Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1358 | Matt Chandler & the Robertsons Call Out the Fake Gospel of Instant Fixes

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Jase, Al, Zach, and Christian sit down with Matt Chandler, lead pastor of The Village Church and author of “Becoming Like Jesus,” to talk about Matt’s rough childhood, the church camp that changed his life, and why following Jesus is usually slower, messier, and more painful than people expect. Jase remembers taking a beating instead of fighting back and watching the man who attacked him later come to church wanting to hear about Jesus. The guys also dig into why suffering can expose what God wants to heal, and why the church is still the place where flawed people learn to love — and sometimes simply tolerate — one another. In this episode: Luke 15, verse 17; Hebrews 12, verse 2; Isaiah 61, verse 3; Matthew 5, verses 3–12; Psalm 27, verse 4; 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1–2; 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9–11; Exodus 13, verses 17–18; Romans 5, verses 3–5; James 1, verses 2–4 “Unashamed” Episode 1358 is sponsored by: https://chministries.org/unashamed — Get a better solution at half the cost of traditional healthcare!  https://vanman.shop/unashamed — Get 15% off your first order with code UNASHAMED https://www.wildalaskan.com/UNASHAMED — Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood delivered right to your door. 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://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 The Best Thing About Being a Pastor 11:35 Matt’s Rough Childhood & First Glimpse of Jesus 17:22 The Camp Sermon That Changed Matt’s Life 23:50 Life’s Lowest Moments Are the Most Important 29:50 Knowing Jesus Isn’t Like Flipping a Switch 34:22 Jase Takes a Beating Instead of Fighting Back 39:33 The Gospel Is More Than Grinding It Out 44:04 Jesus Doesn’t Want Distance from Us 50:10 Deep Work, Over Time, In Community — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Meets a Bible study. Sort of a Bible study. Exactly. Well, OJ's was trying to get into the Bible last time. So I don't know. I preached my whole sermon, Matt. So welcome to Unashamed, by the way. We're rolling. We got Matt Chandler in the house today. Matt, welcome to Unashamed. It's good to be in Monroe. Yeah, we're glad to have you here. And Christian is, he's up from the kid table. He's not at the big table.

I've graduated. I've graduated. We have another podcast we do as a Hillsdale podcast. It's a training podcast. It's a deep podcast. It is. Have you ever listened to one of them? No.

I have not. But don't. We've only done like 60. What a great question. What's your favorite episode? Have you ever? Listen to one of Matt Spocketing? No, I did ask him if you'd ever been on a podcast.

He said, I do one. He's going to coach me on the mic. It could be worse, Matt. We had Dave Ramsey on and Jason. I didn't know who you were. You know, I looked you up. This kind of got something going on here. I'm like, okay.

He's starting giving Dave financial advice. He's like, have you ever considered the debt is bad? Yeah. Or that not all dead is bad. He made it. That would have been a good fight. He made it worse. by acting like I was joking.

And I thought, no, I've never heard that. No, like, for real. It hasn't heard of Dave. That's going to be good for Dave. It's good for all of us. It's humble. Hey, we're friends now. I'm not sure.

That was the key moment. Now you're friends. There you go. And Matt's wife is here as well. Beautiful, Lauren. She's our studio audience today. So we're glad you guys are here. So how do you guys know each other?

Because you guys are friends, right? Yeah, we're great friends. Yeah, I, um, you say, Eddie and Lauren are good friends. And then Matt got lunch with him a while ago. We've been in similar circles. And no one's had as much impact on the spiritual formation part of my life as Matt had. So that's pretty awesome.

Look up to him. And yeah, now we're good friends. So it's awesome. I have read many of your works as well as seeing some of your serums, Matt. You're very talented. Oh, thank you. You're from the DFW area. Yeah, Ben, well, we lived there.

Daddy was Navy. So we kind of grew up all over. but have been at the village for nearly quarter of a century now. It'll be 24 years this December. Oh, yeah. So your place is called the village? It's called the village. It's not the village is.

No. And we're not the village people. We don't do either one of them. But you would do YMCA early on. People would be like, which one's the Indian? Which one's the cop? And I was like, why do we do this? No, the churches started in a place called Highland Village.

When I got there, it was Highland Village First Baptist Church. But I think the median age by the end of year one for me was about 26. It was way more, it had, like there would be nothing unrecognizable if you, and this is how long ago that was, if you looked up in the phone book, Highland Village First Baptist Church. And you could see them. I mean, we were all jeans. And I mean, this is my uniform, man. I just have a different poncho shirt. I'm not really later.

And they didn't pay for that, by the way. We just did a punch you add. Now, if they would like, we can talk about that. But you could watch them walk in in a suit and a tie, expecting a hymn and a him and a special in a 20-minute sermon. And we were sing for 25 and I was preaching for 50 and then we'd respond for 20. And you could just see the discomfort with both the youth of the room. Like you walked in and you were 62 and you're in a room.

Look like, wait, where's big church? This looks like the college ministry and or young adult ministry. And so I just started calling it the village. Yeah. It's like, welcome to the village. And I trained at a place in Abilene. It was called Beltway Park. And they were doing something similar when I was training there where they would just say,

hey, welcome to the park. And so that's how we kind of, for years, we were Highland Village First Baptist Church doing business as the Village Church. Yeah. And then we moved out of Highland Village. village cross about a mile down the road to a grocery store. And now the village part doesn't make as much sense because we're in Flower Mound. But I wasn't going to train it to the mound.

Well, you always built a new building. Yeah, well, we added on to the grocery store. So is this the only place you've ever passed? The only place I've ever been the lead guy. Yeah. The lead pastor. I spent all my time at one place, too. Our church looks like the village people.

Yeah, we're not the village people. You all know, he can't be the village. You'd say, you know what? I found the village people. Found them. They're still doing hand motions. Someone said, Matt, about our church one time, and it's one of my favorite descriptions.

There was some trouble person somewhere because my dad always, he lived, we lived way out, 30 miles out of town. He's like John the Baptist in the wilderness, next to water, you know, and just like, anybody wants to come, here I am. And they came over and over. And so all these people would wind up there.

And someone said, well, I don't know what I'm going to do with my son. and they said, we'll send them over to Weiss Faroe Road, which is our place. They'll take anybody. Yeah. And I was like, what a name. What a great. They'll take a great reputation. Exactly.

That's what I thought too. Because, I mean, it was said almost like an insult, but it's like the ultimate compliment. But even that, my dad probably has the record for most public speaking responses being gasped. He would say something. And you would hear. You know how people say. If he rubs in applause, this would be a collective. I'm not sure he's allowed to say that.

Exactly. Exactly. Did he just say that? Some of them are still not fit for public consumption. That is true. That is true. Zach, I did use his line yesterday. So I spoke at a prison yesterday after a priest.

But set it up, Al, because nobody knew he was going to say this. He walks in this prison. Set it up for how he said this. So we were in Angola a few years ago, which, by the way, So Angola, we were there, and Franklin Graham had told Dad that his, that Billy Graham, his dad, was buried in a casket made in Angola prison. Okay. They have made it and offered it. I mean, Billy Graham had been there, saw him making the caskets and said, I want to be, I want to be buried in one of your caskets.

So they did. So Franklin's telling Dad the story that he has already ordered one for he and Jane for when they cross over. and dad about six months before he crossed over, he told me, he said, or he actually told him mom, and the mom told me, he said, tell Al to reach out to the folks in Angola.

You know, I want to be buried in one of those Billy Graham caskets. That's what he called. And so I did. And then, of course, we didn't know what was going to happen. And so it was six months goes by, and then he crosses over.

So I called the assistant warden. And, you know, I said, we were ready for that casket. And in three days or two days, they had it. There was. Here it was.

And it's beautiful. The woodwork was beautiful as well. So we have a little bit of history with that. We went there to speak and they told Dad, look, now you're not only going to speak this thousand people that are in this area, but we're beaming out to the whole prison because there's a lot of people obviously that can't go out of where they are as well as death row. And so he looks right into the camera and he said he just steps up there and everybody's

looking at him. He says, just because you're under a locking key doesn't mean you can't be set free. That was his opening a lot. And I mean, it was just. And you're on it. Oh, it was just like that first sentence. Exactly. So you had no icebreaker.

It was just, wham. So yesterday I got to work that in to, because it's such a good lines, but I got to work. It landed, man. And this group, I had about 350 in the room.

It was packed. And, man, they were like, there's a guy our church named Kirk Live that likes to talk back to you. And that's the way that. He mainly says Jesus instead of it. He yells at the top of it.

as long as I love it when I'm speaking. He yelled it quite a few times yesterday as well. So what's your favorite thing about being a pastor? We're going to get into your book in a minute. But just what have you loved about it? I'll tell you this season. Yeah. I am watching, like this has happened more and more the last year,

the number of 20-year-olds who were just wilding out when I got there. I mean, addicts and, like, extremely perverse. young people powerfully encountered Jesus 20-something years ago, and they're now starting to baptize their kids. Yeah. Like that, like that'll kill me every time. I mean, I can feel it in my chest right now. Oh, yeah.

Like true generational shift where there's this one god or church, he's never even allowed to go back to Greece, like warrants, was like a male model and did such depraved things in Greece that he literally, you don't want to check in through immigration. Right. And like, had this, you know, Luke 15, 17, just one of my favorite little sentences in the Bible about the prodigal son. And when he came to his senses, you know, this guy had that moment in a club, in a bathroom, doing something totally depraved. It was like, is this, is this the life I want? No, no, no, he had been coming to church.

No, I want the life I've been hearing about. Yeah. Gives his life to Christ, beautiful little bride and four kids. and raising them in a fear of the Lord. Like that's worth all the stuff you have to endure to stay in one place for a quarter century. That's so good. Yeah, Kyle Adelman calls it the aha moment. Awareness, humility, action, which is one of my favorite sermons when I think about the product because I was one as well.

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Did you grow up as a Christian? No. Somewhat Christian adjacent. Yeah. And what I mean by that is my dad was, my dad had a tendency for violence, but he could also be super fun. So you might just be playing and everybody having a good time and then somebody's getting beat up by him. Yeah.

So that kind of created a very tense environment. Oh, bad. And then Mama, she was like a true moralist with Jesus as the banner. Yeah. So an interesting home where dad might freak out and beat the hell out of you, but you better not be watching right at our movies. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And so that was kind of the dynamic I grew in. Mom, certainly. And she would testify that certainly didn't have any real relationship with the Lord, but her daddy was like a director of missions in the backwoods of Missouri. They would call it Missouri. And so she was kind of the good kid. And then her marriage to my father was like her one act of rebellion. that she paid for for the next 40 years.

Yeah. And so that was the home I grew up in, where Jesus could be mentioned, but never in a way that looked attractive to me. Yeah. Like, wait, Jesus is making us stay in this house where dad could be chasing me around the table and then all of a sudden I'm on the floor being kicked.

Like that, Jesus wants that for me. Right. Well, yeah, no thank you. Right. And so kind of grew up in that environment. And then a guy I was playing football with and just walked straight up to me and just said,

Hey, I need to tell you about Jesus, when do you want to do that? Like, he was like, it's happening. When would you like? And I, and I, it was, it's a guy named Jeff Faircloth, still keep in touch with him, best athlete in our school. I'm not sure I would have listened to anything he said if he's like the third string tied in. But it was.

And I mean, there's something to that. I mean, I know we like to pretend there's nothing to that. Yeah. There was something to him leveraging his influence. Yeah. Wasn't a perfect kid. He was odd. but in high school, you give all the grace in the world to the best athlete in the school.

And so started going to church with him. He started giving me books to read. He was answering my questions. I was so, like, so rude to it, man. It was, we had become for, it was just Christianity in the 90s. Maybe still. I don't know. I've been in it too long.

It was so easy to make fun of. Like, I remember he would take me to jam, which stood for Jesus and me on Wednesday night, which was the student ministry thing there at first baptism. Tech City. And they would, you know, I just remember they were singing, I got joy down in my heart, deep, deep down in my heart, spell it. And the whole room went, J.O. Y. And I was like, what in the world are we in?

It felt a little culty. And then there was a night. I had gone on a Friday night to see Run DMC Beastie Boys at the Houston Summit. And then the next night, Jeff took me to Michael W. Smith, D.C. talk. And I mean, I'm in there. And this is no smoke on those guys. I'm lost. Yeah.

But I thought, this is like a Saturday night live sketch. I mean, this whole thing. Like, Michael Dane and Carvey to come out of it. I mean, I was just like, this can't be real. But now I know, theoretically, what was happening is that effectual call of God. Yeah. Because I would make fun of it. And they'd be like, man, can you pick me up next week?

Yeah. Can you come get me next week so I'd go back with you? There's something to it. There was something to. I was being wooed, and I didn't even know I was being wooed. I probably would have bailed had I thought I was being wooed. Yeah. And then Jeff, when played football for A&M, left, and I kind of went back to the old ways before then, party and again, fighting a lot.

And then I had to work. You know, my parents were not the parents of 2026. It was like, you're going to have a job. Yeah. So I worked in Texas City fabricating. So down on the coast, in an aluminum steel building, cutting rebar and sanding, when they finished whatever they were constructing, I would sand it clean and then clean the shop. miserable. I mean, you know, 100% humidity. I mean, you guys know about that. Oh, we know. And, you know, it's 98 degrees on average, just sweating to death with some of the most rough-neck human beings

I'd ever been around. Like, I thought my dad was wild. Yeah. These brothers were good, and, you know, one would just not show up. We'd gotten a bar fight than I before got stabbed. They were constantly trying to give me drugs or get a prostitute for me. It's like, hold on, no, I'm not, I ain't crossing that threshold. As a STD, too, all the other issues. As a, as a, as a, as a a 17-year-old, I think I'm ready to cross that threshold. Yeah, yeah. And I knew, man, I knew that the only way I could get out of a week of work, especially if I appealed to my mom, was to go to church camp. And so the student pastor of the church, you know, reached out and was like, hey, I know I hadn't seen you a bit, got a scholarship for camp.

And camp to me was girls in sports. Yeah. So new girls in sports. That was you too, right? Yeah. Yeah. That was actually. It was just. I went to camp. And so went to camp. And then it's just that story then. Thursday night, still remember the sermon. Don't remember the guy who preached it. He's preaching out of Hebrews 12.

Whom for the joy set before him endured the cross. And so he gave the most graphic description of the cross that I'd ever heard at that point of my life. I mean graphic. And then he just kind of ask all us kids, where's the joy? Where's the joy in this? then he flips over and it pleased the son to bring to the father many sons and he kind of turned it to where like you were the joy set before him like he paid this price knowing he could

pull you out of whatever you were in yeah and i i remember being bothered by it not like oh i want to give my life to i'm bothered by it so i kind of left i avoided the front the front i mean i'm not the front wigged me out like everybody went down there and started crying and then i was just like i didn't i thought maybe that's where god himself was so i was kind of kind of avoid up front. So I went back. It was at the University of Mary Harden, Baylor, Belton, Texas, sat on a yellow swing under a live oak. And I'm just having it out with the Lord. All the reasons why that can't be true for me. I mean, I'm just listing them to the Lord. And then I just had this moment where the spirit just turned it on. And I mean, here I am. It'll be 34 years on June 17th. And I still hadn't

recovered from that. Still hadn't recovered. And I still love that you remember the specifics of those words of God. Yeah. Not necessarily the person because he was just getting it out there so you could hear it. Yeah, no idea who that got. Exactly. I wish. I tell the story sometimes because I want some 80-year-old man to be like, wait, that was

me. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to hug you. I'm the same way. There's a police officer somewhere, if he's still alive, that turned me around. And that's same thing. I mean, I don't even know, but I'm like, I'm finding this guy in eternity and saying, what you did worked. Yeah.

Thank you for doing that, which is very powerful. Yeah. So that's how I, and then I came back to school the next year, I went from being one of the better partiers and prone to violence to wearing a shirt, t-shirt that said, I heart Jesus and carry my Bible. So my senior year, there was this huge, like, did Chandler join a cult? And then here's where I learned, you actually get disciples before you become a Christian. Because what did I do? I'm wearing eye-heart Jesus. I'm carrying my Bible. I'm going, I need to tell you about Jesus. When do you want to do that? I didn't have Jeff's athletic swagger, but I was a well-known kid, well-liked kid. And then I just started sharing the gospel with everything. That's so good. I love it. That reminds me, Al, whenever, my story is similar. I had a much better childhood than you did, Matt, but the area that I lived in,

there wasn't a lot of Christians in my school. And we were at the beach with the Robertson side of the family. And now you remember we were sitting on the beach. And Al, I was going into my senior year, it was that summer at the beginning. And I was just sitting talking with Al about my situation. And he said, you should come to camp. And they sponsored me. Somebody paid for it. In fact, I think your grandmother-in-law, Christian, paid for my camp that year. So tell two, Mama, thank you.

But so I went to camp and really had like a radical encounter with Jesus. I had never experienced that type of emotional setting in Christ. I'd never been, like, seen kids that vulnerable. And so there was a lot of weeping. And I had a hard time at first, like accessing that. And I remember like thinking like dead puppies, like trying to make myself cry. Like think of something sad and manufacturer. That'll do it.

That'll do it. Yeah. And I was trying to make myself cry because everybody else was. But after that encounter, I left. And it was like such a fundamental change for me. And I think it's a good subway to your book. And then over the years, like I think for a few years, I kind of dismissed that as like a camp high, and I'm sure there was some immaturity to it. But I didn't understand probably until

10 years later, really the concept what your book is about, which is progressive sanctification. I had understood salvation only in the category of Jesus paid for my sins so that I won't go to hell. And that was like sustained me for 10 years maybe, but then as I got into adulthood, I started to look for more of the healing power of Jesus' blood. And so it's interesting that I started there at camp, but now looking back on it, now this idea of progressive sanctification, which is what your book is about becoming like Jesus, to me is one of the key teachings that I think the church has missed out on in the last maybe 25, 30 years. Do you guys ever look at the ingredients, like the ingredient label on something that you use every day?

You ever just taking a gander? You know, I probably should do more. I've learned to label read a lot on my food, so I should probably do it on other products as well, but I don't really do it. I do not because I think if I did, I probably wouldn't use anything. What Zach does because he loves big words, you know. I do. So we started looking at some alternatives to toothpaste, and that's how we came across Van Man's Miracle

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it's real ingredients, no exceptions. Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's why I wanted to write it. That and the plausibility structure we're sitting in, like the air that we breathe is winning is up and to the right.

Business, relationship, it's up and to the right. But spiritual formation doesn't work that way. Right. It's way messier than that. It's way more complex than that. Oftentimes, the lower moments tend to be the most powerful moments.

Like even when I was writing the book, I sat down with almost all our senior saints, our 70-year-olds. And as I asked them and talk to them about the most formative moments of their life, nobody said the day I got married when my kids were born. No one did. To the person, they pointed to an extremely difficult. season of their life in which they clung to Jesus, and he held on to them. And then when they got to the other side of that, like the depth and intimacy and an awareness of the presence of God had grown like tenfold. And I really dislike any kind of teaching that is promising you things that the Bible doesn't promise you. Like Jesus says, hey, in this world, you will have trouble, period, not

comma. Yeah, yeah. But take heart. I have overcome the world. So the promise isn't, hey, give your life to Jesus and everything's going to go the way you think it will or that you want it to. You're never going to have low moments. You're never going to doubt. You're never going to slip up and fall again. He just doesn't promise any of those things. In fact, he says the opposite. But for some reason, and I do think it's because of what it's got plausibility structure. It's what we, we're breathing it in. We're watching it on shows like winning looks like this. Yeah. Up and to the right. Always better, always more joy, always greater happiness, always, you know, and nobody in the Bible has that story. Yeah. And no one in Christian history has that story. So I wanted to write an honest book on progressive sanctification.

Yeah. And it's not up and to the right. The image I use in the book is imagine a horizontal coil. So if you're a Christian, you're in the coil. So every high and every low in a coil is still moving you forward. Yeah. So that the low moments where we're prone to think, oh, I must have done something wrong, or God's obviously mad at me, or I wish I would have had a more consistent quiet time, all that ridiculous. No, no, no, you're still being moved forward, even in the low. Even if it was your own idiocy that brought about the low, God doesn't waste that. So he'll use that.

And so that's what I was trying to do is just go, hey, you're okay. And then to tell everybody, if you don't quit you in, like if you don't quit you, just keep clinging to Jesus, you win. Yeah. So that was kind of the heart of the book. No, and I love that. In fact, I sent it to Maddie, a picture of it when I was reading your book so we could show that, hopefully, because that is so brilliant. I never thought, it's why I love pastors because they, you preach to the same people all the time. You have to come out of new ways to illustrate. Got it, new ways to tell the same story. Exactly. And I love that idea. I always thought of it as seasons, but it's so much more visually better to see that idea as we go through these seasons

of suffering, difficulty, and highs. I love the idea you're always going forward. Always. It's so good. And it's got to be, you've got to think of your Christian life more like you're a tree and not a light switch. Like everybody wants light switch. They want, give me that moment where this struggle goes away or my mindset's changed or my, but that's, again, I don't, and I believe in breakthrough, man. I'm a ghosty guy. I believe in breakthrough and those moments where in an instant the spirit can take something off of you or put something in you. But the average experience of the Christian is that you grow like a tree. You stare at a tree all you want. You're not going to see it grow. And for it to become that, if I'm quoting the prophet Isaiah, for it to become that oak of righteousness,

a planting of the Lord for the display of a splendor. We talked about that on the last spot. Look at that. Look at that. Annamar to poncho shirt. What's happening here today? This was a divine appointment. It's right. Exactly.

It has to, it has to, it has to, it needs sun, it needs rain. Also needs to survive drought. It's going to have to make it through some deep freezes. Yeah. That's how it becomes that oak of righteousness. So to think that we're going to become an oak of righteousness with just sun and rain. Yeah. It just, it's not going to happen.

Yeah, so good. No, so it reminds me of my teenage years because I did something crazy, which is gave my life to Jesus at 14 and then try to go to a public high school and survive. But when you said that about your mom, because so much I think with my parents, they had similar qualities to your mom in that because they came from the world. And my mom was like, you know, I don't want you looking at this naked woman on a rated R movie. yet they would take us to rate at our movies for Christmas. And then slap us for looking.

I'm like, you brought me here. I can't get in you without you. Exactly. This is no one under 17. He literally saw dirty hairy for Christmas ones. And death wish. I was like eight years old. Charles Bronson, bro.

She kept slapping me in the face. And I thought, you brought me. But so it was, it was hard to find your way. And, but what I was going to say is those first three years of my Christian life were terrible, which is where I learned the heart of your book. Because these qualities that are the basis of your book, what we call the beatitudes, you know, all these things when you read them, like as a new Christian, none of these things are appealing. Poor and spirit, mourning, you know, meek. And when he gets down to the end, this is what I experienced in my three years of high school. those who are persecuted, insulted, falsely saying all kinds of evil against you, because that's

what was happening. I kept thinking, God is with me. I was working myself into being public and proclaiming, which was very hard for me because I was a shy kid. But that's what I experienced. I look back on it. I'm thankful now. Because it made me realize I needed to go through that process, kind of like a marriage.

Yeah. You know, I don't look back at my first. year of marriage and say that was terrible, but I look back on it and say, that was pretty terrible. Yeah, you're not going, nailed it. Nailed that first year. But all that galvanizes where the Lord will use you to do hard things, that process, like you said, the illustration by the tree, it's just so hard to see in the moment that you're

growing and you're able to do very difficult things. You talked about it. I loved your vulnerability at the beginning of the book, talking about marriage issues you guys had through part of that, part of being publicly scorned by people and slandered. And I mean, all the things that people go through, right? Had brain cancer. Yeah. And then plenty that I couldn't write about.

Yeah. Plenty that I couldn't write about. Right, right, right. Yeah. Well, and so then the reason I wanted to root it in the beatitudes, Jace, was like, okay, what does it actually practically look like to become like Jesus? So I say in the book, like Jesus didn't come to find beatitude people. He came to make them.

And the beatitudes, they're not like a checklist or a ladder. They're the things that Jesus is going to form over time in us to where they're kind of character traits we possess, not by might of will, but by lived experience. And like I, man, I have learned blessed or the poor in spirit, no fewer. than 20,000 times the last 34 years. I mean, I tend to have high energy. I've got a work ethic. I understand. I've got rhetorical skills that ultimately don't matter because it takes the power of the spirit to transform. I can motivate, but that ain't getting you out of our parking lot. Yeah. I know that. Yeah. Learned it in all sorts of hard ways. Yeah. And I, yeah, I, the speed at which

for decades, I would just default to my own strength, my own wisdom, my own way of doing it. and not do the slower work of seeking the Lord and then heading out in the power of the Lord. I would just blaze forward and go, hey, you want to help me here when I met resistance. Right. You know, I'm trying to serve you. I didn't even ask you to go there. What are you doing? Right, right.

Well, even that phrase, you know, I went down a rabbit hole at one point, that poor and spirit, it basically at the end of the rabbit trail is you realize you're powerless. Yeah. And I remember the first time I've shared this story many times, so I'll just give you the quick version. But I remember, you know, all the scraps and fights I had during high school and before Jesus and our family was a fighting family. We had a lot of boys. I think me and Willie fought every day physically for two years. It was just you get up, you're like round 77.

Big ding. Up until we were grown adults, which is another story. My role as an older brother was both to initiate the fights and break them up. No, I was Don King of our family. He was a promoter. To the neighborhood kids. Now I've got the Don King hair. Three o'clock.

He like the way in. He had the way in. He was set, organized and all that up. Jay's, you've been talking a lot about things you've been teaching little man on the podcast. And one of the things you've done is to teach him out of fish. Exactly. I mean, it goes back to the old saying, you know, catch a fish. That's good for a.

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And she was after me, but she was like, help me spiritually. Next thing I know, she has a boyfriend, and they're doing way more than dating. They're acting like they're married. and I was, didn't know all this. But in that moment, I thought, because this guy confronts me, I'm like, I'm going to do the right thing. But my past, you know, my initial reaction was worldly. But then I thought, no, I'm going to share Jesus with this guy. I don't care about this girl.

I don't care about you. And I thought that would be great. I was like, I'm not going to fight you. The weapons we fight with. You know what I quoted some of the book to him. Oh, I did. I don't know if you're aware of this. The weapons of our warfare.

I shared Jesus with this guy. And you're like, what happened? He beat the crap out of him. And I never threw a punch. Now, as all these quality, because once I have more pride than I do, you know, anything else. So once I said I wasn't going to do it, and I was just so broken and embarrassed. And it was just me and him, but I thought, and he didn't hit me in the face, so I was justifying everything. I thought it was the worst two weeks of my life.

Yeah. And, you know, we're sitting in church, and somebody tapped me on the shoulder two weeks later. I'm licking my wounds, literally. And they're like, guess who's here? I look back here and I thought, this guy's stalking me now. Oh, he's going to beat me in the church. And I thought, that's it. And now I thought, that's it.

As soon as I get out of this building, I mean, I've left the Lord, everything. I was like, it's round two because I tried it. But Jason's coming to play. He's going to play. So I walk out in the parking lot, he comes up. I take us in the position. Look up. The guy gets tears in his eyes.

And he's like, more I've thought about this, I'm embarrassed. I want to hear about Jesus. And all of a sudden, you know, that dude gives his life to the Lord. We became friends years later. And he had an airplane and he would fly me to events, you know, to share Jesus. Yeah. And so what I looked back to him. You almost die by that guy, right?

I did. But, and he was happy about it. I mean, we were... He's like, do you believe it or not? Because of the earlier moment, he was confident. But it just shows you how immature I was. And I did the right thing, kind of for the wrong reason. But it was like, then I really saw the power of God in this.

And I thought, you know, what we're in on can change your life. And it changes other people's life. You know, it's a very powerful moment. It's so funny you said that. I told that story because yesterday when I was sharing at the prism, I told about my moment and the police officer that turned me around was there because a jealous husband who I had been sleeping with his wife. I was a teenager prodigal and beat the crap out of me with a crowbar. And I said yesterday, and I deserved it.

I mean, I deserved that and more because that's where my life was. But I said I took that beating. And then I realized in that moment sitting on that curb and Kenner, Louisiana that if I stay here, I will die and I will go to hell. Yeah. You know, that's where I... This is exactly where I'm at. You're at the bottom of the hell.

At this moment, I cannot get any lower. And that's when that police officer, who believed the verses have made the most of every opportunity, he had one. And I was ready to listen. And he sent me home. He sent me back here. So I told that story yesterday, and this huge big guy comes up. And he said, he said, I really appreciate what you had to say.

And I said, well, thank you. I said, I'm so glad you're here to hear it. He said, man, I'm glad you took that beating. And I was like, I mean, in the moment I thought, yeah, what he meant, I guess, was, you know, you took that beating and you were here to share it with me today. And I'm blessed because of that. And I thought, man, isn't that what it's all about? Man, I'm glad you took that beat.

I'm glad you took that beat. But it's funny. That's funny. You think about where you started Matt with Hebrews 12 for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. And I think that's so connected to spiritual formation, you know, becoming like Jesus. When I started college ministry in the town that you guys are in now, we actually live in North Carolina now, but we planted a church right on ULM campus. And I remember this moment of like, I don't think that the full gospel that we're presenting here is enough because it was only about justification and not being healed progressively from the power that sin has over you. And I'm looking at a group of 70 college students.

And I'm like, the message I was giving them was come to Jesus and then grind it out for 80 years. And then one day you get to go to heaven. So I had all kind of eschatological problems with that. And hopefully you'll make it. Yeah, hopefully. Hopefully you'll make it. Yeah, you grind it out. Hopefully.

But I didn't understand what is that joy that was set before him. You mentioned it was his love for us, but then we have a joy set before us as well. And I read a book by a guy named Desire in the Kingdom. I can't remember his name now. James K.A. Smith. And he talked about humanity. Like we typically approach humanity at our cores, we're thinking machines.

We're like brains on the stick. And then the Reformation came, and it was no, we're primarily believing beings. And he said, no, really what we primarily are is we're worshippers, we're lovers. Yeah, it's not a matter of if you'll love or it's a matter of who. or what you'll love. And so that joy, I think what that sanctification does and the spiritual formative practices, at least for me, it's helped reorient and re-index my desires toward their proper end.

Now, that's a message that will resonate with young people because that is, I think, from my whole life, that's where I felt the emptiness is a reoriented or a disoriented love. And to me, the idea of progressive sanctification is just how to be reoriented. orient that to its proper end. That's the joy that's sitting out there. Yeah, every, yeah, I will say to young pastors now who want, because I had this interesting shift, you know, I started when I was 28 and, and I was like little brother and then I was brother. And now I'm like, dad, I'm like, Pat Paul Chandler. Like, nobody asks me brother questions. He's like, what are you guys doing for small groups now? I ain't got that question in years.

Yeah, yeah. But like longevity, staying in love with your wife. Yeah. Being faithful through the hurts and betrayals and I get those questions all the time. And I, if I'm preaching to young pastors right now, I'm just going, look, the banner over my life is Psalm 274. One thing I ask, all that I seek is that I might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. So I, I love growing and I don't know if they'd be called pastorally like soft skills. Like I want to be the best preacher I can. I want to be the best leader I can. I would be the best husband. I have learned that I am the best happiest version of me when my heart's fully alive in Jesus. Not when I know the best practical next steps, but no, my heart's awake.

It's alive. Like I'm in love with Jesus. Then naturally, I'm the best husband, preacher, friend, leader. It's just like that bubbles up and I can pick up the soft skills by throwing him onto the fire of affection for Jesus. And it's true that, I think it was Thomas Chalmers, he was a Puritan that wrote a little essay called The Explosive Power of New Affection. And he's making that same argument, which was also Edwards and Augustine's,

and it was like Christian history, this is how people were formed. And then the Reformation, which is grateful for it, they came along like, no, no, no, it's thinking. But you're just like, no, it's not. Like I just said this this past Sunday at the village. You know what you should eat, but I'm guessing you're not doing it. Yeah.

But like you know you need to sleep, but I'm guessing you're not doing it like you know you should. So it's not what you know. Yeah. It's like what's in your guts. That's right. Like what's in your heart? It's so good. It reminds me that I don't know the name of it, but it was something to the effect of the Jesus stuff, which was the same question.

Because I was like Zach, too. I mean, I was on fire for the Lord as a teenager. but you would bring these people to the Lord and they visit to the church. And that book was about a guy coming to the Lord. And he goes to church for a couple months. And he leans over to the guy who shared Jesus with him. And he's like, when are we going to do the Jesus stuff? Yeah, that's John Wimber.

Yeah. And I see that lived out because this process also happens, you know, in our churches. It's filled with sinful, flawed people who are going through the process. And we shouldn't let that disappoint us to the effect that Jesus is awesome. And some of us should be doing the Jesus stuff. And look, the greatest thing about being in Jesus is it becomes contagious. That joy becomes contagious. And I really see that with our young people today.

When you brought that out, because every event I go to now, I've just seen this shift in the age bracket. There's 20 to 30-year-olds is the number one. crew at our events now. Yeah, I really think we're in a moment. I hope it just continues to grow. I was with a guy last year who became a Christian in the Jesus movement, and he was saying, this feels like how it started back then.

Yeah. And so I was like, Lord, let it be whatever glory portal that is, open it up. Well, Dad used to always talk about that, you know, late 20s, it was for him, you know, 29. And he talked about that late 20s place and how many people would find their way out to him, which is where the age he was when he came to the realization by himself. So there's something about that. I love several quotes, but I love this one. It's so honest. You said, my life since Jesus saved me has been both beautiful and brutal. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought that was such an honest. That's the coil. Right. I mean, there's beauty and there's brutality. Absolutely. But the evil ones

still working. I mean, and I'm still a moron. Yeah. It's not like Jesus saved me out of my own. Wait a minute. Your wife just gave a big amen, but she knows. I'm not, listen, if anyone, if anyone's had a front row seat for that, it's LC. But yeah, I mean, I'm not, I have never met a mature Christian who would say they've arrived. Yeah. It is so much slower than anyone wants to be honest about. It requires so much more patience with self and the Lord. but to lean into the victory of Jesus promised to us. Like he swore by his own name. He's not going to leave me or forsake me.

Because there was nothing stronger by which he could promise. Yeah. And so it's the gospel. That's what you just never move past the gospel. And that's Paul's argument in 1st Corinthians, I think it's 15, where he says, you received this gospel in which you received, by which you stand, and by which you are being saved. So that the path to sanctification is to believe that Jesus doesn't want any distance from me. He doesn't want any distance from me. He doesn't love me more when I'm killing

it. And he's not furrow, brow, and disappointed if I'm not doing as well as I want to be doing and he wants me to be doing. So what happens if you get that confused is every time you're not killing it, you're going to create distance from the Lord. But he doesn't. But he doesn't. doesn't want, and he especially doesn't want it from those places where you want it. Yeah. So if you've got some besetting sin that you're ashamed of, you've got some compulsion that you can't get victory over, that's the stuff Jesus wants you to bring to him. He already knows it.

But we've been trained in churches where everybody looks pretty, that you've got to run and hide that stuff. Yeah. You can't let anybody know about that stuff. Yeah. But the path to freedom is to take the grossest stuff imaginable right into the presence of Jesus and let him do his work on us there. So that's like the gospel doesn't just, it's not just the door we walk through. It's the whole house. So you can't like the gospel saves me and now let me

get to work. Now we do partner with the Lord in our sanctification. But this is, no, no, no, the gospel has to be just as true for me going into year 34 as it was the day it saved me. So good. Otherwise, I'm going to run from the Lord. when I screw up. Yeah, he hadn't asked me for that. I think that's a great point, too, the process of it. And I think Eugene Peterson said it's a, I think Nietzsche, as you said it first, it's a long obedience in the same direction.

But I think that's the, when you mentioned that, it's long, it's extended. I mean, it's the mundane moments that really form the person in our gut, that gut you were talking about. I mean, do you think that that's one of the reasons why, spiritual formation takes kind of a backseat and a lot of preaching because it's not that light switch moment. Well, you call it. It's a microwave versus a gourmet meal, right?

I mean, that's exactly what it is. There's, and that was the early illustration in the book of light switch versus tree. You got to get this light switch idea out of your head or you're going to live from event to event. And that's not God's call on your life. God's calling your life is to embrace his grace through the slowness of this process. Do you know in Exodus when Jesus is, or I mean, yeah, you could, the Lord's leading the people of Israel out of Egypt. And the Bible tells us, God took them the long way around.

Yeah. Because he knew that if they saw the Philistines, they would lose heart and they would, they would run in. It's maybe helpful for people to know, like the stuff that the Holy Spirit's doing in my life right now, year 34, had he touched that 15 years ago, it might have killed me. I would not have been ready, could not get to the level that he is in my soul right now without this progressive cutting of deeper and deeper trust in him. And so if you look at the passages on suffering, if you look at Romans, if you look at James, if you look at first, they're all kind of saying the same thing that these things produce these things, which gets us to these things so that God can do these things. And in each promise, near the end of those passages on suffering is hope, it's confidence,

and it's maturity and purity that God will purify you. So anybody watching this right now has had that moment where they thought they were doing really well and some pain came into their life and then some ugly reared its head that they had no idea was in there. Well, that's grace. That's the Lord going, yeah, I want to work on that. And you couldn't hear me when your bank account was fat, and you were strong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I allowed like a scalpel so that I could cut deeper and free you more fully.

Yeah. Yeah. That'll pre. Take the long way around. No. Well, I tried to call the book. I swear, I tried to call the book The Long Journey Home. Yeah. And my publisher came back around and was like, hey, negative titles don't sell. We work that. I was like, what do you mean? Negative titles don't sell. And they're like, he's. I've met so many brilliant thoughts that got shot down. I don't want to go on this long journey. You're absolutely exhausted in your face. Like you're not quite sure

how much longer you can make it. Are you buying the long journey home? And I was like, yeah, you're right. Probably not. So call it becoming like and I bet you the phrase long journey home is in that book a hundred times. I know it. I was like, okay, I'll take it on the time. I loved it. I would have bought it twice. I'm glad you brought it first Corinthians 15 though because a lot of

these new Christians, I'm seeing the same common problem because they're like, love Jesus, don't like this church where I'm going, you know. And I use that 1st Corinthians 15 as example. I was like, I call it the most embarrassing chapter in the Bible. Because here's a church who had to be reminded of the gospel, not to mention 1st Corinthians 6, where they used to be male prostitutes, homosexual offenders, all these, you know, it just lists out their laundry list of sins. And I remind people of that, but he still called him the church. He's reminding them of the gospel. He still started off saying to the church at Corinth. It's a good point. It's like it's a process

that we constantly have to be reminded of what should be most important. Yeah, and I don't think I got to write about this in the book, but experientially, people that bother me, other Christians that bother me will most frequently be used by God to reveal something in me. that needs to be sanctified for my being bothered by them. They will either be some sort of mirror to me where I'm seeing something I don't like about myself, so I don't like about them, or they'll provoke my flesh in a way that also needs to be sanctified. So I get it, and I would never tell anyone, man, if you're in some toxic, crazy church, there's better ones. Exactly.

But just the idea that, I mean, the whole frame of the whole frame of, you know, work of the book. How do we accomplish this? Deep work overtime in community. You got to embrace all three of those. Deep work overtime in community. There are no Jason Borns in the kingdom of God. Does it take four seals to clean a room? Like to clear a room. It ain't one guy popping a thing and clear in the corners. It's a team. And we desperately need one another. We're not going to make it without other people with us. And the church is that place where, like, I love how low the low barred that the scripture sets on the one another. You know, got the 54 one another.

One of them is tolerate one another. I laugh every time I read it. You know what? Just tolerate this guy. Just got it. You know, he doesn't have to be your best friend. You don't have to have them for dinner.

I always said the Bible says love one another. It doesn't say they might like one another. I mean, there are a few I just don't like. But you know what? I still love that brother. Yeah. I'm sure there's plenty that don't like me.

Exactly. Especially when we preach. One of our instructors at Bible school, he introduced a phrase to us, but I was so thankful now. He's like, you're going to have some people in the church that we call them EGRs. And I was thinking, what is EGR? And he said, extra grace required.

And you're going to have to tolerate them. That was the same phrase. That was the Dallas Willard. Grace is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning. It is so good. Oh, so good. This book is so good.

So it's called Becoming Like Jesus. The Everyday Journey to Living a Life of Holiness is based on the Beatitudes. but there's a ton of richness in here. Thank you, Matt. Man, this went by quick, which is usually means it was a good podcast. Yeah, it was great to hang with you guys. You're kind of my people.

I'm picking up on it. My people. I love it. Keep doing what you're doing, brother. Yes, sir. See you next time on Unashame. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcast.

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