welcome to this episode of real Christianity my name is Dale Partridge reach week I offer 15 to 20-minute answers to tough the illogical and pastoral question this is 100% listener support audio Ministry of relearn. Org and for those who don't know our mission a tree learn.org is to educate and equip ordinary Christians to plant biblical confessional and missional house churches for more information just visit relearn. Org forward slash house welcome to real Christianity I'm your host deal Partridge as many of you know you can find the Show new episodes at our website at relearn. Org today we are going to be speaking about how our speech should be referencing the Lord or how we should speak reverently of God before we begin I just wanted to mention a few things at 1 I wanted to talk about one of our programs at Stan
 in Victory. Org we've had so many reach out over the last few weeks even asking about issues with pornography if you're struggling to overcome the sin of pornography that we have designed a program it's a short very affordable program at standard victory.org which is a gospel centered program and I lead the program it's sharing part of my own story and it has helped probably close to a thousand people have gone to the program so far and the fruit is just incredible the testimonials that you have sent me made me cry and if you are struggling and battling with that please check outstanding victory.org
 another thing also just so you guys know I'm over the last several months I've been having a Lyme flare up for you who have been following me for long if you guys have been around for a couple years you remember a few years ago I got pretty sick and I struggle with chronic illness with Lyme disease and mold toxicity and I had a pretty bad relapse a couple months ago and I'm fighting through that and the Lord's Grace has been upon me through this whole process but I'm not operating at full capacity so I'm just trying to really get the bare minimum requirements done at this point but I'm telling you all this because I could really use your prayers you don't chronic illness and suffering is difficult even for those of us who have a strong theological framework to
 look at suffering but yeah I would just appreciate your prayers during this time for us and our family I am making progress at but it's very slow
 it'll likely be several more months before I'm back up at a pace that was maybe that I had maybe you know six to nine months ago also if you are somebody who struggles with Lyme disease and chronic illness of some sort mold toxicity I'm going to be writing a book Lord willing within the next year on the idea of being Christian with chronic illness or the Christian and chronic illness something along those lines and would love for you to just email me at Dale at Reformation Seminary calm and just let me know your story up to maybe talk to you at some point for the book all right
 so yesterday I was scrolling through Twitter when I noticed a tweet by Tim Keller and I followed Tim Keller because I generally respect his perspective on spiritual matters in theology I read several of his books including the meaning of marriage which I still think is a classic on marriage but some of notice include myself that tips the ology over the past and maybe a year or so at least maybe maybe not to see all your beliefs his way of communicating it has been less careful than previous years but last night he tweeted a statement that sad God's Reckless Grace is our greatest hope
 let's be clear I understand the sentiment and the creative you know or even poetic nature of the word reckless but what I want to talk about today is how we can be careful and we need to be careful to not project human attributes upon a holy God especially as pastors who are ambassadors of God with an intention of accurately representing him and his gospel to the world and to those who are being shepherded in our respective Ministries
 the word reckless if you just look at the Souris is comes up with words like careless thoughtless risky without calculation lacking wisdom you know these are obviously inaccurate actor Buttes of our God you know there's a tauren Wells and then wrote a song that talks about the ridiculous grace of God it's not ridiculous you know there is someone that even brought up you know crazy love right from Francis Chan again these are creative license or poetic you know instruments of explaining a topic that some people get but some people don't and some people are frustrated by them and some people really appreciate
 and so I want to talk about this and I know some of you guys are thinking oh man are you really calling out Tim Keller you know what one thing is this when you make a public error
 as a pastor on Twitter or something like this some other platform and usually requires public correction I'm not even correcting Tim Keller directly I'm just saying he had this we shouldn't think this way I'm still a supporter of dr. Keller but I'd say these things to him directly and a loving and humble way I really respect his work you know I've surely said irreverent things in my life and in the past and have been corrected by other people for them but again just due to his large influence and
 you know how many people would have seen this and and the fact that I posted I want to bring some clarity to it I thought it was important to speak on the matter and it's not just tell her you know we obviously have the Reckless Love Song by Cory Asbury in and then obviously ridiculous Grace and his other tons of worship songs that use this kind of a reference on the way that we speak of God so you know I just think about proverbs 9:10 the fear the Lord is the beginning of wisdom in the knowledge of the Holy One is inside I think about the third commandment right you shall not take the name of your lord God in vain for the Lord will not hold him Guiltless who takes his name in vain okay now you're thinking of Tim Keller's not taken the lord's name in vain when you look at the theological implications of what it means to take the lord's name in vain it's much larger than just how we would think about it in a dr. William Plummer from the 1800
 you had a really great statement I'm going to read he says anything relating to the true God his being his nature his will his works his workmanship his worship His service or his Doctrine pertains to God's name the Commandment extends to the state of men's thoughts and hearts as well as their speech to take God's name in vain is to use it in any frivolous false inconsiderate irreverent or otherwise Wicked Manor the scope of this commandment is to secure the holy and Reverend use of all that by which God makes himself known to his people and so to guard his sacred name against all that is calculated to make it contemptible the matter of taking his name is to be grave I mean serious solemn intelligent thoughtful sincere and with God
 fear and quote
 I think doctor plumber captures what I'm trying to say without giving you a larger theological discourse on understanding what the lord's name means when he's telling us not to speak a certain way we need to be careful with the words that we use especially when we're describing the character of God or the attributes of the Gospel Jesus and speaking to the Pharisees
 he makes a pretty harsh statement in Matthew 12:33 through 37 he says either make the tree good and it's fruit good or make the tree bad and it's fruit bad for the tree is known by its fruit you brood of vipers how can you speak good when you are Evil 4 out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks for the good person out of his good treasure brings forth good and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil I tell you on the day of judgment pay attention here on the day of judgment people will give an account for every careless word they speak for by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned
 I want to talk about this and to be clear I'm not saying that that Doctor Keller is a brood of vipers or that he's he's an evil man we've all failed and speaking incorrectly about the Lord or improperly irreverently we've all said you know OMG we've all we've we've done these things and the grace of God covers these things for his children Doctor Barnes Albert Barnes he writes a little comment are in this passage he says the this literally means in terms of the actual verse where I'm talking about here is
 after every careless word so that the commentary saying is literally means a vein thoughtless useless word a word that accomplishes no good here it needs evidently Wicked injured false malicious for such were The Words which they had spoken John Calvin had a really good commentary
 on this to he says quote now since man is so cautious is not so cautious in speech or maintain such a wise restraint upon himself as never to allow some Idle Words to escape him there remains for all of us absolute despair if the Lord should treat us with this type of rigor but as The Confident hope of our Salvation rests on the assurance that God will not enter into judgment with us and he references Psalm 143 too but we'll bury it in his gracious forgetfulness the sins which deserve innumerable deaths so Tim Keller is a Christian which means that. Sen has already been of town for and my sin when I failed to speak directly to represent the Lord is already a tone for but it doesn't give us this
 licentious permission to not be careful with our words and to let certain things slip out of our mouths know we need to out of the Gratitude of our heart for the Salvation that was secured for us on Calvary by Christ we need to be showing our reverence as our love and respect and gratitude for what's been done for us and so we do need to be careful on the way that we speak is our duty again as ambassadors for those of us that are pastors or children of God to accurately represent our heavenly father with Words which are true to his character words like awesome words like you know I think of Relentless I would have been a much better word you know God's what was that the line Harry says
 play God's Reckless Grace is our greatest hope it would be much better if it's God's Relentless Grace is our greatest hope it's okay I understand the poetic license and we have in this culture to do you know use colorful language with modern you know wider semantic ranges that may allow for people to grasp what's really trying to be said about the truth is when we speak of God we must speak the truth or God is Not Reckless his truth is not Reckless his grace is not Reckless it's perfect it's wholly it's just these are the words that we should be using so that's my short message today to the post is on my Instagram account and there's hundreds of comments of great discourse and some people disagreeing and being frustrated and some people appreciating the conversation the exultation but it's there for you to reference with my hope is in my heart is
 that everybody walks away today just being careful with their tongue being careful with what they say being careful how they represent their King not just in word but also in Duty in behavior and even their thoughts and so hopefully that was a helpful note in message for you on this episode of your regular listener to the real Christianity podcast thank you your reviews really do healthy exposure the show so if you haven't left to review you can just tap the stars in your podcast app where you can write something and if you do I will read it for those of you who are looking to follow us online kapalo me on Twitter at Dale Partridge or you can follow our ministry every learn.org across all social media platforms and for those that are interested in supporting our ministry at the summertime months are always harder months for Ministries across-the-board so for those of you who give to several Christian Ministries now is the time to support those Ministries you know I think it's 75%
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