Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians. This is Theology Q and A podcast.
I'm Pastor Brian Wolfmuller, St. Paul and Jesus staff. Lutheran churches in Austin, Texas, joined by, as always, Pastor Andrew Packer, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I heard a rumor about you, and that is that next Sunday, you're feeling so energetic. Now, after Holy Week next year, you're going to add more services to the Holy Week thing. Trying to get 20, 21 services during the week. Is that true? Let's.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Let's do it again. No one will be there. But we do it the Sunday after Easter. Always like, you know, the joke is it's. It's called Low Sunday or whatever because the crowds have gone away. It's much lower.
So I don't know. It's always kind of a weird Sunday because you're like, man, last Sunday was so awesome. You think people want to come back for more? And then you're like, nope, a lot of them decided not to. Decided not to stick around.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: He is risen indeed.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Hallelujah.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Thousand 993 years ago. The resurrection of our Lord Jesus, which is so beautiful to think about. That's awesome that it's a true thing. I. I was, I had the math wrong a couple of weeks ago. I was a year ahead. But if we put the, the death and resurrection of Jesus in 33, that's a good date. I, I think we'll stick with that. And that reminds us that we're. This is a real thing. And at the deaf church, I was reminded about this, that the first Easter was not a joyful one. At least it was a day of confusion for the Christians. I mean, Jesus was pretty happy about things, but his happiness is in contrast with like this great confusion, sadness, hopelessness. Remember on the way to Emmaus, we had hoped that he was going to be the one, but all that was lost. But then after, I mean, it's just a celebration of pure joy because that victory that Jesus has over death is also for us, which is just as great. So.
So in the light of the resurrection, we're answering questions. What do you got for us?
[00:02:05] Speaker B: This is a fun one and it's very short and to the point is once saved, always saved, really, in the Bible?
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Answer no.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Next question.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Yeah, you. This is. It's probably the. Once saved, always saved is a. It's kind of a cash phrase that is coming out of Calvinism. It's the what? It's the P in the tulip. The perseverance of the saints. Do.
Do you think if we're if there's some really fancy Calvinists watching this, they're going to say, no, perseverance of the saints is different than once saved, always saved.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Yes, they will. Yeah, they would say so I would say they would say that, that Baptists and some others like, I think they would even say non reformed Baptists would say they hold the things like once saved, always saved. Whereas they would distinguish perseverance of the saints because they would say someone who, so in their understanding of things, they would say someone who doesn't persevere was never really saved to begin with.
Right. So there would be a distinction there which we would disagree with. But they would say they were never really saved to begin with. That's why they didn't persevere.
But so they wouldn't say, you know the guy who like prayed the sinner's prayer when they were like 10 years old and now they're fornicating and drunk all the time and reject Jesus. They wouldn't look at that guy and say, well, once saved, always saved. They would say as of right now, like he didn't persevere. So he, he was never a Christian, you know. Now of course he could repent and turn back, but I think they would, they would approach it that way. So I think they would just distance themselves from once saved, always saved.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: It's interesting. I, I, so we, we can, I think we can, we can from our angle, address both of them. The same Bible passages are actually gonna address both of those differences. I've been, it's, remember in evangelicalism there's this question, are you Calvinist or are you Arminian? In other words, and that's the question, what is your doctrine of the role of the will in salvation?
And Calvinism rejects the freedom of the will to choose and believe in Christ, which we do as well. Arminianism says, no, no, your will is free to accept. So they have a free will theology. What's so interesting to me is that American evangelicalism and also the Southern Baptist Church, etc, the kind of classic altar call churches, their roots are Calvinistic, denying the role of the will of salvation. But then layered on top of it is this second Great Awakening revivalism where you have Charles Finney who absolutely asserted the freedom of the will and like took it all the way. But you have this kind of, you have some remnants of Calvinism with this layer of revivalism over the top of it. And so the once saved, always saved is a rejection of free will theology. But making a decision for Christ is the assertion of free will theology. So those in. I think in evangelicalism, you get the once saved, always saved, which is a. It's kind of a strange thing. In Calvinism, the perseverance of the saints, at least, is more consistent kind of with their sort of theological thing. But both of them are wrong.
Just because the Bible talks about falling away from the faith. I think the clearest example.
Well, there's a handful of. I mean, Paul says, he who thinks he stands, beware lest he fall.
It talks about those who made shipwreck of their faith. Paul writes about that at the end of Philippians. I think the clearest example is when Jesus is explaining the parable of the sower, and he talks about the seed that falls amongst the weeds.
And he says, let's see, I'm looking at Matthew 13:20. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.
For he has no root in himself, but endures only for a little while.
When tribulation or persecution because of the Word arises, immediately he stumbles.
This is so great.
So, I mean, it's terrible that it happens, but it's just this explanation. He believes for a while, and then his faith is choked out and destroyed.
And so this is Jesus example of a person who is a Christian, and then for one reason or another or another, and there's really two reasons.
That faith, which is always under attack, is lost and is destroyed, and they no longer believe and they're no longer saved.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Can I tell you a great story about that parable?
I know, it's great. I think it's great. So when I was in Pagosa, and I won't use the guy's name because very few people would figure this out, but there's a pastor of what's called the Cowboy church. Are you familiar with that denomination?
[00:07:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Okay. So I met him one time at a thing, and he's like, oh, you're Lutheran. They're really good on long gospel.
And I was kind of shocked because, like, who says that? Right? Like, I meet lots of people who have no idea what we believe. And he's talking about long gospel. So he calls me up one day and says, can I meet with you? I'm like, sure. So he comes in my office and says, look, my church basically teaches once saved, always saved. But I'm reading the Bible and I just. I'm not sure that can be true. Can you help me? So I go to that parable and walk him through it, and he's like, yeah, I don't think I can believe this anymore. So he takes his church out of that denomination.
Like, they leave it because he doesn't think it's in line with the Bible. Now, I don't know if he ended up where on the road he ended up, as far as where he ended up fitting in, but he was really wrestling with the Bible and the clear teaching of the Bible. And it's just like, I can't do this. And I was super impressed because not many guys are willing to tell their church, look, our domination is wrong in this, and they won't let us hold this position. We're going to have to leave.
And it was after we had talked about that parable where he's like, yeah, man, this is just, this is so clear.
He left my office and within a few months, his church was no longer part of that denomination. It's crazy.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's great. I mean, it's, it's bad that there's people who believe it, but they.
I don't know. It's, it's, it's. It's a weird doctrine because it does two things. I mean, and this is.
Here's a good place to track this down.
It's on our Lutheran Confessions, the formula of concord, talking about the doctrine of election.
And they say that the Word always does two things. It casts down pride. You can't just do whatever you want.
And it lifts up despair.
You can't lose confidence in the Lord's mercy.
And they apply that to the Calvinistic doctrine of election, this idea that, that the Lord has determined who to save and who not to, and says the only two results from thinking about that is pride. On the one hand, I am the elect. I can do what I want, or despair. On the other hand, I'm not the elect. I. There's nothing I can do to help. And that. So their doctrine can't be true because of those things. The same critique comes to the doctrine of once saved, always saved. I mean, it's precisely the same critique, because once saved, always saved, it's going to let me say, oh, I can do whatever I want. I can't lose it, or, or despair. I can't get in there.
And so because of the danger of the doctrine, because of the fruit of it, it has to be rejected. Now, the reason why it's tempting. I mean, okay, on the other hand, this. And it's not really another hand, but it's to get the fullness of what's in the Scripture. The Lord does not want us to go about worried that our salvation is lost. Like, where did I put my salvation? I just had it right here, you know, like, honey, have you seen my salvation? I mean, this is not the idea. And we have these promises that Jesus gives.
I'll keep those who the Father has given me. Not one will be lost except the Son of perdition. You know, the Lord can keep us, he can hold us, he can save us through all the troubles of this life so that we can have the confidence that we belong to him, that we're His. But that confidence is repentance. It's never apart from repentance. It's never apart from knowing our sin and knowing Christ our Savior. And the way that the devil can knock us around, can push us away from our salvation, is pushing us away from repentance. Again, pride and despair, those are the two alternatives. So Paul talks about how if you're going to be made perfect through your works, you've fallen from grace.
So we can fall from grace by excess sin, just unrepentant, licentious, whatever life. We can fall from grace also by starting to trust in our good works and that we don't need the Lord's mercy. That's what Paul's talking about there in Galatians.
So if we remain in. If. If we, by the Word and Spirit remain in repentance, a knowledge of our sin and a confidence in Christ that our salvation is secure.
And we're not supposed to be nervous or anxious about it, but to live in fear, love and trust in God alone. This is pretty important.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: I think it was a mutual father in the faith we both have. Professor Pless, who put it. I don't know if we quote exact, but basically, like, what. What they're really offering is a false security. And what we really want to give sinners is assurance of salvation. Like, those are two different. Two different things, right? The one saved, always saved is like this false security. Like, well, I did this thing 20 years ago, so even now. And it also gives, like, parents and grandparents, all kinds of people false security, right? Like, well, little Johnny prayed that prayer when he was five. Yeah. Like, he says he's an atheist, but once saved, always saved. I know he prayed that prayer.
It just leads you to a lot of bad places.
It just messes people up so bad. I've seen it time and time again where there's this false hope when there's evidence, tons of evidence to the contrary that they actually care about Jesus or confess anything, and yet they'll cling to like, well, they said this in his prayer in like 1995, therefore it's done. It's like, well, that's not, that's not really how any of this works.
And that's the danger that I see constantly with. Once saved, always saved is just this false security people have, which like you said, is. That's pride, right? False security is just pride.
Like, oh, I must be saved because I did this thing. Therefore nothing's going to change that, no matter what I do or say or how I live or whatever.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: I just looked up can I lose my salvation? Wolf Mueller on the Internet and found the notes that I have for this and I want to make and two things real quick. So first I read from Matthew 13, it would be really good to cross reference the explanation of the parable from Luke 8:13, which. That's where the phrase comes in. These have no root. They believe for a while and then in a time of testing fall away. So that believe for a while is really important. The last thing is that, well, people say, well look, okay, this doesn't make any sense because either we have a free will so that we can be saved or not, or if we don't have a free will, then how can I lose it? It doesn't make any sense.
And this is only a half step away from the crux theologorum, this great question, why some are saved and not others.
And the answer is don't know. In fact, it's not only the answer is not only we don't know, but it's that we can't know, or that faith requires that we must not know. Even so, there's three things that the Bible teaches. Number one, salvation is by grace through faith, grace alone, that God is the only one who converts and saves. Number two, that God's grace is universal, that the Father desires all to be saved, that the Son died for all people, that the Holy Spirit is calling all the salvation. And third, not everybody is saved.
And those three things just don't fit together in our own minds. So we just have to let them all stand. We have to worship God. Calvinism tries to answer the contradiction by taking away universal grace and making grace limited only to the elect.
That goes against the Scripture. The free will theologians try to try to take away the problem by eliminating grace alone and making us cooperate with the Lord and salvation. That also goes against the Scripture. The universalists try to make it fit by removing condemnation and hell altogether. That goes against the Scripture. So we have to let all three of those doctrines stand and Simply worship God, who gives us all three of these for our assurance, like you said, and for our comfort.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: All right, are you ready for the next question?
[00:15:23] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Give me one second. All right.
Is everyone a Christian until they reject the gift?
All right, now this is. This is coming from a listener from New Zealand.
And I followed up to make sure I understood the question. So I do understand the question now. So here it goes.
Based on what they've heard us say that he's heard us say on. On our. On various answering questions, things like that, especially one recently on salvation.
If their understanding of what we've said is that faith is a gift given to all, and so that it's only must be a deliberate rejection of that gift that a person's no longer redeemed. So basically, what he's heard us saying is faith is given is a gift, and everybody gets it.
And then some people reject that gift. So when they reject that gift now, they're not a Christian.
So that's how he's understanding things that have been said. So how would you clear that up for.
For him?
Is that. Is that the proper understanding of what you've said?
[00:16:33] Speaker A: So let me just adjust. This is the New Zealand cam.
Down in Australia. You guys can see us, right? This probably was the confusion is that you were seeing us.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Someone. Someone's gonna. Someone's gonna be up late at night and have this on, and they're gonna be very confused what is happening.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: There was a clock that was upside down the other day, and I said, no, no, it's. It's just on Australia time.
I thought that was the funniest joke I've ever made, so.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Great dad joke.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you. I think the way to think about that. Let's. What if we do this, we want to kind of just set.
Set the whole stage properly.
So first, we're all conceived and born in sin.
So we are by nature. This is what Paul says in Ephesians 2. We are by nature children of wrath.
And so. So that means that.
That no one starts as a Christian. All start as captive to sin, death and the devil. All are children of Adam.
This is the. This is the nature into which we are conceived. The Lord has to convert us. He has to give us new birth. And the way that that new birth comes is through the Word or through the water in the Word. So we can look at. At John 3:5 and Titus 3:5 and see that water washing of regeneration that comes through the water in the Word. That's the gift of baptism. Or we can look at first Peter 1 or James 1 and see that that same new birth comes through the Word.
So, so those who who hear and believe are saved. Salvation has to happen to you.
It's not us. You, it's something and it's. And it has to happen by the explicit act of God, not only in dying and rising again finished, but also in the Holy Spirit, who creates and sustains faith in a person by the preaching of the Word. Faith comes by hearing. So that's Romans 10:17. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Now, according to our bondage in sin and our nature as sinners, we can listen to the Word of God.
We can put ourselves in places to hear the Word of God. We can actually physically wake up on Sunday morning and walk to church and sit there and give our attention to the preaching. But we cannot make ourselves believe or trust in this promise.
Our sinful, fallen nature is unbelieving.
It cannot do anything else. I suppose it can choose different ways of unbelieving, but all it can do is unbelieve.
And so faith has to come as a gift. This also is Ephesians 2, which is going to be probably the place to look for all this. By grace you're saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God so that the Lord, the Holy Spirit, gives faith through the preaching of the Word. He takes our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. He makes, as Augustine said, the unwilling, willing.
So he converts our our hearts and our wills and our minds. Now here's where we run up to the thing that we just had in the last question.
Because if all we can do is unbelieve and the Holy Spirit is always calling by the Gospel and enlightening by his promise and by His Word, then why does it happen that some hearts are successful in resisting the Holy Spirit and others are not?
Or some hearts are crushed by the Holy Spirit and brought to faith and then later are successful in rejecting it? There.
Now that's maybe slightly a different question, because we do have some degree of freedom after we are Christians and that factors in there. But in that first case, why, if our sinful hearts can only reject the Word of God, why does this sinful heart which rejects the Word of God end up being called and enlightened? And that sinful heart that doesn't reject the Word of God come called and enlightened.
What's the difference there? And some people say, well, you can't choose to be a believer, but you can choose to not reject it. And I want to say that's just the same thing. It's just, that's like the free will back door instead of the free. It's like you let faith in the back door instead of letting faith in the front door.
You cannot do any, there's nothing in you that contributed to your salvation.
Now you say then, well that doesn't make sense. And the answer is right, that doesn't make sense.
There's no solving this problem. As we discussed in the previous question, there's these doctrines that the Bible had just put forward and it just lets us rest. The closest we can get is this.
If we are saved, all glory for that saving work belongs to God.
Even for giving us faith, all glory belongs to God.
If we are damned, all the credit glory belongs to us.
We did it ourselves and it was our free will that caused us to be condemned.
But again, that doesn't solve the problem. It, it just is an assertion of the biblical doctrine for this thing. I don't know if that's helpful for the question. I mean it's a long way of answering. Well, it's not what you said we taught, but it's different than that. But it's also somewhat mysterious.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: How would you, I think maybe the follow up question would be then, because this is one we get all the time, right?
Maybe not from that particular person, but we get it a lot. What, what then do you say about those who have never heard the gospel?
What about the person who grew up in some tribe in Africa and they've never heard, they never heard the gospel?
Where, what do we do about them? Right, that's usually the next question.
[00:22:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I think three things. So I want to say this. First, that every family on earth has heard the gospel.
So for every person, if you go back in your family tree long enough, you'll get to someone who was a Christian.
So I think this is, this is an important picture. We have this kind of evolutionary view of the world with the people for, you know, hundreds of thousands of years separate, etc, every, if you go back far enough, every person has someone in their family who heard the gospel and so that the Lord has not left himself without witness that, so this is true. Now how that gospel gets kind of carried on through the, through the stories and lineages and histories of these people. There were some of these amazing stories and I, I need to track this down. I haven't done it, but some of the missionaries that were going out to very remote places a hundred years ago and finding people and they would show up and they'd start preaching and, well, I mean, sometimes they'd get eaten, which is brutal. But other times the people would say, oh, that's his name, Jesus. We had forgotten. Like this, like that. We, like. We held onto that for so long. So can the Lord preserve the preaching of the Gospel in these very, very isolated places?
Seemingly so. In fact, you get a little hint of. Of this. Of the miraculous nature of the Lord making himself known to all peoples at Pentecost. When, for example, I believe the Hittites are listed amongst the people gathered there at Pentecost. And the Hittites hadn't existed for centuries. Which is this, like. It's this little hint that the Holy Spirit can get the word two places.
And. And that's his work and that's his business. The old Lutherans used to talk about that the universal grace should be understood according to all three persons of the Holy Trinity. That the Father desires the salvation of all people. That the Son has accomplished the atoning work for all people. He's died for all the sins of the world. And that the Holy Spirit is calling all people through the gospel.
Now all of. All we know and all we can see is the visible church and the preaching of the gospel that's happening there.
And that's our business to be con. To be concerned with that, to make sure the Gospel is preached to the ends of the earth and to do all that we can to see that that happens. If the Lord wants to, in some ways, you know, take a Stephen and take him to the Ethiopian eunuch on the road and zap him back, then the Lord can. He can do that. And we trust that He. He will do that because he doesn't want to leave himself with a. Without witness.
So there won't be anybody on the judgment day that can. On the day that the Lord will judge the world according to my gospel. Remember how Paul says that there'll be no one on that day who can stand up and say, objection, I never heard that Gospel. There's. There's going to be no.
There's going to be no injustice that can be given to God on the judgment day, even if he's judging according to the gospel.
Now, how that'll be again, we don't know, but we do. Oh, and this is maybe the main point. There's three times in Paul where he will talk about how the gospel has gone into all the world already.
Now, this is important for two reasons. Number one, because it's the exact words that Jesus uses in Matthew 24:4 where he says the. The gospel go into all the world and then the Son of Man will return.
So the, the. The universal preaching of the gospel, the cosmic, complete cosmic preaching of the gospel to all the cosmic. It's cosmos that, that is a condition of the second coming. And Paul says check. It's happened. Now how do we. But, but this is also important for this. Like how do we confess that that's. That the Gospel's been preached into all, all the world? Well we just have to confess it. We might not understand how it worked logistically, but we, but we confess that that's the case so that again he's not left without witness.
I'm going to find that verse in Colossians while you, while you explain your furrowed brow at me.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: No, I was getting ready for the next question because I was looking at the time.
Where do you think Romans 1 fits in with. With that? Then that's my follow up question. Because Romans 1 seems to indicate that even if even the gospel hasn't been preached somewhere that there's enough evidence in creation itself that there is a God that he has powerfully created. And yet they still rejected the true God and worship creation instead.
Like Paul seems to set up there that there's enough quote unquote natural knowledge of God available for anyone to realize that there is this one true God. Not now, obviously not. Christ is not revealed there. And Paul doesn't say that, but he says there's enough. And yet even with all that they're given, they reject that in their sin and worship the creation rather than creator. But they can't say you didn't give us any information.
Paul says it's all around you and you rejected it. Still you had that proof and you didn't, you didn't want anything to do with him.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: 100 so that again there's. If it doesn't matter how the Lord judges on the last day, if the Lord says you didn't believe the gospel, okay, guilt and those who are condemned by that. Agreed. Also you didn't do what was right even according to what you knew was right.
Also guilty as charged. In other words, it does for those who are condemned and they are going to be guilty on no matter what scale is used.
So if you say hey, you didn't believe the gospel and maybe people say well we didn't understand the gospel, we didn't get the gospel, or we didn't hear it clearly say okay, well fine, what standard do you want?
Even the standard that you use to Judge other people. You're even guilty by that standard, which leads to this kind of amazing. I mean, you knew enough, everybody knows enough to be guilty.
[00:29:07] Speaker B: Be.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: It's pretty amazing. It's. Someone told me this. Could you imagine that if you're like your whole life you had one of those. Well, they have them now, those little AI speaker things, right, that you can. That like, listens to all your conversations and then tells you what you're supposed to do.
And imagine if you had that and it recorded every time you condemned someone or judged someone because of some. Because of something. And it aggregated your own standard that you used to judge people and then you had to be judged on the last day according to your own standard.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: So there's this great.
There's this great sci fi short story where everyone ends. It's the future. Everyone ends up with this device that records everything that they do in a day. Kind of like a police body cam. But it's for everybody, for them all the time, right?
And this dad, uh, he didn't have. He had lost whatever. Some files got corrupted of this interaction he had with his daughter years ago. And in his mind he remembered everything being her fault. She's the one that blew up at him, all this stuff, right? So in his memory, like, she's the bad guy. She did it all wrong. He's justified himself.
Well, by the end of the story, you find out that, no, like the daughter, he's the one who blew up at the daughter. The awful vicious things he remembers the daughter saying. He said them to her, and she still has a recording of it, like it's on her camera. And so he watches it and he's like devastated because he's for years made himself the victim of his wife, his daughter, all these people, it's everybody else's fault. I'm not at fault. And then he watches it and he's just like undone because he realizes, like, he's the bad guy. Like, he's the one who. He's the one who's guilty. It's not her. Anyways, it's kind of. Kind of an amazing story because it's. It's all of us, right? We all do that all the time.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: There's a few verses. I found the verses, by the way, so Colossians 1:6. First he says with verse five, because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you have heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which has come to you as it has also in all the world. And Is bringing forth fruit also has it against you. That's verse six. And then verse 23, it says, if indeed you continue in the faith, grace grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.
So that universal preaching of the gospel is.
And there's. I can't remember the other verses too, but there's a handful of verses you can track down. Ephesians 3, it's given me as a cross reference. I think Paul talks about the same in Romans. This idea that the gospel has been preached in all the world already, at least. So some people are like, we have to wait for that to happen before Jesus can come. No, this is. All these promises are fulfilled already. And.
And. And what we should do. Someone says, hey, what about the person that never heard the gospel? Well, show them to me so I can preach the gospel.
But it's always this thing, too. What about the people that never heard? And it's like, well, look, the Lord is dealing with you because you have heard. Now let's do. Let's just work on that there. So.
All right, we got to do lightning round for the next questions, huh? We gotta.
[00:32:20] Speaker B: No, we're just gonna keep going. All right, the next question is a more personal question.
What are you afraid of?
So, as a pastor, what keeps you up at night? As a husband father, what are your fears?
And how do you reconcile this with Lutheranism?
We can. The last one's pretty easy. We. We have to repent, but that's how we reconcile these fears. We have to repent of them. But. But. So what are you afraid of? As a pastor, what keeps you up at night? As a husband father, what are your fears?
[00:32:50] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, fear, for me, it's like a. It's a creepy thing. So it's like it sneaks in and it builds up before I notice it. And then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, I'm afraid of that. And how it shows up for me is some like, you know, how anxiety. I don't know how anxiety hits you, but it's. It's like all of a sudden you just. You're like. It's like that kind of in your gut, like this sort of shaking kind of. And I'm like, oh, I'm afraid of that thing.
I don't know what the. I'm afraid. I suppose a lot of. I guess a lot of my fears would have to do with failing in my own Calling to which the Lord has appointed to me.
You know, always the Christian fears that their children won't hold on to the. To the faith. Their grandchildren won't hold on to the faith that this is. That's the. The one of the greatest fears every Christian wrestles with. So I suppose I. I wrestle with those things too.
But that doesn't. I don't know. Those aren't sort of governing things. The thing that keeps me awake at night. I suppose if there's someone who's angry with me, that's what kind of troubles me. And. And so I suppose that's a fear of being despised by people.
That kind of. That sits there. Although, I don't know, I'm getting. It's nice. It's nice that we answer questions and we get to talk how bad Roman Catholicism is. So we get to practice being disliked by people in public. So that's a good way to address our.
[00:34:27] Speaker B: Our fears.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: Years. It's good to remember that the Lord hasn't authorized us to fear any of these things. So that's. That's helpful. And it was helpful for me a couple years ago when I got Covid to almost die.
I. I don't know how close I was. I. I could see it. I could. I could. Death had definitely come over the horizon, so I could have eyesight. I could look at it straight on.
It wasn't an abstraction. And to realize now that's not too bad.
So it's. It's a little bit easier for me to handle my own mortality now because it's like I, you know, I. I almost got to. I almost got to taste death. And so that was. So that was good. So that. That helps with managing the. The fear of death when it tries to creep in there. But I don't know. It's a few things.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know if I'd categorize them as, like, fears like this overriding fear. But things I. I don't know that. That I get anxious about or worry about very similar. Right? Like failing as a pastor, like. Like misleading someone or leading them astray or, you know, you have these interactions with people and you have to tell them hard things. And, you know, I'm the kind of personality, like, the moment I'm done preaching, like, I run through everything in my head that I said, oh, I could have said this better. I could have said this better. When I meet with someone, right. When I. Moment we're done talking, I'm like, I could have done all these things better, right? Because I'm always. I do worry. I have anxiety about like misleading people or doing something in a way that's going to lead them.
There's a great prayer. I don't know if you ever use it. Do you ever use the old pastor's daily prayer from the Lutheran agenda from the old tlh. I train these about once a week and it has great things like whenever I overlook something or in my. The weakness of my flesh speak or act wrongly, do thou set it aright and hope that no one may through me suffer harm to his soul. You know, that's, that's like. That's a great prayer for pastors because those are things I worry about. It's like doing harm to someone's soul because of the way I heal. Handled someone or, or did something or said something or whatever.
I think it's very similar as a father and a husband. Like, I don't want to fail them in my vocation. And I've already lived through like, you know, am living through one of the fears you, you already mentioned regarding children. And that stuff's hard. Like you, you know, you want to see that reverse. You want to see children come back to the faith that have wandered away or whatever. So I've got. I feel like a lot of things that some of the worst things that could happen. I feel like in the last six or seven years, I shouldn't have said that.
Let's say the last seven or eight years. I feel like a lot of them have happened in various ways.
So I'm living through those. But yeah, I think mostly it's like failing at vocation. But I also know, like, like you said, God hasn't given us to fear or worry. And so it's. It's not my place to sit here and worry, worry about those things. Like I'm to do the best I can and put it in God's hands. But I mean, I am someone who overthinks things. So like, it's a daily struggle for me. I will not lie. It's a. It's a constant thing for me to, to deal with or even that. That daily prayer too has another one because I. I teach eighth graders three times a week.
Where is it?
Here's. This is another great line this has talking about teaching youth give me particular wisdom and skill to be stern without estranging their hearts and mild and charitable without strengthening them in frivolity and unruliness.
Right. Like, I think about that when I'm teaching kids. Like, man, I don't be Too harsh with them. But also I don't want to, I don't want to strengthen them in these other things. So. And all those things, those are kind of things I, I think about as I'm teaching, preaching, doing whatever.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: So it's good to remember this. I mean, you know, I'm going to say this like I'm an expert in it, but of course, I'm just a very beginner. But Peter, Peter says, cast your anxieties on the Lord, for he cares from you. Or, or Paul at the end of Philippians, be anxious for nothing. But in everything through prayer and supplication, with Thanksgiving, make your request known to God so that if we can take our. Those moments of anxiety, like when we realize, oh, I'm afraid of that, or I'm nervous about that or, or I'm worried about that, or that's bothering me, is to receive those as gifts from the Holy Spirit, prompting us to pray, to cast our anxieties on the Lord and to thank him always. Thanksgiving is what casts out anxiety.
So those moments of ah is a reminder, oh, I'm still holding onto this thing that the Lord wants me to cast onto him. If we can receive those anxieties as gifts of the Spirit, to do that, that's really helpful.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: All right, you said we're in lightning round mode, so let's move on to the next one.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: All right.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: This is similar to some other ones we've heard about, and it's following up on something else you've said, which is more young people in the LC Mass.
How do we get them? Where are they? Where are all the young people? And so what they're asking is I'm only one of a handful of younger parishioners in my church. I'm 28 and single and, and there are a few friends my age in my parish, but the vast majority are elderly. I do my best to invite, introduce other people, my generation to Lutheranism, but I'm concerned about LCMS growth. Any thoughts, words of encouragement for bringing more younger generations into the church?
Also, any advice on finding a Lutheran wife would be much appreciated. Sounds like you need that singles cruise again.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: Okay, look, so not only so, okay, first of all, if you go to Wolfmuller Co on the about tab, go down there. There's a thing that says there's a two directories. There's Lutheran young adult events and Lutheran young adult groups, and there's about 40 groups that are there all over.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: We added ours.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: That's really, that's a really great thing. So you can see are there groups around?
So this is, so this is kind of phase one of a bigger project which I'll tell you about now, although it's kind of. We're working on it. So to figure out there are groups there and there's more and more and more groups that are there. And so we need to do more to advertise and to get it out there and so people can find it. The phase two is we're working on restarting the Walther League. So I've been talking with a handful of other pastors and, and we'll be announcing this in the next couple of months, probably to make it official. But the idea is to have a, a network of Lutheran young adult groups that are not connected to congregations. Each one will have a pastoral sponsor, but every state will have one and every major city will have one.
And they'll have a chair and a couple of co chairs and they'll, they're like minimum requirement is quarterly social events for these chapters.
And so the hope is that by the end of this time next year, wherever you are in the United States, and hopefully it becomes an international thing, you can just go to the Walther League directory and find the chapter and have the contact for the chapter chair and say, hey, when are you guys doing stuff? And if you move to a different space state or town or something like that, that you can connect with them and get involved with them as well. So I think it's time. There's so many people that are clamoring for this and, and so many people that are interested in it.
So I don't know what. Keep an eye on this YouTube channel or the way to keep in this loop. It'll, it'll become its own thing. But I'll be announcing it on Wednesday. Whatnot.
My email the newsletter. So if you're not signed up for that thing, just go and sign up for that. And that'll be a place to keep an eye out for this Walther League that's, that's coming along and hopefully that'll, that Walther League will have. Every three years we'll do a national conference and every three years we'll do a regional conference, different regional conferences. And every three years I hope to have a singles cruise again or someone can host that singles cruise for, for that sort of stuff because there's, there's need for it. Now. I would, for our listener, I would say, look, don't worry about the future of the Lutheran Church. Missouri Senate. So it is, I think it's Wrong.
It's not that. Is that the. The growth and the survival of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is not something that we should care about.
I. That I. I think. Okay, this is the boomerang problem. Remember that if you throw a boomerang at something, you miss the thing you're shooting for.
If you. So. So if you aim a boomerang at the kangaroo, you miss the kangaroo because the boomerang twists. You got to aim over there to hit the kangaroo. And the boomerang problem is that half the time, by aiming at a goal, we'll miss it. And if our goal is to grow the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, then it's just a bad. We are not going to hit it. Our goal needs to be to be faithful and to be faithful in our vocations and to serve. To love God and serve our neighbor. If we do that, the church will grow. It'll be the consequence of it.
Just like being hap. You. You can't hit happiness by aiming for it. You gotta try to serve and then serve your neighbor, and then you'll be happy. So you aim at service and you hit happiness. You aim at faithfulness, you hit growth. Or even if you don't, it doesn't matter. It's great.
So. So I would not be concerned about the next generation of the Lutheran Church, Missouri. I mean, just cast that concern. The Lord will take care of that or he won't. It doesn't matter. That's not our. Our goal is to be faithful.
So we want to have these opportunities for people to connect with one another.
So do that and pray. Here's for all the young adults.
This is for everybody, but especially for the young adults that don't have a lot of other young adults. Pray to the Holy Spirit for the gift of hospitality so that the Holy Spirit would create in you a warmth and welcomeness and friendliness that will.
That he can use to draw other people into church, that he can use to help you become friends with people. And that gift of hospitality is, I think, what's most needed. So we'll be looking for, like, chapter chairpersons that have the gift of hospitality so that when you show up, they're like, you're with us now. You know, let's go. Let's do this thing.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: We did something like that here. Now I'm in the Metro east, so I realized I'm in a little different area than a lot of Lutheran churches, where we have a lot of Lutheran churches in this area, but we have a young adults group that they did sign up for your. I saw they put themselves on there. I sent it to them.
It goes from our area to about 45 minutes south to about 45 minutes north, and all the churches in between. The young adults, they meet pretty regularly, like multiple times a month. They're always getting together. It seems like I'm in there.
Their group meet, text thing, and they're always getting together. It's fantastic. So, I mean, that's one way to just try to connect with other churches, too. Just reach out to other churches and say, hey, do you have young adults? And start. Try to start a group and get it going, and then you can add yourselves to this so other people know about you.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Yep, there it is. Find a group near me. Put. Just put. You can put your stuff in here. Click here to add your group information.
I think there's more even that are on this map that I've got to go and adjust. And you can see the. You can see all the groups that are there and this.
So, I mean, hope and pray that this will be.
This is not the Walther League. This is just groups that are already there. But I'm hoping that a lot of these groups will become Walt. The difference between the Walther League and this idea is that I don't want the Walther League to be connected to churches because we found here at St. Paul that we. I don't know, we have 150 young adults or something, but they have a hard time marrying each other because it's just kind of weird because they're like church friends.
So we need to have an Austin area Walther League so that all the young adults from all the different churches can go there, get married, and hopefully that's helpful. So.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: All right, are you ready for the next question?
[00:46:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: We've got two on the liturgy that are kind of related here, so we'll start with one.
So did you see the new CTCR report on unity and doctrine and practice?
[00:46:30] Speaker A: No.
[00:46:31] Speaker B: Have you skimmed it at all?
[00:46:34] Speaker A: I didn't even know there existed.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: Blessed are you. Okay, so here's a question related to it. This is based on your comments when we had President Harrison on regarding joy, the importance of joy in Orthodox and the practice of the historic liturgy.
And their thought here is, too, that whatever is done and must express the fullness of the historic liturgy, be faithful to our confessions, express reverence throughout, and exhibit excellence.
Would you see those as good tie ins to what you talked about with having joy, that one of the things we need is, yes, he agrees, joy, but also that were Faithful express reverence, exhibit excellence.
Those. Those be key tie ins to that practice of joy.
[00:47:26] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, of course. I mean, you can do a lot of stupid stuff happily, and it's still stupid. So you got to do the right thing.
So I. I don't want it. When I say that conduct the liturgy with warmth and joy. I'm not saying you don't over emphasize the warmth, warmth and joy to the. To the forsaking of the historic liturgy, because this is an important that. That we.
By what. By how we worship and by what we confess are indicating that we have this generosity towards the tradition of the church. That's. That's part of our being Lutheran.
And also this idea of excellence and reverence. This is part of our. Again, our confession of what's there. I remember Dr. Scher, our professor at seminary. Well, he's been the professor of the last 17 generations of pastors.
He said, you don't need to learn the rubrics if you really believe it's the body of Christ.
And I thought that was.
I mean, it was an obnoxious thing to say, but I think it's probably also right, because what we're doing is confessing the reality that Christ is placing his body and his blood there on the altar for me to eat and to drink for. For the forgiveness of my sins. I mean, and that shapes the way that we conduct ourselves in the service and that. So that certainly cannot be lost.
[00:48:46] Speaker B: Now, what would you say to someone? So we're both at larger churches, larger than average Missouri churches. And so, like, I know at our church, like, musicians, the choir, like, they're always trying to do things with excellence because they take it very seriously. We have amazing musicians. I'm always blown away by their talent and skills. They always want to do things with excellence. What about the person who says, look, I'm. I'm at a small church, and, hey, like, excellence looks a lot different for us.
[00:49:14] Speaker A: Yeah, right, right.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: You know, like, that's. We can't do. Like you say, excellence. What does that mean for. For somebody at a small congregation who feels like, man, we're struggling just to. Just to do it, let alone do it with excellence.
[00:49:27] Speaker A: 2. Two thoughts on that. 1.
First is that one of the biggest benefits of the liturgy is that it can expand to fill a cathedral and it can shrink down to the size of a deathbed or a small parish or a family.
But you have to.
There's an appropriateness for the way the liturgy is conducted. So the way that a small congregation conducts the liturgy is gonna be different than the way that a big one does. I even, in fact, I wonder if there's a certain number that you reach, and if you're below that number, you're like, we can't use an organ because the organ is going to be too strong. The organ is meant for. I mean, maybe you have to have 25 people singing, or else the organ doesn't make sense or something. I. I don't know if there's a magic number like that, but I know that the liturgy, it. It humbles itself. So I. I remember talking about the entrance psalm, and we have sort of appointed number of verses for the entrance psalm for the introit. But learning the liturgy, they said that that introit would go as long as the aisle of the church was. So if you had a long cathedral church, you'd have this long introit for the pastor and all the assistants to preside into the. To get to the altar. If you had a tiny little church, you'd have maybe one virtual verse, and then the. The priest is there at the altar so that you. And that. I think that idea needs to be thought through more. So to say, if we have a small congregation, what is appropriate? What does excellence and beauty look like? If we have all volunteer musicians, how do we lean into that? What can we do with the resources that we have? Because we don't want to have.
We don't want to say, well, just because we are a small, humble church, we don't want to have liturgy that is painful or embarrassing. That's. I mean, that we want to kind of just say, okay, let's just be very human about this and recognize that's. That's what we're after.
The second thing then is. So we. Jonathan is my music director, and he helps host the Texas Liturgy Conference, which we've done. We did it last year and a couple years ago. We're going to try to do it every two years. And off. Two years and off. We're having it coming up in September. Specifically, it's specifically to try to provide resources for small churches and for volunteer musicians to help them in their service.
And it's specifically targeted after those churches that are in Texas, but anybody can come. It'd be great. So, again, keep an eye on the St. Paul website. That's in September, end of September. The synod also has a lot of these resources available to say, okay, for small churches. What can we do to conduct the liturgy in a. In a reverent, beautiful, joyful way? You can do the liturgy with two People and a hymnal and no musical accompaniment, and it can be magnificent. You. I mean, we do that all the time when we go to visit people, so that it. It kind of. It. It moves into its appropriate thing. So to say we don't want to have big church. We want the liturgy to fit in the place. It's one of the problems of the church growth movement is that it's very difficult to shrink a praise band. I mean, maybe you can do it by when you go acoustic and you just have, like, one guy on guitar. That's the way that the kind of praise band sort of shrinks to an appropriate size for a small church.
But can you imagine this big band that's up there singing? You got a drummer and you got a bass guitarist, and then you've got like, four people. It's kind of a mess.
It's just not. It's not appropriate. But there's you. You can't get too small for the liturgy, and you can't get too big. It. It's stretches.
[00:53:15] Speaker B: Also, I highly recommend, if you are a smaller church and you haven't looked at church music solutions, you can check them out, because that's one of our. Our. Our organist, our main organist.
That's his company. And so I traveled when I was at last summer, I went back to my church in Pagosa to visit. And we're sitting there, and I'm listening. I'm like, I am pretty sure that's Chris Lemker playing, because their organist had recently left. And so they're using other means. And all of a sudden I'm listening throughout the service. I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's Chris. And so I asked them, what are you. What are you guys using now for that? And they told me, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's. That's my organist from.
[00:53:54] Speaker A: From.
[00:53:55] Speaker B: From Collinsville. So you, too, can have an amazing organist if. Even if you're a small church, you can use church Music Solutions. So not a paid sponsor, but I will give a shout out to them.
All right. Another question related to liturgy, and again, this one's also in light of the conversation with President Harrison. So essentially is how do we do the liturgy without just going through the motions? That's kind of the question. So on the hidden struggle and confessional Lutheranism, President Harrison made mention of orthodoxy and its importance, but it seemed like he put more emphasis on orthodoxy than doctrine. Perhaps I misinterpreted what he meant. I think they did. But how can we ensure that we are not just going through the motions. The example is the liturgy and our focus on the Word and the Trinity and not just going through repetitive motions of doing the same thing week in and week out. I'm not against the Orthodox liturgy and our hymnal in the least bit, but how can we make sure that we are worshiping from the heart and not just habits?
[00:54:59] Speaker A: I don't, so I don't know if there's going to be a systemic or a systemic solution to this thing. I think this is just always going to be an individual struggle.
In other words, I don't think I can fix this as a pastor or as a worship planner or something like that.
I, I, I mean, maybe it's helpful when care is given to, to the reading of the Scripture. Maybe it's helpful when those who are conducting the liturgy are indicating, give subtle clues that this is not only reaching the mind, but also the heart. In other words, it's okay to be a person who has emotions, who's also in the service. Maybe in other words, like there's some pathos in the conduct of the, the service, the reading of the Scriptures, even the preaching.
And maybe that's helpful for people to just that it's not some sort of robotic, like, repeat after me, I believe in God the Father. Maybe that's helpful. But it's not anything that you do twice in life. You are going to have to make sure you're not just going through the motions. It's not, it's true for the liturgy. It's true. It's true for your morning habits. It's true for the conversation that you have with your husband and your wife and your children.
It's true for when you get in the car and drive down to work. Like we are people who are just doing things over and over, and it's easy. Our mind can just sort of shut off in the routine and we have to be intentional about turning it back on.
And I don't. You can do it in the pray. It's so it doesn't matter what kind of service you have, if it's a contemporary service or what. I mean, the contemporary service part of the problem is that they have, they've half embraced the charismatic idea that the Holy Spirit only works through spontaneity, which is wrong.
And, but they don't even believe it themselves because they rehearsed their spontaneity. I mean, I don't know. I mean that the whole thing is somewhat ridiculous. But anyway, I just think it has to be always a personal Struggle. It's just, that's just what it's going to be.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: Because even for the spontaneous stuff, even when it is truly spontaneous, like even quote unquote, what we call an ex chorde prayer, right from the heart, it's not pre written, it's not memorized, whatever, you can still do that. Just going through the motions.
Like this idea that just because it's written means you're just gonna go through the motions versus if you just do it off the cuff is also not true. You can, you can fake your way through anything, right? You can do something completely spontaneous that you don't really mean from the heart.
So like you said, I don't think there is any kind of easy fix. I think, I mean that the fix is constant, right? Repentance and faith, like, that's the only fix that you're constantly repenting of sin and turning to Christ and then that's going to overflow into your worship. Like, other than that, like you personally doing that, I can't make you or I don't have a way to like force someone in the service. Like, you better really mean this. You know, even saying that, that's not gonna do anything.
It's not gonna engender faith me like yelling at them to like, you better mean it this time, buddy.
Although I do think there is, there is an element of. I think one thing that can help people is if you actually say things like you mean them or sing them like you mean them. I do think, like you were saying, like, with some kind of emotion feeling behind it, right? Like, hey, this is really important. I actually mean this.
I do think it does trigger to the rest of your being that, hey, this is important and I should actually mean this. You know what I mean? Like, I think it's hard.
It's much harder, I think, to fake it when you're like trying to put some kind of feeling emotion into it, like passion into it. Like you, like if you pretend you care about something long enough, you're probably actually going to care about it, right? That's one of C.S. lewis's points. Like, if you, if you don't love someone, then you should act loving to them and eventually you will actually love them.
And so I think there is something to that. But outside of repentance and faith, it's just, it's going to be a constant danger. Like you're just, that's the way we're built. And it's not the liturgy's fault. It's our fault.
Like, it's. We Want to blame the liturgy for this. Like, oh, it's the repetition. No, it's us. It's not the repetition.
We're the problem.
[00:59:42] Speaker A: You know, there's a partner to joy and it's wonder. And I think maybe it's. It is. It is probably good to. For pastors to engender. Well, for pastors to let the people know that it's okay to be in awe of God and His Word, to be captured by the wonder of it, by the awesomeness of it.
So to confess that God's Word is awesome and I mean, this is why, like, people who. This is, like, why Will Whedon is such a good teacher is that he just has this childlike awe at God and His Word. And it's infectious in a way. It rubs off on people.
And we should all try to.
Try to. Oh, we should not. Again, we should not try to act like that. We should, but we should just recognize, wow, the Lord's Word is precious and wonderful. And he says things here that you would never even dare to believe unless they. The Lord had written them down for you. And then, and then here I get this promise. I mean, there's a, there's a, there's a awe in that. That, that is. It's okay to let people be all awed by the word of God.
[01:00:53] Speaker B: All right, our last question.
Are we misguided in our role concerning repentance?
Or perhaps another way to put it, do we need to repent about our repentance?
So this is in response to something you.
This was a video of you speaking at a church in Castle Rock, Colorado, about your book on American Christianity.
[01:01:15] Speaker A: That's cool.
[01:01:16] Speaker B: During the Q and A, there was a question about our role versus God's role in repentance, and it completely reconceptualized my understanding of the practice. As a dce, I've taught in classrooms and children's lessons that repentance means to turn away from sin and back to God desiring to teach rightly. On this issue, could you point me to some further reading to better understand repentance as a Christian? Since repentance is something God does in us, what does it mean? How should we orient our hearts and minds during seasons of repentance such as Advent and Lent?
I suppose my long standing assumption there is that they are seasons to reflect on our fallen state and confess our sins, which seems to me to be both part of repentance and an act of man.
Or perhaps this is the contrition you mentioned as being an element of repentance.
Long message. Just want to understand and teach better.
[01:02:04] Speaker A: This is great. So I. The place to look is augsburg Confession Article 1212. And also the Apology of the Augsburg Confession Article 12. Where it talks about repentance is these two parts, contrition and faith.
This is important because the word repent. Metanoia in the Greek.
In the Hebrew, it just means shuv. It means to turn or to be turned, but the.
To turn from what to what? Metanoia. Oh, it's the turning of my mind. Mind. And I think it's in. I think it's two ways. So here I. I think I have this cleaner now than I've ever had it. I don't even know if I talked to you about this, Pastor Packer.
So I think that here's. Okay, here's the card. I'm writing it. So. Okay. So I want to have a changed mind about two things. So the first is I naturally think of myself as good. I'm a good person, sure, I'll go to heaven, I, you know, better than most, etc. No.
So the law has to change my mind about me to recognize that I am a sinner and I'm a poor, miserable sinner, that I. That I deserve God's wrath and punishment, that I rightly should be condemned. That's the first change. But then what I think is, well, if I'm a sinner, then God must be mad at me because of my sin.
So that's the conclusion. And now the gospel comes in and changes my mind about God and realizes that he's not angry at me, but that he acts with me in mercy, towards me, with mercy and grace and love, that God in fact loves me. So that the law changes my mind about myself and shows me my sin. That's what Jesus says. The Holy Spirit convict the world of sin because they don't believe in me, and then of righteousness because he's gone to the Father so that God is not mad at me. So. So this is. If I just have this. I end up in despair.
Pride. Despair.
But here I'm. This is. Now my. My pride is adjusted to despair, but then my despair is converted to faith in. In God and His promise.
So that's my.
That's my thinking about the two works of repentance. And notice, it's the work of God. It's not our work. It's not us changing. It's the law of God which changes our mind about ourselves. And then it's the gospel, which. The confession of the gospel which changes how we understand God.
[01:04:37] Speaker B: So to follow up with the other part of his question then was, how does that fit in with seasons of repentance like Advent or Lent?
[01:04:43] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:04:43] Speaker B: So what do we mean when we say Lent is a season of repentance or a focus on repentance?
[01:04:50] Speaker A: So I, I'd rather think of it as a season of fasting. And so fasting and feasting.
So there's those times when we particularly are, I suppose, thinking about our own lives and saying, hey, what's.
What needs to be stopped? What needs to be adjusted? In what ways have I just stopped fighting against my own sinful flesh? And so you got to have those times where, I don't know, you're weeding the garden. You know, it's like I got to go out and I got to pull up all the weeds. And so it's nice to sort of schedule that and say, all right, we're going to have a few weeks to get ready for the celebration of Christmas. And so in preparation for that, we're going to try to try to clean out the heart a bit. Little, little bit. But we can definitely overblow it and, and, and take it out of its scope to, like, as if Jesus wasn't raised. You know, we always want to remember that, that repentance has these two parts, contrition and faith.
And, And I'm. And I'm always going to be tempted to pride or despair, but. But the Lord wants me to be, to, to be disgusted with my sinfulness nature.
So maybe that's what it is. It's. It's like, it's.
The seasons of repentance are times of cultivating the virtue of our disgust with our own sin.
Because we, Our problem is we get used to our sin. We kind of.
We forget what it smells like. We forget that we're sinners. So we're cultivating that disgust with our own sin.
But that cannot stand by its own. It always has to be in the context of the Lord bearing our sin and carrying our sorrow so that he can save us and be our. Our Savior.
[01:06:37] Speaker B: I, I also like to, in addition to that, like, think of Lentus.
You'll like this weightlifting analogy.
[01:06:44] Speaker A: Here we go.
[01:06:45] Speaker B: Like, you can't, you can't just keep lifting heavier and heavier and heavier. Like, you usually have to, like, have a deload week, right? You have to. When you're training for anything, you. You train really intensely and then you back off the intensity.
And so Lent isn't. I, I get fresh when people treat Lent, like, well, the only time we ever fast is Lent because Lent's for fasting. It's like, well, Lent helps direct your fasting, like, helps you get better at it so that when you need to use it the rest of the church year, right, you. You've practiced it and you're ready for that. Kind of like you've talked about before with the liturgy, doing the training, like the wax on, wax off, karate kids type stuff, right? It's like, it's training us. It's training these, like, as we do so many spiritual disciplines more intensely, it's helping us so that the rest of the year, like, we've got, we've got some additional training that'll carry us through. So it's not even so much like, hey, I gotta like, pretend to feel really bad about my sin for six weeks. You know, some of it becomes play acting, right? Like, well, I gotta be really sad for six weeks or sometimes Good Friday, that temptation to turn into a funeral for Jesus, and we have to pretend like, or we're overly sad or whatever it is, rather than like, hey, these things are helping prepare me physically, spiritually, emotionally for other things that are gonna happen the rest of this year. I'm gonna be tempted in various ways. So if I really think about a little bit more about how the devil tempts me, which is. Comes up a lot in lent rights, in the readings, spiritual attacks, then I'll be better prepared when he attacks me other parts of the year.
So I think that's one helpful way to think about it. It's an intense period of training that isn't meant to just stop there, but.
But it helps you the rest of the year as well.
[01:08:21] Speaker A: You're speaking my language. This weightlifting, what is it called when you go, when you ease up for a little while?
[01:08:29] Speaker B: Well, usually you deload. That's deloading. You lift less.
[01:08:35] Speaker A: I've been doing the deloading for a couple of years.
[01:08:38] Speaker B: A couple years of deloading.
[01:08:39] Speaker A: That accounts for my strength.
[01:08:42] Speaker B: I'm deloading.
That's like that, that thing going around right now, right? My, I run 15 minutes a day and if I miss a day, my, then I double it. Right now I need to run for three months straight.
That's what.
[01:08:59] Speaker A: When Carrie asked me what I'm doing on the couch tonight, you know, watching American Idol or whatever. Honey, I'm deloading.
[01:09:06] Speaker B: Taking it easy.
[01:09:09] Speaker A: Thank you for the questions. God be praised. Send more wolfmuller co contact and. And let us know how we can help and bless and serve you. Keep an eye out on the Wednesday whatnot. That's the email newsletter that goes out mostly Wednesdays with resources etc.
Thanks for your prayers for this Walter League that we're working on. If you're interested in that, send me a note now. I'll make you sure that you are on the interested list. It's really great. Thanks Pastor Packer for all that you do. God's peace be with you.
