Transcription
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Welcome and welcome back to the Tin Can Dispatch. I'm Austin Lillard, and today I am not joined by Reagan. He had to dip out of this episode. We're recording all these together. So, this is the final episode in the series on the five solas. I hope you all have enjoyed it thus far.
Um, last week was Solus Christus. I absolutely loved that episode. And before that was Sola Gratia. So, this is our third episode we're recording today. I'm super excited to get into it and finish up this series. I know I've enjoyed it, and I know it's been a big blessing to me. So, thank you for uh coming on. And uh I have kind of a view of your notes so I can, you know, kind of get a spoiler for what's coming. So I'm excited for it.
So uh with that being said, subscribe to the YouTube. It's it's weird Reagan not being here. I feel like I'm thrown off a little bit. Right-hand man is gone. Yeah. So uh if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe to the show. Uh like the video. If you're watching on Spotify, follow us. Give us a a review. However many star stars you see fit. So, uh, with that being said, I'll hand it over to you, Pastor Scott.
Yeah, like I've said it at the beginning of every episode, thank y'all for having me having me on. Uh, simple preacher from a simple church in a simple community, you know. But, uh, I praise the Lord for, uh, the time that we live in, the technology that we have, the platforms that we that we do have. The more I think about, you know, podcasts and YouTube channels and and live streams and everything that we have, you know, talking about the these church fathers, like what could what could have Martin Luther had done with a podcast, right? You know what I'm saying? Like it. Thank God that that it's available, but also um, you know, an urgency to be placed in the hearts of men and women uh to voice what's happening right in Christianity.
So, uh, let's look at uh the glory of God alone. So this is the sixth episode of Gloria, but the fifth um sola because there's only five of them. Um, Soli Deo Gloria. Uh, little bit of history. This is kind of reaching because it's it's outside of um of what we would call the Protestant Reformation, but the year 1685, the place is Germany, and there's a little newborn baby boy, and his name is Johann Sebastian Bach. You're like, eyebrow raised. Wink wink. So he's going to grow up to become one of the greatest composers in in history. You know, we have Mozart, we have Bach, but there's something that's written on nearly every one of his manuscripts. So as he's writing and composing, uh, at the bottom of every one of his compositions is three Latin words: Soli Deo Gloria. Wow. So everything that Bach wrote, he wrote for the glory of God. Um, which I find really amazing. Yeah, that's cool.
The phrase wasn't just for the m the musicians. You know, during the Reformation, Soli Deo Gloria became really the capstone of the Reformation of the five solos. So if Sola Scriptura is the foundation, this is like this is the pinnacle of everything. So, we're starting with scripture. We're learning the doctrines of scripture. And what comes out of that is glory, right? Glory to God. You kind of see the upward-facing praise coming from the bottom going to the top. Um, the reason for everything God does in salvation and everything, uh, he does in our lives is for his glory. So when God saves, he saves by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the scriptures alone. And that's all for his glory. He receives glory when that happens, right? Uh, because it's not a work that we did, you know? It's like Pat the person on the back that did the most work. Okay, God, thank you. You know, right. Right. Uh, it wasn't God plus me a little bit. It's been him the whole time. Mh.
Um, but we're also, what we've learned is, you know, we're not just along for the ride either. We're not riding the wave of grace. It's actually grace that is compelling us to to be better people, right? You know, so God is sovereign, but we are responsible to to um walk in the walk in the good grace that God has given us, right? He has a plan that will be accomplished no matter what, but he wants us to be active participants in it. Yeah. But it's even a little deeper than that. It's we are the means by which his plan is accomplished. Which is crazy. I say it all the time from from the pulpit here at the church is he takes the weakest link in his creation, you know, fallen man. Yeah. And brings glory to his name through it. So craziness. Yeah. For real. It really is crazy. But that that shows that shows the awesomeness of God. He can take the worst and make the best out of it. And just the love he has for us that he would that he would reach out to us in that way and and desire to use us kind of brings a lot of glory his way. See what I did there?
So the Apostle Paul, he writes in Romans 11 and uh 36: "For from him and through him and to him are all things." Right? We could probably quote this. "To him be the glory forever. Amen." And uh on on the podcast that I do, Pulpit Devotions, I sign off um every episode with the blessing that you see a lot at the end of the Apostle Paul's writings. Not because I think I'm the Apostle Paul or anything, but it's like what else can you say? You know, I always say, "Until next time, may the grace and the peace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen." Yeah. And it's like, okay, I can tell you bye. See you later. Or I can bless you. You know, the Old Testament does did blessings. We we bless our children here. You know, may may um God's face shine upon you. You know, we we do the blessings of things. Why do we do all that? Yeah. Like what what compels me as a man to create a podcast to talk about things that I've already talked about? Mhm. Um to give somebody just another another form of information, right? Um and then to sign that off and not give me accolades, but give God accolades. Well, that's it's what we've been talking about. It's five solos. Yeah. You know, it's the grace that I have, the faith that I have in God. So, I'm going to at any time that I can, I'm going to try and give him glory, however however that may be.
I have a uh my mom growing up. You you would just you would have to know her. I don't know. Have you met my mom? You've been in the same building at the wedding. At the wedding. Yeah. Yeah. But she was a little preoccupied. Yeah. A little bit. She's so funny. But growing up, she when she would like drop me off at school or or something, she would be she would say, "May the Lord bless you and keep you and multiply your camels." And now I don't do it every day, but sometimes when I'm leaving for work, I tell Abigail, I'm like, "May the Lord bless you and keep you and multiply your camels." It's pretty much the Old Testament summed up. I think I think so. You know, hey, look at Jacob. He's a prosperous man. Look at all those camels. You know, like, yeah, I get it.
Uh Isaiah, just so we know that this isn't just a New Testament thing. I know we talk about Paul a lot, but I mean, my goodness, he wrote a lot of the New Testament. He did a big chunk of it. Um, but Isaiah 42 and 8: You know this is God speaking. He says, "I am Yahweh; that is my name." Mhm. Right. "I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to graven images." So he's speaking about idolatry. Right. But God himself has spoken from eternity past that like there is no other glory to give anything else. All glory is to be given to me. And there's there's multiple instances. And to think about how much of an insult to the Lord it is. One example is in in Exodus when they create the golden calf. They don't just create it as a graven image. They say, "This is the God that brought you out of Egypt." Oh yeah. And then the same thing in Judges. Uh, just, you know, we've covered this on the on the regular show, but they didn't just worship Baal. They called it Baal Berith, which is God of the covenant. Mhm. So it's it's giving glory. It's not just worshiping something else, but it's giving glory that is due to God to this other entity. That's that's just it. It's giving God's glory to something else. That is that would be the opposite of what we're talking about here. Yeah.
To look at your own salvation and to give that perfect glory, like the glory that's due to someone else other than God. Right? That's the that's the heresy. That's the the important thing to look at here. So, definitions. Love definitions. Um, this one, this episode's really like it's a capstone. It's it's a wrap-up. We've we've established all of these things, and this is kind of the the the bedrock of what what is produced out of all of this. Like you give glory to the right person because of what we know in scripture. That person is God. Right. Right. So, you're going to give that glory to him. Um, Soli Deo Gloria means that all of life and salvation exist for God's glory alone. Like that is the that's the working definition. Not ours, not an institution's, not somebody else's. Like literally everything is for God's glory. Everything. You say, "Well, when I stub my toe, it's everything. It's for Yeah. He created the toe to be stubbed. God's glorious." You're like, "Oh, I don't Okay." You know, like, "No, he didn't create the the the toe stubbing." You know, I don't He doesn't get glory because I stubbed my toe, but he gets glory because he's a creator who created that toe, right? And has placed me in a body that has a toe that has receptors to notify you when that toe gets stubbed. Like it's you have to under and you're like, well, can I really mean everything? Yes. Everything. In everything. Everything.
Um, this conversation that we're having right here is there. God is glorified in it. If he's not, we need to erase it all, right? And say like we never did it because if he's not glorified in it, then then there's no Well, we've missed we've missed it. We've missed it. So here's some uh here's some more scripture. So 1 Corinthians 10 and 31: "Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." So when I eat my food, I'm doing it to the glory of God. Well, if you're biblical, you are. You know, everything is supposed to point to Christ in the life of a Christian. Um, Psalm 115 and 1: "Not to us, O Yahweh, not to us, but to your name give glory, because of your lovingkindness, because of your truth." So if nothing else, God hasn't vaporized us today, right? That's a pretty glorious thing. For real. Because God, I deserve vaporization if that's the word. Like I deserve God's wrath, and he has purposely wiped that out of existence for me. Okay. Well, it's glorious. I'll take a stubbed toe, right? You know that. Yeah. Okay. My bad.
Um, Matthew 5:16: "The best message ever preached, ever." You know, not not mine this morning. This is Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." Over and over and over again, no matter who it is, they're always bringing the glory back to God. Yeah. Because that is who deserves the glory. So again, the m the medieval church, the heresies that they had was they were ascribing glory to to popes, saints, human achievement. They were taking that well-deserved glory and putting it on someone else, right? And that was the issue. That's what the reformers stood up to. They insisted that no, no, no, we need to we need to point this praise towards God, right? Nothing we do is praiseworthy. Everything we do that even is praiseworthy is because of God. Let's just glorify God. Right? And I can't say over and over again the how important it was that these reformers, they weren't creating new doctrines. They were literally just saying, "Guys, let's be let's just do what scripture says."
Go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say, you know, we talk uh I I feel like I relate everything back to Judges, but that's just the series we're in right now. That's why we've talked a lot about John. Yeah. But uh, you know, we've talked about man's um propensity to be ruled over and how we were created to be subservient to something. Um and we've perverted that. You know, the Israelites, they were always wanting a king. They were always begging for a king because they wanted somebody to come rule over them. But also, it's created in us the ability and the the need really to give glory to something, to worship something. We are created beings, and we are created to give worship and glory right to God. And when we don't, we're going to worship and glorify something else, right? So that is the issue. Whenever I was unsaved, I glorified me. What I wanted to do. Now that I'm saved, I put that glory where where it belongs. Yeah. Glory to God. That's what they're saying here.
So really, what Soli Deo Gloria is doing is it's it's unifying the goal of the other four solos. Why why does the doctrine of grace matter? Why does understanding what faith really is matter? Why why does believing in the inherency of scripture really matter? Because that's I want to fully glorify life or glorify God in in my life in the purest in the purest way. I want to be reforming my life in such a way that God is glorified. I love John Piper. Say what you want about the man. Some people might like him, some people might not. I don't know why you wouldn't love the man. I I love him. He looks like my little pawpaw, you know, like Yeah. Um, but he he has built his whole systematic theology around the the glory of of God. Um, he calls himself a Christian hedonist, which in his definition of that is God God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Yeah. So, and I I man I I believe that. I really do. I don't see anything wrong. The more the more you are satisfied in the finished work of of Christ in your life, the more glory you have for him. Amen. I mean, that's just that's just what happens because you you quit looking at self. You start looking at him. You put your gaze upon Christ. Well, that's where your praise is going to go. Hey, there's you another there's another preacherism. You praise what you gaze. Hey, you like that? I like that. Yeah. Write that one down. That's a pretty good one.
So, pretty short and sweet. Today, like I said, this is this is really just a wrap-up. But honestly, it this is a this is a good marker in any one of our lives. If you're not glorifying God with your life, you're messing up. You're doing something wrong. Um, because what this does is it gives us purpose. Yeah. Why are you here? Why why what are we doing right now? Like because I we're not doing anything if we're not glorifying God. Yeah. Exactly. Uh, so my purpose in life is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. You want to talk about some some history there? You're smiling. Do you know where that comes from? No, I'm smiling because I just I saw this thing the other day and he said, "Uh, it smells like the chief end of man dog in here." And the other guy was like, "What's the chief end of man dog?" "To glorify God and enjoy him forever, homie." Yeah. Well, that that is that's the Westminster Catechism. Yeah, that's question number one. What is the chief end of man? And the longer catechism is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Um, I I don't I don't adhere to the Westminster Confession because babies need to grow up before they get baptized, right? And a few other things, but it's not wrong. That's why we're here. Why were you created? Well, scripture says you were created to glorify God. Yeah. Absolutely. Period. So it gives us purpose. This world is utterly lost because they have no purpose. When every created being has a purpose, and that is to glorify God. Amen.
Uh, humility. I know this has been this has been a topic for every one of these solos, but we can't be too humble. I promise you. We could be way too prideful. Yeah. We can never be too humble. There's there's no cap on humble. No. No humil and and all of us probably need humiliation, you know. Yeah, we need to be humiliated there. I don't think there's anybody that couldn't benefit from being taken down a notch or two. There you go. It removes pride in our salvation and and in our ministries. You go, "Well, I'm not a minister." Okay, you've been you've been saved and purposed. Paul put it this way. You've been made a minister of reconciliation. You've been reconciled. So now you've been made a minister of reconciliation, and you're being sent out to reconcile the world through Christ. Yeah. Amen. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. As voted Balkam does. That's what else can you say, right? Then that is amazing. It's both that humbles me and it gives me purpose. It points my worship, which is another form of glorification. Um, and puts me on mission. You're like, "Did you just copy and paste these?" Yeah, pretty much. Remember this is a wrap-up. Yeah. But it is. What is your ultimate mission in life? Well, if if my purpose is to glorify God, then that probably should be my mission is to achieve the purpose, right? Um, that we're not cutting new ground here, you know? And the applications for it is is we need to evaluate our motives. Why are you doing the things that you're doing? Because if it's not to glorify God, even if it's a good work, you're doing it for the wrong reasons, right? Uh, Jesus had a lot to talk about about people who did good things for wrong intentions. Didn't turn out good for him. He said that a lot about the Pharisees. He said a lot about the He called them bags of snakes. Yeah. He he had some words for them. He had he had several words for them, and most all of them were not nice words. Yeah. Uh, but ultimately that's because he said, "What you're doing in the name of God is bringing glory to you, not glory to God. You need to stop what you're doing." Right. Right. Right. Um, he says the same thing to us, Christian, holy one, child of of the king, bring glory to me. Build my kingdom or get out of the way. Yeah. Like that's what we have to do. Um, and what this does is if my purpose and mission is to glorify God, well then I get to use like, you know, the gifts he's given me. I get to actually walk in the work that he has pre-ordained for me. Um, I platform my relationships. Everything that I do is to glorify God. You can't talk about God too much. You're like, "Well, that's all he ever talks about. Praise the Lord." Yeah. You know, there's there's no. And I was thinking about this because I want to say we mentioned it maybe in the last episode or the one before that about just, you know, talking about the things of God because he is glorified in conversation. He is glorified in. And I was thinking about that because there's times where I feel like I have the same conversation over and over. It could be about anything, but like different people will ask me a question and I feel like I'm just paring the same response. It's like I have it just locked and loaded about, you know, just life, you know, things like that. And, you know, they're like working hard or hardly working, you know, that kind of thing. And it can get, how's the weather today? Yeah. It can get it can get monotonous. You catch the game last night, however. But talking about the Lord, there's been times where I've been having a conversation with someone and at first it's just kind of like, you know, you know, how are you? How's it going? But then we start talking about the Lord and it just like cracks it wide open and you start think, you know, you know, how has he moved on you this way? Different things like that. And it's like immediately I just met you, but I already feel a closeness, you know, in scripture and in glorifying God in this conversation. Um, and the thing about it is, if the books if every book that was written in this world could not contain the glory of God, one conversation obviously can't. So there is endless conversation to be had. Yeah. About God and the things of and the things of Christ. Yeah. I know you've I know you've married into my family. M but I I had met you a few times, but our first actual conversation was basically, "Hey, how are you? What's up? Have you heard about the ark being atonement?" You know, have did you remember that? Yeah, I do remember that. Um, and we ended up having a great conversation. Led to this. I I didn't know you from Adam, literally. All I knew was you dating my cousin, you know, got married or whatever. But um, it's when you move from hollow conversation to meaningful conversa meaty conversation. If God is the topic, it's a good conversation. Absolutely. You know, it needs to be. And I do need to know. I work outside. I do need to know if it's going to rain tomorrow or whatever. Um, sports is a different topic for me. I don't really I never cared for sports anyway. I'm in I I don't know what the Saints are doing. I don't I don't care about any of that. The more the more I grow in Christ, the only thing I care about is who's Jesus, right? Like like I want to know. I want to know the real things. I don't really care what you think about this that and the other. I need to know that you know who God is. Yeah. Right. And I I believe that's that mission we're talking about. That's that purpose we're talking about. For if you're going to sit down, especially if you're going to sit down with another Christian. But if you if you are a Christian, every conversation should be pointed to Christ, right? Has to be. What else are you doing with your life? You know, like you're wasting time. Yeah. Absolutely. You're wasting time.
So, uh, if I if I could end this series, um, I would end it like this: Let your worship, your obedience, your love for others all flow out of a desire to magnify God. Like if that is your if that is your actual heart's cry, man, we're going to be we're going to be good Christians. Yeah. Like you're going to live a a holy life. All of the things that scripture tells us that we we need to do, you're gonna actually be doing it because my sole purpose from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, how can I glorify God that day? If that's what your thought is, you're, you know, Philippians 4, you know, think on the good things, right? You know, I think that's Philippians 4. It's been a long day. Paul said it. Paul said it. That's that's a good coverall. Paul said it. Paul said, you know, but if you're thinking on the good things, you don't really have a whole lot of time to think on bad things. Exactly. You know, Amen. Amen.
So, I've uh I've so enjoyed this series. It's been very um very eye-opening in a lot of ways. You know, there's a a kind of a a tendency, I think, for at least the circles of Christianity I grew up in, uh to not as much, I want to be careful how I say this. There's a, there's a tendency, and I and I even heard a minister tell me this one time, that there's certain it's it's weird because there are certain groups and certain denominations that are almost known for not really being familiar with church history, and then there's some denominations that are like they make church history their whole thing. But I think to have a balanced view of scripture and how scripture and church history complement each other. Um, not that you put them equal with each other, but it's just knowing how the saints of God have interacted and understood the word since the beginning beginnings of the church. It puts guardrails up. So, we're all trying to discern what scripture says, right? And I've got my views, and you have your views. But it it it's really helpful to look back at thousands of years of church history to go, this is what this is kind of the consensus of what has happened. So you can at least know if you're way left field. Yeah. You know, like if nobody has ever come up with this, you might not be on the right thing.
That's exactly what I was about to say. I had a friend, me and him have sort of uh we were call we were felt the call to preach around the same time, and his dad is an incredible minister, and that's what he told him. His advice was, "You're probably never going to preach a message that's never been preached before, and if you if you do find yourself in that situation, maybe be worried a little bit." Scrap the page. Well, it's Ecclesiastes, right? There's nothing new under the sun. If we are talking about the capital T Truth, that's never changed. Mhm. M. So maybe don't try and change it, right? You know, and and that's what I say. It's not it's not authoritative. Um, John Calvin's Institutes is John Calvin's best attempt to understand God. Yeah. And he got some of it wrong. Yeah. Fine. Chew the meat, spit out the bones, move on. You know, when I want when I want to know something, I go to scripture. Yeah. When I want to know about something, I go to people who wrote about scripture, you know. Yeah. And even like when I'm preparing a message, like I don't go I don't start with Google, you know. I don't go to the commentaries first. I start with scripture. Yeah. And pray and ask God, what are you what are you really saying right here? And I and I get a little outline. Then I'll go and I'll I'll ask somebody else, hey, what did you think about that? Right? You know, I'll go to a commentary, and and sooner you start to see the the consensus of of faith, right? So, um, Jude, that's one of the biggest things about church history for me and why I keep going back is Jude said that we have received what was passed down, right? So that's my job as a minister. I'm I need to have received the faith once for all. Yeah. And then I need to be preparing the next generation with that same faith. So I want to make sure that I have the right faith, you know, and like I said, 2,000 years of history. I think I think God has had one message, and that message is pretty clear if you look. Yeah. Absolutely.
So this has been the five solas with Pastor Scott Rambo at Abundant Grace Church in Dville, Louisiana. Um, I can tell you right now that this is not the last time you'll hear from Pastor Scott on this podcast. We've already had some ideas for some different things to collaborate on. So, uh, I'm sure we'll be announcing some of that in the in the future. So, um, Pastor Scott, once again, thanks for coming on. Uh, if people are searching out some stuff you you've been working on, your projects, where can they find that? Uh, like the rest of the episodes, the best way is is here at the church. I mean, I I live here at the church pretty much. Um, but that's at abundantgraceline.com. Um, we have a pastor's corner where u the, uh, Pulpit Devotions podcast is um, a daily, not daily, a weekly devotion. Um, just to kind of help digest Sunday morning. Yeah, I know us preachers tend to say a lot sometimes, and uh it's good to go back and redigest or rechew on some things. Um, but all that's found at our on our website. So we'll put the link to that in the description.
Um, this has been a great series of conversations. Uh, this episode's going to come out way after we recorded it, in about six or seven weeks. Um, so I'm talking to my future self here. I hope everything with the baby has gone great. Yeah, we we didn't mention that. But the the reason why you asked me on is you're about to have a baby. Yeah. In and very soon. When I say you, I mean Abigail's about I've learned I've learned not to say we in in this situation. A baby is about to be brought to your house. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're very excited. No, we're we're praying for you on that. And um, and remember, so we're talking to future self six weeks in. Remember, this was a blessing. Mhm. So, uh, that's all uh for today. Thank you for listening to the Tin Can Dispatch. We'll catch you next week.
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