Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1252 | How do Robertsons Get Ready for the 'Storm of the Century?'

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

Jase, Al, and Zach condemn a Minnesota church protest as “pure chaos” while expressing sympathy for the pastor forced to restore order as kids cried and the service unraveled. The conversation widens to how protest culture, immigration clashes, and nonstop crisis headlines are driving national anxiety and division. As “storm of the century” headlines fuel panic across the South, the guys cut through the hype with chainsaws and confidence. Zach points out how Jesus isn’t confined to one side of the political aisle, his love is open to socialists, MAGA, and everyone in between.  In this episode: 1 John 1, verse 5; 1 John 1, verses 6–7; 1 John 2, verses 1–2; John 16, verse 33; Ephesians 1, verses 4–22; Ephesians 2, verse 6; Ephesians 2, verses 14–16; Ephesians 3, verses 6-10 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 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters: 00:00 “Storm of the century” weather warnings take over the news 04:58 Why the South can’t hang with cold weather 09:02 Jase is giddy for the ducks accompanying the storm 13:26 How the Robertsons are prepping for the freeze 18:41 Living in nonstop crisis cycles 24:07 Minnesota church disruption creates chaos & fear  30:55 Protest culture & public confrontation culture 37:42 Courage in an anxious, divided world 45:58 Having personal peace in uncertain times — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So welcome back to Unashamed. It's been a while since I've seen Jace this giddy. Listen, listen, I want everybody to listen to this sound. And for you who are listening, we're going to need quiet. You've got to figure out what this is. That's me rubbing my hands together. If you're watching, you know, if you're listening, that's Jay's very giddy. He's been chomping at the bits to start this podcast because we have – so – you know, this would come out later, so I know how these things work, but we have the storm of the decade being predicted. Oh, I mean, look, and we don't know yet because there's still a prediction, and you know how these weather people are. You can't trust them.

You said you can't trust a weather person. You can't trust them. But this time, of course, they're overstating everything. They're – I mean, my buddy from Kansas, old Barrett, he sent me a video. and this weather guy literally had lost his mind. He was like, power's going to be out. There's going to be chaos in the streets. And so look, now it may happen, but it just seemed a little over the top.

But so, you know, ice storms are not fun. And so take precautions. But when you're in Louisiana and you're that far from Canada, when an ice storm comes, guess what comes with it? Waterfowl. Waterfow. Thank you. Why did it take so long for us to get that answer?

Well, I was waiting for it. You were going to answer. I thought it was a rhetorical question, so I didn't answer. Well, it's going to be bad. I mean, it is a storm. I mean, they're saying 200 million people. Do you want me to rub my hands together again? So look, let me just tell you what, I've been...

Coldest winter ever. That's what the headline says, 200 million Americans warn to brace for the coldest winter storm ever as downright-concerned forecasters predict below 50-degree weather up north and 18 inches of snow. We'll see. Now, look, in the forecast, there's three days that it's not getting above freezing in Louisiana. So just think about that.

Which is very rare. remember that maybe 20 years ago that happened or so. So, but I had already felt this approaching. So y'all are late to the party here. We got a rain because we've had a real tough duck season until last Sunday we got a rain, which is about a week ago. And we went out in an afternoon hunt about three days later

because now one of our holes, just one, has the right amount of water. And guess what? Full limits. Five men, 30 ducks. Awesome. Everybody high-fiving, you know. So then everybody was like,

oh, well, let's go here again tomorrow. I said, nope, nope. We're going to leave that hole alone. If you have to go, you can go where we don't have enough water and kill you a couple of wood ducks, which happened. My predictions were all right. And I waited until today. because today is the first day of this disturbance.

They're calling for rain. So I said, we're going to move back in this place because the wind is right for this one hole we got. We haven't disturbed it three days. So we get there this morning before daylight. I woke up at 4.30. We get out there about six to the property, put out the decoys, and guess what?

It started raining. And then it got legal shooting hours. just we heard in the decoys. Bopop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, give four teal. You know,

everybody's looking around like, what, what's happening? I was waiting for those three words, Al, never heard them. But then a milder drake comes down,

you know, oh, we got some green, you know, you know, and then a couple more teal, pop, another moward drake, pop,

you know, then here comes another milder drake, pop. and a half. Got the whole set up. Wanted to see if I was right. Yeah, it's right.

But my wife is coming in. She's been gone eight days. We had a little grandson birthday party that I got to FaceTime. Isn't that cool? Yeah, now you can still participate. And so here's what she tells me last night during the FaceTime. She said, babe, do you realize the storm of the century is coming? And I was like, oh, yeah, baby.

I'm looking at the weather. I know. She was acting like I wouldn't have known that. But she's like, well, we're out of firewood. And this year, we waited a little late. You usually have this guy cut me some wood, but he's like, have no wood. So I'm like, I'm a man. Who needs to pay for firewood?

I have chainsaws. I'll cut the wood. So I cut enough, I thought, for the winter. And I was like, what do you mean we're out of wood? and so I go outside and look she's burned all the wood without my knowledge I don't know where I was during all these fires

I mean I remember three or four so I was like you know what my baby's coming in the storm of the century so I shoot these ducks I left 30 minutes early to come here I go saw up a tree on my way in the rain fell up my argo

then move it to my truck because, you know, got to have a fire if it's going to be 20 degrees out. Yeah. And so I did that, and then I went and got me some breakfast, and then I showed up here. And then I got a text as soon as I pulled up,

they had had three more teal and another mallard drake. So the... I think your wife, though, I think Missy is anticipating maybe like a romantic weekend. You guys are cuddled up by the fire, but you've got, it seems to me that you may have a different agenda. than she has, which could create the problem once she realizes what's going to happen. Well, Zach, you're smarter than you look. You put it together because, now look, we'll have the romantic honeymoon because we're married

that's what people do. So, but then old Jason is going to have to beat the storm to go down there to hunt, and then it may be days before I get out of there depending on the severity of this storm. Now, no Jace for my wife is trouble, but no jace and no fire? and then we got a problem. So I'm going to... So you've got to get that set up because you're going to have to plan

because in Louisiana, and it's not just Louisiana, it's the whole south. I mean, it's like, I mean, the storm's coming through and it is going to lock everything up. And if you live I-20 below,

you really don't have the infrastructure or the mechanisms to deal with weather like this. So yeah, the roads will be iced over, the power lines. Well, it's going to be. Don't sell us short. I would say half the yuppie.

We are inundated with yuppies. But, you know, that chainsaw is now in the back of my truck, and it will stay there for the foreseeable future. Man can do a lot with four-wheel drive and a chainsaw. That is true. America. A winch. America. Yeah, but Zach's talking about you.

You go up north, and, you know, they've learned how to salt the roads and, you know, make it where they're back out and about. When we get iced up and locked up, we're just locked up until the Almighty brings some old sun back into play to melt. That's right. Well, we're kind of in that weird spot in North Carolina where it's a little in between. So we can deal with a little bit,

but this is going to even probably lock North Carolina down, although I'm probably going to head out in a four-wheel drive. I'm going to get my pickup truck. I think I'm going to drive down. I was going to fly, but I think I'm going to drive down on Friday. I'll tell you this. If you get here on Friday, you will participate in one of the greatest

waterfowl excursions of your life. I'm in. You're in, Zach? I mean, you got in. What about the crawfish pie? Do you ever figure out what we're going to do about that? Yeah, because Missy's back in town now. I know.

We got to make them in advance. Let me tell you. I'll bring a microwave and a generator. And I'll bring a microwave because I get a little portable generator I can bring with me too. Let me describe our relationship. I'm not a middleman. I don't make crawfish pies.

My wife does. Now, we're one, but if you want her to make a crawfish pie, you're going to have to bro-tete deal yourself. Okay. Okay, paradox. I mean, I think if you bring her some flowers and something nice and say, hey, I'm about a crawfish pie. That's what I would do if I were you.

But, Zach, luckily for you, you are staying with one person who now is going to be home because I'm coming home early to beat the storm, who has a little thing. called Generac. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Oh, yeah. My sister was like, we're going to be going down there and sitting in the cold.

Nobody's going to have power. I was like, whoa, whoa, no, no, house got power. No. I learned from that last hurricane that shut us down for a week that, oh, Al needed a generac. And so that's what I got that's power, that will power our house to have heat and food and everything we need. We're ripping from the headlines right now.

I mean, this is what everybody's talking about is this ice storm. And, and a clash of world. I thought the same thing, because Jace was describing Missy and his romantic idea versus the duck hunting idea. And it's a colliding of worlds, which is a lot of what you see going on in our world. Well, yeah. And what's happening in First John. I mean, he's really talking about two worlds that were once together separated and not coming back together in the new heaven, new earth. So.

Oh, good lead in, Zach. That's a good lead in. the light comes in, right? When things, you feel like you're out of control, you can't drive around anywhere, everything's falling apart, you know, storms will disrupt you. I mean, we had the hurricane up here, and it was so disruptive. Now, this thing right here, we're going to find out, but, you know, with the cold storm of the century, that's a big promise.

We'll find out. We're in First John, too, and we've been in this kind of camping out in verses one and two, but I thought it was interesting, Zach, because we had talked about this, uh, kind of of advocate, you know, where Jesus is described as like, you know, someone might say a defense attorney, but someone who stands in the gap, Jason described as mediator. And I love that idea because, you know, this is the idea of what true justice looks like is when we understand what the world was originally created for instead of kind of what it became. And I think you see that all the time. If you look around just, you know, you look at instances that are

happened. Trump's a lot in the news right now because of, you know, he wants Greenland and now he's flying over to Switzerland to talk about it and they're all mad at him about it and this old allies. And it just seems like everywhere you turn, everybody's kind of making their case for what they want from the world. And so you just got skirmishes everywhere. I mean, we got things going on internally over immigration. We got, I mean, think about Jayce, you talked about waterfowl coming from Canada, going to Mexico. So we had a whole immigration thing that happened on our southern border, and we're fighting it out in Minnesota.

It just seems so strange to me that how these pockets of conflict come in, it's like everybody trying to stress what they want the world to look like. And I mean, and all that points to exactly what we see here is so relevant, something that was written 2,000 years ago in painting a picture of what happens. happens when you have a world without the true advocate. And that's without, you know, Jesus right. Yeah, if you look at the headlines, then it's not an advocate. It's everything is accusatory. It's just accusation, accusation. It's like whiplash, too. I mean, they've been looking at the market. I mean, the market drops 800 points on, and then pops back up, you know,

and you're trying to keep up with all of this. And it really, it, it's, I think it's created a lot of anxiety for a lot of people trying to figure out what in a war and you get so bought in and been out of shape of what is going on in the geopolitical sphere when you read a text like this and you're like man christ man we we have an advocate there is an accuser that's coming after we have an advocate we don't we don't have to get so bought into all that i mean there's there's something very peaceful about reading through first john and understanding what exactly we're being invited into it's a complete the opposite of what you see with worldly kingdoms and power.

Well, and even you mentioned it before, the, you know, the situation that happened at that church in up in, or gathering of the church up in Minnesota, and you saw people come in, and they were protesting about immigration and enforcement of law, ICE people. But it was such a clash of worlds that it didn't even make sense. I finally saw the video of it, and I watched it because I thought people gathered there to hear God's word, to worship together, to commune together, to, you know, have this fellowship time and then usually it sends you back out to try to impact the world around you. And then all of a sudden, the world outside came crashing in, literally crashing into the room. And it was

just chaos. It was like, it was such a picture of what we're describing here of the colliding worlds. And it didn't, it didn't make any sense. Either way, I thought, why are they even in there? What do they do? And I guess they did. They did. they planned. They got headlines and they were, you know, all over the news. But it just in the moment of watching it, I just couldn't help but feel for that pastor that's standing up there and he's trying to bring some kind of order. And he's, he's telling this is unseen me. You can't be doing this. And people are yelling. The kids are crying. And it was just like, this looks like pure chaos. And that really is a description to me of what happens darkness versus light. I mean, just it was

obvious to me. Well, what he says in 1, John 1, he, he, he, that, contrast has made pretty clear when he said that God is light. In him, there is no darkness at all. So you read a passage like that, like 1-John 1-5, what does that mean? That God is light, and in him there's no darkness at all. What does that look like? Well, it looks like the very next two verses. Which is, he says, if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness,

we don't practice the truth. But if we do walk in the light, if we walk in the light, if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have not the vision. We don't have isolation. We don't have chaos. We have, the Bible says, fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his son cleanses us from all sins. You can kind of back into what the promise of Christ is here in participation.

And inside the Godhead was Jason did a really good job in the last few podcasts. I was talking about John 17. But that participation in the inner life of God, what it looks like is fellowship. It looks like sitting around hanging out killing ducks and it looks like sitting around a fire with your wife and eating crawfish pie. It looks like family together. It looks like friends getting together. That's what it is. It's not the vision and ripping apart and accusations at all.

It's quite the opposite of that. So what we're being invited into the story that John's inviting us into is ultimately a story of fellowship with God first and then with one another. And when the relationship is right. Did you hear Jace when he, Jase, you, you were exuding confidence that you were describing a situation

where you knew you're going to have this situation when Missy coming home. And yet your relationship is at a place. You know there's a little bit of angst because you're going to go kill those ducks, but you have confidence that at the end of the day, you guys are fine. It's not like, you know,

we're going to have a major split over because I went duck hunting when Missy came home. That's confidence in a relationship. And I will offer a peace offering. I came sacrificially. If you would have seen me when I walked in this room, I was covered with dirt, mud, smeared face paint. I've been cutting trees for my wife in the rain. So I had a quick change.

and I'm going to, she thinks we're out of wood But the back of my truck right now is Full And I did it There was a one little 30 minute window Where it wasn't just pouring And so it's relatively dry wood But and it's being cured

So it'll do whew But see I'm going to drop that as a surprise When she's with it Is that the burnt offering? That's the ultimate You're living I'm living this out. You're living this out.

Romans 12, offer your bodies as living sacrifice. So I sacrificed that because I'm sore. I'm sore right now. I mean, if you just follow me around, people are talking about, oh, we need to go work out, you know, and all this. Work out.

I've walked three miles a day and cut down a tree and cut that up. And I've got supper, and we get the best, teal, which are gifts from God. So now look, I want to back up to our last podcast. We never finished this Hebrews road. However, since we're so energetic today, and Maddie said we were getting a little deep, but we had to get technical.

But I'm glad she said that because the reason we're doing all this is because we're already leaking over it into it in this podcast. It's like, well, what does this mean? What does it mean having fellowship with the king of kings who is seated on a heavenly throne right now that gives us access to God through the Holy Spirit? What it should mean is we should be a different kind of human. And I want to read something to you, and y'all probably figure out where I'm going with this, because I think there's two letters that kind of go in with what we're reading in 1, John, and the two letters are the letter to the Ephesians,

because it seems like Paul has zeroed in there on what God is doing now with Jesus exalted at the right hand of God. And I want to read that. Read a couple of notations. And then the Hebrew writer seems to put an emphasis on, and Al, you had done in the notes I saw somewhere, that you had had that word where he's a sin offering. What was that in your notes?

Which word was that? That Jesus being our sin offering. We tend to think only of the cross, but it's also in the context in Hebrews where he appears before God himself. Yeah, it's a helismos, a meaning, propitiation. And it's also in First John 410.

And the roots are the Ram of Atonement, which is in Numbers 5-8, and also in Zechal 44, a sin offering. So that's the word. So you just think about him being at the right hand of God on our behalf, doing the talking for us. And this Ephesians, to tie into what you are talking about, because you start looking around,

you see this stuff going on in Minnesota, and you just think of all the division on the globe between people, and even in our own lives, in our own hearts at different times of our life. You're like, what is wrong with these people? Why, how come we can't get along? Because John and 1 John is going to move to, okay, you have this fellowship with the Godhead, and that should trickle down or influence your fellowship with other beings, human beings.

You should love one another, not hate each other. And he then goes into, when we get to this little song in chapter two or a poem that he has at the end, it's all of these relationships about your children and young men and father. You're like, what, dear children, what is he talking about? So your relationship with God should affect your relationship with other people. I think that's the truth here. Yeah. Are we all agreement on that?

I mean. It should. It will. It's funny you say that because we, Jill and I were having a conversation this past week about a, they've got to be careful how to say this. There was an issue with some people that we know that they had a conflict. Two friends have a conflict. And one of the, they're not Christians.

But we're friends with all these people. but we were talking through this with them and it was interesting that they didn't have quite the mechanism for forgiveness. I mean, they didn't have that,

that reconcilatory underpinning of their whole, and so me and Jill, like, yeah, if you figure it out, people grow, you know,

but then we realize that's worth having this conversation. We're like, they don't understand what we're talking about. And the reason why they don't understand what we're talking about is because we were talking about

things of the spirit like like like long suffering with people just endless grace for people you know of leaning in and and and and watching someone grow and you know allowing yourself to yeah yeah sometimes you'll get hit in the face and you turn the other cheek and these are biblical ideas but more than that these are ideas that are born in the spirit so the natural mind has a hard time understanding them but honestly jace i don't think that i could have the relationships that i do have if i would first and foremost didn't have the participation in the inner life of God because I wouldn't even know what it was. I wouldn't have a framework for it. Which is why, Zach, that you know, remember that scene that we talked about when we were studying the book of John, where Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into his disciples. And you remember the first thing he said upon breathing that into them was you will,

you will be able to forgive people. And the inclination is, and they will be able to forgive you. So it's really interesting. That's the first place Jesus went with his disciples, now being recipients of the Holy Spirit, is to your point, you have the capacity of forgiveness.

And I'm going to tell you something, that's the key to any relationship. It will not work without that at the center of it. And when you don't have that built in naturally because the Holy Spirit is living in you, you're right. It is very problematic. Because the natural thing for us to do as human beings is to be bitter, to be envious, to have all the things.

To go scorched earth on people. Scorched earth and punish. Burn it down and punish and accuse. James, I got a question for you, though, because you said, you started down a trail of thought, but you kind of got sidetrite. You said, I wrote it down. You said, this is about what God is doing now. Yeah.

And I was going to ask you, you look at what's. going on in the world around this, and sometimes it seems chaotic. How do you, what will be your answer? If it's about what God's doing now, somebody says, well, I'm looking at what's happening in the world. I'm like, this ain't looking too good. I'll tell you perfect question for what I want to read. What is he doing now?

And so I'm going to delay going through the rest of Hebrews. We will get to that at some point. To ask that question, what is he doing now? what has this got to do with 1 John, we had already set the premise up of the blueprint of humanity by God is wisdom. We went through that. But there's also a blueprint from what God is doing now,

and it's the word courage. And you remember when John 16, I think it's 33, where this is right after he talked about pouring out his spirit, and he said, take courage for I have overcome the world. Yeah, which is the thing that's going to be seen a lot in 1st John, right? So what I'm proposing on what we're doing now, we should be the most courageous humans, those who are in Christ, and where's he at, at the right hand of God,

and he and us through his spirit, we have access to the creator of the world. So before I read this in Ephesians, also to answer your question, the reason we went through two or three podcasts are so technical. I think we just read these verses and it doesn't hit us. So I wanted to, because Maddie helped me see this by saying, well, this is deep. I want you to think about something that all these passages that we've been going through, they have something in common. Jesus, when he's the word that became flesh, well, don't forget that in John 1,

It said in the beginning, you know, God was with the word, God was the word, you know, the word became flesh. But in between there, it says, nothing that has been created was created without him. So you think, well, wait a minute here. Because we tend in religion to say, oh, I need to live my life, you know, for Jesus, which is correct. But you got to remember something. He made you. So when you start realizing that all these conversations God had in Jesus on the earth is 33 years, even with Pilate to people who hated him, to people who wanted to stone him,

he's looking at people that he made. He made them to represent him, to bring out the best in them. So I think it's a combination of those two things wrapping your head around. that God had a plan for each individual, or he wouldn't have given you life. And then, so he made you, and then he wants you to live for him. So when you combine those two things,

all of a sudden you start thinking, well, what was the problem? Where did this thing go wrong? And that's when you start looking at yourself because when you were a baby, like every other baby, everything was rocking and rolling. creation. Where did it all go wrong? And so that's why Jesus came down. So not only did he make you

with a purpose in mind, then he made you for him. So that's why that little phrase, in Christ, it's not that he just cleaned you up. He cleaned you up for him. And so that's where the courage comes in here. I think that's such a smart point because the rest of the rest of best of that verse in 1 John 2, which is he is the toning sacrifice, and we're talking about that for our sins, not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world.

And I think that shows the uniqueness of God. Every one that's created, he's created in the image of God, whether they believe in God or not. Yeah, you were made in Him, maybe is the better way to say it, and for Him is what I'm getting at. You're made in Him and then for Him.

Which is the difference in what you see in movement in the world. Like right now you have, you know, Trump as the, you know, figure in America and the world and all these clashes and there's MAGA, you know, which I just so happen to wear make a, make marriage great again hat today. But it's the idea is there's a movement. But it's, it's really, it's all links back to MAGA, right? Everything's MAGA this, maga that. So the rest of the world, if you're not MAGA, then, you know, there's these clashes and conflicts and man, what does this guy do? And he's trying to take Greenland and blah, blah, blah. And you've got to all the things going on. And so that's the inner skirmishes of the world. But from a God perspective,

he offers a kingdom concept that's greater than all that. It's bigger. And you can still be MAGA and you can still be socialist, Democrat, or whatever you want to be politically. But you have an opportunity to be forgiven, to be redeemed, to have the Holy Spirit of God living in you, to understand forgiveness and be able to talk about these things. So I just think the bigness and the vastness of it, is so big. To your point about Ephesus and the Ephesian letter, I think it bolsters your point about some of the similarities because John spent most scholars agrees. John's been probably the last 20 years of his life until it was exiled to Patmos living in Ephesus and a part of that church that was there. So I think that's why some of those themes are so prevalent back and forth.

Go ahead, Zach. Yeah, I'm just going to say that when you read a verse like that, that the Christ is the perpetuation for our sin and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. Like if you start thinking about that that whole unfolding throughout all of Scripture that God's calling all the nations to himself. By the way, it's in the entire Old Testament. Like it's unavoidable. Like God has an intention. God has a purpose. God says, I want the nations. One of the things you have to be careful about is that you don't forget that in your own nation. And so, like, we can be patriots and we could love this country. But at the same time, and I am a citizen of this country.

I love this country. I'm a patriot. I'm a conservative. I'm a free market guy. Go down the list. I mean, I've got the pedigree. You know what I mean? But first and foremost, I am part of the kingdom of God.

So I read a verse like this and I think about the whole earth, the whole world. God's saying, I want all of them. I want everybody. My kingdom is a kingdom. It's like the wind. You can't see where it's moving or where it's coming from. It's just kind of this thing. And the way that that kingdom expands is through the vice regents that he's put in charge,

which is us, the body of Christ and the spirit-filled believers. So that goes back to what Jason was talking about. That's where your courage comes from. Your courage doesn't come from your own ability to somehow manhandle and negotiate on a stage somewhere. And though this isn't about our ability to negotiate, we are actually coming in under the ruling reign of Christ. And so because of that, we can have a lot of courage despite what's going on anywhere in the world. Exactly. That's where I was going with this. So Ephesians 1, 4 says he chose us in him before the creation of the world. And that was my point about we're made in him. Nothing that has been made that's been made was made without.

Jesus. We're going back to John 1-3. Yeah. Well, then it says in verse 9 and 10, he made known to us the mystery of his will. What does God want for us, which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment to bring all things in heaven and on earth. together under one head, Christ. So he's at the right hand of God, bringing all things, and so how is he going to do that?

Well, in verse 13, it says after we hear the gospel, the Word of Truth, we believe we're marked in him with a seal the promised Holy Spirit. he gets to chapter one in verse 19 and 20 and says that power is like the working of his mighty strength to your point sack about where we get our courage which he exerted in christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms verse 22 and god placed all things under his feet and appoint him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Look at Ephesians 2.6. And God raised us up

with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. That's why I'm wanting to go through Hebrews, because it continues to say that he went in. on our behalf, representing us, making him king of kings. So you're like, well, what does that mean? Well, he made us in him, and he showed what he did for us to reconcile us, and then he gets in to what he made us for. And this is where I wanted to get to, Ephesians 2 in verse 14. It says, for he himself is our peace who has made the two.

one. Now, he's talking about two groups of people, either Jews or Gentiles. Either you're from Israel or you're not. But watch what he says. He has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. You say, oh, is there hostility between races and groups in our culture? We just said that. What's wrong with these humans? We can't get along. It's not just Jew and Gentile. It's Gentiles within Gentiles. It's either skin color or social status. What political sign do you put in the front yard? Political party, yeah. All these differences that we just don't like each other. There's a wall of hostility. Well, he's like, I took that down in Christ. And watch what he says.

I want to get that 15, but he destroyed it by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. You're like, he took away this, the rule system of law? What is he talking about? His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two. And those two include all sorts of divisions, thus making peace and in this one body,

which he called the church in verse chapter 1, 22. But now he's calling it a new humanity. He also calls it the bride of Christ. Look, he's going to say in chapter 3 he's going to call it the family of God, which is what 1st John kind of zeroes in on, all these family dynamic relationships, and then he applies it to us. God is the architect of family.

So then he says, And in this one body, verse 16 of chapter 2, to reconcile, to bring back, which reconcile is different than just forgiveness. Because sometimes we have to forgive other people, but that doesn't mean we're ever going to be reconcile. Because what if they're abusing you or they're demonic or toxic, whatever you want to say? But God's doing both.

Not only does he forgive you, he can reconcile you to God. through the cross and put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away, which is always referring to the Gentiles, and peace to those who were near the Jews. Now here's the key verse, for through him, we both have access to the Father by one spirit. So you see this whole thing working together.

Jesus is at the right hand of God. We're with him. We've surrendered to him. He's sent his spirit into our hearts. Well, there's heaven and earth coming together, filling everything in every way, having an earth on the planet. That should make you courageous

because then it says we're no longer foreigners, aliens. We're fellow citizens with God's people and members of his house. Now, if that doesn't affect your relationships in your regular house, something's wrong. Yeah. Now, I think that's the chasm. that I wanted to zero in, and the reason we went through all that technical stuff,

is because John is writing this saying, what are you talking about? You're fellowshiping with God. You're members of his household. You have his Holy Spirit, yet you hate your brother or your sister or your wife or you're barking at your wife and treating her like she's not even a real human. That's what he's zeroing in on. I want to reiterate and kind of put some more. texture to a point you're making, particularly as it relates to 1st John, because the verse

we were talking about in 1st John was that, let's see, what does it say again, verse John 2? Okay, yeah, he has a perpetuation for our sins and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world, and I'd mentioned that whole, that whole eschatology thing of God bringing Jew and Gentile together. Then you went to Ephesians, and you had mentioned the men. mystery of God's will, right? He's he's letting us in on what his will is. And you, and then you had talked about the, the erasing of the tearing down of the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and

Gentile, which obviously is way more than just Jew and Gentile. It's, it's the wall of hostility between people, right? God wants all people. That's always been his intention. Well, listen to this. This is so interesting of how it relates to that, that idea of the sins of the world. later on in Ephesians in Ephesians 3, Paul continues to talk about this mystery of God's will, and he said how the mystery was made known by Revelation. So whatever that mystery was that God's going to reveal, Paul says, it's actually been made known by what God is revealed, as I have written briefly. So when you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ.

But it's not a mystery anymore because he says it was made known to the sons of men, and other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. So I think he's talking about this thing was revealed a long time ago, but people missed it. It's always been there, but they missed it. But now it's been revealed very clearly to the apostles. And here's what it is, verse 6 of Ephesians 3. This is the mystery. This mystery is, so whatever's going to come next is the mystery.

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. And that mystery, he says, has been hidden for ages. But now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God is going to be made on to the world. So whatever you think about hostility, the dividing wall of hostility, this goes far beyond you and Gentile. This is the dividing wall of hostility in humanity. And what he's saying is it is through the church that that kind of reconciliation is going to spread into the end of the globe. And so for that reason, I'm like, number one, we can have the confidence that you just

talked about, Jace. And number two, we got a job to do. We got something to do. We're not just sitting back twiddling our thumbs. We have something to do. And that fires me up right there. Exactly. Well, what was the manifold? What of God in verse 10? The manifold, wisdom. Of God should be made known. Well, how are you going to make it known? Well, isn't it interesting that when he gets to chapter 6 and verse 10, after he talked about all these family relationships,

can you imagine these people reading this letter under Roman rule with all this division as far as Jews and Gentiles and under Roman rule and all the different classes of people. You know, they had a whole different system with the families and with slaves and masters and all these things. And they're reading this. They're like, you're destroying the whole earthly setup and bringing all people together and all these dividing lines

that we experience prejudice and hatred and all these different things based on what. people and bringing people together. And then he, after that, he says in chapter 6, verse 10, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, put on the full armor of God. I mean, it means a lot more when you read the whole letter and say, here they are, thinking, you know, they're fearful of Roman power. And he's like, you're connected to God.

you're seated with Jesus in the heavenly realms and you have his spirit in you. And whatever your differences were, we nailed them to the cross. They're gone. That's why Paul, I think, did the same thing in Romans when he talked about, you know, we have this one world.

We're all like Adam. We screw things up. And it takes you back to the garden. You remember? Adam and me, I mean, everybody's happy, you know, and he's like flesh of my flesh and bones of my bones. and then the next thing, after the fruit, it's like, it was her fault. And she's like, well, it was the snake's fault.

I mean, and it just destroys the relationship that they had with each other because now they didn't trust God. And so I think you see that same point in 1st John. Your relationship with God has to be the reflection into your wife, your kids, your friends, the people you work with. It should affect your humanity because you're involved in a new humanity within the old humanity on earth. Zach, you said, you quoted Ephesians 310 through the church, the manifold wisdom of God

to be seen in this process. And I just saw a story yesterday. We started this podcast talking some about what's been going on in Minnesota. And I saw where, you know, once the protesters left that group of people that were meeting, I mean, I had not seen this anywhere else. And they said, they went ahead and then had the meeting they were going to have before the disruption. And in that meeting together and trying to kind of calm everybody down, what do we just go through? They prayed.

And then someone in that group led them in a prayer to forgive all of the people that just came in and disrupted their assembling together. And so, you know, that was never reported. I didn't see that much until yesterday. someone told that story, and I thought, that is that picture we're talking about. I mean, that is the idea of what you have the capacity to do, even when you're wrong, because that was wrong for them to do that. It was wrong for them to come in there. They still had the capacity to say, but in Jesus' name, we forgive you for that.

Well, because you know what we want, though? And I want this. I'll be honest with you. Like, I see something like that, and I'm like, ooh, I get my temperature, I start boiling a little bit. My blood pressure goes up, and I'm like, I'm, like, let's go. But you're right, though, when you think about that verse that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and to the authorities and the heavenly places, I read a verse like that and think, well, do you think that there are demonic forces that are over nations

that are actually orchestrating some of this? I believe so. I think the Bible is pretty clear that there are, there's a celestial, there's that, there's that divine counsel that Michael Heiser talks about. There's, you know, this is not just an earthly, like, physical thing here. Like, there's a, there's a cooperation in the

heavenly realms of evil that is orchestrating and working in conjunction with some of the stuff that we see in the world today. And you think, man, how do we battle against something like that? It's because God says this to the church, Paul says to the church, this manifold wisdom is going to be made on. Just like they have spiritual forces on the, on,

on the side of evil that they're working in conjunction with. We also have a spirit force called the Holy Spirit that we are working, not just in cooperation with, the Holy Spirit actually lives in us. And so when you think about his fruit and what his fruit looks like, Galatians 5, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control. You go through the list of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, then you're like, how in the world are we going to combat that? Well, we're going to combat it through the fruit of the spirit. And that's what we're embodying.

So it's a very difficult thing for us to walk in because what we want to do is we either want to capitulate and be like, I'm not going to confront that. It's going to cost me too much. Or we say on the other side that I'm just going to go scorched earth. but it's very, very difficult to stay in the gap, which is where the prophet stayed, to stay in the gap and let the Holy Spirit lead, because when you do that, what you're essentially doing is you're yielding over your control to God instead, and you're saying, God, I trust you to leave. And it's through that sacrificial life that we're going to change the world. I mean, that's what Jesus did. Look at the Roman Empire. He brought down the Roman Empire, but look at how he did it.

just by embodying sacrificial love. They crucified him on a cross, but yet in the end, that empire fell. Christ still reigns. And Zach, it was that picture of Jesus standing there in John 18 with the most powerful person from the most powerful nation standing in front of me, he said, everyone on the side of truth listens to me. And he gave Pilate that opportunity in that moment to do the right thing. And you remember Pilate's response?

What is true? truth. Yeah. And so it comes back to the idea about I'm not going to go that route. So I guess we're out of time, but I will say an encouragement to you guys out there. You see the things going on in the world. You watch all this stuff. And you're thinking, oh, man, how are we going to survive this? Remember, we have overcome the world. That's what that's the message from Ephesians. It's also the message from First John. We have overcome the world through our faith in Christ. So we win is the point. And so don't. be discouraged so keep fighting the fight. We'll see you next time on Unashamed.

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