Latest / Reformed Thinking / All True Grace in the Heart Tends to Holy Practice in the Life (1 Corinthians 13:6) | Jonathan Edwards

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All True Grace in the Heart Tends to Holy Practice in the Life (1 Corinthians 13:6) | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking. I am your host and I'm joined
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  again by my good friend and colleague.
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  It's good to be here. We are two Protestant Christians
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  and we hold to the Westminster Confession.
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  We're here because we believe theology isn't just, you know,
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  some dusty academic thing. It's the practice of life.
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  Has to be. It's the engine under the hood,
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  really. It determines how we live, how
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  we love, how we hope. That's right, the Westminster
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  standards themselves say the chief end of man is to glorify
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  God and and to enjoy him forever.
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  And, well, you can't really glorify him if you don't
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  understand what he said. Theology is meant to be lived
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  out. Absolutely.
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  And today we're we're digging into a text that I think really
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  challenges a lot of the ways we think about being a Christian
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  today. I agree with that.
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  We're looking at a treatise, or maybe it was a sermon series
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  originally by the New England theologian Jonathan Edwards.
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  The title is all true grace in the heart tends to holy practice
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  in the life. It's a heavy title, but it's a
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  very significant subject. The whole thing is based on 1st
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  Corinthians 13.6 where the apostle Paul says that love or
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  charity, yes in the old language, rejoiceth not in
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  iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.
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  You know, it's funny when people hear the name Jonathan Edwards,
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  they almost always have this caricature in their minds.
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  Sinners in the hands of an angry God.
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  That's the one. They picture this, you know,
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  fire and brimstone preacher just dangling people over a pit.
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  But when you actually read his stuff, the breadth of it, you
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  find this this incredibly careful, precise and almost
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  psychologically sharp pastor. He was.
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  He was obsessed with the question of what makes a
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  Christian real, what makes faith genuine.
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  That was the big question of the Great Awakening, wasn't it?
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  And that's really what he's getting at here.
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  The hook for this whole deep dive is a question I think every
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  believer has to wrestle with at some point.
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  Is Grace just a feeling, you know, Is it just a passive
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  status like your name is on a list somewhere?
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  Or is Grace an active a kinetic force?
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  I think we've all been there, that feeling of, I don't know,
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  imposter syndrome in our faith. Yes, you're sitting in church,
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  you're singing the songs. You might even get emotional
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  during worship. But you look at your own life
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  during the week and you wonder, is the wiring actually
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  connected? Is that feeling I had?
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  Was that grace? Or, if I can check all the right
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  doctrinal boxes, is that Grace Edwards is really drawing a line
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  in the sand. His main point?
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  His thesis is incredibly clear and maybe a little unsettling if
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  you sit with it for a while. It is, he argues, that all true
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  Christian grace in the heart necessarily tends toward holy
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  practice in the life. I think we need to pay attention
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  that word tense. It has a direction of velocity.
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  Right. It can't stay dormant.
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  It's not a stagnant pool. If it's really there, it has to
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  move. It has to go somewhere.
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  So before we jump into his proofs and he lays them out one
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  by one, it's very logical. We should probably define a
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  couple of his terms because Edwards is always so precise
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  with his language. He is.
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  He's working from that First Corinthians 13 texts, and he
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  pulls out iniquity and truth. So for Edwards, iniquity is
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  pretty straightforward. It's everything that's sinful in
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  life and practice. It's the negative side of the
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  coin. OK.
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  But truth is where it gets interesting.
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  We tend to hear the word truth, and we immediately think of
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  correct doctrine, a list of facts.
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  Right, like a theological statement you agree with.
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  But Edward says that's not all it is.
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  For him, truth also means all virtue and holiness.
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  It's conformity to Scripture in your actual conduct.
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  He even points to a verse in Three John where John talks
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  about walking in the truth. So truth isn't just something
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  you believe in your head, it's a path you walk with your feet.
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  That's it. It's a lived reality, not just
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  intellectual accuracy. So for Edwards, the verse means
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  love, hate sinful practice, and delights in holy practice.
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  OK, so with that foundation, our road map for this conversation
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  is to really walk through Edwards's argument.
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  We're going to look at his theological proofs, why the very
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  architecture of salvation demands this holy practice.
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  Then we'll look at the nature of grace itself, sort of the the
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  metaphysics of it, you could say.
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  Then we're going to get very practical and walk through
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  specific graces like faith, love, humility, and see how each
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  one is supposed to work. And then finally we'll get to
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  the application. The part that's probably be the
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  most challenging? A rigorous self examination.
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  That's the part where it gets personal.
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  But you have to build the case first.
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  You have to see the logic. All right, let's start with the
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  first pillar of his argument, and it's a big one, Election.
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  I think we need to slow down here because as soon as you say
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  that word in most church circles today, a fight breaks out.
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  It immediately becomes about who gets in and who stays out.
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  We treat it like a guest list for a party.
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  But Edwards isn't looking at it that way.
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  He sort of flips the camera angle.
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  He's not asking who is chosen right now.
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  He's asking what are they chosen for.
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  Yes. He makes this critical
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  distinction between the ground of election and the aim of
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  election. OK.
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  Break that down the ground versus the aim.
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  The ground could be the reason why God chose you.
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  The aim is the purpose for which God chose you.
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  And Edwards is taking on this idea, which he says was common
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  among the Armenians of his day, that God elects people based on
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  foreseen good works. Right, the idea that God looks
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  down the corridor of time, sees that you're going to be a good
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  holy person, and says, OK, I'll pick that one.
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  Like a divine scouting report, he's drafting players who
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  already have good stats. That's a perfect way to.
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  Put it and Edwards says that's completely backwards.
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  He goes right to the text. Ephesians 1.4 We are chosen that
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  we should be holy. Holiness isn't the reason we
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  were picked, it's the project we were picked for.
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  The analogy that came to my mind when I was reading this was a
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  hospital. You don't get admitted to a
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  hospital because you're already healthy.
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  Of course not. You get admitted in order to
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  become healthy. The health is the goal of the
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  admission, not the cause of it. That's a really helpful picture.
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  And if you follow that logic, which is Edwards's logic, it
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  becomes very powerful if a doctor admits you to the
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  hospital with the stated aim of healing you.
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  But then none of the treatments he gives you actually do
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  anything to make you better. What does that say about the
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  doctor? It says he's incompetent or the
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  hospital is a sham. Exactly.
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  And that's the corner Edwards backs you into.
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  He says if God elects a person for the specific purpose of
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  making them holy, then the grace he bestows on that person must
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  be the kind of grace that actually works toward that goal.
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  It has to be an effective tool. It has to be.
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  If God uses means that are unsuited to his own design, then
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  God is an unwise Workman. He's using a broken hammer, and
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  since that's absurd, the grace itself must be effective.
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  So if I'm a person who claims to be one of the elect, but my life
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  shows no tendency toward holiness.
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  Then you're implicitly claiming that God's plan failed in your
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  case, that his tool didn't work. Which is not a good position to
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  be in. It's an impossible position, so
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  Edwards would say the failure isn't in God's grace.
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  The more likely conclusion is that you were never actually
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  admitted to the hospital in the first place.
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  You never received the grace. Wow, that really changed the
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  focus. It takes the assurance of your
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  salvation away from just speculating about some secret
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  decree in the past, and it grounds it in a present tense
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  observation. It's not am I on the list?
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  It's is the medicine working? That's the diagnostic question.
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  Is there any effect? OK, so that's election.
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  His second argument moves from eternity past with election to a
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  specific point in history, redemption, the work of Christ.
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  Yes, and he asks a similar question.
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  What did Christ actually purchase on the cross?
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  What was the transaction for? And he argues that Christ's
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  sacrifice was specifically intended to create a holy
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  people. Not just a forgiven people.
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  Not just a forgiven people, but a purified people.
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  He quotes Titus 2.14, which is a key text for him, that Christ
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  gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity, and purify
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  unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
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  Zealous of good works. It's right there.
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  It's right there, the purpose statement, and I love the
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  analogy he uses to make this point.
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  He goes back to the Old Testament, to the Exodus.
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  Right. We think of the exodus as the
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  ultimate story of freedom. Let my people go.
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  It's the classic picture of redemption, Israel being saved
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  from slavery in Egypt. But Edward says you have to read
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  the whole command. What did God actually say to
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  Pharaoh? He didn't just say let my people
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  go. No, he didn't say let my people
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  go so they can be happy and do their own thing.
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  He said let my people go that they may serve me.
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  That one phrase changes everything.
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  Freedom wasn't just freedom from the shackles.
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  It was freedom to a new service. The whole point of the Exodus
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  was to bring them to Sinai to receive the law and then into
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  the Promised Land to live lives of worship and obedience.
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  So the Liberation had a goal AT less.
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  It did, and Edwards draws a straight line from that to our
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  redemption in Christ. We are delivered from the hand
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  of our enemies, from sin and Satan, so that we might serve
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  Him in holiness and righteousness.
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  If the grace of redemption doesn't lead to service and
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  holiness, it actually contradicts the stated purpose
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  of the Cross. It would be like a king
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  liberating a group of slaves just so they could sit in a
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  field and do nothing. It wouldn't make any sense.
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  The liberation is for a new kind of citizenship, a new kind of
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  life. That's it.
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  So from election and redemption, he moves to his third
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  theological argument, which is effectual calling.
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  This is where it gets personal. This is the moment it's applied
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  to an individual's life. So election is the plan and
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  eternity redemption is the historical purchase.
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  An effectual calling is the application of that work to your
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  heart by the Holy Spirit. It's the moment of conversion.
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  And what's his argument here? It's very simple.
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  Again, based on Scripture, he points to 1st Thessalonians 4.7.
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  For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.
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  So the call itself has a direction.
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  Exactly, it's a call away from something and to something else.
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  You're being called out of the Kingdom of darkness and into the
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  Kingdom of His beloved Son. You cannot answer the call of
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  God and just stay put in your sin.
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  The 2 are mutually exclusive. The call itself is a call to be
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  holy. That seems so obvious when you
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  say it, but I think we miss it. We think of the call as just a
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  get out of jail free card. We.
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  Do. But for the biblical writers, it
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  was a summons to a new way of life.
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  OK, I want to jump to his point about knowledge because for me,
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  reading this again, this was maybe the most convicting part
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  of the whole text. Edwards makes this distinction
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  between what he calls speculative knowledge and saving
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  knowledge. And I think frankly, a lot of
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  us, especially in our theological tradition, we might
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  be in the danger zone here. We love theology, we love the
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  data, we love the information. It's the occupational hazard of
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  being reformed, isn't it? Yeah, we can sometimes mistake
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  having the right answer for having a right heart.
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  Precision for piety. Yes.
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  And Edward says you can have all the speculative knowledge in the
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  world. You can know the Greek, you can
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  know the Hebrew. You can have all the doctrines
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  of the Westminster Confession memorized and be no better off
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  than a demon. In fact, he says, the demons are
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  probably excellent theologians. They know exactly who God is.
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  They have 0 doctrinal errors about the nature of Christ.
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  James says they believe and they tremble.
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  They have all the data, but they hate the reality that the data
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  points to. That's the key.
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  The way I tried to process this difference was with an analogy.
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  Think about honey. You could read a textbook on the
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  chemical composition of honey. You could know its viscosity,
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  its glucose to fructose ratio, its molecular structure.
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  You could write APHD dissertation on honey and pass
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  with flying colors. But if you have never tasted it.
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  You don't know, honey, Not in the way that matters.
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  Right. You have speculative theoretical
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  knowledge about it, but you lack the actual sense of its
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  sweetness. You haven't experienced it.
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  And that is precisely the distinction Edwards is drawing.
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  He uses the phrase a sense of the heart.
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  Speculative knowledge happens in the brain.
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  It's information processing. But saving knowledge happens
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  when the soul tastes the loveliness of the truth.
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  So it's the difference between knowing the fact God is holy and
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  perceiving that God's holiness is beautiful, that it's
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  desirable, More beautiful in fact, than my own sin.
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  And that's the thing that changes your behavior.
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  To go back to your honey analogy, if you just know it's
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  chemical formula, that doesn't compel you to do anything.
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  But if you've tasted that it's sweet, you'll want to eat it.
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  You'll seek it out. You'll seek it out, and if you
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  truly perceive that God is lovely and His ways are
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  beautiful, you will naturally want to be near him and walk in
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  them. Edwards It brings up Pharaoh
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  again here. Why didn't Pharaoh obey God?
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  Because he didn't know God. He says it himself in Exodus
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  5.2. Who is the Lord that I should
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  obey his voice? I know not the Lord.
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  He had information. He knew there was a God of the
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  Hebrews, but he hadn't seen his glory.
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  He didn't have that sense of God's majesty and authority.
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  If he had, he would have obeyed. So Edwards connects knowing and
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  doing. He cites first John Two.
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  He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is
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  a liar, and the truth is not in him.
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  It's a 1 to 1 correlation for John.
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  True knowledge is practical. It's obedient.
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  If your knowledge doesn't result in obedience, it's just, well,
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  it's just trivia. It's not saving knowledge.
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  OK, so we've laid out the theological case, the very
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  structure of salvation from election to redemption to
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  calling to knowledge. It all aims at a holy life.
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  Now Edwards kind of shifts gears.
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  He moves from theology to psychology, I guess.
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  The nature of grace itself. Yeah, this section is a little
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  more metaphysical. He starts by talking about the
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  human will. Which was a huge topic for him
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  in general. A huge topic, and his logic here
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  is very straightforward. He says that grace, true saving
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  grace, is seated in the will, or in the disposition, the
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  inclinations of the heart. And the will is the command
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  Center for the entire human person.
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  Your hand doesn't reach for something unless your will tells
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  it to. Your feet don't walk somewhere
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  unless your will directs them. Your mouth doesn't speak unless
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  your will engages it. The will is the executive
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  faculty. So if grace comes in and changes
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  the will itself. Then the actions must change.
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  It's a matter of cause and effect.
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  You can't change the command center and have the rest of the
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  outpost operate in the same old way.
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  He uses that fountain analogy. Yes, the will is the head of the
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  spring, and your life, your practice, is the stream that
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  flows from it. If you purify the water at the
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  source at The Fountainhead, the stream itself will become pure.
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  You can't have a Fountain of Sweetwater producing A bitter
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  stream. It's a contradiction.
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  It's impossible. If the will has been sanctified
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  and given a new holy inclination, then the life that
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  flows from that will must show evidence of that new
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  inclination. He also uses this language of a
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  principle of action. What does he mean by a principle
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  here? A principle is a source, an
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  origin point, he says. A principle of life must act.
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  He gives the example of a root. A root is the principle, the
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  source of a plant. If you claim to have a root in
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  the ground, but it never produces A stum or a leaf or any
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  fruit, is it really a living root?
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  Edward says a root of nothing is an absurdity.
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  In the same way, a principle of grace that produces no gracious
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  actions is a contradiction in terms.
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  It's a principle of nothing. You know, my favorite analogy in
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  this whole work, and I think it's one of his most famous, is
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  the picture of a giant. It just makes the point so
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  clearly it's. Fantastic illustration.
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  He says you can get a canvas and you can paint a picture of a
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  giant and you can make it incredibly lifelike.
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  You can paint huge bulging muscles, a fierce expression on
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  his face. You have a massive sword.
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  Exactly. It might look incredibly strong,
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  but it can't do anything. It can't lift a single feather.
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  Why? Because it lacks substance.
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  It's just a shadow. It's paint on a canvas.
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  And he compares that shadow to counterfeit grace.
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  False grace, or common grace is a shadow.
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  It might look right. It might have the correct Shae
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  of piety. You might have the right
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  vocabulary. Go to the right church, read the
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  right books. But it has no substance.
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  It has no reality and so it's ineffectual.
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  Doesn't actually do anything. Whereas true grace is substance,
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  it's reality, and because it's real, it has an effect.
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  It's alive. And that leads right into his
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  next point, which is life versus death.
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  The Bible describes natural men, those without Christ, as being
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  spiritually dead. Dead in trespasses and sins.
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  Right and gracious men are described as being made alive.
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  So Edwards asks a simple question.
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  What is the definition of life? What's the difference between a
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  living body and a corpse? Movement action.
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  Motion operation. A corpse doesn't move, it
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  doesn't breathe, doesn't work. A living person does all those
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  things. So Edwards is essentially asking
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  us to check for a spiritual pulse.
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  If there is no movement of holiness, no spiritual breathing
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  in prayer, no action for God, then you have to ask if there's
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  any spiritual life there at all. And he closes the section
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  talking about the the energy of godliness.
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  He quotes the Second Timothy 3.5 about people who have a form of
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  godliness but deny the power thereof.
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  Yes. Godliness isn't just a polite
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  suggestion to the soul. It's not just an idea.
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  The Bible describes it as having a genuine force and efficacy.
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  It's the same energy, Paul says in Ephesians that raised Christ
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  from the dead, now at work and believers.
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  That's a staggering thought. It is, and his point is the
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  stronger the principle, the more results it produces.
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  If you have the spirit of the omnipotent God dwelling inside
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  you, it's going to produce something.
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  It has to. It can't just be a passive
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  resident. OK, so the case is building.
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  We've seen the theological necessity and we've seen the
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  metaphysical necessity. Grace must act, but Edwards,
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  being the good pastor he is, doesn't just leave it in the
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  abstract. No, he brings it right down to
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  ground level. He takes out a magnifying glass
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  and starts looking at specific Christian virtue, specific
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  graces. And I really want to spend some
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  time here because this is where we start to see our own
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  reflection in the mirror he's holding up.
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  This is the diagnostic part of the sermon.
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  He's walking through the hospital ward, checking the
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  vital signs on each patient. And he starts with the big one,
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  saving faith. He immediately goes to Galatians
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  5.6. Faith which worketh by love.
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  For him, faith isn't passive, it's an active, working thing.
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  And one of the old school words he uses to describe faith really
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  caught my attention. The word is venturing.
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  It sounds like something out of an adventure story.
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  It does, but in the 18th century a venture had a very specific
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  business, meaning it was an investment risk.
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  A merchant would venture his capital on a ship that was
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  sailing to the Indies for spices.
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  OK. So you're putting your money on
• 18:43
  the line. You're putting your money on the
• 18:44
  line. You had to let the gold go from
• 18:46
  your hands and put it on that ship.
• 18:48
  You might lose it all if the ship sinks, or you might get a
• 18:50
  massive return, but you had to risk it.
• 18:52
  You had to act on your belief that the ship would come back.
• 18:54
  So it's having skin in the game. That's the perfect modern phrase
• 18:57
  for it. And Edwards argues that true
• 19:00
  saving faith is not just intellectually agreeing that God
• 19:03
  exists, It's putting your chips on the table.
• 19:07
  It's venturing your life, your soul, your reputation, your
• 19:10
  comfort on the truth of God's promises.
• 19:13
  That is a very convicting way to measure faith, he says.
• 19:16
  That if we're not willing to risk losing something for God,
• 19:19
  if we're not willing to be inconvenienced or give up money
• 19:23
  or risk our reputation for the sake of obedience, then we don't
• 19:26
  actually trust Him. We're not venturing anything.
• 19:29
  He gives that great currency exchange illustration.
• 19:31
  He says imagine I come to you and say give me 1 LB today and I
• 19:35
  absolutely promise I will give you 1000 lbs next week.
• 19:38
  And let's say you really, truly believe two things, that I have
• 19:41
  1000 lbs and I'm an honest person who keeps his promises.
• 19:44
  If I believe that I'm not just giving you the pound, I'm
• 19:47
  forcing it into your hand before you can change your mind.
• 19:50
  You would do it instantly and eagerly, but if you hesitate, if
• 19:53
  you clutch your 1 LB tightly and say I'm not so sure, what is
• 19:57
  your action Prove. It proves I don't believe you, I
• 20:00
  think you're a liar or you're broke.
• 20:01
  I don't trust the exchange rate you're offering.
• 20:04
  Man and then he applies that when God says give up this
• 20:08
  fleeting sinful pleasure, which is the 1 LB.
• 20:12
  And I will give you eternal joy and glory, which is the 1000
• 20:16
  lbs. And we hold on tightly to our
• 20:19
  little sin. We're calling God a liar.
• 20:21
  We're showing that we don't actually believe His promise is
• 20:23
  real or that the payout is worth it.
• 20:26
  We'd rather have the penny in our hand than the fortune He's
• 20:28
  offering. Our actions betray our supposed
• 20:31
  of faith. It shows our unbelief.
• 20:33
  It's the ultimate insert to God's character and his
• 20:36
  generosity. He also makes this point about
• 20:38
  accepting Christ as king. He says you can't just accept
• 20:41
  Christ as your priest, right? That's a very common modern
• 20:44
  error. I think we want Jesus the priest
• 20:46
  to save us from hell, to forgive our sins.
• 20:48
  We'll take that part. We love that part, but we're not
• 20:51
  so keen on Jesus the king, who gets to tell us what to do and
• 20:54
  demand our allegiance, Edward says.
• 20:56
  That's an impossible transaction.
• 20:58
  You can't slice Jesus in half. To receive Him is to receive all
• 21:02
  of him, as he is Lord and King. And that implies submission.
• 21:07
  It implies obedience. OK, let's move to the next
• 21:10
  grace. He examines the fear of God.
• 21:13
  This is another one that I think our modern church culture has
• 21:16
  really tried to sand the edges off of.
• 21:17
  We have. We've domesticated it.
• 21:19
  We say, oh, it just means respect, like you respect a
• 21:21
  librarian. Just be quiet and polite.
• 21:23
  But Edwards puts the teeth back into it, and the image he uses
• 21:26
  here is so visceral. He talks about a serpent.
• 21:28
  This one really stuck with me too, he says.
• 21:30
  Imagine a man who tells everyone how terrified he is of a
• 21:33
  poisonous snake. Oh, I dread that snake.
• 21:36
  It's venom is deadly. OK.
• 21:38
  But then you walk into his house and he's handling it carelessly.
• 21:42
  He's letting it slither around his children.
• 21:43
  Maybe he even sleeps with it on his pillow.
• 21:45
  His actions are screaming louder than his words.
• 21:49
  Your eyes testify against his tongue.
• 21:51
  As Edwards puts it, if you really fear the venom, you keep
• 21:55
  your distance. You treat it with extreme
• 21:58
  caution. So now apply that to sin.
• 22:01
  If I say, oh, I fear offending my holy God, but then I'm
• 22:04
  constantly putting myself in situations where I'm tempted,
• 22:07
  I'm deliberately clicking on websites I shouldn't, or I'm
• 22:10
  choosing to hang out in environments that I know trigger
• 22:13
  my anger or my greed. You're sleeping with the snake.
• 22:16
  You're handling it like a pet. You're treating sin like a toy,
• 22:19
  not a predator. And Edwards points to the
• 22:22
  example of Joseph. When Potiphar's wife tried to
• 22:25
  seduce him, he didn't sit down and make a pros and cons list.
• 22:28
  He didn't calculate the odds of getting caught.
• 22:30
  He. Just ran.
• 22:31
  It was a. Reflex.
• 22:32
  It was a reflex born out of a holy dread.
• 22:34
  Not just a fear of getting punished, but a terror of
• 22:36
  committing such a great wickedness and sinning against
• 22:38
  God. That's what the fear of God
• 22:40
  looks like in practice. It's the emergency brake on the
• 22:43
  car. And if the brakes never, ever
• 22:45
  engage, you have to start wondering if they're even
• 22:47
  connected to the pedal. OK, Next up is love to God.
• 22:52
  How do you know if you really love God?
• 22:54
  It can feel so abstract. Edwards makes it very concrete.
• 22:57
  He says look, love is an active principle.
• 23:00
  Look at how people who love money or love fame act.
• 23:03
  It drives them. It animates them.
• 23:05
  They'll work day and night. They'll sacrifice sleep and
• 23:07
  comfort for the thing they love. Love to God should be the same.
• 23:11
  And he gives us the friendship test.
• 23:13
  Yes. How do we judge friendship in
• 23:15
  our ordinary lives? By deeds, not just by words.
• 23:19
  If you have a friend who is always telling you I love you,
• 23:21
  you're my best friend. But then every time you're in
• 23:23
  trouble or you need help, they're suddenly busy or it's
• 23:25
  too inconvenient for them. They're not really your friend.
• 23:28
  A friend who won't suffer any inconvenience for you is just an
• 23:31
  acquaintance. Exactly.
• 23:33
  So Edwards applies that directly to our relationship with God.
• 23:36
  If we claim to love Him, but we're not willing to take any
• 23:39
  pains for Him to suffer any loss, to put ourselves out for
• 23:42
  the sake of His Kingdom and His glory, then our professions of
• 23:45
  love are just empty air. And he lists some evidences.
• 23:49
  High esteem, which means choosing God over other things.
• 23:53
  Desire, which means seeking after Him and delight, finding
• 23:58
  our satisfaction in Him. Right.
• 24:00
  If we constantly forsake time with God for the delights of the
• 24:03
  world, it proves which one we actually love more.
• 24:06
  OK, what about repentance? I think this one gets confused a
• 24:09
  lot with just feeling bad with regret.
• 24:11
  It does, but Edwards is a stickler for the meaning of
• 24:15
  words. The word for repentance
• 24:17
  literally means a change of mind, but he argues that a true
• 24:21
  change of mind will always result in a change of practice.
• 24:25
  He uses a business analogy. Yes.
• 24:27
  If a shopkeeper changes his mind about a certain business
• 24:30
  practice because he realizes it's unprofitable or dishonest,
• 24:33
  what does he do? He stops doing it.
• 24:35
  He says, oh, I've changed my mind about that, but he keeps
• 24:37
  doing it every day. You'd rightly conclude that he
• 24:40
  hasn't really changed his mind at all.
• 24:41
  So if I'm sorrowful about my sin on Sunday, I'm crying about it.
• 24:44
  But in the back of my mind, I'm already planning to do it again
• 24:47
  on Friday. That's not repentance.
• 24:49
  That's just remorse. It's regret over the
• 24:52
  consequences. It doesn't become repentance
• 24:54
  until the actual direction of your life changes.
• 24:57
  What about an internal state like humility?
• 25:00
  That seems like something that's just a feeling inside.
• 25:03
  It starts inside, yes, but for Edwards, it has to have external
• 25:06
  legs. A humble heart will inevitably
• 25:09
  lead to humble behavior, he says.
• 25:11
  You can't be genuinely humble in your heart and arrogant and
• 25:15
  proud in your behavior. The 2 are at odds.
• 25:17
  So how does it show itself? He says if you're truly humble,
• 25:21
  it changes how you treat people. You'll be condescending to those
• 25:24
  beneath you. And he means that the old good
• 25:27
  sense of the word coming down to their level to serve them.
• 25:30
  You'll be respectful to your superiors.
• 25:32
  You won't be so easily angered when you're slighted because you
• 25:35
  don't have an inflated view of what you deserve.
• 25:37
  So if I say I'm a humble servant of Christ, but then I'm
• 25:40
  constantly snapping at the waiter or I'm filled with
• 25:43
  resentment toward my boss. Then your practice is testifying
• 25:46
  against your profession. Your life is telling a different
• 25:49
  story than your mouth. Then there's thankfulness.
• 25:51
  This one is very simple. True gratitude always seeks to
• 25:54
  please the one who gave the gift.
• 25:57
  If someone dives into a river and saves your drowning child
• 26:01
  and you say thank you so much, but then you spend the rest of
• 26:03
  your week going around town slandering that person's name.
• 26:06
  The thank you was a lie. It was meaningless.
• 26:09
  It was a lie, and in the same way, if we claim to be thankful
• 26:12
  to God for the incredible gift of salvation, we will naturally
• 26:16
  desire to live in a way that pleases and honors him, not in a
• 26:19
  way that dishonors him. Then he has this phrase we in
• 26:22
  this from the world. That's a very puritan sounding
• 26:25
  phrase. It is.
• 26:26
  It just means heavenly mindedness.
• 26:28
  It means your heart's primary affection has been taken off the
• 26:31
  things of this world and set on the things of God.
• 26:34
  And again, he makes it very practical.
• 26:35
  He goes right for the. Wallet he does, he says.
• 26:38
  If a man claims to be weaned from the world, but he clutches
• 26:41
  his money with a white knuckled grip and consistently refuses to
• 26:45
  be generous to the poor or to the cause of the gospel, he's
• 26:48
  deceiving himself. If your heart is taken off the
• 26:51
  world, your pursuit will be taken off the world.
• 26:54
  You can't be heavily minded and earthly greedy at the same time.
• 26:57
  Then love to men, love for our neighbor.
• 27:00
  This one, he says, must be in deed and truth, not just in Word
• 27:04
  and tongue, quoting first John 3.
• 27:06
  He is the analogy of a parent. It's incredible, he says, to
• 27:10
  think a father truly loves his child.
• 27:12
  If he sees the child hungry and cold and suffering and does
• 27:15
  nothing to help him, it's a lie. And so it is with our neighbor.
• 27:19
  And finally, Christian hope. True hope, he says, purifies.
• 27:23
  That's from first John 3.3. Every man that hath his hope in
• 27:26
  him purifieth himself even as he is pure.
• 27:29
  A genuine hope of being with a holy God in a holy heaven will
• 27:32
  make you want to start getting ready now.
• 27:34
  You wouldn't hope to attend a royal wedding and then show up
• 27:37
  covered in mud. Exactly.
• 27:39
  A false hope, on the other hand, leads to licentiousness, to
• 27:42
  carelessness. It says I'm saved so I can live
• 27:45
  however I want. But a true hope says I'm saved,
• 27:48
  so I want to start living like the citizen of heaven that I am.
• 27:52
  All right, this brings us to the final section of his argument,
• 27:54
  the application and self examination.
• 27:56
  This is definitely the hardest part, but it's also the most
• 27:58
  necessary. It is this is where he turns
• 28:01
  from the doctor explaining the disease to the doctor holding
• 28:04
  the scalpel. He starts by just reinforcing
• 28:06
  why all this matters. He points out that the apostles,
• 28:09
  Paul, James, John, all of them insisted so heavily on works.
• 28:13
  Why? Because, he says, it is the only
• 28:16
  satisfying evidence of genuine grace.
• 28:18
  It's how God judges us in this life, and it's how He will judge
• 28:21
  at the final judgement. Our practice is the evidence
• 28:24
  presented in the courtroom. Now, I really want to pause here
• 28:27
  because I can hear some of our listeners and they're starting
• 28:30
  to get nervous. They're thinking about their own
• 28:32
  lives. They're thinking about the sin
• 28:33
  they committed yesterday, and they're starting to panic.
• 28:35
  They're thinking, does this mean I have no grace?
• 28:38
  Is Edwards just preaching a form of perfectionism?
• 28:41
  That is such a critical question, and we have to be
• 28:43
  extremely clear on this point because Edwards himself is.
• 28:46
  He anticipates that objection. Holy practice does not mean a
• 28:51
  sinless life. Edwards is not a perfectionist.
• 28:54
  He knows that true Christians struggle mightily with sin.
• 28:57
  So what's the standard then? The standard is tendency and
• 29:00
  evidence. It's about the trajectory.
• 29:03
  What is the general direction of your life?
• 29:05
  What is the main bent of your heart?
• 29:07
  Is the slope of the line overtime heading toward God or
• 29:11
  away from Him? He's not looking for a perfect
• 29:13
  record. He's looking for a pulse.
• 29:15
  OK, that's hopeful. And to help the person with a
• 29:18
  sensitive conscience, he gives us these 7 signs or diagnostic
• 29:22
  questions to help us tell the difference between the struggles
• 29:25
  of a true believer and the deadness of an unbeliever.
• 29:28
  Let's walk through these 7 signs slowly.
• 29:31
  I think this is where the real value is for personal
• 29:33
  applications. Sign number one is your reaction
• 29:35
  to failure. This is maybe the most important
• 29:37
  one for the struggling believer. The question isn't do you sin?
• 29:41
  The question is, when you sin, what is your reaction?
• 29:43
  Does your grace, however small, make that sin loathsome to you?
• 29:48
  So do you hate it? Do you hate it?
• 29:50
  Do you mourn over it? Do you abhor yourself for it
• 29:53
  like Job did? Do you cry out like Paul, oh
• 29:56
  wretched man that I am? Or do you just shrug it off,
• 29:59
  make excuses, and move on? The groaning and the hating of
• 30:02
  your own sin is a powerful sign of spiritual life.
• 30:05
  That's actually really comforting.
• 30:07
  It means the pain of your conscience is a sign of health.
• 30:10
  Dead nerves don't feel any pain. That's a great way to put it.
• 30:13
  So that's sign. One sign #2 is a habitual dread
• 30:17
  of future sin. OK.
• 30:19
  Do you carry with you a fear of sin as a terrible enemy that has
• 30:22
  wounded you before? A true Christian doesn't want to
• 30:24
  go back to the vomit. They develop a holy caution.
• 30:27
  They fear the power of temptation and they want to stay
• 30:29
  away from it, like someone who has recovered from a terrible
• 30:32
  illness fears being exposed to it again.
• 30:35
  Sign 3 is a perception of beauty, right?
• 30:38
  Do you see a certain pleasantness in the ways of
• 30:41
  holiness? Do you rejoice in the truth?
• 30:44
  This goes back to that aesthetic, that sense of the
• 30:46
  heart we talked about. Do you look at a life of prayer
• 30:49
  and generosity and self denial? And even though it's hard, is
• 30:53
  there a part of your soul that says that is beautiful, that is
• 30:56
  lovely? As opposed to looking at it and
• 30:58
  thinking that just looks boring and restrictive.
• 31:00
  Exactly. The regenerate heart sees the
• 31:02
  beauty of the law of God and the character of Christ.
• 31:06
  Sign 4 is really interesting. He calls it distinctly Christian
• 31:09
  virtues. He draws a line between
• 31:11
  Christian holiness and, say, Pagan morality.
• 31:14
  This is a brilliant point. He knows that the heathen
• 31:17
  philosophers like the Stoics, they valued virtues like justice
• 31:20
  and courage and self-control, and those are good things.
• 31:24
  But they despised humility. They saw it as weakness.
• 31:26
  They despised forgiveness and mercy.
• 31:28
  They despise poverty of spirit. But true grace loves the
• 31:32
  specific peculiar character of Jesus Christ.
• 31:34
  So the question for you is, do you esteem meekness?
• 31:38
  Do you value a forgiving spirit? Do you admire the things that
• 31:42
  the world considers weak? That's a sign that your values
• 31:44
  are being chased by heaven, not by the world.
• 31:47
  Sign 5 Hunger and thirst. A very simple question, do you
• 31:50
  long for a holy life? Is it a craving like Jesus said?
• 31:53
  Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.
• 31:56
  It's not just a mild preference of wouldn't it be nice?
• 31:59
  It's a deep seated need, like the need for food and water.
• 32:02
  Sign 6 Making it a business. I love this phrase.
• 32:05
  He uses the soldier analogy again.
• 32:08
  A soldiers main business is to fight for his king.
• 32:12
  A Christian's main business is to live a holy life for their
• 32:14
  King. So do you make a business of it?
• 32:19
  Meaning, is it your main project?
• 32:21
  Is it your main occupation? We all have jobs, you know,
• 32:24
  we're accountants or teachers or mechanics, but our vocation, our
• 32:27
  primary calling, is holiness. Do you wake up in the morning
• 32:31
  and think, how can I please and honor God today?
• 32:34
  Is it the central organizing principle of your life?
• 32:36
  And the final sign #7 is a desire for knowledge.
• 32:41
  But a specific kind of knowledge to pray the prayer of Job, that
• 32:44
  which I see not teach thou me. Do you want to know your duty to
• 32:48
  understand God's Word more specifically so that you can do
• 32:51
  it? As opposed to just wanting
• 32:53
  knowledge for its own sake. Right.
• 32:54
  A hypocrite, Edward says, often prefers to remain ignorant in
• 32:58
  certain areas because it gives them an excuse.
• 32:59
  How? I didn't realize the Bible said
• 33:01
  that. But a true Christian wants the
• 33:02
  light turned on, even if it's painful, because they want to
• 33:05
  see the dust and the dirt so they can clean it up.
• 33:07
  Wow, those are 7 very searching questions.
• 33:10
  They are, but they're good and helpful questions.
• 33:13
  They're diagnostic tools. So as we bring this deep dive to
• 33:16
  a close, what's the encouragement here?
• 33:18
  Because this material from Edwards can feel very heavy,
• 33:21
  very demanding. The encouragement is this.
• 33:25
  If you see any of these signs in your own heart, even in a small
• 33:28
  and struggling measure, that is evidence of God's genuine work
• 33:32
  in you. So even if it's faint.
• 33:34
  Even if it's faint, if you loathe your sin, if you desire
• 33:37
  holiness, if you see the beauty of Christ's character, if you
• 33:40
  hunger and thirst for righteousness, you did not
• 33:43
  conjure those desires up yourself.
• 33:45
  Dead men do not hate sin. Dead men do not love holiness.
• 33:49
  If you feel those pulses, however weak, it's because you
• 33:52
  are spiritually alive and the promise of Scripture is that he
• 33:55
  who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.
• 33:57
  That's the bedrock hope of the Reformed faith, isn't it?
• 34:00
  It's not that we are strong enough to persevere, but that
• 34:03
  God's grace is effectual and He will preserve us.
• 34:06
  Amen to that. Well, as we finish up, here's a
• 34:08
  final provocative thought for you to take with you this week.
• 34:11
  Imagine that your life was put on trial today in a court of
• 34:14
  law. The charge against you is that
• 34:17
  you are a genuine Christian. But here's the catch.
• 34:21
  The only witnesses allowed to take the stand are your daily
• 34:24
  actions from the past year. Your feelings are not allowed to
• 34:27
  testify. Your internal thoughts cannot be
• 34:30
  entered as evidence. Your church attendance record is
• 34:34
  inadmissible. The only evidence the jury can
• 34:37
  consider is what you actually did.
• 34:39
  How you spent your time and your money.
• 34:41
  How you treated your spouse and your children.
• 34:43
  What you looked at on your phone.
• 34:44
  How you acted when you thought no one was watching.
• 34:46
  If those were the only witnesses allowed, will there be enough
• 34:49
  evidence to convict you? That's something to Mull over.
• 34:52
  Thank you for listening to Reform Thinking.
• 34:54
  Grace and peace to you.