Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1394 | The Robertsons Take on the Christian Obsession with Being Good Enough

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Christian, John Luke, Zach, and Al dig into one of Christianity’s oldest debates: whether righteousness comes from human effort or the grace of God. John Luke opens up about spending years trying to be “good enough,” only to realize that discipline and good habits could never replace a real relationship with God. Plus, Christian learns that Jase has apparently started blaming him for a few new studio grievances. In this episode: Matthew 5, verse 48; Psalm 136; James 2, verse 17; 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1–2; Romans 7, verses 24–25; John 17, verse 3; Ephesians 2, verse 8; Romans 5, verses 2 and 5; 1 Corinthians 13, verse 13 Today’s conversation is about Lesson 5 of Theology 101: The Western Theological Tradition taught by various Hillsdale Professors. Take the course with us at no cost to you!  More about Theology 101: Examine the great questions of Western theology from the ancient Hebrews through today. The gift of speech, or reason, given by God to man, enables us to think about God and to worship Him.  This free online course pursues this purpose by examining the nature of God as revealed in the Bible, exploring the great theological questions and controversies of the early Christian church, studying the history of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and much more.  We invite you to join us and explore the nature of the relationship between God and man, and how a proper understanding of this relationship can lead to a free and happy life. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 00:00 Jase’s Goldilocks Chair Problem 03:47 An Ancient Christian Debate 07:06 Can You Earn Righteousness? 11:02 The Holy Spirit’s Role 17:44 John Luke’s Crisis of Faith 24:08 Discipline vs. Repentance 28:31 Romans 7 and the Struggle with Sin 32:16 What “Be Perfect” Really Means 36:04 Grace, Faith, and the Holy Spirit 40:21 Faith at Home 44:19 Marriage Settles the Grace Debate — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to the Unashamed Friday episode. We're going to the Hillsdale course. It's good to be back. Good to see you guys. Great to be here. Yeah, me and John, I walked in today. There's only two mics and I asked Maddie who was out of town. And she said that Al was joining us remote. And it made me kind of sad, Al. I miss you here in person. I know. I'm usually right there in between my two scholarly cohorts. And, but just so happened that, because I was, what's weird is, Christian, I was there yesterday. And I had planned on being there this week. And then I had forgotten that I had invited people to my house down here and go somewhere. Somehow I missed that. So Lisa's like, we have gas coming tonight. I was like, oh, I guess I got a guy.

Oh, I'm in a different set. Have y'all not noticed that? Well, I noticed it looked like, you look like James Carville without the weird reptile look. Because, you know, he usually does this from a hotel room or the bed or someplace like that. Where are you at? I'm in Franklin, Franklin, Tennessee. We got a movie premiere tonight with Willie and Corey Robertson coming in town. Wow.

So I got the big celebrities coming in. We're going to, yeah, we're going to have a good time. I asked you like five times pre-show if you were in a different room, but you didn't have your mic. Well, I had this on.

Yeah, you didn't have your headset on. No. I was reading some of our comments. I want to thank Frank out there. Frank's been so encouraging. He's back. Probably one of our biggest supporters.

and so Frank, thank you, brother. Good hearing from you, as always. I wanted to thank you for all the kind words. But yeah, I'm hearing. What if Frank is Jace? Is Jace? Because Jace is jealous. He's not on the show with us.

So he just bashes our episode. Well, Jace is actually, he is very angry with you. With me? Like, oh, every time he sits down, he complains about his seat. You're sitting in the seat that he sits in. He says you messed the seat up. He said, well, somebody. he's like a little Goldie locks.

You know, he's like, every single time he comes out of my day. Every time we film tomorrow, that'll be the first. It'll be the first five minutes. I've never adjusted this seat before or anything. No, you are to put it at, you are to adjust it. When whenever we leave here, I'll lower it as much as possible. Well, and today you changed out the headphones. I did change out his headphones.

But I've been rocking with the bad ones for about a year. Well, let's see what, let's see if he noticed the headphones tomorrow. We'll report back in the next episode. Let's see how the leverage here. I adjust this seat every time I sit in it. That's Al. See, Al's a, he's a gym to work with. Of course.

I don't complain, you know, unlike my brother. You know, Jace, my dad always said when Jace was born, he stuck his hat out of there and said, I don't know about all this. Jay's called a Jay calls him a what's he called him a fun sucker or something? Fun sucker. Yeah, fun sucker. Which I think he's fun. I have a great time with Jay's. Yeah, he's a storyteller.

I told him that Christian, I said, the problem is, Jay's, you know, you're sitting over there about a buck 65. Just, you know, no fat on him, but just nothing else either. Just bone and sine you. And I said, but Christian comes in. I said, you don't understand. This young man is Captain America. This guy's a place. And so he's probably running about 2.10 of solid muscle.

I said, so he sits down in your little lightweight seat. And he's putting some man in that seat. That's what's happening. So you come in a little Goldilocks wondering who the big bad bear was that was in my seat. So that's usually my rebuttal. So I'm looking out for you, Chris. It's the princess and the P. That's the story.

That's what it is. Well, we're taking the Theology 101 course with Hillsdale. You guys can take it for free with us. All you got to sign up is go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. You can sign up, take the course with us. This is lecture five. We're in five and six. And so just give you a little bit of a, not warning,

but maybe just kind of a precursor note to take note of. This got little, these two episodes were not that we're going to be doing of the next two lectures. I would say there's, yeah, we got into Pelagius, and we got into Augustine, which we already talked about Augustine a little bit, but, and then we get into Aquinas in the next episode. So these are ones you've got to kind of push through a little bit, but you got to stretch yourself.

So there was a good, when we sat down, you had the best comment, Christian. About Fluffy? Fulfy. There was a moment of reprieve for those simple-minded folks like us that we could get that. And that's the next podcast. But I will say this about where Dr. Wales went in this particular lecture that I thought the especially the Augustine look at at grace and to know that it was such a strong thing, you know, that far back in the fourth century, which I feel like it's just so foundational

to everything we believe and everything that, especially Paul. got at in so many of his letters was was really spectacular. I mean, I just thought that that part of the foundation that he kind of gets in, which we'll get into today, sort of a debate about that, which is still a debate over grace versus, you know, lawkeeping or work or can I do it myself versus, you know, how does the Holy Spirit work? So, but I just thought the, I guess the theology, the grace theology behind this was really, really outstanding. I was, I loved, you know, where he went, with it. Yeah, I thought it was super solid. We haven't talked about Pelagius yet, haven't we? Have we? No. Did we not? I thought we had, but I don't think,

maybe his name came up, but this is like more in depth about where he was. Maybe in the concept of original sin. I think, you know, he, Pelagian had a view that we, the humans are born perfect. Augustine, Augustine, as we should say, we've got to get out of that Florida mindset, that North Florida mindset, you know, had a differing opinion on original sin. And But this is really at the heart, I think, of the debate. And to your point, I mean, Al, I mean, I think this is something like, this debate, like, still going on. So it's interesting that it's been there since the really beginning of the church. And it's just kind of like, we debate this ad nauseum.

You know, we, I don't know if you would say this, Al, but I would say we grew up in more of a workspace understanding of salvation, at least probably to the mid-90s. I mean, would you agree? That's kind of the way we were. No doubt. I mean, and that's why even the point that there was a subtle point, which I can't remember the text, about, but I made a notation, even the Holy Spirit's role, I mean, a lot of my early exposure to the Holy Spirit in our background was that he's just basically non-existent. I mean, like, it was a light mention because it had to be about the law and about the sort of the Christian rule book. This is how kind of that same Pelagius idea that it's just you're being lazy if you're depending on the Holy Spirit. You should be getting out there and doing something.

So that was the way I remembered it. And then even as I kind of became a new Christian and kind of returned from a prodigal wondering, there was a guy that, I mean, he had a whole doctrine and theology that the Holy Spirit was not active without the scripture present. In other words, there was no interaction. with the Holy Spirit of God unless you were actively reading or studying his word. And when we first heard this and he started preaching this, we were all kind of looking at each other scratching our head thinking, I've never heard that before. And so we started looking at the scriptures like, well, it's because it's not in the Bible. That's, that's very.

I went to church with Jill, my wife in Alabama one time, and we were dating. And they had this preacher got up there. and everybody in the church was like over 70. So this is an older congregation. You know, no kids, you know, we were the youngest people in there by far.

And, you know, we were dating. I was in college. We were visiting her grandparents. And I remember the preacher gets up there. And he, well,

the first thing he said was, we're in the middle of Alabama. And he says, he did a whole sermon on his gambling evil. I mean, there's not a casino within like a, you know, but it was just like,

It was like issue-oriented. But one of the things he said in there, he said that the Holy Spirit only speaks through the written word. And I just remember, like, that was like nails on a chalkboard. Like the Holy Spirit only speaks to the Bible. What about the fact that the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit indwells the believer? Like, this is honestly the key. I mean, this is Jesus' teaching before he left, right? It's good to leave because if I don't leave, he's not going to come.

So, you know, this is at the heart of, I think, the Pelagian controversy, which is what this, episode is on. And Pelagius, you know, his, his contention was essentially that you could man up and attain your own righteousness. Obviously, you know, Augustine was like, well, no, it requires God's grace to enable that. But he would read verses like Matthew chapter 5, verse 48. This is be perfect as your Heavenly Father's perfect. And then he was like, you know, you can, you do this. Like you bootstrap this up. So the controversy here is, is really, that comes down to this, do you bootstrap up your own, your own righteousness? Or does that require the grace of God to, to make you righteous? And that's, that's the controversy. That's

the debate of what's going on here. And I like the idea of the Hesed, which was the, the Hebrew word for this enduring love of God, which he begins with that, which I think is so important because Zach, we talk so much about on regular and ashamed about the love nature of God and how that just extends itself through his relationship with us. And I went back to him, looked a little bit at the word because he had mentioned it several times during the lecture. And one of the play, it's 250 times that this word is used in the Old Testament. And this idea of loving devotion is what it keeps coming back to at the heart of God.

And one of the most famous ones was Psalm 136, where there's like a, here's something from God. And then it says, His love endures forever. And it keeps that song going back and forth. His love endures forever. His love endures forever. And that's that phrase, the enduring love of God and how that is the heart of it. And it was really interesting because the first time the word is used, it was the strangest context. is in Genesis 1919, which was when Sodom and Gomorrah were being destroyed because of evil.

And Lot is the first one that used the word has said. He looked at the people there. They said, you got to get out of here. And he said, I thank you for loving me with this devotional love. That was the word has said. But I don't want to leave. You know, I'm frightened to leave. And I just thought that was so telling of the struggle that goes on.

Even when you look around you and you see destruction, you see difficulty. And sometimes it's hard for people to pull away to the idea that God's saying, I've got something so much better for you in this life that if you trust in me and you go. And so it just, I thought it was weird that the very first time was used by a lot in a total picture of catastrophe and destruction because of sinful behavior. And yet still sometimes it's hard for people to embrace the headset of God, you know, this loving grace that's there. Yeah, I mean, when you guys think about that, like a verse, like, if, because it is hard to think about when the Bible does tell us to be perfect, the Bible does tell us to, you know, to choose, to choose God, you know, choose the stay whom you will serve. Like, you do see, like, a responsibility in the scriptures that we hold and we have. I don't know. Have you all, like, wrestled with that, but then at the same time, you're all, because you got that on one end, but on the other end, and you're like, but I can't really make myself believe something.

something to be true. I can't really, like, I can't beat this sin pattern in my life. I can't, like, you have the command to do it, but then you don't have the actual means to accomplish it. I mean, have you all wrestled with, I think we all have, right? Didn't he make the, make the point that Augustine was, he was talking about sitting under a tree or something, and he was saying that you can't necessarily will yourself to believe in God. I thought that was an interesting point of, yeah, of like, that kind of that, kind of that, idea of the grace, but he was also saying, like, there has to be a grace on your life to believe it, because you can't just will yourself to believe it and obey it. So I thought that was interesting.

I don't know what y'all thought about that. Yeah, but haven't you, have you ever thought about that though? Like, because I have. Because for me, like, you know, what, what you mentioned before I made that point was, because I always go to the idea of James of, you know, faith that works is dead. And, you know, First, Corinthians 15, by this gospel, you're saved if you hold firmly. it otherwise you believed in vain. So I do think there's, so I think with the Pelagius, I don't agree necessarily to the extent to which he would go things to where you become a son of God when you reach this specific virtue. But I do think I am probably more strong on the side of being obedient and having works that coincide with your faith, maybe than some people that are more just

hardcore on the grace and on that side of things to where, I don't know, I feel like if you do say you believe this and there does actually have to be action and works behind it, not that necessarily the works is what saves you, but that does signify that you, you know, that you do believe what you're claiming. And I think you look at that in any sort of relationships or in marriage or, I mean, if I claim to be married, but my life does not reflect anything, you know, to where somebody would believe that I'm married, then I would argue that you're probably not necessarily married, you know,

or at least you maybe shouldn't be if you're not living it out. So I think that's for me, that's the struggle of the faith with works. You know, Paul obviously talks about, you know, we're saved by grace alone through faith, but I do think that there are works that signify that you do believe what you claim to. And that's first convince 15.

I think sometimes you can maybe convince yourself you're saved and you might not be. So I don't know. That's more so where my mind goes on the faith and works and things like that. Yeah, you feel like the chance to choose between one of the other. I do, yeah. And I think growing up, I think I was so, like for me, the works was more so built around church and not necessarily relationship. And I think that's sometimes why I can kind of slip into more of like a religious.

mindset of, you know, doing specific things, but more so with the foundation of church and not necessarily like relationship with God and how the Holy Spirit kind of plays into that. I don't feel like growing up I had much of an idea or a real revelation of the Holy Spirit and how that actually played out in my life in a practical way, which is why I think I did put so much emphasis on church. And if I did bad things throughout the week as long as I was in church on Sunday, then, you know, then I guess I was back and right standing with God. But even now, I think, you know, obviously, yes, I believe we're saved by grace in what Jesus did. But I do think that there has to be action and there has to be things behind that to actually show that what you

claim to believe has actually changed your life in some way. So John Luke, I'm interested. what about you? Because Zach and I talked about our upbringing, which was a generation ahead of you, but you grew up sort of in a transitional generation, in our family at least, in terms of a little bit broader understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit and grace.

So what about your experience of kind of this whole debate back and forth? Yeah, I actually think I heard both growing up, and specifically both extremes of it. And reading this, I agreed with you in the beginning, this is an argument that's still happening. And reading through, like, Pelagius's argument and hearing things I thought, it brought back this memory of when I was probably 14.

And I heard a sermon, and it was literally this exact idea. And the question, I don't remember who it was. It had to be a youth minister or someone, because it was at White Street Road, or it could have been at camp. but it was someone in, like, at our church at the time. And there was a time, a little backstory before I get to this point,

there was a time, when I was like middle school to high school, we went through a lot of youth ministers. There was a bunch of different people who came in and taught. So this really could have been anyone. Zach and I just hoping it wasn't one of us. I was just like, who wouldn't be? Could have been your dad. You don't know.

Yeah. Go ahead. I'll tell you, it could have been someone related to us, but I'm not sure. So the question was, that was kind of wrapped up in this, was why do kids go to heaven? Like, until you reach the accountability, that age of accountability, or whatever that idea is, like, why do babies go to heaven naturally if there's like original sin? And the sermon was basically like they haven't sinned so that they're perfect so that God brings them in naturally. Like that was the idea of the sermon.

And the conclusion and the implications of that that I took from it is, oh, if you never sin, you will go to that. heaven and you can do that by yourself like you can or in Jesus say you come to Christ at six years old or whatever you can just not sin and be perfect and then make it to heaven it's kind of like a loophole like you don't have to get baptized because you can like there's a second way by just being perfect which is the same way that Jesus got in and I'll just believe that naturally as a, you know, 14, 15 year old for a while. And that kind of like, it was wrapped up in my super legalistic mindset, you know, during that whole time. And the more I have thought about that lately and after listening to this, because he kind of goes into this, he talks about

this in the next lecture too, that Pelagius' whole idea is like, you act out these virtues. choose and you become a holier person and then you become closer to God. Like your forgiveness and your forgiveness is tied to your closeness to God and your closest to God is tied to your like acts of faith or works of faith or just the things you do or habits is the word that he uses a lot. and in some ways I think like he's right about it in one way in the sense that

being having a holy mindset and doing the things that you think God wants will make your life better whether you actually have a relationship with God or not like I was thinking about you know there's a study that came out and it's basically like people who go to church every Sunday are happier and

it actually one thing that was tied to it was like the music and the singing. And it was like the worship experience, just being in a room of people who are singing together and listening to worship, like makes you a more peaceful person, whether or not it's about God or not. And like thinking about like,

just the idea of like being kind to people or like not getting drunk, like being, having self-control. Like you can do all these habits of God and become a holier person and it will make you. make your life better because that's how God designed us. But I think the problem is that none of that actually brings you closer to God. And I think that was for me. Like whenever, after I kind of heard that

sermon, it had their thoughts and had this very legalistic mindset, it did make my life a lot better. Like I was really trying to be peaceful and patient and kind and loving and good and have self-control and stay away from temptation and, you know, be immodern. and forgive people and not be angry. Like I was like doing all their things to the best of my ability. And it did make me a better person and a holier person, but it didn't actually make me closer to God because later, whenever I was still sinning and still struggling,

I had this like crisis of faith when it was like, oh, I can't do it. Like this actually, this is, I'm doing all these things, but I'm not good enough. Like I can't, I can't keep doing it. It's not, I don't have the power within me to doing all these things and still be a good person.

Like it's not about, because it's not about being good person. It's about being in the grace of God. Yeah, I do agree with what I love everything you just said. Because that is so true. It's like every, you know, youth camp growing up, you have this crazy moment. You're like, I'm never going to cuss again or I'm never going to. And then it's like at some point you're going to mess up, you know. But I do agree with some of the things police just said of like, you know, the magazine rack on the wall and, you know, trying to get to a place where that's not a temptation from you or the idea of struggling to live a blameless and sinless life. I love that idea of, like, yes, there is accountability on yourself to strive for that. But to me, where the argument breaks down is that

it's not that you become a son of God when you can, you know, not, you know, stumble by looking at a magazine. What makes you a son of God is if you do stumble and look at that when you repent and ask for forgiveness. That that's the core foundation of that's what makes you a son of God. It's that you have this conviction to where you, when you know you do something that breaks God's heart, there is that relationship of asking for forgiveness and repentance and conviction. And I think that's the, to me, that's the more beautiful thing about the relationship and not about this, you know, white-knuckle discipline. I'm not going to look at that. It kind of comes down to the, where you can do it with or without the Holy Spirit. I want to,

want to remind you something as if you're new, the podcast especially if you're just trying us out, you can take these courses with us for free at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And so it's so much richer for you to see the lecture and then hear us discuss it. So be sure and check that out. I was thinking about the, what to me, because it's kind of, it's almost like a chicken and egg, you know, which game first? I argue. Can you, can you achieve these things without the role the Holy Spirit in your life or not. To me, Augustine, that was at the heart of what his argument was. And I've always thought,

and he mentioned this, I think, or I may have just thought it when he was doing a lecture. It's the picture to me in Romans 7 that Paul lays out so beautifully about that inner struggle, what you were talking about, Christian, the idea of

I want to do the right thing, but I fall short, and then I'm back and I'm forth. And he gets down to this beautiful picture of the wrestling match that goes on in our inner self. But he closes it with something so powerful. He says, what a wretched man I am. In other words, I can't do it on my own.

Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So in other words, this is like desperation place of saying, I have to give up and surrender. And then something's going to happen that's going to help me in this battle. And then you get Romans 8, which in my opinion is the strongest chapter in Rome. moments. Yeah, and the whole thing is about here, you want some help? You want some, you want something to launch you into this inner battle and inner man struggle. Here's what it is.

It's the Holy Spirit of God. And that entire chapter is about that. And at the end of that chapter, instead of who will rescue me from this body of death, it's we are conquerors. We are overcomers. We can take on anything in this life. So I've always thought that was the greatest argument that Augustine is putting forward, that you have to have that first before the rest of it makes sense. Yeah, I think the core of the argument is a misunderstanding of even like a word,

like the word perfect, right? Because Pelagius would use Matthew, chapter 5, verse 48, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. So when you read that, you think, and I think, oh, I need to be flawless. We interpret perfection to mean flawless. If I say the word perfection, then the first thing that pops in most of our minds is like a diamond.

A diamond that's perfect. It doesn't have any flaws to it. So I've got to be flawless. I can't make mistakes. I've got to bootstrap up. I've got to be perfect as my heavenly father is perfect. But the Greek, and we've been going through the book of James, so we've actually been studying this a lot lately,

the Greek word for be perfect as your heavenly father. perfect as it comes off of the root or telios, teleology, which means essentially intent, purpose, design, completion. There's a, there's a unified. That these are the, these, it's the terminology that this word implies. So, so what the, what the, what the, the, the, the, Jesus is saying is, is be complete as your heavenly father's complete. Well, what does that mean? Live in reality. Like, like, live in your, your design, live in your intention, live in your purpose as your father lives in his purpose. I mean, the father is the father. You know, you be the creation. You go be the worshipper. And so I think where Augustine was helpful is that he, so he would listen to Pelagius. Pelagius is the problem

of Pelagius is that the way he interprets righteousness is that it's performative. I think the professor talked about the analogy of God is like telling you to go train for the Olympics. And as you perform well, then you're like, okay, the prizes now you get to be with me. Or Augustine was like, no, no, no, he is inviting you into a participation in his inner life. That's a whole different thing. He's not saying go perform so that then I can say, well, Well done. Good job. Now you have shown me and you have proven your loyalty. You've proven your righteousness. You've proven. Now you're in. That is a heresy. And that kind of burden is the burden

that crushes men because we cannot perform enough that the holy God is going to look at us and say, wow, you have done. You are quite the guy. Why? Because we're standing before this holy God. and we really have empty hands of faith that we raised in him, meaning there's nothing in them. So what Augustine is asking is, well, what does it mean that? To be created and to live it. What is the purpose of man? The purpose of man is to actually be a participant in the life of God. That's John 173 when Jesus defines eternal life.

He doesn't define it as some reward that you get later on for doing all. all the right things. He says eternal life is to know the one true God. It's to know him. It's to participate in it. Well, how can I know this father, son, spirit, God? How would I even, how would I even know? And Jesus Christ's son whom he sent. You know him through Christ. Well, how does that happen? Jesus says that in John 14 through John 17. He said, it's for your good that I leave, because if I don't leave, he won't come. But when he comes, he'll guide you in all truth. So Jesus clearly shows us that the role of the Holy Spirit when he comes is that he will live in the hearts of the believer. He will illuminate our minds to the truth of the gospel. So I think

the way I've always kind of threaded the needle, it's not even thread the needle here. I just think it's pretty clear in the teaching is that the role of the spirit is the one who illuminates the mind and the heart of the believer. I don't discover Christ on my own. I'm not an explorer in the world and I'm like, oh, oh, wow, I think I've determined that Christ is Lord and I'm going to submit my life. Now, the spirit has to, has to reveal that to me and to everybody. You don't discover Christ in your broken humanity. Christ is revealed to you through the spirit. Now, then I think the scripture does teach that you have a response there. Then you can say, I think you're lying to me and I reject that. And that's called sin and it leads to death.

or you can say, you know what, I actually believe what you're telling me, Holy Spirit. And so I'm going to submit to that truth and I'm going to build my life around that because I believe that truth that you're revealing is the revelation of how I can participate in the inner life of God, how I can participate in the good life, how I can actually flourish by being under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and fill with your spirit. And the word for that is simply called faith. So when you get to the idea of faith versus works and he had mentioned Ephesians, 2, 28 in the lecture, he said, this would be one that Augustine would have appealed to.

For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith. And that is not of your own doing. You didn't manufacture up this grace. It's not of your own doing. It's a gift from God. And I think Paul helps us understand what that means when he kind of reiterates that same idea in his letter to the Roman church. And this is in Romans 5.

And you can see the relationship here between faith and grace. He says that in Romans 5, Romans 5, 2, then you can bring up Romans 5, 5. Okay. Because the idea, I think the question is, like, what does the grace have to do with this and what does the faith have? Like, what is going on here? Because a lot of people will, I've heard make the case that, and it just confuses me, they're saying, God even gives you the faith. I mean, he gives you the revelation that would lead to faith, but you have to choose whether you're going to submit to that or not.

Right. And that is, so how do, so the real question is, what does the Apostle Paul teach? How does the Apostle Paul, what is the vehicle through which the Apostle Paul says we enter into grace? That is the question. How do we enter into grace? Well, Romans 5, which kind of echoes Ephesians 2 8, Romans 5 2 says that through him, Well, through who? Jesus Christ, our voice.

Jesus. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. So if I'm reading that, the way I'm imagining that is there's a destination over here of grace. I want to get into that grace. Well, how do I get into the grace? I get there through the vehicle of faith. What is faith? Well, faith comes from hearing the word. Well, how do we hear the word? Well, people tell us the word that the Holy Spirit reveals to us the truth of who God is. So if the Holy Spirit is the originator of the revelation of salvation to us, then he has to speak before I can even hear.

So God speaks, then I can hear because he said a word. And when I hear his word and I submit to the word, that word, that's what faith is. And when I do that, then I, I experience the salvific grace of God. Now, it really is even an act of grace, even that God would even reveal that to us. I mean, even the revelation itself is an act of grace. And I think this is what, you know, Augustine is getting at is that what God is ultimately revealing, he's revealing himself. And that's why the apostle Peter says that we actually participate or we are partakers of the divine nature because God has revealed his divine nature to us. And then there's an invitation from the Holy Spirit.

Now come. Now come and dine with me. And Zach, you're right, because the faith then leads to hope in verse 5 of Romans 5. Hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love. There's the third aspect, the love of God in us. How did that happen? Into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. So you see how the idea of faith, hope, and love go together, which is how he closes

out, 1st Corinthians 13, 13. He says, the greatest of these is love. Why? Because God is love. And so the only way for us to access and tap into that is for then some of that divine nature to be in us. And that's what happens at that moment of desperation we talked about. That's the Holy Spirit.

He lives in us. So that's part of the power of that. We want you to sign up and take the course with us for free at unashamed for Hillsdale.com. Do you guys remember in a previous podcast when we were talking about, Augustine, we had mentioned the quote from confessions that I pulled it up here. This is from confessions, which is also mentioned in this lecture, that you have made us for yourself, oh, Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. And I think we talked about like the James K.A. Smith beach ball analogy that you try to submerge the beach ball. But it's not what it was intent. It's not what the thing's designed for. Like you can't inflate a beach ball and then like put it under the water. Like if you try to hold it in that position, it's going to take a lot of effort. And it's not where it's supposed to be. It's not its ontology. It's not it's not the reality that it was created to live in or to exist in. So what was that reality? well, to sit on top of the water and just rest. And so we had that same rub when we're trying to live outside of reality.

And so what the spirit is doing is saying, well, is revealing to us, well, here's what, here's what you're actually made for. Here's your real completion. Here's your telos. Here's your real intent. Here's the purpose of your design. This is the end, right? This is what you're moving towards.

To live in God. And so as we participate in that reality is the degree that which we experience the rest and the peace that God is offered. And so this whole like debate, I just, I kind of refuse to get into the whole like Calvinism, Armenian debate, because I think it diminishes the bigger picture to reduce these, to reduce this to a debate and a set of beliefs that I've got to now got to sign off on some confession or the canons of door. or I've got to, I mean, these are helpful documents made, but I mean, at the same time, but it's not, this isn't there's a system of doctrinal beliefs that I have to acquire. That's not what God is doing here. God is inviting us in to participate in his life through the blood of Jesus Christ.

That's the invitation. And so we got to be careful with the debate, not letting it turn into an intellectual exercise that we missed the one who the whole thing is about. That was good, Zach. That would make for a good social clip. So I got a question for the young guys again. So Christian, you brought up the illustration of marriage earlier, which I think is very apropos because this word has said,

I looked at the meaning. It's not just an emotional attachment that God has for us. It's a demonstration of commitment. was the way it was phrased. And I thought that was really powerful. And the only thing I know in this life that's kind of even remotely close to that is what you mentioned. It's that sort of commitment we make to another person when we go. It's not just that I love this person.

You love Sadie or you love Mary Kay. It's that I have made a commitment, a declaration, and knowing that it's going to be challenged. And so without the foundation, does it work? Well, a lot of times it doesn't. So my question of you guys is, in this last segment, I want to hear something practical from y'all because I do think it's important what Zach just said for us to make it practical in terms of how we live. So you're both young. You're both now your families are started. You're in the season of challenge with children because you both have quivers full of them.

How have you become a better husband because of faith expressing itself through love? I mean, is it just because I said I do? And so now I've got to do it. Or what has grown your relationship to be better from your perspective? I'd love to know because it really does mirror what we're talking about with our spiritual walk. That's good. Yeah, I think my first thought is selflessness and, you know, humility for, and I think it's grown, I would say, exponentially after having kids to where, you know, you, there is so much.

sacrifice and selflessness that takes place. And I think that's, at least that's for me where you see love expressed the most is when you truly put someone above yourself. So for me, with my children, is if I, you know, do something or say something and I need to ask them for forgiveness, or if I say something to say to you, or if I have a, you know, a jealous thought or any ofious thought or whatever, you know, confessing these things and asking for forgiveness and going up to my daughter and saying, hey, I'm sorry, I raised my voice in this situation. I think for me, those are the practical ways of seeing at least my faith exercised in life to where I'm taking accountability for things that I messed up in, attempting to lower

myself, ask for forgiveness, exercise humility. And I think that's when I see, you know, my faith played out to where I also feel like I have some healthy sense of, of, um, you know, a reaction I would maybe have or, or a, um, like a reaction from something before I really came to true faith would be, you know, there would not be, um, that, that feeling of, of wanting to ask for forgiveness or, or that feeling of repentance or even conviction in certain situations. And I think for me, me with kids, it's been that selflessness and seeing that played out and trying to put my kids and my wife above myself. And yeah, I think just a keen awareness of when I don't do that, trying to

ask God for forgiveness and also ask forgiveness for my family. But I think that's probably the way I've seen that idea of faith, acted out in love in marriage and also as a parent. Yeah, because they go together, right? What about you, Lou? Yeah, I mean, to me, I'm thinking about the Holy Spirit dwelling in me because I have, you know, put my faith in God many years ago and been living in that long time. I, like I said before, I spent a lot of time with this very legalistic mindset

thinking, okay, I need to do this. I need to be good and faithful and peaceful and, you know, have certain feelings about things. and just kept messing up. And so in the past, you know, 10 years or so, I've really been noticing whenever my flesh should fail me, but the Holy Spirit is there to save me. In the sense of, you know, something will happen with the kids or marriage

or with work. And I think I should be so anxious about this right now, but I feel peace. Like, it's none of my good habits or good rest or good anything has prepared me to handle this situation right now, but I feel like this supernatural peace, and that's the Holy Spirit. Or like, I should be so angry. This person is wronged me, you know, or, you know, different times of our marriage, Mary Kate's done something. Or I've done something to her, you know, both ways. But something I think, like, I should be so angry right now, but I can just forgive you and we can move on.

You know, that's like, I know that comes from the Holy Spirit because I know my flesh doesn't, would not do that naturally. Even though I have put a lot of effort into developing good habits, I know that my good habits only get me so far. And whenever I'm able to forgive or feel peace or say no to something that I naturally want to do, but there just seems a supernatural sense of like, okay, I don't have to do that. Like, I've been God and God's in me, and he's working through me. And it just seems so clear to me that that's the spirit working through me. The marriage analogy is, I think, helpful because if you think about the debate between the Pelagius argument and the, you know, Augustine argument, if you applied it to marriage, then I think it starts to, like, show itself. If you were to take the Pelagius approach to a marriage relationship, you would not have.

have a marriage relationship. You just wouldn't. If you went in with your wife and she came in with you and she said, okay, here's my expectations. And as you fulfill these, then you're going to acquire my affections and vice versa. Then what would happen is very quickly, you would start to realize that, oh, this person's not meeting my expectations. And so then the next thing that happens is a little word we'd like to call resentment.

You know, which, what did somebody say one time? Somebody said this out. It's like, they said something like resentment. What was it? Resentment. Is an expectation not yet realized. Yeah. Or a false, a failed expectation, not yet realize, yeah.

Yeah, or premeditated. Expectations are premeditated resentments. There you go. How do you want to say it. But like, it's not going to work. It's just not going to work. And say, like, if I go into my relationship with Jill as, and everything is about, like, proving my worth.

to her and vice versa, then everything, like, it's kind of robs intimacy. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to do our date night on Tuesday night. And I say, hey, send you a text. Hey, don't forget date nights, Tuesday night.

And I need to make sure I get this in so that I hit my quota. She's going to be like... Bring chips and salsa. Oh, yeah. That's a killer of intimacy. I was going to tell you. Like, hey, Jill, we, we didn't have a date night this week and on the docket of your expectations. I need to make sure I get that in so that, you know,

meet your expectations. Jill's not going to like that. That's not going to lead to intimacy. I'm just telling you, like I've been married to 25 years and me and Jill want to have some intimacy, and you know what I'm talking about. It doesn't happen that way. What happens is I have to start in advance, like showing my affections for her. That's different. Not my obligation. my affections. So the life in Christ, the life in God is a life about affections. This is the whole John Piper like ministry is built on this, like the desiring God. The God is most glorified in us when we are most what? Satisfied in him, right?

So it's the Jonathan Edwards affectionate. This is, I mean, this is, this is Augustine. This is what he taught. But this is the Bible that God wants to rightly align our affections towards their proper telos, towards their proper, be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Align your affections to their natural and proper end, which is God himself. That's the invitation. And so that's why if you apply the Augustinian approach to marriage, that would actually work.

And you would actually have a very good marriage, and I call it the Augustinian approach. It's not the Augustinian approach. It's the Bible. It's the Bible. The Pelagian approach is not the Bible. And that's why it failed. And that's why he was eventually condemned. So I don't know.

I love that. But that's, no, it's so good. And it shows you why the best husband and wife scenario is the best brother and sister in Christ scenario. It starts because we have this understanding of sacrifice to this understanding that both you young guys laid out,

that it starts with a submission. of myself. We want you to take the courses with us. Unashamed for Hillsdale.com is where you do that. We're at the end of this episode, but Zach, that was a perfect tease into our next episode, Thomas Aquinas, when we talk about the happy life we can have in Christ and how the result of that, where that comes from, and how much better your life can grow, just like a marriage can as well, even though there will always be challenges. And by the way, guys, I want to remind you that We are doing another giveaway for the Theology 101 course. We're going to pick one listener to come down to Westman Road to watch a live recording of Unashamed.

And we're going to pay for travel and lodging for you and a guest up to $1,000 each. All you got to do is take the quiz. All you got to do is take the Theology 101 course with us, finish all the quizzes, and then send us your certificate of completion. You can sign up. So I'll give you two websites. You can sign up and take the course for free at Unashamed for Hillsville.com. Then upload your certificate at watchunashamed.com, and you guys will be entered to win.

You'll be entered into the drawing for the winning, and we'll let you know who wins that in the very near future. We'll pick it up here next time on Unashamed for Hillsdale. Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy powered by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com and sign up. It's no calls to you. That's Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And don't miss an episode of the Unashamed podcast by subscribing on YouTube. and be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.