Make Heaven Crowded

The heresy of Sinless Perfectionism | Make Heaven Crowded Ep. 42

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Link to the book Dark Journey, Deep Grace: https://a.co/d/0hxnb8UI

In this episode of Make Heaven Crowded, we tackle one of the most debated theological questions in Christianity: Can a believer become completely free from sin in this life?

Walking through Romans 7, we examine Paul's honest struggle with sin and why this chapter has been central to the Church's understanding of sanctification for centuries. We also discuss the doctrine of sinless perfectionism—the belief that Christians can reach a state of complete sinlessness in this life—and why we believe it is inconsistent with the teaching of Scripture.

We dive into questions like:

• What is the doctrine of sinless perfectionism?
• What does Romans 7 teach about the believer's ongoing battle with sin?
• Why does Paul say, "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing"?
• Does God's grace excuse sin, or empower us to fight it?
• What does biblical sanctification actually look like?

The Christian life is not about achieving perfection through our own effort—it's about being transformed by the grace of God as we grow in Christ. While believers are called to pursue holiness, Scripture also reminds us that the battle against sin continues until we are fully glorified with Christ.

Whether you're wrestling with sin, seeking a deeper understanding of Romans, or wanting to grow in your walk with Jesus, we hope this conversation points you to the hope found in the gospel—not in your own perfection, but in Christ's.

🎙️ Make Heaven Crowded – Episode 42
📖 Scripture: Romans 7
✝️ Topics: Romans, Sanctification, Sin, Holiness, Sinless Perfectionism, The Gospel
🌐 Learn more at teamfbc.info

SPEAKER_01

Hello and welcome to the Make Heaven Crowded Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke, joined Pastor Roger, Pastor Jordan, and we are excited about today's conversation. Pastor Roger, you did a great job going through Romans chapter seven as we continue on through the book of Romans. And today we have a fun conversation as we're going to be talking about the doctrine of sinless perfectionism.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it was the first time I preached since like 1984. So in the saddle, how did it feel? It was good, but second service, I'm like, why am I sweating so bad? I felt like you were sweating first service, too. Yeah, but not as bad. Second service is the top of my head. You ever sweat when you're preaching and literally your hair is dangerous? I don't think I've ever preached and not sweat. Yeah, and I've always I've never really sweat that bad. Luke is one of those don't raise your arms up because you see it really bad. Now I just don't even care. I wondered if the temperature and humidity outside was like coming into the stage, just the stage.

SPEAKER_00

Because I felt like well, you got lights on you, they're hot.

SPEAKER_02

I felt there was a heat lamp on me. I'm like, this is not good. But uh no, I got through it. It was fun to preach, and it's Romans 7, which is like I had three different people, including a student, Weston, came up to me. He's like, bro, you preached on my favorite passage, which is um the you know, what I hate I do is at verse 15. Um, and so it's just such an easily applicable it's one that you know I use a lot of illustrations yesterday because the text is just illustratable, like it's so easy to apply it.

SPEAKER_00

And so I'd love to say it's very difficult to understand in a sense of what do I how do I get past this?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. And that's I think we talked last week, even like Peter ends his letter by saying, Hey, for those of you that are, you know, you use you distort Paul's writings and it because it can be easy to read what Paul is saying and and try to take it in another direction, because sometimes he speaks in kind of coded language that you do have to break down. And uh, but in that passage, he's not using any coded language at all. He's being very, you know, what I hate, I do, what I know I should do, I do not do.

SPEAKER_00

But no, what I'm getting at is I think you can understand that, and people, everyone can relate that. No, my point is okay, how do I get out of that cycle? How do I quit doing the things I don't want to do? Yeah, and do the things I should be doing. I think that's the how do I do that? Because everything I've, you know, I think people are saying, and even including myself, everything I've tried doesn't work. Yeah. So what do I need to do to progressing in the right direction?

SPEAKER_02

Or maybe it's two weeks ago. You you know, you said like the alcoholic who you know is addicted to alcohol will just drive away from the bar. But I've talked to addicts who will take that and they'll avoid gas stations and they'll avoid restaurants that serve beer, and then lo and behold, it they do all it shows up. They do all they can to avoid it, but it just tackles them and it just shows up, and it's like I'm doing everything I know I'm supposed to do. And that's kind of like the snooze button that I used of like, I'm gonna set my clothes out, I'm gonna make sure I do this, I'm gonna do that, and then the alarm goes off, boop, snooze, and all of that effort that you just put in has now been completely drawn out.

SPEAKER_00

Or, and it's not just so much that you want to sleep in, but you didn't sleep well. The dogs woke you up, or you had to get up and use the rest of them five times, or there was something that then disrupted the sleep to where then you're exhausted and you're like, Well, now I'm not gonna I cannot get up to do what I intended to do. Yeah, there's other things that happen that you just you did not foresee or plan for or didn't even choose to happen, and then it still happens.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and that's where I think the I love the snooze button illustration because going through again the the the sleep cycle, the sleep medicine, the sleep doctors, is that when you hit snooze 50 times, you think, oh, I just got a bunch more sleep. You're not getting any sleep.

SPEAKER_00

That nine minutes is on purpose.

SPEAKER_02

The moment your brain begins to enter the, you know, okay, the it goes back off. So you're actually not producing anything of merit or of worth or value.

SPEAKER_00

Might actually make you more tired.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. Yeah. And and I'm glad that I had all this the fugge kids because all of them have they spent the entire week hitting their snooze button, right? And so, like, it was a good illustration for them.

SPEAKER_00

Well, start after you know, let's go through what are the things you didn't get to talk about or kind of recap of your sermon, and then let's dig into those details of how we're I want to like take me why is Paul making this argument here?

SPEAKER_01

So, what's the overall view of what's going on in Rome right now in the book of Romans?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, why does he make this argument at this point in the well because you you know, and I think that that's where um if there's one thing I wish I would have had another five minutes to to really expand on, it probably would have been the role of the law. Because I use the term law, and of course, Christians, we we know what the law, it's the rules, and we usually attribute that to the old testament. Um and and and we just think that the law was just a written code that um that that had it was only meant to keep us in line, and that it actually the only purpose of it was that it, you know, it makes us feel guilty, it makes us, you know, all of these kind of negative connotations. But that the law, and Paul says this multiple times, like don't misunderstand me. The law is a good thing, the law is not bad, the law is not the enemy, the lawn itself is not evil, the law is not sinful. In fact, the law is the antithesis of sin. When you follow the law, you cannot follow the law perfectly and be in sin. The problem is that no one can follow the law perfectly except one, which was Christ. And so we're in Rome, we have these new Christians that are on fire, but again, the society and the culture is very much legalistic that says you have to follow the law, and that's what they've grown up in. And so they're still struggling with this idea of okay, well, if I follow the law, I go to heaven, right? Well, if that's the case, then nobody goes to heaven because nobody can perfectly follow the law. And so that tension is, and even Paul says the old way being the law in the new way, and the old way says, God, if I change, will you love me? The new way says, No, I will love you so that you'll want to change.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So he Paul is in the middle of making the argument of what it looks like to live in righteousness, right? And so last week in Romans 6, he made the argument of, hey, you're no longer bound to sin, you're dead to sin, you're alive in Christ. And then he does says, Okay, that means you're no longer bound to sin, you're no longer chained to sin, you're chained to righteousness. Well, in what you were just saying, how for them have they had to live in righteousness for so long? It is, oh, the law. The law makes us righteousness.

SPEAKER_02

And when you break the law, what do you do? You go to the temple, you you you know, there's a sacrifice, you have to pay for when you break that law. And the idea is hopefully you're you're you're paying it back as fast as you're breaking the law so that you could end even.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and so he's making the argument s sin was once once our master. Now Christ is our master, but what you have the Jewish Christians doing at that time is saying, But I thought the law was what brought righteousness, and so they're allowing the law to be their master instead of Christ to be their master. And so Paul gets into that tension of, okay, this is what it looks like to live with Christ, but also have the law and accordance.

SPEAKER_00

Or believing in God brought righteousness. Yes. And now the believing, which was Abraham's version, and then now it is believing in Christ that brings righteousness.

SPEAKER_01

He's getting to them, he's getting them in chapter seven. Don't elevate the law above Christ. Right? The law is a good thing, as you just mentioned. It highlights. Yeah, it highlights, but make sure it's in the right order or something.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and that's and that's where, and I'll look it up here in a second. It was a Barna group study, but it was only Christians, and they were asked if you were going to heaven. These are only people that identify as Christian. And of course, uh 90 plus percent of them say, Yes, I believe I'm going to heaven. And then the follow-up was, well, why do you believe you're going to heaven? The number one answer from Christians was because I think I've done more good than bad. And so, like, it just goes to show now. Now there are people that identify as Christian in name only, and they truly have no idea, you know, oh, I'm a Christian because Jesus said nice things, but I don't believe he rose again. Okay, well, you're not a Christian. But the idea is that of all of these Christians, even today, that just they they have no understanding of what you shouldn't leave vacation Bible school and not understand that it is not goodness that gets you to heaven, and it is not, well, it is badness that gets you to hell, but that there is a savior that that can intervene both good and bad. And so, even the idea of these Roman Christians of how well how could they believe that the law had that much impact? Here we are 2,000 years later, it's the same audience, it's the same people that aren't grasping this idea that there is a new covenant.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, and that's I think the world is set up that you do good, you get rewarded. So everything is based on your work and anything you contribute, you get paid for, and which is what Paul talks about. Those are obligated to get paid by wages. Well, that's not how God operates. So again, that's where I think our minds and everything about what we've done since we've been born is do right, get the cookie. Do wrong, you get smacked. And so we automatically just assume, well, that's how God's gonna operate, too, because that's how it's been my whole life, but it's not. I think that's where people get smacked.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and that's and that's the the biggest uh i i i i it's probably the biggest worldly discrepancy of Christianity. And I I say this all the time. What makes Christianity a radical religion is the idea that a serial killer can accept Christ genuinely, right? Jeffrey Dahmer, who by all accounts, when he was on when he was in prison, gave his life to Jesus. There was a book written by Roy Ratcliffe, the prison minister that led Jeff Jeff Dahmer to the Lord, and said it was genuine. They baptized him in a in a cafeteria tub in the maximum security prison. Jeff died shortly after that. If all of that is true, then we as Christians would have to believe that we will see him in heaven. We will see Jeffrey Dahmer in heaven. But Mahatma Gandhi, who was not a Christian but lived by all accounts a good worldly life, but did not know the Lord, would not go to heaven. So this idea that why does the serial killer go to heaven but the philanthropist go to hell? Yeah, and that should be uncomfortable for every single Christian, because that's the tension that we bring to the world, is that regardless of what you've done in your life, grace is for everyone. And that's very, that's very controversial. And that goes back to the law because the law, and this kind of what I did with the whole Ray Comfort thing of, oh, well, you're an adulteress murdering, you know, thief, all of that stuff, is that we're all Jeffrey Dahmer in the sense of that we've all murdered, we're all adulterous, we're all these wretched things, and so I don't deserve heaven just as much as you don't deserve heaven.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you know, of all your sermons, to me, that one because we use that one in Fresh Start, I think it's in our assurance of salvation class, um, or exchange life, or it could fit in any one of those, uh, or identity, but just because we use that reference as an example of you remember when Roger preached that Jeffrey Dahmer, he supposedly was led to the Lord in prison, he's going to heaven, and it causes everyone to just kind of go, huh. And it truly, that's the one sermon and that one analogy I have seen over and over again. People pause and they sit there and they think about that, and they're just like, oh, well, the book and Jaden, I Jaden, Amazon link it.

SPEAKER_02

It's called Dark Journey, Deep Grace, the story of Jeffrey Dahmer um you know, accepting Christ. And I I after I preached that sermon, it's probably been two, three years ago, but I had probably 20 people come to me and say they bought the book, and I had a few people say they couldn't finish it because they were that uncomfortable. Not not that it was controversial of like the author was saying anything, it's that they knew what they were reading was true, yeah, and they didn't want it to be true, they didn't want it to be true that Dahmer's gonna be in heaven.

SPEAKER_00

But the point is apply that to yourself now and understand that it is nothing that you can do to earn your salvation as works based on good things to earn it. It is all about this great gift that God, and that just starts to amplify the gift, and now you just need to accept it. And that's what caused people to pause, like because it for them they're thinking I've I've done so many bad things. Yeah, there's no way that I would be accepted by God because of the really bad things I've done in my life. We don't ask them what they are, but you can see the wheels are turning in their brain, thinking through wait a minute, if Jeffrey Dahmer could be accepted, well, I didn't do that, but and it's almost even I hate to say it, it's like the Pharisee and the uh tax collector and praying, and I didn't sin like at least I'm not hidden. Yeah, there is that moment of, well, I haven't done that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and he got accepted. Well, there's two equally uncomfortable parts. There's Dahmer was able grace is good enough for Dahmer to make it to heaven, but that the law is not strong enough on its own to get Gandhi to heaven. Like there's two equally uncomfortable things that I'm not as bad as Dahmer, but I'm certainly not as good as Gandhi. So where in the world does that leave me? Like that's that's the that's the dichotomy, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So but it's all it's backwards to the world and how the world operates. And so I think that's where a lot of people get hung up because we constantly go back to I gotta do enough good to get accepted.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I think it is reversing the question of not about what we have done, but how powerful do you think Jesus' death on the cross is? Is it sufficient? Is it how powerful do you think it is? Yeah, can it truly cover everything? And if it can truly cover everything, then you have to believe it can cover the sins of Jeffrey Dominic.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and it's just the whole thing of all sins.

SPEAKER_02

Um that means the AW Tozier quote if Jesus' blood covers 99.9% of sins, we're all gonna go to hell. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But I would say like the one of the hardest things we hear as pastors is people thinking they have to fix it before they come to him. Yeah. Right. And I thought that was the best question that you asked throughout your sermon was we got to stop asking, how do I fix myself and who can rescue me? Because I think that's the heartbeat of what he's getting at here in this all the time. That's what he ultimately leads to there. Yeah. And thanks be to God. As a pastor, how many times do you hear somebody say, Man, I really want to get baptized, but I need to fix X, Y, and Z? Or, hey, like, yeah, I'm really close to giving my life to Christ. I just got a few things I need to work out. Or I was gonna come to church, but I need to get these things in order before you do. And we're like, what are you doing? Like, you're missing the point.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, or like the to take the illustration I did, you're drowning in the wave pool, and Jesus says, I'm here to rescue you, and it's like, okay, I've got to get swim lessons, and then I've got to do this, and then I'll take your hand. And Jesus says, No, just take it. Jesus, you're drowning. Like there's no swim lesson that's gonna save you, but you're absolutely correct. Once I'm six months sober, then I'll get baptized. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I'm sure that then I'll be accepted.

SPEAKER_02

Because they're that's been their whole life, right? And even in sobriety, if I relapse, I'm just the same old failure that I've always been. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and that's or it's Paul says, What a wretch I am.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I'm a fight. I'm the chief sinner. Yeah. And but what people were doing is instead of just bounding themselves to sin, which what they had been set free from, now they were bounding themselves to the law, relying on that to rescue them. And what he's saying is, no, what we rely on to rescue us is who is we are saying is our Lord. And you can't elevate the law to that. So you need to get be released from that law so you can truly follow Christ, and then you're gonna follow the law out of the overflow. And so it's not that we don't follow the law and what it asks us and requires us to do, it just changes the heart posture of why we do it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I don't know if you used uh you might have skipped over those verses in early part of seven where he uses marriage as the example of the release at death.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I was gonna talk, we talked about this early on in Romans. Why does he go back to continue and talk about marriage and sexual relations as his example for sin? And I think a big part of it is where he's writing the book of Romans from. And so if we go back and we remember, where is Paul at physically when he is writing the letter to the Romans church with terror?

SPEAKER_00

Terrible, terrible place. Terrible place, since huge sexual sin problem.

SPEAKER_01

Just what we know from the letters in that he wrote to Corinth. Aphrodite is the goddess of their temple. Yeah. He spends multiple chapters talking about sexual relations, marriage, and what it's supposed to look like inside there. Yeah. And so he's witnessing all that take place right in front of him. And so then he gets to this example. Romans know better, really. Right. None of the other places. And he's getting to this example, and he's like, all right, let me just go ahead and use this as an example. A normal example you should understand. Of a married person, because this is probably what's going on in your city as well. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

No, I in my original outline, I was going to go through that illustration, and that's the hard part of doing a chapter a week of doing all of Roman 7. And so I just used Now's your chance to dig in.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you didn't have it there.

SPEAKER_02

This is your teacher. Exactly. And so I use the example that is a little bit quicker, but I think in in the audience I could they kind of picked up of like, if I'm about to go on trial for the law that I broke and I die before my trial, which happens all the time when people die, do you drag the corpse up to the witness stand?

SPEAKER_00

There are people chuckling.

SPEAKER_02

And it was, and I think that that kind of registered of like, okay.

SPEAKER_00

Registered the ridiculousness of the city. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02

And so that's that's kind of we are our we are metaphorically dead. Our old selves are dead. And to say that the law is my final authority is the equivalent of dragging my dead corpse up to a witness stand to say, okay, you are going to be punished by this, this, this, and this. And that's the idea that I was painting. But yes, I mean, I love that Paul. Sometimes we're trying to think of the best illustration or the best comparison. Yes, and Paul does it for us. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

So um But yeah, just like you're released from marriage at death, yeah. That's what Jesus or Paul is saying is through Jesus' death, you're now released from the law. It's the same correlation. It's like a marriage.

SPEAKER_01

But again, that's what he's going back to. Because, right, you know, when you say your vows, what do you say? Till death do us part.

SPEAKER_02

Or vowels. I thought you said vowels. Oh, yeah, no, no.

SPEAKER_00

Sometimes why?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, sometimes.

SPEAKER_02

That's right.

SPEAKER_01

But yeah, you know, he says, till death do us part. And so that's what he's saying. He's like, hey, that's released you. Yeah. But go back to chapter six. Why is he using that as an example? What did he just told you happened whenever we gave our life to Christ? He says, Oh, by the way, now you're dead to sin. And since it's no longer your master, you're bound to somebody new. And that's what you have to start living under. So that's how he connects chapter six to chapter six.

SPEAKER_02

That's why Romans is very difficult as a standalone. And we've talked about this. Like you have to read Romans in its entirety. Yeah. Because if you stop at Romans 6, you're going to say, Well, wait a second, hold on.

SPEAKER_00

Or you just pull Romans 6 out of the midst of the whole book. Yeah. You lose the overarching progression that he goes through.

SPEAKER_02

And I even said that in my sermon. I said, if you stop after last week, then you're going to wonder, okay, well, then then I'm, I'm, I still struggle. I still have this and this. And so it all connects.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So that's good. Yeah. And uh, but I think that goes really well into and the illustration I used for um when Paul calls himself wretched, and he's not saying I was wretched, and then I accepted Christ and now I'm sinless. He doesn't say that. No, I know. He is speaking present tense, right? Um, 2 Corinthians 12. He's not talking about the thorn that existed 20 years ago. He's talking about a thorn that is actively in his flesh that he boasts about, 2 Corinthians 12, 9. And so you would read all this and you would say, Well, why is there controversy in the idea that Christians are still going to sin? That Christians can still relapse, and that relapse not be evidence that there's no salvation. And the illustration I used was um, you know, I just got TikTok live and and I'm debating all these people, and Jaden's sending me people to debate, and it's like, Jaden, I've already got a list of people I'm debating, um, but I'll try to debate this person. Um, but the the Jaden, you do realize that's giving drugs to a drug addict. It really is. My wife, I joke you're an enabler. I made this joke second service, but my wife is, I'm like a 12-year-old because my wife has said, no more TikTok live after midnight. Because when I debate, if I end a debate at like 12:30 and then I go go to bed, and of course Caitlin's always in bed first, she's like, You're you've been you're you're restless. And I'm like, Well, babe, I just got done competing, right? And so I have to cut it off. And I only debate theology. Like, that's the only thing I do.

SPEAKER_00

Sweating, you're on the phone. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_02

Like you're you're breathing very heavy. Um, and so but one of the most common channels that I found were Christians that that that present this doctrine of sinless perfectionism. And I started studying it, and it's not a fringe doctrine. There's actually some some denominations, and and I don't want to call them out, but you can research, um, that that believe in this doctrine. I'll say one in particular because I talked to uh uh somebody who who used to pastor a church like this, but the Nazarene church, um, this doctrine is very prevalent in in um Nazarene theology and in other other other branches of Christianity, but it's the idea that when Jesus says, go and sin no more, and they have that salvation, that you will go and that you will never sin. And if you sin, then that is evidence that you were never saved in the first place.

SPEAKER_00

Well, in context, he's saying that to the woman who was apparently caught in the act of adultery, brought in before him, and it was really just a test for him. They didn't care about this lady. They were just more, okay, what happens now for here or for her? Are we going to stone her? Yeah. And that's where he writes something in the dirt, and then he says, anyone who's never sinned, throw the first stone. And then steadily they all just kind of leave. Yeah. But that's the context. And then he turns to her and says, Hey, your sins are forgiven, go sin no more. So what does he mean by that?

SPEAKER_02

Well, and so the the debate I was having, and it's a couple, it's a it's a husband and a wife, and they're they've got a ton of followers. And I actually had some people DMing me that were like, Hey, thank you for finally still like pushing back on what they're saying. Um, but their argument was, okay, when Jesus says no and go and sin no more, what is he saying? And my response was, Well, I hear that and I say sinful lifestyle because her lifestyle is what got her convicted of the crime, right? Go and sin no more to me is the equivalent of a an addict, a drug addict that has has ceased using drugs and they come to Jesus, and your response is, hey, leave that sinful lifestyle. Which doesn't mean that they're never, it doesn't mean that they're immune from ever potentially falling back into that. Um, and so when I say, when I hear go and sin no more, he's specifically referring to the lifestyle that the woman had found herself in. Not every single thing that you will never lie, you will never say a cut, like you'll never do anything again. I said, that actually isn't in the text. That that that's what you are inferring. So but they would read that and say, No, it literally means you will never steal a piece of candy after you become a Christian, never have a bad thought, never think a mean thought, never do ever anything wrong.

SPEAKER_00

You'll never gossip. That means you are Jesus.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. And and and their idea is. Is that when you become a Christian, you become a version of Christ, like you become a representative of a representative of Christ?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um, and they would also argue I would agree with that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. We're we are representing God's kingdom. We're that's part of what we are as bearing his image. We are representing God as his image bearers here on earth that then are going to uh we're like a salesperson for his business. We are representing his kingdom, so we're going and selling his kingdom, uh, and trying to get more people to buy into the kingdom. So I yeah, we are in a sense trying to be like that. Yeah. But then, as you're I think you're getting what you say, that it doesn't go to the point that we no longer sin just like Jesus did.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you when you represent something, you do not become that thing entirely, right? Yeah. Um, we represent God every day. We are not God. That that's that's the huge distinguishment. And the moment you say that you are a version of God, um, well, now we're getting in really dangerous territory, right? That I am able to perform the same divine action. Because here's the thing perfectionism is divine. I mean, because only one person who was divine can do that thing.

SPEAKER_00

There will be a day that we're that way.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but not. The moment I say on this earth in my fallen flesh, that I can emulate Christ in being perfect, then I am really saying that I am a form of a God. I am a form of a deity or a divine nature that really makes Jesus obsolete at that point.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's a good point. So that that that's but it's inner, it's kind of fascinating, though. They do take an element of truth and then it gets twisted afterwards.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, in these these people were incredible at quoting scripture, yeah? Just like Satan was incredible at quoting scripture, and Jesus said, You have, you know, when when they would say it, and he would go back to the word of God and he would he would throw it right back at Christ or right back at Satan. And so, but they know their Bible. And the problem is on these TikTok lives is that you look at a lot of the people that are viewing it, it's high school students, it's young adults, it's new Christians that haven't read their Bible in their entirety, they don't understand theology, and they hear this and they think, Oh, I guess I do have to be perfect. Yeah, and then the next weekend they screw up.

SPEAKER_01

My question is, do they think Paul is not a Christian? After reading Romans 7? Would they argue that Paul was not a Christian?

SPEAKER_02

Well, so they would argue that Paul is speaking of his sinful flesh, his sinful desire that still exists, but when he became a Christian, basically that the divine form basically overrides that. So it still exists, but when you become a Christian, it's no longer usable. It's no you you no longer go back to that. The example I gave them wasn't Paul. The example I gave them was Peter, when Peter is rebuked um by by Paul, right? Because he's hanging out, you got the Jews and the Gentiles. Um, the other example is it Barnabas, who um it flat out says that he not that he fell into hypocrisy, but that he Barnabas there was some temptation of hypocrisy that that Barnabas, and I need I I think it's in Galatians, I need to look it up, but that where he I'm gonna look it up right now. You two can keep talking about it.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I know Barnabas and Paul had a disagreement over Mark and how capable Mark was, and that's where they decided to split ways, and Barnabas took Mark with him, and Paul took Timothy.

SPEAKER_02

I may be misremembering the verse. Galatians 2.13. Some others in Timothy. Um yeah, the other, this is Galatians 2.13. I'm glad I pulled this out. Um the other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy, even Barnabas was led astray.

SPEAKER_00

Barnabas was clearly Okay, so in Galatians is talking about you need to add to the requirements of salvation.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, and in the Tim and why that was so enticing that even Barnabas was led astray.

SPEAKER_00

Kind of thinking, yeah, it's probably not a bad idea to get circumcised. Yeah, it's probably a good idea to follow this, yeah, it's a good idea to follow these food laws.

SPEAKER_02

Those are all the added ons to be saved. So I pulled that, so on this, I brought that up. I said, okay, well, Barnabas was led astray. Was Barnabas a Christian? Yes. Okay. Did Barnabas sin? No. That being led astray is not the same as sin.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, well, now we're really getting into sin some stuff here.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. And but they would say, like when Peter denied Jesus, that Peter was not saved in that moment, that Peter did not become born again until after that. Um, of course, we would agree Judas was never saved. I would make that argument.

SPEAKER_00

Um, and so but he was believing in the wrong thing with Jesus.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Um anyways, yeah, that's a whole nother conversation. It really is. But it would be a fun conversation to have. But um, again, all of that the the we they can go back and forth and in respond.

SPEAKER_00

I think what Luke's getting at is so much what Paul is saying here is in the presence present tense. Right. He is struggling in the moment. Yeah. So that does that because he's not sinlessly perfected, because he's saying that I am doing things I don't I know are wrong and are sinful. I can't help myself. Yeah, that means he's not achieved so Paul himself is not even as we continue to talk about that doctrine.

SPEAKER_01

Um I just want to read this passage because it is so I think it just hits home with every believer. Because we've all every single believer has struggled with this. Yes. Like, hey, I got I want to follow Christ with everything in me. But yet, why do I keep doing this thing? Why do I keep getting pulled back into this? Right. Why do I keep seeing that? Why do I keep having these thoughts? Why do I keep having these feelings? And man, it almost makes my eyes water reading it because it is so real for us. But the literary thing is Paul does his thing where he draws our attention with another question. And it looks just like his questions in chapter six. And seven, what's What shall we say? What shall we say then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not. That same line of questioning is that he used it twice in Romans 6, and now he's using it again in Romans 7, and he does that as a literary technique to again draw their attention. Because when Rome is hearing this for the first time, they're not reading it. Somebody's reading it to them. So you got somebody up there that whenever they're saying, asking these questions, what shall we say then? It is drawing their minds.

SPEAKER_00

And they're probably sitting there thinking that actual question, and all of a sudden he drops uh, what shall we say then? They're like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

What we should say if the law is this way, is the law sinful? He's saying, certainly not. Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. So again, Paul's not saying the law is sinful, the level in which they have elevated it has become sinful. Okay, yeah. Because they are relying on it as their master and savior instead of Christ itself.

SPEAKER_02

They would argue that Romans 7 is is Paul's pre-conversion experience, that Paul is describing someone who is not back on it. Yeah. Um, this is But he uses so much present tension. It says Paul cannot mean that this is his present identity as a Christian because in Romans 6 he just said believers have been freed from slavery to sin. So, in the view of sinless perfectionism, perfectionism, reading Romans 7 as Paul's current Christian experience would make Paul contradict himself within a few verses. Um they would also stress the movement from Romans 7 into Romans 8. Romans 7 ends with defeat, who will deliver me from this body of Christ? And then Romans 8 begins. There is therefore no now no condemnation. So they would say Paul is using a literary technique of contrasting pre-salvation, who will rescue me, and he's now going into present salvation. And so that would be their article.

SPEAKER_01

I would say the only way they're able to read that is if they're reading it with the lens of sinful perfectionism. Yeah, sure. If they if you remove that lit, if you just read because I want to read it because I want people to hear it. So it here he says in verse 14, we know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual. Sold as a slave to sin, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me. That is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do. This I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work, although I want to do good, evil is right there with with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death. Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

SPEAKER_02

And they're saying, and and and by the way, this isn't just sinless perfectionism. Wesleyan theology from John Wesley would argue the same thing, that Romans 7, that Paul is using a rhetorical tactic. He's not writing an autobiography, but that the whole point of Romans 7 is to distinguish what he's getting into to Romans 8. So he's using the he's a rhetorician. Rhetorically, Romans 7 is you screaming out for a rescuer prior to salvation. He ends it, the rescuer is Christ. Then Romans 8 is him speaking as a believer, not Romans 7. That would be their argument. And honestly, it's not a terrible argument when you read the contrast going from Romans 7 to Romans 8, that that's what Paul is doing. Um, but again, you're right, we're all presupposing. They're presupposing the lens of, oh, I have to be perfect. We're presupposing, well, of course not, because if we were perfect, then we almost become Jesus ourselves. So it really depends on what lens you're reading that passage through.

SPEAKER_00

I would think that in that whole set of verses, there would have been a slip-up and speak in the past tense. Oh, for sure. But every part of that is present, current. I do. There was no I did. Yeah. No, and I think in there there would have been a past tense somewhere in the middle of the past.

SPEAKER_02

But they would but they would say the rhetorical technique that Paul is using, he would have to use it present tense because he's contrasting someone speaking as someone who needs a rescuer is going to speak in the present tense. And then once the rescuer comes, they would say Paul's tone changes dramatically from Romans 7 to Romans 8. That's that's their argument. I don't think it's good because I don't think Paul's tone changes. Yes, it becomes hopeful, but I don't think I think when he is describing what he hates, he does. I think when you read the other context of Paul's writings, 2 Corinthians, all kinds of different areas, it actually backs up that yes, Paul still would have been struggling with some of these things. So to me, the character of Paul makes sense that Romans 7 is written autobiographically, that he is describing himself in the present tense.

SPEAKER_00

I know in my commentaries they talk about how earlier on, when Paul is first addressing the Gentiles and then the Jews, they called it a diatribe. Where he's just I I need to go look up the definition of a diatribe, but um they're you he's using that form of whatever. Uh but I don't know if that was still going on here in chapter seven or not, where he's Well, so here's here's the here would be the question that they would ask.

SPEAKER_02

How can Paul presently be, quote, sold under sin when he has already said Christians were purchased, liberated, and are no longer slaves to sin?

SPEAKER_00

How would you be able to wrestle with both of those things that Roman says and be able to say that um Well, I wonder if verse 17 starts to explain that because as it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. It's almost like sin is a separate entity that is inside of him that he is fighting against. That now, through Christ, we have been separated from that. We are no under no longer under judgment for the sin we do. And now, but but that doesn't mean it's gone. We still it's still in us because that's our nature that we were born into, and now we're in a battle with it because we now know what it is.

SPEAKER_02

You have the new heart, but you also have the indwelling of sin that still very much exists.

SPEAKER_00

But it is almost like sin is a separate entity or being that lives in you that you are now pushing back against and trying to get rid of completely.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and dead people don't fight sin, living people just fight sin. That's it.

SPEAKER_01

And we're now alive, and our old self is now dead. Yeah, and again, he's he's trying to show them this is why you guys need to follow Christ and not rely on the law. And that's what he goes into because you'll never defeat that sin that lives in you by the law.

SPEAKER_00

It'll only exasperate. Well, that's like this sinful nature, you'll lose every time. You'll lose every time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, if you're relying on the law with this sinful nature, guess what? You're gonna be condemned every single time because you're always gonna fall short. That's why he gets to verse chapter eight, verse one, where then he goes into, therefore there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But we can't talk about that because it's not a good thing. But I am, yeah. But you have to do it because I think it's a trump card to chapter seven. It says, Through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free. And so everything in the argument of chapter seven is building up to that one verse in eight, one, yeah, and then what he's about to explain. But he is trying to show them, hey, when God, when Jesus is your master, even though there is still this sinful nature, still there's sinful thoughts, and yes, it's waging war, guess what? There's no condemnation. But if you rely on the law, you're gonna be condemned by the law for that sinful nature. So he's showing why the better way is to follow Christ. Yeah, and he's gonna be your rescuer.

SPEAKER_02

Philippians three, where he where Paul is again very much, he's not using rhetoric, he's speaking very presently, where he says, he says, presently, I am not yet perfect. I am not perfect. I don't know the exact wording. I I need to uh I think it's Philippians three. I'll I'll look it up. But you could look at other passages where Paul isn't using rhetorical tac tactics, and he very much is still describing himself as someone who is fighting the the the the role that sin has in this world.

SPEAKER_01

So um even the thorn in the flesh, thorn in the flesh, that's what's saying he has that thorn in his flesh that he talks about as a prejudice. I brought that rid of.

SPEAKER_02

I brought that up. They argue God leaves it. They argue that the that Paul never describes his thorn as sinful. It could have been something as simple as a speech impediment.

SPEAKER_00

It's of Satan.

SPEAKER_02

He even says it's of Satan. Well, yeah, but they would say that somebody who um, for example, some people say that Paul was deaf or that Paul um what is it at the end of Galatians when he talks about he almost hints at being having eyesight issues. Well, but no, at the end of Galatians, he talks about that he struggles reading or something on those lines, that that maybe it was his eyesight issue, that in and that it it would be normal for him to say, I'm an apostle of the Lord, and yet my eyesight is failing to blame that on spiritual warfare, to say that that that's Satan and his minions attacking me from spreading, but that that in itself is not sinful. That's what they would argue that 2 Corinthians 12 doesn't say that it is sin that Paul is struggling with. It could simply be an ailment. Philippians 3 12. Um, not that I've already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for Christ which Jesus took hold of me. Um and I think another translation says, um, or that I'm not already perfect. Um the apostle Paul admits he hasn't reached spiritual perfection or his ultimate goal yet. Instead, he continually strives because Christ has already taken hold of him. Um Paul's saying, I'm I haven't arrived. That's basically what he's saying. I'm not there yet, and nor you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and he in all of his letters he talks about the marathon that we're running of perseverance. Continue to keep pressing forward and keep getting closer and closer in your your uh what is it, what do we call that? Our uh oh, I just lost the word, where we are continually pressing and getting better and better at the sanctification process. Thank you. It's a process, yeah, it is not an instant arrival and done, and then we just hang out and wait. No, it's a constant movement towards being more like Christ, knowing that we'll never get there until the day he returns.

SPEAKER_02

So I will say in the last 10-15 minutes, this is the question I want to ask because I think this is when it becomes really important. Why is this belief harmful?

SPEAKER_01

I want to start off why it's false. And then we can go into why it's harmful. I wanted to kind of pull up multiple verses because it's not just Romans that I would say explains that this doctrine is false. So you have Romans 7. So Paul describes this ongoing battle, what we would say with sin. John, um, in John 1, 8 through 10, he even says, if we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Then he'd go on to say, if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar. And so he even includes himself in there as he's writing to believers about that Christians continue to battle sin. He then talks about in Paul talks about in Philippians that sanctification is a like progress. He talks about in Philippians 3. Now, not that I have already obtained this or I'm already perfect, but I pressed the physical. That's the translation I was thinking of. Um Paul there is talking about that he has not attained perfection. So neither have we. And then in Matthew, Jesus, even when he teaches us to pray, what does he say? He says, forgive us of our debts. And I'm guessing that they would argue that that's talking about literal like no, I'm guessing that they would talk about past sins. Yeah. Yeah, not that.

SPEAKER_02

So basically, I'm not sinning anymore, but every time I pray, hey Jesus, I know I've asked for forgiveness 10,000 times for the same sins. Will you please forgive me again?

SPEAKER_01

And then you have a watered-down version of forgiveness. Right. So then why would Jesus, when he teaches disciples to pray, as you were saying, say, when you pray, pray this way.

SPEAKER_02

They're so savvy, I wouldn't be surprised if they would argue, no, he you're literally asking Jesus, forgive me of my credit card. Like I honestly, that's the way like they use scripture and they use words, and you hear that, and you're like, Well, debt, when I think of debt, I think of you know, like what I am. They're very, very slick. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'm gonna see if they're on line or that is a perfect description or definition of the false teachers that Peter and twisted.

SPEAKER_01

A few of these we've already talked about, but just I listed them out. There's even um shows where the Bible says mature believers stumbled or sinned. You you mentioned Peter showed hypocrisy, how Barnabas was led astray. Uh, Paul Paul and Barnabas, I go to Acts 15. It looked like they had a sinful conflict in Acts chapter 15, the Jerusalem Council. And then James even warns believers in the book of James against sins of speech and how they they use their tongues and what they what they say. And so there's just a few times that it shows, like, hey, us, even as mature believers, whatever that is, or people who are in the faith, how we can continue to have this wage of war going on between sin and the flesh. So that's what I would like to I wanted to show. Yeah. So how can this belief of sinless perfectionism to restate your question, Jordan, how's that harmful?

SPEAKER_00

Well, first off, I would feel exhausted because I'm constantly striving for something that I just can't seem to achieve, and that I would just then I'd just feel like, well, I give up. I thought of the treadmill analogy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

How how you you use that one time in a message? Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_02

You're exhausted and the treadmill stops and you realize you haven't moved at all. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And then it's then I'd probably get to the point where I give up because then I'm not going to heaven. Well, if I'm not going to heaven, I just might as well get off the treadmill. Yeah. And then who knows what happens after that. You know, so the life you didn't decide to leave. So it just it's exhausting. And even just the uh your sanctification process can be tiring in itself of just constantly trying to do better and be more like Christ, knowing that's still not an achievable thing, but you're still trying to do better.

SPEAKER_02

And I would say a lot of work. A more common view that even many Baptists hold is the idea that you can lose your salvation. And my biggest objection to denying eternal security is that if you believe, is there anything you can do to earn your salvation? Every Christian should say no. Well, then if there's nothing you can do to earn your salvation, then why would there be something you can do to lose it? Like that's that's the big, like, okay, I gotta wrestle with that. So my my concern with people that deny eternal security is that you're there's you are living by a works-based theology because you're saying that there is something I can do that will relinquish what Jesus stamped in his blood. The same is true for sinless perfectionism. If I believe it is only one sin after salvation that that kicks me out of heaven, what happens inevitably when I do that one sin? It goes back to that same guilt and and and just, oh no, that that that tension that I have and that I certainly had before salvation. So that would be my response.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so and to carry off of that, I think it becomes extremely harmful because you lose your humility. You know, in Philippians, Paul would say, hey, take on the mindset of Christ. And in this, what it looked like, even though he was equal with God, he humbled himself to the point of obedience. And I I think the big part of the Christian walk is humility and being able to say, you know what?

SPEAKER_00

So if you think you've arrived and you're like Christ, you get a little arrogant. Is that what you're getting at?

SPEAKER_01

Well, and that's what like if you're saying, Yeah, I'm sinless, now when you're talking about your salvation, like why are you saved? You say, Oh yeah, Jesus, and because now I am sinless.

SPEAKER_02

Right, you're right, and that's that and that's the question I I encourage everyone, even my students, is the blood of Jesus sufficient for your salvation? If your answer is yes, then that's all, then the blood of Christ covers all. If your answer is that it's insufficient for salvation, then you have a theological error that is going to send you to hell. Like we're literally talking heaven and hell right now.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And but like that's what, like, if you believe in sinless perfectionism, you are the definition of a hypocrite. Definition. We would say, like, yeah, we believe that those things are sin. We're not saying we're better than that. So I'm admitting I'm a hypocrite, and once I admit I'm a hypocrite, what does that not make me anymore? Doesn't make me a hypocrite. And so, like, I understand, like, we are preaching this law, something to abide by, but I also understand that I fall short of it. That's why I'm relying on Jesus every single day. And thanks be to God. And thanks be to God, who continues to deliver me from it.

SPEAKER_02

So then it's hypocritical. And I so I'll say this and then I'll let you talk. So I didn't say this in my sermon. And I almost did before they blocked me this this channel. Um Everybody chuckled at it. Yeah. One of the last things they asked me though, because we're going back at it for and I can tell they're getting very frustrated, right? Um talking to you? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. They're getting very frustrated. I can't imagine. Right before they blocked me, I wish this would have been recorded. Right before they blocked me, the the guy, he just shakes his head and he asks, Are you stupid? Oh wow. And I said, You just send. And then they blocked me. So I was like, that would, you know, and so like even in that, I'm like, you guys are sending in your TikTok live. Wow. Um and so, but you're absolutely right. It's like rules for thee, but not for me. The idea of hypocrisy is funny. You are you are really projecting, like, okay, um, I'm different. I I'm I'm not the same as everybody else. And so, yeah, it is. It's a hypocritical mindset.

SPEAKER_01

You literally become a Pharisee. Yes, it literally will become a side.

SPEAKER_02

It is phariseu, it is a phariseutical mindset.

SPEAKER_00

But anyway, Jordan, you're about to say, I was gonna ask you, did they ever anybody bring up the okay, so I sin again, do I then need to go through the process of accepting Christ back in my heart and going through baptism again and again every time I sin?

SPEAKER_02

That's and that's the question I always ask people that's that that believe you can lose your salvation. Okay, well, then I I always joke, someone that loses their salvation at some point in their life, they become, they they would say, I am a born again, born again, born again, born again, born again, born again, born again Christian Christian. And I am a new, new, new, new, new, newer, newest, new. Because every Saturday that I go to the bar I lose my salvation. And then Sunday morning I accept him again. And it's like, you your whole life is you renouncing and then accepting Christ. And you how exhausting would that be, right?

SPEAKER_01

I'd say the other two things that are harmful is if that's what you truly believe, that if you are there, then then you are sinless. That means you are justifying your sin as okay. Well, no, because they would say you're not justifying anything because the sin is absent. But I exactly, but that means when they sin, they're saying that's not a sin. They're saying that it is okay. Unless they are still sinning.

SPEAKER_02

Unless they're intellectually honest and they would say, Oh no, I'm not saved.

SPEAKER_01

Just like them saying you are stupid. Are you stupid? And the answer is no. Well, they would they would say, you know what, that's okay, because that wasn't a sin. Because I can't sin. Because they are saying they cannot since they are Christians.

SPEAKER_02

They would say Jesus flipped Jesus had a righteous anger. He flipped tables. They would say them asking me that is righteous anger.

SPEAKER_01

Right. So they justify what we know is a sin. They are justifying it because they don't view it as a job.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah. No, they put themselves right back at Jesus because Jesus didn't sin.

SPEAKER_01

So that means whatever they do, they're going to find a way to justify it to show, like, oh, this is why I'm not sinning. They they will find a way to do it. So that's the other harmful thing about it is that they're justifying their sin.

SPEAKER_02

And that's true in all in all sin. Even like we talked about the Mormons and we did that podcast. And Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith did all these terrible things. He had a 14-year-old wife, he did this and that. Yeah, but he was a prophet, and so therefore, you know, and then you fit it into that where no matter what Joseph Smith would have done, well, it's okay because of this, this, and this.

SPEAKER_01

So we've called out First Baptist Church in Columbia for being heretical. We did that last week. We haven't got any bad leverage. We we are calling out the Nazarene church, Wesleyan churches for being heretical because of sinless perfectionism. And now, let's just make it clear, you're now also calling out the Mormon church for being heretical.

SPEAKER_02

So I'm trying to see how many The Mormons were like a week away from excommunicating me because I preached at a Baptist church.

SPEAKER_01

I'm trying to see how many podcast episodes we can make it where you call out the Mormon church.

SPEAKER_02

Uh yeah. Well, listen, like 10. Listen, I think uh my name isn't they the Salt Lake City headquarters, they've got a picture of me like baby. Yeah. Um but list. But you know, and it's funny, like going back to the the whole Mormon, like it's the same idea of when you are on that treadmill of what do I have to do to be good enough. And the whole point of the law, again, it's the smoke detector, beep, beep, beep, there's a problem. You're not good enough, you're unrighteous. And so, um, man, when you put that merit on yourself, you're always gonna fail.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and that's so brings me to the next reason this is harmful, is it hurts the witness of the body of Christ and the church. Because then if you are a hypocrite going around saying that you are sinless and everybody sees that sin in you, then guess what? You're not gonna be reaching those people for Christ. So it is actually becoming harmful in how we reach people, but I think you just hit on the greatest harm that it has is that individual are they actually going to heaven?

SPEAKER_02

Or yeah, I think it I think it absolutely has salvific consequences. Absolutely. Yeah. If you get to heaven and your account to to God is that you were perfect after salvation, man. Going to heaven, why?

SPEAKER_01

Because Jesus and I was sinless, baby.

SPEAKER_00

It's like Jesus did not sin, nor did I. So I another question I'm a curiosity I have of these folks is the I you know, it's one thing with actions. Most of the time you can you can get pretty good with actions and how you treat people and being careful what you say. But how do they deter how do they uh temper their thoughts? The thoughts are always the things that are going to get us. So you can live as great on the external as possible. But how do are they saying did any of them did you ever ask them, okay, so did you ever look at somebody and go, ooh, they're pretty. Well, that's in the and I think Luke said it. Thoughts are the things that are really gonna get you.

SPEAKER_02

If your presupposition is that you can't sin, then anything you do cannot be a sin. So this is maybe a bad analogy, but let's say I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm immune to cancer. I have some gene, some cell that doctors found and they say it is literally impossible for you to get cancer. If I get a lump in my throat that by all accounts feels like cancer, looks like cancer, but I know I can't get cancer, what am I going to do? I'm going to explain that and say, it's a lymph node problem, it's a it's it's strep throat, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt it cannot be cancer. That's what they would do with sin. So if something happens in their mind or in their heart, they have to figure that out on their own, but they know it can't be since I'm saved.

SPEAKER_01

That's why they just they justify it. And that's what I was trying to say earlier. Is even when they sin, now, since they don't believe that's a possibility, they're gonna justify it and make it sound like it's okay.

SPEAKER_02

Which is again, definitionally what a hypocrite is. Yes.

SPEAKER_00

But talk about just I mean, kidding yourself isn't even you are just I mean, you're sinning it in the self that you're lying to yourself. And it that's it's sinning in itself, I guess. It's uh that's insane.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'm I I'm trying to tell somebody. So what would you tell somebody by conscience? That's no conscience.

SPEAKER_02

And they're not online. I would love to bring them up on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01

So what are what would you tell the people that are listening to these TikTok preachers or to people going to a Westland church or Church of Nazarene where these beliefs are present? What what would you encourage them to do?

SPEAKER_02

I would say please don't misunderstand us. Don't don't hear that we're saying that when you become a Christian, your sinful lifestyle should be the exact same. Because again, Jesus says go and sin no more. That is absolutely in Scripture. And I have no doubt he was telling that woman, hey, you are now born again, the life that you were living, you are now dead to that life. And so don't misunderstand that that we we agree the new creation should be utterly different than the old creation. But with that being said, if you elevate yourself, and this is the issue with all bad theology, usually the center of it is man elevating himself, that the whole basis of Christianity and the whole basis of the new covenant is not elevating yourself to God, but God actually taking a step down to you. And so understand that your theology isn't you trying to get here, and that's most world religions. How do I get to Godhood? Right? The whole Mormon church basis of I get to be a God in the next life, I get to have my own planet, me and my wife will rule and all of that stuff. The idea of if I keep doing good, I'm eventually going to get here. But Jesus was so counter-cultural and contradicted every religious thought is to say, you will never get here, which is why I'm going to step down and I'm going to meet you where you're at.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I think that's a beautiful way to put it. When you were talking, the only thing that came to mind was the prodigal son. Yeah. Right. And you and although we do not become sinless, we will start sinning less. Yes. Right, whenever we start following Christ. But how God views us is through the lens of Jesus. And that does is what makes us seem as if we are.

SPEAKER_02

And as someone who believes in eternal security, once saved, always saved, I always say it's not about where the prodigal son went, it's where he ended up. It's where he ended up. And that's that's that's the key.

SPEAKER_01

When he came home, his clothes were dirty, they were ripped, they had holes. It represented all of his sinful nature that he had been outdoing with his dad's money. But what did the dad do? He came home. He welcomed him. And threw a party. But before he even threw the party, what did he throw on him? Yeah. His robe. The robe and the sandwiches. Why? Because he wanted everybody to see him not as his sinful son, but as his holy son.

SPEAKER_02

And it was cold out. He never ceased, it could have been cold too. But he never ceased. Even when he was running around in pig manure, he never ceased being the son. And we, even in our chapters of people that say, Well, I've backslidden, or you know, I haven't been to church in years, or I haven't prayed in so long, you know what? When you accepted Christ, you became a son of the son. You became a child of God in that moment. And even in your chapters of running around in pig manure, because we all have those chapters, we all have those moments, that the moment you decide to step back into the Father's presence, he is going to throw a party and celebrate that you are back to where you need to be. So let's be clear.

SPEAKER_01

The Bible tells us to call out false teaching. Yes. James Tallerico, false teaching, heresy. First Baptist Church Columbia, false teaching, heresy. Mormons. What was the name? Great people. False religion.

SPEAKER_02

Flamey Grant. Flame Grant Grant. I don't know if she's a heretic or not. Or he. I don't know. Um I sent you the I sent you the picture of Lincoln. Wow.

SPEAKER_01

Um but yeah. Mormons, false teaching, heresy. Uh the doctrine of sinless perfectionism.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, and false teaching, yeah, heresy. And here's the thing. And you hear that like, wow, you guys are holier than thou. Some of the most genuine loving people I've I know have taught heretical beliefs. Like, we're not saying like we're better than you because you're teaching this and we don't think that's true. It all goes back to scripture.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And so that's really where, and that goes back to sola scriptura. This is our final authority. When you leave that authority and when you start inserting yourself into the text and trying to twist and maneuver, now we've got a problem. It doesn't matter about my merit, your merit, their merit. It's about the word of God and how we are able to read the word of God and understand what is being said in this passage.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, don't be mad at me. Be mad at Paul.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I'm just reading what Paul said. Exactly. Yeah. So it's good stuff. Good stuff. Well, my favorite chapter. My favorite chapter in the entire Bible is what we start next week. Romans 8. Romans 8. Absolutely. Yeah. So don't mess it up.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I'm only preaching a half of it. So if I do bad, then whoever preaches the week after me will start with it. I thought you were doing three in a row. I was going to, and uh, we haven't even talked to you about this. Yeah, I know. Oh. Bottom line is Roger, we set this standard.

SPEAKER_01

We set this standard when Roger was gone of ending on time. And his first week back, he ruined all the hard work we put into of ending on time when it came to the book.

SPEAKER_02

So first service I was out at 10 o'clock on the dots.

SPEAKER_01

I didn't notice. 1001? 1001. I thought it was 10. So after all this standard that I've said, you came out late. First service.

SPEAKER_02

See, I didn't listen to you last month because I was going to other churches. Did you actually get out on time? I did. Every week.

SPEAKER_01

At least one. Gabe did. Nonsense.

SPEAKER_02

At least one. That was nonsense. I know I did.

SPEAKER_01

The week Jordan preached, Gabe did, and I had one week that I got out on time. And so we set a standard. So I'm getting punished for my 1001.

SPEAKER_00

How many weeks were you gone? Do the math. There was been one week that he did not. Yeah, I believe that.

SPEAKER_01

Honestly, we batted 500 while you were gone.

SPEAKER_02

That's pretty good. Listen, my sermon, that's all of fame. The sermon yesterday was like 37 minutes. It was like a Roger sermon. So I think I'm fine. And it's been a while. You need to lock it in. I know. I gotta do better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So are you saying I'm on the second half of eight? No, I think so. No, I'll be back. You're back. Yeah. I'm back. Yeah. I thought you were you were saying something like we haven't talked to you about this.

SPEAKER_02

No, I called Luke this week. Now we're just talking about uh interpersonal pastor stuff. What else we got on our list? Uh no. One of us, one of us three will preach. Let's podcast our afternoon meeting. Everybody's already stopped listening. Listen, they've they've already tuned into another podcast. Well, hey, thanks for joining us as always. We'll be uh in Romans 8 on Sunday, Luke's favorite uh chapter, and uh it's a very good chapter. So see you Sunday, as always. Uh if you haven't, we've we never say this. If you haven't subscribed, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_01

How many uh what are we at? We're almost at a a million? Is that how close we are?

SPEAKER_02

I uh now I gotta share a quick story. I was I was at my buddy Clint's house uh and he's his little daughter Geordie, she's you know, she's young, but she what they what you know, kids watch YouTube. Yeah, and so she, you know, she's young, she's like an ad, but she's running around the house and she's saying, like and subscribe, like because all of these YouTube videos that they watch, every video they start out, hey, make sure you like and subscribe. And so now the kids are just repeating it ad nauseum.

SPEAKER_00

So I mean, I know it's not a million, but man, I have a lot of people tell me that they enjoy the podcast.

SPEAKER_01

We had somebody start coming to church with us, and they're like, and we're like, hey, what brought you? They're like, we listen to the podcast every week, and I'm like, And I'm like, no way. And you still chose to come to church. How about that? Yeah, we need to get some merch, so like people that listen to. Don't get a big head. We can start getting a good thing. We can't get how many? We don't get a big head.

SPEAKER_00

How many do we have? Did you look it up?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we got uh 12. Oh wow!

SPEAKER_01

Get us to 2,000.

SPEAKER_02

Isn't that that's like 10% eleven? Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, how about that? All right, how about that? Hey, thanks for joining us. Subscribe, like if you don't subscribe, that's fine. But uh, we will see you on Sunday, and as always, make heaven crowded.