Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1315 | The Biggest Mistake People Make When Sharing Their Testimony

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Jase, Al, and Zach reflect on the childhood nostalgia and wonder that space exploration inspires, and Al contrasts humanity’s growing knowledge with its shrinking sense of awe. The guys jump into a discussion about Jesus’ voluntary sacrifice and what it really means to follow God’s commands—not as burdens, but as invitations into life. Jase offers a direct challenge to how most people think about faith: testimony isn’t about your story, your turnaround, or your effort, it’s about Jesus.  In this episode: John 10, verses 14–18; 1 John 5, verses 6–11; Romans 6, verses 1–11; Romans 8, verses 1–39; Ephesians 5, verse 1; Ephesians 5, verse 21; 2 Timothy 4, verses 7–8; Revelation 5, verses 8–14 “Unashamed” Episode 1315 is sponsored by: https://chministries.org/unashamed — See why Christians are ditching health insurance for good. Get a simpler alternative at half the cost! https://cozyearth.com/unashamed — Get up to 20% off when you use our link and code UNASHAMED! https://meetfabric.com/unashamed — Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ — Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College 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 Jase Solves a $7,500 Problem 05:10 Space Travel Nostalgia  09:04 Why Space Should Point Us to God 15:45 A “Resurrection” at Home 20:30 Getting Old & the Blame Shift 29:30 Rewards & Human Nature 34:00 Jesus Chose the Cross: Command vs Choice 40:30 Water, Blood & What Baptism Really Means 46:30 What a Real Testimony Actually Is — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So welcome back to Unashamed. The last podcast, as we were talking about fires and governmental lack of compassion, maybe, is a better way to put it. And I was glad you finally came to where I got here about maybe a month or five weeks ago. But I had. I had the aid of our younger brother. I'm your older brother, but the one under you, Willie, is a known fire lover of burning fires since he was a young, young lab. A.k.a. Pyro. A young pyro.

If he had been of the criminal ill, he could have been an arsonist, but he's not. So we praise God for that. But so my immediate, my immediate neighbors are all in his family wing. in our little compound within the compound. And so I approached him way back when over what we were going to do about this before we even knew anything about them picking anything up because it was obvious that they weren't rushing into help. And so we had made the same arrangement you made with one of your neighbors. Yeah. I had made with Willie.

Now, he wanted to do all of his own work because he loves this. So he's told his kids, don't hire anybody. you know, I'm going to drag it all together. But he came up with the burn pile on part of his property, and he allowed me graciously out of love for brother, which is in our text in First John, to add my stuff to his burn pile as well as his in-laws, which he should do as well because there's in-laws.

And so we had this same arrangement before with multiple members of our family. It worked out pretty well. So ours has been burned for a minute. Now, Willie has had this thing burning for a while. even I noticed the smoke is still the smoke's still rising back there so I don't know how long it's going to take him to get it done

but you know if it were up to him he would do this for years and be happy because that's kind of his nature well here's the I didn't get a chance to mention that in the last podcast here's why that's interesting now it's not that I can't afford to get somebody to come pick this up and haul it off

right right But here's the problem. When an ice storm hits and all the trees fall down, you have a supply and demand issue. And the price goes way up. I left this part out. And look, I don't blame this guy. But I had a guy pull up.

He had a trailer that was 10 foot by 5 foot. Now, that's not very big. That's going to take a lot of loads. And he said, I can hold. haul that off for you. I said, what's you charging? He said, $75 a load. I looked at that trailer, and I thought,

it's not a very big trailer. Nope. I said, how many loads do you think it'll take to get just this one pile? Because I got multiple piles. Yeah. He said about 100. So I'm not very good at math, but I thought a hundred. $100.

$700 times $75 low. Now, I could have scraped up $7,500, but I thought, you know what, I ain't paying $7,500. I'm a man, and I like to burn three, Sal. So I worked out the arrangement with my neighbor, and guess what I paid? Zero. It's not that I'm tight, like Zach, we just have a supply and demand issue, and people are looking, you know, for opportunity. I thought that was a little... We've had people come in from all over the region.

I mean, I've seen more licensed plays from neighboring states of people to take advantage of the opportunity. And like you said, Jay, it's just capitalism. I have nothing against that. So I told my wife, when me and a little man walked in, because we completed the project this morning. And I said, babe, that was $7,500 worth of work for free. You know what she said? Go spend it. Go spend it. She said, I'm going to go spend $7,500 now.

She said, good job, babe. And that was all of that. That was that. So I wanted to bring this up, Artemis 2, which was the space, our spaceship that went and circled the moon because they're going to, you know, they got big plans for building a base on the moon and eventually going to Mars. So this is one of the early part of that process. but it took me back to my youth. I mean, I'm 61 years old. And so I can remember vividly, you know, in the early 70s, 71, 72,

and I was 6, 7 years old, watching our snowy TV coverage, Jays, because we had an antenna on our original house, the first couple, and you had to twist it manually to get it to work just to get the three major stations. But everybody was covering, you know, the Apollo missions back in those days. And it was so, you know, exciting as a kid because it was just all the, you know, Star Trek was out now. And the idea that could we really travel in space, could we really go out there and see it? And I think it's just that idea about the creation and the universe. So I remember being super excited.

So Friday night, when I knew they were going to laugh? So I told Lisa, so when's that happening? And she said, at 7 o'clock. So we tune in at six. It's a popcorn event for us. We're watching every bit of it. The reentry, the coming in, all the people talking about it, and all the different astronauts that they're interviewing.

Because this is the first time this has happened since way back then. I mean, nobody has gone in the outer atmosphere. You know, it got the space station now. And so everybody kind of like, space, whatever. But that's still in the lower atmosphere. They went outside. They went actually into space. And they've traveled further than anybody's been.

so far, saw some things on the other side of the moon that nobody's ever seen. And so what really got me, and the reason I want to bring this up, is my two youngest grandkids are into it as much as I was when I was their age. Pearl is eight and Doc is 10. And they've watched everything about it. They watched the lift off. And so I sent a text and I said, hey, y'all know the landing is tonight or the kids watching it. And Alex sends me a picture back. And I'll have to send it to Maddie to show, but she's literally standing three feet from the TV watching it. And it just, it was a huge flashback for me because it took me right back to exactly where I stood when I was seven years old, all those years ago, 50 plus years for me,

just taking it in, just the wonderment of it. And so there's something special about that. I love that they're doing it. A lot of people are, oh, I, are we doing this? What does it matter? But there is something inspirational. But I remember that about you, Al. you were a kid, you were so into space and Star Trek.

I loved it. I remember you used to try to actually do the Vulcan grip. Like you thought that was real, which led to many fights. I pinched your shoulders so many times trying to get you to just go out. You just couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work. He was like, no, it's like I'm not a Vulcan, but, you know, it's like you pint someone for you that I haven't seen that. And they just, oh, Spock, who had the big point of years. Yeah. He just, like, he grabbed you on the shoulder and you just pass out.

He just go straight out. But I don't think that was real. But you were a Star Trek fan way, even beyond, even into your early adulthood. I remember. I still like it. I watch some of the series they did. They finally lost their way, unfortunately. It was always humanistic.

I never liked that about it. It definitely was not, you know, spiritual. weirdly led in terms of our religion. Yeah, I know. So I realized that. Top ten uncontrollable laughters I ever had was Phil watching Star Trek and then crafting his Bible class lesson around it. Yeah.

You know, saying, hey, there's a creator. I mean, because Phil's whole point was this should make you feel real small. And it should lead you to a creator because what are you kidding me? This all was the result of an explosion. It did. Yeah. But in his Bible class, there was a young teenager who all his circuits weren't firing on all cylinders. That had a rough upbringing.

He thought this young man thought Star Trek was real. And he raises his hand. You remember those that? out. And he's like, hey, that, that's happening. Starship Enterprise, Kurt, that's not a show. That is a reality show. That is happening.

He thought Star Trek was the first reality show. Yeah, he thought it was real. And my dad went off on a rat with that poor young man and dashed all his hopes and dream. He was like, no. Because Phil had a little bit he used to do. You know, the Earth is. moving a million miles an hour through space and it's while spinning a thousand miles an hour I think those are generally accurate and he's like nobody's hair's moving you know you're telling

me this is just just happened and so yeah it was it was quite quite the take on it but I never like I never like it is a sign of God's God's creative power I mean this is crazy so I've got a big family you guys, everybody knows that. Five kids, I'm telling you right now that I had to start paying attention to where my money was going because if you don't watch it, it just flies out the door, especially when it comes to health care, because traditional health insurance, it keeps climbing up. If you've looked at purchasing it recently or have purchased it, it is insane how expensive it is. And that frustration is exactly why my family and I was switched over to something called Christian healthcare ministries, and we have not looked back since. CHM, it's a Christian alternative to health insurance. It comes in about half the cost, which immediately freed us up with some real room in our budget. But the bigger win was freedom because we're not stuck in some tiny network that tells us who we can go to, what doctors, surgeons, hospitals, we can actually go wherever we want and what makes sense for our family. And also because CHM is a nonprofit ministry, it's actually a community of believers.

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You can start today by visiting CHmistries.org slash unashamed and use our promo code, Unashamed for a 50% credit toward your first month. That's CHministries.org slash unashamed and use promo code unashamed. It is. And from a believer standpoint, which I guess is why I like this guy, this Butch Wilmore, because he's actually done it. I mean, he's been in space now, or at least in the lower atmosphere. And yet he has not lost his wonder for God in the wonder of what we can see out there. And that's why I like, even I'll go on from time to time on the new, the telescopes hopes they have. Now we have two, you know, they're out there. I mean, the stuff that you get to see

that's out there that God created is just, it's just fabulous. It's just amazing to do. So I never liked the humanism of Star Trek. And now, Zach, they finally did it like in the last, of course, they're not irrelevant anymore because they went full woke with their humanism. So now they're pushing all these stuff from our culture. It's just, it just got unwatchew. It's really sad. So it's still, they're still trying. They're still trying because there's people like me that they would love to watch something good like that, like the old shows. But it just, they've ruined it. It's terrible.

The last Star Trek I remember was called Star Trek, The Next Generation. But I didn't know it. It made it past that. Oh, there were three more really good series after Next Gen. They were excellent. But the last couple is just, you know, it's a disaster. It's like everything. I just can't even watch television anymore.

It's so full of this stuff that they're trying to push with all the, I don't know, what you call inclusive and this, that, and the other. And it's just, it's too much. It's just, you know. At one point, it had just offends your sensibility. Before it was like, okay, we can co-exist. I mean, you're humanist. You know, I believe in God. But after a while, it's like, you're just going to shove it down my throat to a point where I'm not going to eat.

I've been there. I mean, I quit watching TV. Then my phone died Friday. It literally died. It's like, well, that's it. I got to get a new phone because it died. But it happened on Friday, so what are you going to do the weekend? And so that's why I didn't answer any of y'all's text till this morning.

And you're like, did you go get a new phone? Nope. Now look, when I'm saying it died, it died. We plugged it, tried nothing. Missy took over, tried multiple. Jay's, this phone has been on live support. It's had a respirator for about a year. Well, so guess what happened?

How long have you had it? I don't know. Years, four or five years. So guess what happened? So when we, I had a little man, and so I thought, well, how am I going to set my alarm? And I couldn't find my old-timey alarm clock. And so I was like, well, I'll just wake up. But, so I went over and, you know, checked my phone.

This was yesterday, which was a. Sunday. It's dead, you know, still dead. I plugged in, but dead. So I wake up without an alarm clock, perfect time that if you tell yourself to wake up, just to give you a tip when you get over 50 years old, you'll just wake up. And so it worked. And so for some reason, I just went over there because I thought, well, I need to get my phone because I'll turn it in and get my new one. I grabbed my phone. So it's Monday. It died Friday.

When I grabbed it and turned it over, it was on. Fully charged. And I thought, it's been raised. It's an Easter miracle. It's a resurrection. Because I was contemplating whether to get a new phone or just go without it. Because, you know, do I really? need it is what I was thinking and I thought well now the resurrection I'll give you another shot so

there's my technology story that happened all you know geek freaks when the tell me why that happened three days of deadness it's plugged into the same place no life for three days and then there it is back And look, here it is. It's on. Working. The week after eager weekend, Jay's. Yes. It must be a sign.

I don't know. I lost this watch right here, this Apple watch. I lost it. And this happened about a week ago. And I turned everything upside down in my house. I looked in my bag, dumped everything out of my bag, put everything back in my bag. I mean, I couldn't find it. I was just so mad that I'd lost this watch right here.

I hold my Apple Watch. I'm charging it right now. And this morning I got up and I went to pick up my bag and sitting right there in the bag was my Apple Watch. How weird is that? That's kind of like a resurrection. Maybe one of your bears got it and decided to give it back. I don't know what happened.

I just thought it was weird. That's the second time that's happened to me where I've lost something and it's miraculously showed up. Well, you know, it's funny, I lost some on, I thought on a recent, one of my recent trips to do an event, all of a sudden I get, I realize after a few couple of weeks that I don't have my prescription sunglasses, which I just bought this past year. So I really keep up with them. And then all of a sudden I can't find them.

And so I'm like, so, you know, Lisa and I do what you do, you know, you trace back, when's the last time you know you had them? Well, I was in St. Louis. We were doing this event. So she says, well, maybe you left them in the rental car. And I said, babe, I don't think so because I'm really like I search everything before I leave a rental car to make sure I didn't leave anything. I said, but I can't find them. So maybe you're right.

I kept thinking they would turn up. They didn't turn up. I looked through my bags. I looked through everything. So Lisa contacts the company that has the rental car because this woman. This is getting sad. Once she gets on a mission, son, she. can find so. So she says, she shows me a picture. She said, is this them? I said, well, it looks a lot

like them. I think it is. And so she had a case with it too. And I was like, what are the odds that they found it? So she does what she has to do to go through the process. About two weeks later, they show up. And she says, they came. And I said, oh, great. Now we're a month. And so she opens up the case and she pulls about. And I said, nope. So you got somebody else. this sunglasses. Somebody else. But one of the odds, it was my brand. It was my exact brand.

It was my exact case. But those weren't prescription. They're just regular sunglasses. So now you realize you need to go to jail. Oh, you sent them back. We sent them back. We sent them back. So I look another month thinking they're going to turn up.

So now we're two months. They never turn up. And all of a sudden, I'm like, all right, anybody that finds these, it's a crisp $100 bill. I decided to put the fill on it. it's a crisp $100 bill for anybody that finds these sunglasses. So my grandkids are looking through everything trying to find it. They can't find it.

And Anna sends me a text of a picture of my sunglasses. And I was like, where did you find those? And she said, well, there were some people staying at your house because when we're not there, people stay sometime. And one of their kids was in the food pantry looking for snacks. And your sunglasses were up there where the snacks are. And I was like, how did that happen? I don't eat snacks anymore. I don't eat snacks anymore.

My message to you and Zach is the first thing you need to do when there's a problem is admit there is a problem. Old age, blame shifting, all that. And it's just you can't keep up with anything, not paying attention. That blame shift is real, though, because I, it's, I've got to the age, Jace, where I do, like, I think I do admit it, but in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, but I think I'm pretty sure I didn't do it. I'll give homage to it, but I'm like, somebody else,

like even this morning, I thought, I mean, the obvious answer is, is that I just didn't search the bag well enough. That's the, but I think, no, somebody found him. It was the woman you put here. I mean, she did it. I mean, no, it was the snake. It was the, that's just, No, it was me.

No, and look, by the way, so I know what happened. So there are a few snacks I can't eat some meat snacks, and I probably chunk those sunglasses into a bag with the meat snacks in it. And then I just dumped that bag into a little thing at home, and the sunglasses went in with it. It was me. I lost them. Yeah, that's disturbing.

But I will say this, maybe dear old dad, once again was right. once you offer the reward, things roll into motion. That's true. Because it usually happens. And so I guess that's a good segue into our text in first down five, because we have overcome the world. The reward is eternal life, but that eternal life begins in this life, which is pretty exciting when you think about it. Because that's what he's going to get into next.

And the last one, we talked about sort of the weight of the law and overcoming that. And Jason, I thought you did a good job in Romans 7 to describe Paul's description of what that's like to try to wrestle back and forth under law. But what it means when you finally relent, because you didn't, you know, you just barely got into chapter 8. But the whole chapter 8 is about what happens when we finally do that. And it's fantastic. I mean, it ends with, guess what? but overcoming more than conquerors, that same thought that John has mentioned all the times I mentioned during not only John, but First John, and also Third John and Revelation.

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Well, I think they go hand in hand is what I'm saying, because the whole point of this book was people having trouble acknowledging that Jesus was in a human body. And when we talked about sin and the commandments, and it's using this phrase, sinful nature or flesh, and it's using it in a negative way. because it's like the flesh is incapable of discerning righteous acts. That's what we call sin. So it's like, well, God couldn't have become a man because that's bad. Look where that flesh living in the flesh leads to. So I think that's why he set this up like this because he's introducing this idea of the loving nature.

of God. And the problem with humans is in their heart. Remember when he said, if your hearts can condemn you, God knows everything. And so God becomes a man in the flesh. I mean, had blood, had a body. He was baptized.

He was, he got the Holy Spirit. And he did everything flesh. lawless as far as when you think about the nature of God and then becoming human, it's what we were supposed to do, which all through the book of John, how many times did Jesus say, I only do what the Father tells me. I listen to the Father. I'm doing this because the Father has given me authority, you know, those kind of verses. And he did it right. That's what the humans were designed to do. What's ironic is that God became a human to do it. And people are like, it's a hard thing to get your head around. But I think when you set it up

with John 10, it kind of flows into what we've been discussing about the law and the commands. When Jesus said, I'm the good shepherd, verse 11, I'll lay down my my life from the sheep. Where does it say in there where it says they listen to my voice? It's down in 16. Yeah. Yeah, this is it. So I want to read 14 through 18.

Now, this is deep. I actually read this last night and I said, Missy, I want to put something on you and see what you think. And I read this and gave her the thought. And she said, that's pretty deep. so I'll try to simplify. But Jesus says in verse 14 of chapter 10, I am the good shepherd, I know my sheep, my sheep know me,

just as a father knows me, and I know the father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. That's the first time he says he lays down his life. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. So he's talking about everybody that's not a Jew there. I must bring them also. They too, here's the key phrase, will listen to my voice.

That's why I brought that up. Being able to discern what God's will is, well, Jesus is listening to the voice of his father throughout his entire ministry over and over and over and over. I only do what he does, I only say what he says. Then it says,

and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my father loves me is that I lay down my life. There he says it again. The second time he said he's laid down his life, only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. If you don't listen carefully to this,

you're fixed to get lost. I have authority to lay it down. Third time he said, I lay it down, and he said, I do it on my own accord. Which, what does that mean? Voluntarily, right? Right. And authority to take it up again.

Now, here's the key phrase, because this is the first time, this same word that when he said, you don't know what loving God is, it's loving him and obeying his command. This is the first time that John used the word command in his account about Jesus. This command I received from my father.

So wrap your head around this. The whole essence of that paragraph is that he's doing this voluntarily. No one's taking my life. I'm giving it up. But then he ends it saying that it's command from my father. well what is the command the command

is to voluntarily the authority to lay down your life I thought that was fascinating because we think well command is something you have to do well what did he do

he laid his life down on his own accord now there's your brain teaser for the day and then not only that but he says expressly here

in other places that he is the testimony of that command In other words, him being a human being and being here on earth with us is a testimony to him obeying God and coming here. And then as I said in the last podcast, he confirms that by saying, not my will, but yours be done at that moment where there's no turning back. Is he going to do this or is he not going to do that? And to me, that fits so perfectly into the next section, Jason, we got into this couple of podcasts ago. just briefly touched on it into what he's talking about by this water and blood that the spirit

testifies to that is this voluntary submission to God because that's what we're talking about here. It's the ultimate example. And we lay our lives down and take him up again when we reenact what he did for us. I mean, I think it's just a natural flow into who we are as well. And I want to mention that because it says this is the one who came by water and blood. Jesus Christ, this is back in verse 6, first time 5. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And then he says, then it is the spirit who testifies because the spirit is the truth. And you said, and I concur, that that had to have been a reference, at least part of it,

had to been a reference to his baptism when we saw that testimony. literally happened. John the Baptist, who was the one baptizing him, also became a testifier to this truth, that he was submitting himself. Jesus didn't have any sin. So, you know, it wasn't like what we do, the idea to come in contact with him to part of that is then that we're justified because of our sin. He didn't have any sin, but he did set a pretty amazing example for us on what it looks like to totally submit yourself, the flesh, to then be raised to live by the spirit. And that becomes the difference. Because, you know, there was a subtle thing.

You mentioned about blood, Jay's. There's a subtle difference when you think about flesh and blood. And you think about the wording he used when he was showing himself to Thomas. And he says, see, a ghost doesn't have flesh and bone, as you see, I have, this resurrected body. Now, I don't know if, you know, we read too much into that. But he said those words, which said that there was something different about the resurrected body in terms of tie to this world. Because you don't live without your blood. I mean, you can't live without that.

That provides everything. And you know, even it's interesting, when you want to find out what's wrong in your body, guess what they check. Your blood? Your blood. Yeah. That's the life for it. That's when you find out what's going on. I mean, that's a test for everything.

Trust me, I'm getting them all the time. The numbers here, this, that, and the other. Everything shows up in the blood is the life force. But now we're saying we're going beyond just this earthly life. Now we're going into something greater and larger and bigger. And that's this idea of renewal. And the word testify here, I wrote it down how many times it was used. And it's interesting because the word in verse 7, there's a long Greek word for it,

but it starts out, here's their spelling. M-A-R-T-Y-R, and then it's O-U-N-T-E-S. But that first part ought to get your attention, martyr, also martyria testimony, to witness, to bear witness, to give evidence, to testify, to give a good report. You how many times John used this word in his multiple writings? 20 times in the book of John, six times in 1st John in this text, 5, 6 to 11, once in 3rd, John, 12, and then 9 more times in Revelation. If you're a quick mathematician, that's 36 times he uses the word testify or testimony in his writings. Now, in this case, he's attributed to the Holy Spirit as being the one who gives the testimony. But, Jay, you made a beautiful point out of John 10.

the very first one to give testimony of the father's will was Jesus himself. And then that tradition continues on with the apostles, with everybody that's ever lived from then until now. And it still goes to this very day. We're still making the same testimony. Now, the best advice you ever got early on was about getting a term life insurance policy. Yeah, I was young, didn't know anything about it. A dear brother who was an insurance salesman brought me in his office and said,

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Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com slash unashamed. That's meetfabric.com slash unashamed. And use our link so they know what we sent you at M-E-E-T Fabric.com slash Unashame. Policies are issued about Western Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain states, prices, subject to underwriting and health questions. Well, I think when you read something like that, You know, John Tim, where he's making that point, if you don't insert love, because love was defined, we did that in a previous podcast where, like Ephesians 5, 1, you know, live a life of love,

just as Christ loved us, and gave himself up for us. That little phrase follows the definition of love in multiple passages. it then starts making a little more sense, you know, because he went on to say in that chapter, my sheep listened to my voice, and I give them eternal life through his death. But the voluntary nature of it is what was hard for me to wrap my head around in using it with a command.

You know, this command I give you, but he's like, but I had the choice to give up myself. Nobody's taking my life from me. Well, then I, you know, when I apply that to myself and all this idea about being born again, the idea of water being symbolic, ever since the creation, you know, the waters,

when God made the earth and the Holy Spirit was hovering over the waters, it says the earth was formless and chaos. and empty. And then through the separation of the waters comes organization and creation. Well, that theme goes through the whole Bible. Think about the Red Sea parting, and they went through the waters, you know. And Jesus being baptized through the water, he received the spirit. And this water's being a symbol of turbulence and chaos.

And we were talking before the podcast started the worst movie I've ever seen, water world. Which I disagree. I think it's a classic. They took that idea, but they took that idea about why it's symbolic in the Bible is the sea is not fit for human habitation. You know, if somebody goes and dumps you off in the middle of the ocean, it's not going to end well for you. That's right.

You can't live out there. You're going to be eaten. We're constantly discovering beast of the sea. Like in modern culture, they're finding other things out there that will get you. The worst part, Jay, is you're probably going to dive thirst floating on the ocean. That's probably what's going to get you first because you can't drink the water. But somehow another, the fact that water. came up there. And look, where there's no water, there's no life. We have to have it,

but if you get a big bunch of it with all the beasts, humans can't survive it. And somehow God wants you to voluntarily plunge through the middle of all this chaos and trust him, and he'll take you through it, which is what life really is defined by, you know? You have to have that definition of life as kind of the anchor point for the the whole thing. And before I say this, Water World was an excellent movie. I would agree with that.

Thank you, Zach. Thank you, Z. But I will say that like the Eastern Church versus the West, the Western Church, I think one thing that they probably did a better job at was, we tend to reduce everything in the West to these categories of transactions. And so our big question in the Western Church, And you see this, the more the church kind of becomes, you know, gets further away.

You see this question that would always come up in your youth group, you know, how far is too far? Or questions like the one saved dollar saved thing. Can you lose your salvation? And embedded in kind of all of that, like, debate mentality, it reduces salvation to a moment, to a thing that you did. to a right set of doctrinal beliefs. And so we end up asking the question, you know, more or less like, what do I got to do to be saved? And what we mean by that is what do I got to do so that I don't get sent to hell when this is all

said and done? And I think what is a better way to probably or maybe a more primary way to view it is not necessarily that, but what must I do to be healed? What must I do to be in life? what must I do to be participating in the life of God? We use that term all the time about participation, because I think we've lost a lot of that in our Western teaching in the church. And I think it's one of the reasons why in the last podcast we were talking about the commandments.

J.S. you asked the question when you read the word command me. So what do you think of? And we all had a negative connotation. You say commandment. I'm thinking of a king giving verdict. and commands to peasants and like serve me. And so it's a negative connotation to it because I'm thinking whatever the king is commanding me to do is for his own narcissistic thing.

There's nothing in it for me. And that is not the picture of our king. Our king's commandments are not burdensome because they're actually invitations into into vibrancy, into life, into vitality, and I mean, come up with whatever. adjective that you want to come up with. But it's certainly God has our best interest at heart. That's why when you read all of these verses in the Bible about tasting the Lord, it never says, come taste to Lord and see how horrible he is.

What does it say? Come taste to Lord and see how good he is. So the tasting, we actually, when we taste his commandments, are like, wow, that was actually pretty good. And I would like to have some more of that. That's the invitation. And that's why I think we get off on it because we just want to reduce it, you know, to, I got to do the thing to get the prize.

And the prize is whatever. It's never, in our mind, it's never him or life in him. No, I think that's the way we should look at it. I was doing an interesting rabbit hole about when we get this idea of overcome the world and victory. and you see all these passages in Revelation, it was a list of a mile long. Because I looked at the Greek word for crown, you know, we'll receive the crown of glory.

And the only time that word is mentioned about Jesus is the crown of thorns. But then when we apply it to us, you think of all this, the crown of righteousness. Crown of glory. Crown of glory. Revelation, they would see the vision

and they would wear a crown of gold. And so we all think like that. But I found an interesting text in doing that rabbit hole, and I want to read this because I think it goes into what you're saying, Zach. In 2 Timothy 4, when Paul was telling Timothy, remember the verse where he says, I have fought the good fight in verse 7, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Now there's in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. And not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. So I looked up that word longed. So I thought, what does that mean? And you know what that word is in the Greek? is that Agapio love word. I don't know why they translated it long,

but it's love for his appearing. And it made me think, well, that's what we're talking about here. His love, when he gave himself up for us as a command, led him to a crown of thorns, which produced life. And when you put that, in context of us, not only just longing for him or not being surprised it is coming,

but having the same love that produced the crown of thorns, that's our attitude in him coming back. And we got it from him. That he passed that love on to us. So when you think, I think it changes the way you view commandments. You're like, he's given me the choice to choose. him because he chose me. And look what he did.

I mean, taken on a body, all the temptations, he always did the right thing. And the fact that he did that for us, which the other illustration of crown that I thought was interesting is that we're called his crown for what he did in the book of Revelation. Well, the only thing about that, Jay, is to add to your illustration, remember in Revelation 5 when the elders are approaching the throne with the worship and the praise? And you remember what they did with their crowns? They all laid them at his feet. Yeah.

And it's that perfect picture describing about submission and willingness. Like your crown of thorns gave us these wonderful crowns, but what are we going to do? We're going to give them right back to you because we don't deserve it. but we live in you and therefore we glorify your name, we worship you. And so I love that picture of victory. Well, that's where I was going because the crown of thorns, it made me realize that we're the crown of thorns. Well, where did the thorns start?

When man's saying, yeah, and there was a curse. And the curse, interesting enough, was he cursed the ground and he cursed the evil one. He didn't curse the humans. He cursed those things. And then there was the curse of pain in the childbirth. So then just look at all those things that he accomplished on the cross. Even from his side being pierced, which it says water and blood came out, well, Eve was made from Adam's side. You think about his hands that had nails in them,

and what did the humans do with their hands? They pluck that fruit, you know, with their hands. At every thing that the garden shows with a human body, he then takes that on a cross to redeem us. And we become his crown, and it shows you the way I should live my life and view his commands, which is laying down our life for him and his will and being used. Jay, so even the feet that were nailed to the cross, remember because the scars were in his hands and his feet,

what are the things that bring good news, according to Paul and Romans 10? How blessed are the feet that bring good news about Jesus? So again, another image, another illustration of just what you're talking about. I want to mention one thing because we're almost out of time. Another picture, because we talked about that idea of water, blood, and spirit in that testimony being in his baptism. But you just brought it up. Another picture we see is his flesh, his humanity. Because remember, John's whole point in this book of 1st John is that Jesus did come in the flesh.

And so when that side was pierced, it proved his death because the water flowed out. It was a little bit of blood. But what happens with the human body is when you die, I mean, everything turns to water. And you know why? Because we're made up of anywhere between 60 and 70 percent water, the human body is. And you only have about a gallon and a half of blood, which is about 8 percent of your body weight. So water is, you're far more made of water than you are of blood, even though you're made up of both, as well as the rest of your skeletal structure and what matter you have.

But I do think it's interesting that it is another picture that the Spirit testifies that with that flesh, you can become renewed. And so we symbolize that with our baptism as well. But the idea is when we come forth, what happens in the process, Jay, is we become united with Christ, Romans 6. We are united with him in his death, in his barrel, in his resurrection, and now in his life, which is why the Holy Spirit comes to live in us. So I think John is painting a little bit bigger and broader picture of what happens, not just one element, but a couple. And I think the idea of Jesus coming in flesh is at the heart of that to show that he now is one of us. The son of God became Jesus of Nazareth to wear that crown of thorns and to die for us, but more than just to die for us to live like us so that he understands us as the perfect high priest. So you just see the idea that becomes the testimony of who Jesus is, why he came.

He started it, and now we get to continue on in it, which is a beautiful, beautiful picture. Which is why when people talk about giving their testimony, the basis of that, because if you just do an AI or Google search, you know, they'll, most people kind of take what Paul did in Acts 26. Yeah. Because he shares his story. and people are like, well, here's the four points of how to give your testimony. No, there's one point.

You give your life up because he gave his life up for me. It should be 99.9% about what he did, and your 0.1% is I gave my life to him. So it's more of a pointing. Your testimony is you're going to point to Jesus and say, you want to define love, you want to define how my life turned around. it all started with God becoming a human and giving up his life. Because that's when the understanding, how we understand the nature of God came to a focus. Yeah, because the bad part of a testimony is the part that got you there,

that you tried to do it on your own, and it was an abject failure. It was miserable. And you may have tried to turn to a thousand different things, but those things don't matter. What matters, what the good part of the testimony is, I finally relented. I finally submitted. I finally said, you know what? You can't do this on your own. And so the only thing you can do is surrender. And so I love that text in Ephesians 521 that he goes into a marriage look. But he starts out by saying submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. That's the idea.

It's the giving up of yourself. And it's not just for marriage, but of course it's for everything. So we're out of time. But we have advanced into our narrative. And I got a little rabbit hole about the Holy Spirit I want to get into next time. So we'll pick it up from here on Unashamed. Thanks for listening to The Unashamed podcast. Help us out by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcast. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube.

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