Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 276 | Jase's Embarrassing Toilet Paper Story, the Me-Centric Gospel, and Is It a Sin If ...?

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

Phil finds there's a whole lot about compassion and comfort in the Bible that gets overlooked. Jase finds a spiritual lesson in a humiliating restaurant bathroom situation. Zach offers a biblical perspective on being pitted against each other based on race, gender, and politics. Jase has one answer when someone asks him if something is a sin. The guys talk about how to live an unashamed life and how to get away from putting what we think of God ahead of what God thinks of us. And Zach and his wife welcome a new baby to the Unashamed family! -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? All right, we're back. We got Zach back again. Zach, what have you been doing? I've been raising kids. You know, we're adopting, right? Yeah, I do. That's awesome. Tell us about that. Yeah, we met this young lady, well, I guess it's been about three or four or five months ago. And she, some lady called Jill, my wife, who is on the board here at the children's home because she had a friend of hers that was considering terminating her pregnancy and was just,

what I say to this girl? She's looking into trying to figure out what she's going to do, trying to get some money for it. And Jill's like, well, tell her that we'll adopt a baby. Now, me and Jill had already talked about this. I told her, look, if the Lord drops a baby on our doorstep and then I'll adopt. So he did. So we started walking with the mom. We got to meet her and developed a relationship there and make a long story short.

The baby was born at 27 weeks. And it's the NICU unit. Yeah. So she's been in for, it was born on Easter. So there's a whole story behind it that I'll tell you guys. It's someday, but it is because it is incredible. But this week, Fred, my youngest, until the last baby was. born. I get a call from the neighbor because I'm, I'm stay at home dad, because Jill's in the

NICU with the baby. So I'm having to watch all the kids, try to work. It's been, it's been insane. So Fred, he, he got a call from the neighbor. There's a bed and breakfast right next door to my house. And he says, have you seen Fred? He said he had a paper cut. About the time, Fred walks in the house. Fred is 10 years old. He's 10. So he goes next door because he gets a paper cut and asks them to doctor up the paper cut. Well, when he walks to the door, he's got blood. I mean, it's everywhere.

And he's, I mean, he's got a gash on his thumb that's about two inches deep. I mean, he's cut this thing. He's out there in the shop trying to sharpen a knife, which he didn't know how to do it. And he's coming back towards him. So he hits his thumb. But instead of coming to tell me, he goes next door to the guy that owns the bed and breakfast and says, hey, you guys help me out.

I got a little paper cut here. Of course, the guy's like, that's more than a paper cut, son. I better call your dad. So that's been my life for the last six weeks is raising kids. I never appreciated how much my wife did until the last four weeks. Oh, yeah. That's what I've been up to. You know what I've noticed?

Every time I hear a kid story of me from having. I guess four, is that they do not want to disappoint. The fear of disappointment outweighs everything, which is probably he went to the neighbor because he didn't want to say, you know, I about cut my thumb off. Well, I'd already told him not to, I told him that you don't play with a knife like that.

So he'd already, he's out there on a, he's also getting on the grinder out in my shop. I mean, these kids like, They have no, they're feral, they're feral kids. It was more about disobedience, Chase. That's what it was about. But that's what we did. I mean, you learn.

You just hope you can survive the learning process. Well, you know, last week we were talking about, and even in the book of Romans, when we were talking about that term, the obedience of faith on the last episode, that's what made me think of it with your kids. Like, they, when they're at 10 years old, they, my kids obey me. sometimes, most of the time, but they do it out of this obligatory, they don't want to get in trouble. So it's all based in fear.

And that's why I think that term we talked about last week so important because it's, I think what Paul's doing in the book of Romans is he's calling us to a new type of obedience. Now, when I tell Bear, hey, Fred, when you sharpen a knife, you don't go backwards, Now he actually, I think I gained some credibility with him, so I think he's going to be obeying me more out of faith now. When I was 10 years old, three of my buddies, we gathered in a circle, and one of them said, let's play this game. I can't remember the name of it.

But you basically, we all had pocket knives. You would throw the knife in between your buddy's feet. And you couldn't, you got points based on if it was outside the toes, or outside the heels, you got no point. So you had to put it in between the person's feet. Well, that was great until one of the pocket knives went right in between the big toe and the toe next to it. Just, I mean, and then you realize in that moment, why am I playing this?

But you don't go down your parents. I'd be like, what are you, what are you stupid? So I remember that because the guy who got the knife through the toes, the other guy said, I guess that means you lose. Yeah, y'all need to do a Matt Dillon episode. I don't know what that means. Yeah, I don't know what that means. Matt Dillon, don't they do that?

Oh, do they? Oh, they play that game? What is it called? We need a name for that game. But it's usually with guns, but probably sometimes with knife. But Matt always steps in, and he dealt with every human sin that there is to deal with, and he dealt with them harshly, swiftly. But he was fair-minded.

Good did always try up over evil. That's why I carry my happiness is watching guns smoke over and over and over again. That's top five greatest gifts. I'm in the Matt Dillon. Zach, to your spiritual point, though, I love verse 17 of Romans 1, because no matter how well we think about ourselves and we all have this fear of disappointing others. And so we, you know, we lie. We try to come across, especially in the social media world, we try to be a better version of ourselves.

You know, God makes it clear through part. Paul's writings, you know, in the gospel, which we talked about last time, which is who Jesus is and what he did, what he does, and what he is going to do. Plus, a righteousness from God is revealed. But it's from God. The righteousness is from God. Well, if the righteousness that comes through the gospel into our lives, if it's from God, why are we trying to take the credit for it or trying to earn somehow, you know, our

obedience is a response. It's not a righteousness that's coming from us. He provided the way for righteousness to be obtained through a person. And we're accepting it by faith and our obedience to the one who did this for us. our obedience becomes front and center because we're no longer under law, but we're under grace. By the way, Jase, I'm going to share something with you. Let's see. You're about how old are you now?

That's just not bringing up. I'm old. Yeah. I ran up on something the other day, and it comes back to the book of Romans or the rest of the epistles as far as the gospel is concerned. when the Apostle Paul is talking to the Corinthians, with Romans 1 in mind, the gospel's mentioned about eight or nine times in the first section. Well, then it dramatically makes a hard turn, and it deals with people from 11, chapter 1, 1, verse 18, for our listeners, from there till about chapter 3, verse 21, it's

called by some the doctrine of of condemnation. He goes from the wonderful thing God's blessing of Jesus. When you first start reading, you said, man, this is it. Well, and then he says, here's the people who have not heard this nor obeyed it. And there is no Jesus there and there is no gospel. Well, he outlines them three groups. He starts with just rank heathen. Then he talks to the ones who want to go around canceling everybody else because they're not as bad as they are. But, you know, they forget their own sins and they pass judgment on others. He deals with them. And then he deals with the Jews in the book of Romans. But I just run up on this other day, Zach, and this is interesting. I would bet.

y'all have never thought about this i've been reading my bible uh what what would i say religiously for the last 45 50 years but i ran in this other day and i was shocked when the apostle paul wrote to the corinthians and second corinthians now what's this as far as being redundant this is verse three praise me to the god and father of our lord jesus christ the father So this is the one through whom the gospel came to us by his son becoming flesh, dying, being buried, or raised from the dead. Watch this. Our father, God, is the father of compassion. And check this out.

And the God of all comfort. So you say compassion and comfort. Now, what's this? comfort, that's one, who comforts us, that's two, and all our troubles so that we can comfort three, those in any trouble with the comfort for we ourselves have received from God. for just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort five overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort, six, and salvation. If we are comforted, seven, it is for your comfort. Eight.

which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. He's plowing ground and reminding the Corinthians. Look, once you come to a knowledge of the truth, Jesus, him being crucified and raised from the dead, and your obedience comes out of that from your faith, God's going to comfort you, and he's going to make sure you understand. great compassion on you.

Our hope for you is firm because we know that just as you share in our surfings, so also you share in our comfort. Well, you say, I never had noticed and I never had attributed the God of heaven being the God of compassion and comfort. And if you say something eight times in a space about that, that much. In seven verses? And he's writing down what God told him to write down, and you look at that,

you say, you know, I never had read that much about comfort until I got the second. But you think how valuable comfort is? It's amazing. You know, I mean, I think there's a hotel chain called the Comfort Inn. There's a mass a few minutes, humanity, Jack. and all they're looking for is comfort, but I'm here to tell them you're looking in the wrong place. You come to Jesus and you will be under the shadowy, the wings of the God, the Father of Compassion and Comfort. I like that, Zach.

Yeah, I do, too. To me, that is, that is. Yeah, that's good. Let's, let's take a quick break. Yeah, I love that, Phil, because I think what you've described is the essence of a person who, who obeys their father out of faith versus one who is doing it out of works because it's not it we're never going to be comforted by works you're never going to reach it with no well let me say this that uh it it because people ask us how you study the bible and how do you come up with these points and how do you remember the bible because you're going to apply to what phil just said but i just to go along with how romans is laid out when phil brought up those the first three chapters being like who it's actually from Romans 117 there's there's a

segue which I which I read the gospel through the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed that is by faith you know not by works which is what we imply but then in Romans three and verse 21 because from Romans 118 to Romans 320, it is brutal. It's brutal. But in 21, look, he says the same thing that he says in Romans 117. If you read Romans 117 and then you read Romans 321, it says, but now, which I remember when I was learning Romans at the school when we were there. This is a relief verse.

Oh, it was like. You're talking about comfort. I'm like, if Romans 321 hadn't come any sooner, because I was getting uncomfortable from Romans 118 to 320, it says, but now, and he says the same thing, a righteousness from God. It's not on this human merit. And that next statement is the one. Apart from law, which has been made known to which the law and prophets testify, this righteousness

from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, which is why he said the gospel 17 times in the first chapter. I just wanted to lay that out if you're studying the book. You had those two transitional moments from the, you know, you have the good news. Then here's the facts about your life outside of a righteousness. from God being revealed. If you turn that down, this is what you have, which is a lot of chaos and evil behavior and a lot of prejudice of groups of people.

Because through that, all this chaos going on, he comes up with that lying. God doesn't show favor to them because he basically said, no matter what you've done, and here's a list of things that we do. I'm here to bring you righteousness. there's a better way. Because of compassion and comfort. That comes through Jesus and what he did. Grace.

I just wanted to clarify that for you, you explained it, just how that ties in with how Romans is laid up. Well, it does tie in because I think that I was reading a book the other day, this author, I'd heard, actually been several years, and I'd heard about this author,

and everybody was talking about how incredible this book was. And so out of curiosity, I went and I got the book and, I mean, it was everywhere. I kept hearing about it. And I started reading it. And it's like a kind of a Christian book, more like a self-help book. I get about six chapters in and I'm like, this is the worst news I've ever heard about how to get right with anything. Because her basic premise was you got to grind it out and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. and she's basically saying that's what I did and that's why I'm amazing.

And I'm reading this thinking, I know who I am. I know who I really am in my heart. And I think most people are struggling with living the godly life because they know in the back of their mind. They really know what they are. I think we really know how evil we are and what we're capable of. And the reason why I love what you just said about up to Romans 3 is because what Paul's doing is it's an indictment. It's an indictment that pretty much put, not pretty much, it puts everybody in the same bucket of the condemned. And while that may be not popular in today's culture, it is reality.

And when I talk about this idea of obeying God out of faith, I think what that means is, that's approaching the subject believing that God is not just powerful, but it's also believing that God is good. It's believing that God has your best interest at heart. It's believing that when God reveals something to you, that it's for your benefit. And I can obey that in a greater measure than I can. If I'm just obeying you because you're more powerful than me, then guess what I'm going to do when you turn your head? I'm going to do what I want to do. That's not the kind of obedience that God wants.

That's why this isn't about power. God could crack open the sky and stick his face out. So, hey, boys, everybody get on your knees right now, and everybody's going to get on their knee. Why? Even Satan himself, Philippians too, says that. He's calling us to something different. He's calling us to a relationship with him. He's calling us to a different type of obedience that says, I'm going to actually obey you God because I believe that whatever you're telling me, that you've got a vantage point that I can't understand, but I know you're big and I know you're good. And I can submit myself to that. That's a different type of obedience where you can have real victory. Well, I do think it's about power. It's just a different understanding of what true power is. I mean, correct.

People don't think forgiveness is powerful. It's one of the most powerful things on the earth. But a lot of people look at that if you forgive someone and they're like, oh, what a weak response. Because we like having that bitterness and that battle and that war. Like the Apostle Paul said, my power is made known. Jesus told him through weakness.

I mean, look, we just don't think about our, that's why I brought up, you know, when we're kids, you don't want to disappoint people. But even when we're adults, we don't, we don't want to disappoint. We don't want to be embarrassed. We don't want to be viewed as weak. I mean, I was playing cars with my buddies other night. And one of the guys, he's a big old fellow.

And he told me one of the funniest stories I've ever heard in my life. And, I mean, it just happened. And you're like, how do we get ourselves in this situation? But he was talking about he was so embarrassed. he just he what he was at a Mexican restaurant and he they started eating he's with his family it's crowded wall to all people and he gets like three bites in and a pain hits him and he's like oh go the bathroom so he but he kind of did it clumsily because it was like where's the bathroom right now one of these moments so he goes in there takes care of his business where he looks around

well there's no toilet paper so he texts his wife and says there's no toilet paper in this bathroom. And so she goes to, you know, the manager or whatever and says, there's no toilet paper. And she's kind of upset about it. How do you have a, you know, a bathroom and no toilet paper? So this is where it went off the rails because she's on the phone with him and they're talking, Well, one of the employees comes out and they have the eternal role, industrial-sized roll of toilet paper, but she's carrying it on her shoulder. Well, now everybody's noticing this thing come across the restaurant headed toward the bathroom.

So everybody's kind of laughing like, what have we got going on in here? It doesn't sound like it ended well. And he's like, here I am, you know, commode sweat pouring and I'm embarrassed. He's like, I know that everybody now is watching. Their eyes are fixed on what has happened here and who's going to come out. And he's a big guy already. And he's like, I found myself. I did not want to go out.

I thought, I can't face this. We all get so difficult because he was like, but I got to be the chump and walk around. And he said, I realize everybody was thinking. the last thing you want to do right now is follow that. Yeah. Yeah. But I just thought, isn't that our human nature? I mean, what turned out to be, you know, let's take the wife out, is now miserable

because we don't like those eyes on us. We don't want to be vulnerable and be viewed in compromising situations. And you fast forward that to our spiritual life. That's why we deny. It's why we lie. That's why we cover up. Because we want people to think we're the greatest thing on earth. We're God's gift to the earth, not God's gift in Jesus.

And that righteousness being revealed in him, you know, despite our weakness, embarrassment, and bad decisions. Let's take a break. Well, that's certainly the avenue that Paul took. I mean, that's the approach he took as he starts off saying, Paul, a bond. servant of Christ Jesus. So he's obviously keeping the centrality of Christ. He's putting himself as a bond servant. I think Paul got it. I think because Paul understood as he's writing this, I mean, obviously he wrote the whole book. So he knows what the end is going to be why he's writing this and has it in mind as readers, though. We're kind of reading this argument as it unfolds.

But when he says that, I think that first verse, when he calls himself a bond servant of Christ Jesus, that's what allows him to say verse 14, right before he, in 15, before he gets into the theme of Romans, which is that I'm under obligation, verse 14, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So for my part, he says, I'm eager to preach the gospel to you who are also in Rome. In other words, Paul's saying, look, like, this thing is opened up for everybody because everybody, starting with himself, is completely, We know what he's going to get to in Roman 7, where he's going to kind of spill out his own internal dilemma. I think this is so relevant, guys, for where we're at culturally right now, because we're being pitted against one another based on race, gender, politics, all this stuff that's happening right now where we're being pit against one another. When really, I think this is a relevant message because it really does put everybody in the same exact vote.

By the way, as far as the gospel is concerned, yesterday, I think Sis Strunk, one of our brothers, it was about one, two, three, four, it was about four or five last week, four or five this week. And they say they're coming because of this podcast. They heard about the gospel. And nearly all of them say what you say, Jase. You know what they say? I've never heard that before. Never heard it before.

and they watch the podcast they drive to westman row louisiana of monroe up here and sunday morning it's where we meet them they don't hear it because they're focusing on the obedience you know the rule keeping what they view legalism yeah of of well even if people are preaching jesus somehow another there's a detachment and look you see it just in the way we say things i'll give you an example this one a pet peeve of mine you know a lot of people they'll say, we need to go out there and witness, or they say, I witness to someone. I always found that, I found that always intriguing. I was like, what do they mean by that?

And so when I studied the Bible, I realized that when God told, I mean, when Jesus told his disciples, you know, you will be my witnesses, you know, in Acts 1 when he said that to starting here in Jerusalem and all. and we kind of picked up on that and said, well, when you tell people about Jesus, you know, that's your witness. And the reason I'm saying this is a pet peeve of mine is because it, we've gone so far away from that where it's like something that we're doing. And by contrast, to prove my point, Paul's perspective was the exact opposite. And I'll give you an example. When he said in Romans 1, 9, he's already said what he's about.

the gospel, who Jesus is. Then he says, God, whom I serve with my whole heart, which I like that he just, he clarified his whole heart. I mean, this is everything I got. In preaching the gospel of his son, which, well, that's what we would call witnessing, right? He's preaching the gospel. But watch what he said.

Is my witness? He had a perspective of that God is, my witness on what's going on in praying for you and how I feel about it. And I think it's just an attitude and a perspective that God is where all the righteousness is coming from. God is providing all the motivation. God is my character witness. And he knows that on my own, it's not good. But he knows that I love you. Let me bring up my witness, God Almighty. Most people, the last thing they would want to do in any situation is bring for a character witness the God of the universe. That's the last person they're thinking.

Because you know why? Because he knows what's really going on. He mentioned in the book of Acts, by the way. I don't feel. Let's take a quick break. Yeah, he mentioned in the book of Acts, Jase, remember? And he could have said it here, but he just flipped it. But because he was a witness.

Yeah. I mean, who are you? Well, that is the point. That was my point. These guys were eyewitnesses to what's going on. But we take that in the religious world and we come up with things that doesn't really make sense. And it detaches us from that this is God working, his power in us, despite our flaws. The power's coming from him.

The righteousness is coming from him. That's why when people come and they say, are you saying that this particular sin, they'll pick something out? Are you saying that that's wrong or that's a sin? I'm like, that's God's business. I'm here introducing you to Jesus because maybe that will provide the platform for you to make better decisions and to figure out right and wrong. But you've got this on me, which would be a mistake.

They diligently study the scriptures because they think by them they'll be saved. but the scriptures, Jesus said, are talking about me. Yeah, John 5. And you refuse to come to me. You see what I'm saying? I love it. I bring that scripture up at least once a week in some context. Well, that's the personification of Jesus.

It's not, we're not converting people to the gospel. The gospel is bringing them to Jesus. It's a person. That's right. He is the God. Yeah, he said that over and over, Zach. Yeah, I think that's what it is. I think that when you're kind of what you're describing, Jace, is that you keep saying it in different ways,

but basically what you're saying is all of this originates with God, not us, our obedience, our righteousness, it's all being revealed from God. He's revealing his triune nature, which is, by the way, beautiful. And it's that revelation that leads man to do anything good, left to our own vices, we're, as we're going to find out Romans 3, we're, we're pretty jacked up. Well, yeah, Romans 1 is a brutal reading after when he says for God reveals the righteousness. But then it's like, but you neither, how does it say, but, and then it says the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven. Well, people zero in on that and they're like, well, I thought he was revealing righteousness. how come he's revealing wrath but he makes it real clear that he doesn't want to do that that's right

but then it gets into men look suppressing the truth by their wickedness they claim to be wise but have become fools for although they know god like 21 they don't glorify him as god nor give thanks to him so if you abandon god there's there's consequences because all of the the righteousness and all of the compassion and all the comfort that we've talked about that's being revealed, once you say, you know what, I'm good, as in, you know, I'm good. No, really. They're like, here, look at what God's done for you. No, I'm good.

I don't need that. I'm good. You go ahead and do your little gospel thing. You think about the difference between what you're talking about here, these Romans 16, 17, let's see here, 16 and 17, which by the way, the entire podcast,

this is our theme verse. This is, verse 16 is the verse that we actually did the trailer on. It's where the name came from. What I was thinking about, what would be a good name for a podcast with Phil Jason Al. And I thought about the way you live your life.

I thought about the many, many conversations I've watched around your living room. And the one, I would say this is, I would say this is, This is definitely the theme verse for the book of Romans. I would say it's a theme verse for you guys, your life, which is what? I'm not ashamed of the gospel for.

It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first for the Jew and then also to the Greek. For in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith. And so that first section right there is God is saying, I'm bringing salvation and righteous is how. How's he doing it? By God coming to live with us. It's God's presence coming with us. So when you turn to verse 18 and he flips, now he's not revealing righteousness.

What's he revealing now? He's revealing wrath. What is the wrath of God is being revealed? As we're going to see, we probably get into this next time. But what it is, it's God saying, okay. I'm going to back off. I'm going to remove my presence, and I'm going to let you do what you want to do.

And when you start looking at it in that context, it gets you out of these conversations like, well, is this a sin? Is that a sin? Well, how far can I go? What's the line I can walk to? You've already missed it. If you're asking those kind of questions,

you've already missed it. The real question is, are you in the presence of God? Are you out of the presence of God? If you're out of this presence, it's because he's pouring wrath out on you. You don't want to be out of his presence. But, you know, that's why I look.

The reason I'm unashamed to go back to the witness point is that I believe that God is watching me. I believe he's real in witnessing my life. So I'm unashamed. Hold that thought, Jase. Let's take a quick break. So we're watching, I mean, I believe he's watching me. And so here's a, and I believe that God works in us to. reveal Jesus, just like you did with Paul in this context.

And so here I am in a situation where I have an opportunity. No matter what happens, I feel like if I, if I'm ashamed of him, what's he thinking in that moment? So, I mean, you think, what do you do? You gulp and you say, God is my witness, and you declare. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That's second Corinthians about chapter five about verse 10 and later. But that pretty well is Romans 116 over again.

Yeah, that's good. Jason, when you said that, I was thinking about a W. Tosier quote that I heard in a sermon that he gave many, many years ago, and I'm going to butcher the quote, but he essentially asked the quote, he says this, he says, it's not about what I think of God, but what does he think of me? And I think that what we would do really good in Western culture, particularly in the church, is to get away from a me-centric,

gospel. We're obviously a part of the gospel because we're the recipients of it. And we're not going full of Gnosticism, but I think we've left the centrality of Jesus. The verse you read, Phil, in him. God made him who had no sin. So in him, we might become the righteous of God. Not in our own. He is the, he's self-referential. He's the originator of all of this. I think we've got to return to a reverence for the Holy of Holy. We have to understand that we are talking about the creator of all things who is in all. He is omega. He is alpha.

He is beginning in. I mean, we're talking about the great I am who refers to himself not in a temporal form. You know the story of Exodus. Whenever Abraham says, well, who are you? He says, I am. You tell him I am since you. That's the guy we're talking about. Well, it reminded me of the verse I read a couple weeks ago.

when we were talking about the overview of Romans, because, look, Romans 116, it is, you know, our theme that we're unashamed, and we're unashamed because we believe God is real. And he does witness and he does watch us. But it goes back to we believe also that Jesus, when he was here on the earth, he had us in mind. The whole reason he led his life, he went to a cross, and he came back, because he was, this was something, a real being motivated,

because of his love for us. And he said in Luke 9, 25, what good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet loser forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me, in my words, the son of man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory. I mean, really, this is a theme that he announced,

and it's pretty simplistic if you think about it. When you're in these situations in the world, where you're trying to be something you're not or to gain some wealth or power, worldly power, and you're willing to give up your relationship with God and anything else that gets in the way. I mean, when you think about the end of that, what will you gain? Yeah. You will gain nothing.

Yeah. Peter had it right when he mentioned the gospel, I know how powerful it is, and we cover this in the book of Acts. He said, you handed him Jesus over to be killed. You disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the holy and righteous one and asked that a murderer be released to you. Now check this out in verse 15.

This is Acts chapter 3 about 15. You kills the author of life, but God raised him from the dead, and we are witnesses of this. Now think about that. The author of life, and he got there by dying, and three days later, holding out his hands and showing him his feet saying, what about it, boys? What about it? So it's the greatest event that ever happened in human history. The greatest is the gospel of Jesus, what went down right there.

Three days, God solved the entire problem and the predicament mankind has put himself in. You know, they, they're, he puts his wrath out on him because of it, and that's Romans 118. But think about it. He solved the whole thing in three days. But if you read Romans 118 through Chargers. 320 or you preached on that or you heard a steady diet of those sermons that would be depressing oh it's very hard to go to the book of Romans and try to pick out a section and preach on it if you miss that first chapter before he got to Romans you are correct and then the but now in

in 321, which I think is very important and a key point, because as bad as this stuff seems, I mean, because we get into this, you know, the same-sex attraction, because all of this starts in Romans 1, where, you know, it comes up to that. They say, forget God. He brings up the idea that everyone's without excuse because of his eternal power and divine nature. I mean, in redneck terms, you can look around and say there is a God. And then all of a sudden relationships crumble. They get their priorities out of whack, God, people, animals, and they start following a lie instead of the truth.

And you see in verse 24, it says, So God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts, to sex and impurity degrading their bodies, one with another. and then in verse 26 it gets into even the women exchange natural relations for unnatural 27 in the same way men abandoned natural relations with women were in flame with lust one another received in themselves the penalty and then all of a sudden there's this huge list they've become filled with wickedness evil greed depravity murder strife envy malice god haters slanders eric So my point is people go in in religious establishments and they preach these sermons that these things are wrong.

But if you don't recognize the motivation for how you get there or the lack of concern for who God is, you kind of figure that there's no way out. Then it just turns into a debate and I think this is wrong and you don't. behavior modification. That's why verse 28 is key. And just as they did not see it fit, to acknowledge God any longer, God gave

them over to a depraved mind to do things which are not proper. And then he lists all the things that we usually preach about as being sins, which they are, you know, unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip,

slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, and boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. But all of those things are the result of God saying, I'm giving you over to yourself. The point is not, don't do these things. That's not the point of Romans 1. The point is this is what life looks like when God says, okay, I'm out. I'm giving you over to yourself.

That's a big motivation change because now we've got to get out of this like behavior modification stuff where we're telling people, hey, don't do the bad things. No, it's not about that. He's once obedience of faith. God's saying, I am the way to life. If you dwell in me, this is not the life that you'll live. You're going to live a life of holiness. Galatians Chapter 5, the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control. It's the opposite of this Mad Max world that's kind of pulled out here in Romans chapter 1. Exactly. That's why when someone comes to and they ask me a question about one of these sins, because, you know, we hear this thousands of times. They're like, is this a sin? And how do you feel about that?

I'm like, well, I introduce them to Jesus. If you ever see these qualities attributed to a human being, they are senseless. Think about an individual being senseless, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. You're like, do what? That's the four less things that you don't want to be a part of. But my point is, are we going to stand up in a pulpit and railed that all these things are wrong? Are we going to introduce Jesus and let that be the foundation for which you make better decisions? You can't attack the results of a life without God without offering the solution,

which he made it really clear in chapter 1, verse 1 through 17, on what the solution is. Zach had it right. And there's no obedience and a holy lifestyle living a righteous life. That's not there when it's void of faith. I mean, unbelief and you say, here's what you look like that Romans 1, 18, and following. You're like, here's a glimpse of what you're like. It's a brutal read. Because ultimately, I think the foundation of Romans 1 is, you know, theological terms.

In seminary, they would teach you that God reveals himself in two ways. There's general revelation, which is what is talking about here. This is God is revealing himself through creation. I may not know that God's triune. I may not know that his son is Jesus. I may not know any of that stuff that's revealed in Scripture. That's special revelation. But generally, I know that God's there.

anybody in their right mind knows that when they walk outside and they just look around at what's been made. And what the sin is, the cardinal sin here is this, that they exchanged, verse 23, they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. they chose to worship the things of God rather than the God who made the things. That's correct. Now, we would never do that.

We would never worship images in 2020. We wouldn't worship images on a phone or on – but that's what we're doing now, right? We're worshiping Instagram. We're worshiping the images that are on our social media apps, and we're worshiping avatars. And this has become where we get our morality from. The key is, for the believer, is to flip back to who is the originer of all things. If you worship created things more than the creator, you're doomed for a hellish life on planet Earth, is all I can tell.

It's a really good question in any kind of situation about life, as you say, is it created? You know, when people say, I got problems, you know, and I was like, are all the things that you're, that's causing you problems, are these created things? Yeah. People they're thinking, you know, what's he telling about? Because you have two categories here, which he does a really good job. I guess, you know, he has God through his spirit. So he does a really good job explaining this because he's like, you have the creation

and you have the creator. Choose wisely on what you're trying to obtain. Then he's got, then he goes on, Zach, to reiterate your point and says, they exchanged the truth of God for Allah. So it's not just the created things rather than the creator. You now have truth that goes with the creator versus the lie. The created thing is the lie. If you're putting your faith and trust in your social media account,

which are all created things and images, well, you're going to be disappointed, number one. Plus, they're going to save the planet, Jace. Save the cosmos. This was so funny when I see these people that become so obsessed with how many people like them on social media. And you don't know about a lie.

Because they just created a button that you push. You're a million miles away and you don't even have to be a real person. You can actually just be a robot created by somebody, a created thing that says, I like you.

And you're like, if you put your faith and trust, because I've met people who are obsessed and have attached their worth monetarily and just their feeling about life on how many people follow and like them. Now that would be a lie. You're headed. That's a lie. That's a lie. That's not going to work out well for you.

Well, we're about out of time here, so I think we'll be back next time. Al is going to be up here with me, so we're going to be up here in North Carolina. You think we're coming back? I mean, what, unless the Lord comes back? You said I think we'll be back. Well, yeah, you don't know when he's coming back, Jace. I don't make predictions about the future. I thought somebody was fixed to get fired.

Yeah. Not everybody's good. Lord willing, we'll be back next time with Al in the studio up here and you guys down there. So thank you all for joining us. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click that little bell to get notified about new episodes.

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