a beautiful sentiment, a beautiful gesture that we all
00:50:33.360 appreciate but it's not enough to sustain us we say thanks kid that really means the world but we
00:50:40.260 still go home worrying because a child likes us but a thousand adults hate us but if there's one
00:50:48.700 person who is for us and the one person happens to be the god of the universe if god is for you
00:50:56.220 then who can be against you? But the only way that that verse rings true is if God is waiting.
00:51:05.360 Glorious. Third, God is good. In this sense, I don't mean God is good in the sense that he is
00:51:11.940 loving and kind, but rather God is good like a dry-aged cowboy bone-in ribeye with truffle
00:51:23.120 butter, gently melted on top, cooked rare, because if it's well done, you should have
00:51:31.760 just gotten a hamburger. God is good. As I use that term, I mean it in the sense that
00:51:40.240 God satisfies. In his presence, there is fullness of joy. In his presence, there is fullness
00:51:49.780 of joy, and in his right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. I've said this before, not
00:51:58.240 not in the last couple years here, in my past pastoral ministry, but it's worth saying to you.
00:52:08.420 Some people, they believe that God is, again, loving, but not waiting. So his word, although
00:52:15.380 his word, right? The blood of Christ speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. They know
00:52:19.860 that the word that God has spoken over them is a loving, assuring word of security and kindness.
00:52:27.380 But the word is, it's not that it's not positive, but it's weak. The word of man is louder in their
00:52:33.880 ears than the word of God. They have not come to fear God, to see him as weighty and glorious.
00:52:38.640 Likewise, and speaking of God is good, and meaning good in the sense that God fulfills and satisfies.
00:52:44.400 pleasures forevermore fullness of joy there are those of us myself included that we have come to
00:52:51.860 believe that God is gracious and loving but not that he is good and fulfilling so we will go to
00:52:57.600 God for love but we'll go to sin for fun let me say that again if you believe that God is gracious
00:53:06.160 but you don't believe God is good you will go to God for love but you will still go to God
00:53:14.420 for fun or go to sin for fun the reason why some of us we all sin for different reasons
00:53:22.240 all stemming from different desires ultimately shaped and dictated by different beliefs but
00:53:28.240 one of the reason why some of us sin is not because we're looking for love in all the wrong
00:53:32.980 places for some of us it's because we're looking for pleasure and although we know that god is the
00:53:38.560 only source of love we don't believe that in god we might find pleasures forevermore we think god
00:53:47.260 is loving and boring and that sin we know hates us and in the long run only does more harm than
00:53:56.940 good but at least for a moment we can live a little get a bit of excitement
00:54:02.840 and this could lead to a host of idolatries the person who lives for the weekend the person who
00:54:12.100 constantly has to travel the person who's an adrenaline junkie who wants to go skydiving and
00:54:17.080 wants to go bungee jumping and wants to go this and that and that and this there's nothing inherently
00:54:21.660 wrong with these things the question is are you bound by them brothers and sisters the alcoholic
00:54:26.680 does not enjoy drinking. He must. He must. He doesn't do it for pleasure. Not anymore. That ship
00:54:33.700 sailed a long time ago. He does it because he's enslaved. And so too, it may not be alcoholism,
00:54:40.300 but so too, even a Christian can be bound by pleasure. Enslaved to pleasure. And where does 0.96
00:54:47.340 that come from? Well, it comes from a desire to be satisfied and fulfilled, which inherently,
00:54:52.700 innately is not immoral but the desire is being pursued in a wrong manner and why are we pursuing
00:55:00.120 the desire of fulfillment in a wrong manner because we have the wrong belief we don't believe
00:55:05.780 that god is good that god satisfies sure he's gracious but can he make me happy
00:55:13.640 i go to god for security but sin for joy i go to god for love but sin for control
00:55:22.880 these things must be believed in concert in tandem all together god is great so i don't
00:55:32.200 have to be in control he's in control god is glorious so i don't have to fear man
00:55:37.840 because I fear God.
00:55:40.560 He's more weighty than all the world combined.
00:55:44.220 God is good, so I don't have to look elsewhere for my satisfaction.
00:55:48.960 And lastly, God is gracious.
00:55:52.120 He loves me so that I don't have to seek man's approval,
00:55:56.060 but also so that I don't have to seek approval from myself.
00:56:02.020 Hebrews chapter 4, verse 14 through 16 says this,
00:56:05.280 Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
00:56:23.500 let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and
00:56:30.900 find grace in help and help in time of need if god is in control but he's not gracious
00:56:40.020 you're doomed that means god he's orchestrating every molecule in the universe but not for your
00:56:47.260 good. That's actually bad news. Now, if God is great in control, but not gracious, you're doomed.
00:56:56.560 If God is good, he satisfies, he has pleasure, he's the source of all real pleasure, but he's not
00:57:03.040 gracious, he's not in your corner, he's not for you, then God becomes a tease. He's merely eternally
00:57:09.900 holding out he has pleasure but you'll never get an ounce and if God is great and good but also
00:57:19.140 glorious he's weighty but not gracious well then he has the most significant opinion of you and
00:57:26.400 guess what if he's glorious but not gracious the most weighty opinion in all the world towards you
00:57:32.320 is nothing but condemnation. Now, God's goodness, he satisfies, is good news when he's also gracious.
00:57:41.660 He's for you. God's glory, that he is weighty, is only good news that he's significant, that he
00:57:51.060 matters. It's only good news when he's gracious. He's for you. And God's greatness, that he's
00:57:56.980 controlling and working all things for his glory is only good news when he's also gracious.
00:58:02.080 He's working it all for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
00:58:07.820 He is for you. The great God who is sovereign, the good God who satisfies, and the glorious God
00:58:16.540 who is waiting is also, brothers and sisters, the gracious God, which means all his benevolence,
00:58:25.280 all his omnipotence, all of his gravitas is being worked and targeted and funneled toward you.
00:58:36.400 Your eternal joy. Your eternal joy. There is nothing that will ever pass through the banner
00:58:44.480 of God's sovereignty. There's nothing suffering, sin, sickness, tragedy, nothing that could pass
00:58:52.760 through the protective banner of his sovereignty unless unless he knew that it was for not only
00:59:00.760 his glory but your long term that is eternal joy and happiness let's pray father thank you for your
00:59:10.280 word thank you for the gospel help us lord to be disciplined in our behaviors and our emotions and
00:59:16.640 our thoughts and our speech, what we do and what we say, guided all in accordance to your moral
00:59:23.800 law. But Lord, we pray that you would empower us to do this by changing our hearts and what we
00:59:31.900 believe, that we would be a church that believes the gospel and therefore joyfully obeys your law.
00:59:40.500 We pray it for Jesus' sake. In his name, amen. Can I be frank with you for just a second?
00:59:46.640 right here at the end. Look, some of you guys, you're financially supporting this ministry,
00:59:51.240 and from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you. I cannot thank you enough. However, some of you,
00:59:58.480 you just, you can't afford it. In fact, some of you, you shouldn't afford it. Let's be honest.
01:00:04.900 I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy. Our nation and our totalitarian 0.94
01:00:11.880 political elites lost their minds over the last three years due to COVID. We have written checks
01:00:20.080 that we simply cannot cash. It doesn't matter if people change the definition of a recession.
01:00:26.020 We are living in a recession right now regardless. Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of
01:00:33.680 eggs at the grocery store. You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor
01:00:40.280 should you, but you could still help us tremendously. I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do
01:00:47.260 so, take one minute of your time. Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform,
01:00:54.640 iTunes, Spotify, whatever that might be. This is the way the system works. We want to be innocent
01:01:00.920 as doves, but shrewd as vipers. We need to be strategic. You leave us a five-star review and
01:01:08.080 our podcast shows up for more people. And the Word of God and courageous theology applied in
01:01:15.560 practical ways to every realm of life gets out there. Help us get it out there. Thanks for tuning in.