How to Be Right With God

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Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Like John 3.16. And we miss the substance and the essence. And Pastor Tom Pennington is here preaching the Word of God at this Bible conference. Grace alone, I think, is the theme. And you taught on Sola Gratia. What was it like to teach that Ephesians 2, 8, 9 passage tonight, Brother Tom? Oh, it was just a classic moment because, of course, this weekend is the 500th anniversary of sort of official beginning of the Reformation.

And so at the heart of the Reformation was this very truth, Sola Gratia, that we are made right with God, not by our own work or our own initiative, but by the divine initiative, by the sovereign grace of God. And so to see that unfold through Ephesians 2 over this conference was just an amazing experience for me. So you're a guy who went from Dallas. Your church is in Dallas, but you and I have some common pedigree.

That's the best word for it. From Greenville, South Carolina to Master's Seminary, Master's College. You were John MacArthur's associate assistant for so long and a shepherd there at that church with him.

Give us the quick trail, man. Bob Jones is where my folks went and met and everything, but tell us a little bit about your background. Yeah, you know, I was a new Christian when I went to college, just been saved my senior year in high school. And so I went to the only Christian college I knew about at the time. And a lot of wonderful people, learned some good things, but just really developed a heart for John MacArthur's ministry as I heard it on the radio.

And it really, I began to resonate with what I heard. And ultimately my wife and I just moved across the country. We'd never been to LA. We'd never visited.

We just loaded up our little Toyota Corolla. And in 1987, we drove to LA for one reason. We wanted to see what a living, breathing church looked like. We didn't feel like we'd ever experienced that. And in God's grace, that's exactly what we found. I mean, we got there and our first Sunday, we cried through the whole day of services because it's finally like, these are my people.

This is what we believe. And just to see the word of God handled with such respect. And we thought we'd be there two years and go pastor.

The Lord had other plans. I was there for 16 years. And as you said, got a chance to serve alongside of John, still have a great relationship with him. He's like a father to me. And I have so much respect for him. And you know, we all stand on the shoulders of others. And you know, I certainly stand on his shoulders. Well, and pastor Tom Pennington, and you are fascinating. You know, we will throw some names out.

You know, Bob Jones, John MacArthur. There's a lot, but what doesn't change is the word of God. And that's what seems to be the common theme is the word of God is so much bigger. But Hallelujah for men of God that you were under MacArthur for all those years who taught you the exposition. And so now you're expositing.

Tell everyone what you're doing now in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Yeah, well, it's been my joy to be there for 14 years at Countryside Bible Church and to see the Lord grow the ministry. And you know, all we do is what the church has done for 2000 years. We sing the scripture. We pray the scripture. We read the scripture. We teach the scripture. And then as Luther said, you know, all I did was teach the Bible. And then I slept and God did everything else. The word did everything else.

And that's how we feel. What is it about the word of God? You know, it's illegal in 57 countries. You know, it's the 500 year anniversary of the Reformation here. Sola Scriptura, you know, people were being killed 500 years ago for owning a copy. It was a high crime to own a copy of the Bible in your own language. And how dare you ever read it or distribute it.

That was dangerous to do. They'd lop your head off or burn you like they did to us. What is it about the word of God? They're not doing that with other books. No one's going to get thrown in jail for owning Harry Potter.

No one's going to get thrown in jail for having National Geographic. What is it about the power of that book? You know, I think it comes down to what Paul says in 2 Timothy 3, and that is all scripture is the product of the breath of God. These are God's words. Every word in scripture is as much the product of the breath of God as these words I'm speaking now are the product of my breath. And so they carry the authority and power of God with them through the work of the Spirit. And so, you know, I love Spurgeon. He said, listen, the word of God is like a lion. You don't need to defend it.

Just open the cage and let it out, and it'll take care of itself. So you're challenged to pastors out there. We've maybe too much criticized pastors. A lot of them are well-meaning, but there are some obvious targets out there.

You know, there's health, wealth, and prosperity. But will you go, just on a positive note, we could spend many, many hours, too many hours talking about people doing it wrong. Okay, but without going there, can you, you know, these three words tucked away in 2 Timothy 4, preach the word. Will you speak to the need for every pastor hearing my voice right now, and every person in those churches to challenge their pastors, of studying and preaching the book, and not just about the book, and not just glossing over and doing chunks at a time, but the word verse by verse.

Can you go to that real quick? Yeah, I would just say this, behavior betrays belief. If you want to know what you really think about the scripture, look at what you do with it every Sunday. And if you really believe the word of God is the word of God, that it is sufficient and authoritative, that it's all God's people need, then that's what you'll do.

And if you're not doing that, then you need to take a checkup, because it means you don't really believe that. So people are starving for the word, and it's just as simple as studying what is God saying, and just give us a basic on that. Well, I would say this, that if you go back to Moses, you go to Ezra, you go to Jesus and his pattern in the synagogues every week, you go to the apostle Paul and his pattern in the synagogues, what you find is a pattern of consecutive exposition of the scripture. And that's what created the Reformation. Look at Luther, look at the ministry of John Calvin.

That's what we need today. Men who are committed to God's words rather than their own, and who will commit themselves to a pattern of consecutive exposition to the scripture. That's tremendous. The word of God, preaching it and letting it do its work, convicting the heart, all those things that it does. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. It's Psalm 19, right? You know, that's what I learned under John MacArthur. What I learned there was that I could have confidence in the scripture. I just needed to preach it and the Spirit of God would do what he does, and I can be confident in that.

That's strong. Okay, Sola Gracia, real quick, there's the five solas of the Reformation. And for our listeners that don't know them, will you run through them real quick? These are critical foundations, so just say each one and maybe a brief sentence about them all.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, these were not expressions that they themselves used. These are efforts to frame what the essence of their message was. Sola Scriptura, our confidence, the ultimate authority in our lives is not tradition, it's not mysticism, it is the scripture alone.

That was in contradiction to where the Roman Catholic Church was. You have Sola Gracia, that is, that the initiative in our salvation is not ours, but sovereign grace alone. God seeks us out because of his grace. You have Sola Fide, that is, that we are saved, we are justified before God, not based on our own works, not based on our own efforts, but based solely on the faith that God grants us and faith alone. Solus Christus, that our righteousness is not our own righteousness, it is the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. That is the foundation of our acceptance before God. And all of that together leads to the culmination of Solideo Gloria, that when the scripture frames what you think, when you are made right with God by grace alone, through faith alone, through the work of Christ alone, then God alone gets the glory, Solideo Gloria. That is awesome. The five solos, the Reformation, blood was shed, standing up for what those things teach.

They weren't necessarily labeled that way or articulated that way by everybody. You taught on Sola Gracia tonight, so important that it's his grace alone, and you talked about so that no one can boast. What is it about human nature? We just want to throw ourselves out there, don't we? We want to say, hey, look what I did, look what I performed. Yeah, it's part of the following human condition, to be able to say, I did something, I did this. And as I said, Spurgeon said that it's so much a part of our human nature that even if we don't believe we can earn our way to heaven, we're tempted to want to have a little part of a contribution to the last mile.

That's just the human heart. And so God says, no, I'm not going to share my glory. And so I'm going to save you in such a way that I alone get the glory, and that's Sola Gracia.

That is something. Pastor Tom Pennington, who's preached at a conference here at Twin City Bible Church, a church in Winston-Salem that's not afraid to teach the Word and preach the Word, this place was pretty packed. And on a subject like this, Sola Gracia, it was a conference they were doing on the whole Reformation celebration. Now, Pastor Tom, tell everyone real quick the name of your church and then also the name of your radio program, which is online now. And the website, they can learn more about you, maybe the church website.

Would you tell us that real quick? Yeah, no, I'm a pastor at Countryside Bible Church in Southlake, Texas, between Dallas and Fort Worth, just west of the airport there. And I've been there for 14 years, and yes, they can go to countrysidebible.org, or my ministry is called The Word Unleashed.

Thewordunleashed.org, it's a play off, of course, that Spurgeon quote, that you just let the lion out. And that's what preaching does, is it unleashes the truth as you explain its meaning. Well, thank you, God bless you.

Maybe we'll find a place for that program on the Truth Network one of these days. We need more preachers of the Word like you, thank you. Thanks for being a shepherd of so many shepherds. And like, a lot of pastors came tonight to hear in this team here, so truthnetwork.com. We'll put some more information about him there, and we'll take a little picture and throw it up there, too. And then we've also got to go on Instagram and do a little shot there. God bless you, my friend. Thank you.